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The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

著者： Aaron Ventura
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 The Local Christendom Podcast is hosted by Aaron Ventura.Copyright 2022 All rights reserved. キリスト教 スピリチュアリティ 社会科学 聖職・福音主義
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  • Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 - Faith Seeking Understanding

    Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 - Faith Seeking Understanding
    2025/06/16
    The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 – Faith Seeking Understanding Sunday, June 15th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Deuteronomy 29:29 Prayer Father, we thank you for the mystery of our salvation, the mystery of who You are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we seek now to understand just a small fragment of that mystery by studying the Scriptures, we ask for light to dispel the darkness of ignorance and sin. For we believe what the Lord Jesus taught saying, ‘blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ Grant us such purity and reverence for Your Word now, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction For the last two Sundays, we have been attempting to climb the most difficult mountain in all of Christian doctrine. That is, the mystery of the Holy Trinity. How is God One, and yet Three in One? How are the three divine persons really distinct, and yet each the One Divine Essence. This has been our study and meditation for the last two weeks, and this morning since it is Trinity Sunday we shall have one more attempt at grasping this truth. Now whenever you are attempting something difficult and strenuous, it is helpful to remind yourself why you are doing this hard thing in the first place. I remember long ago sitting in my high school calculus class and wondering why am I here? How is calculus going to help me get a job? What do derivatives have to do with my life? And because I did not have Professor O’Dell as my teacher, I dropped out of calculus, only to have to retake it later in college (even then I think I got a C). I imagine most of us in this room have a similar story, perhaps not with math but in some other area of life. If we don’t see or understand the reason why, the purpose of doing a hard thing, we are tempted to give up, or we never even try. And sadly, that is how a lot of people approach their relationship with God. They think that God is so high up there, and I am so low down here, the Bible is such a long and big book, and my attention span and memory is so short, therefore it would be either pride or presumption, folly or fruitless to attempt to try to really get to know Him. And indeed, there are many dangers to avoid if you want to know God. God himself warns of approaching Him without fear and reverence and humility. And yet, that high and glorious God has come down to us in Jesus Christ so that we might know him and have a real living personal relationship with him. Moreover, he has come down and sent the Holy Spirit into our very hearts. He has bequeathed to the church the Scriptures through which He invites us, nay commands us, to search him out and know Him. It says in Psalm 105:4, “Seek the Lord, and his strength: Seek his face evermore.” And in Jeremiah 29:13, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Paul prays for the church in Colossians 1:10, “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Why do people climb mountains? Why do people attempt hard, dangerous, and difficult things? They do it for the glory. For the views from the top. If they are virtuous, for the formation of character. Even those who only do it for the thrill or the excitement or the vanity of social media have made a value judgment, that the risk is worth the reward, the pain is worth the payoff, the sacrifice is worth the investment. And so for good and biblical reasons it is most appropriate to liken the hard work of increasing in our knowledge of God (as Paul prays that we do) to the climbing up a mountain. When God created Adam and Eve, he placed them in a garden on a mountain from which four rivers flowed down. And we call the fall into sin a Fall, in part because we fell down that mountain of the knowledge of God and lost our intimate friendship with Him. And so later, when by grace God reveals his name to Moses (see Exodus 3, and Exodus 33), he reveals His name on a mountain. When God reveals His law and will to Israel, He does so from the mountain. When God commands a temple to be built for worship, he commands it to be built on a mountain. Where does Christ go to reveal his glory to Peter, James, and John? The mount of transfiguration. And most importantly, where was Jesus Christ crucified? From where did Jesus commission the apostles to baptize in the Triune Name? On a mountain. So this idea of ascending the mountain of God is a motif that runs from Genesis to Revelation. It acknowledges that we as sinners have fallen from grace, we are way down here in the valley of the shadow of death, and yet God by His grace calls us back to Himself. And therefore, this ascent to God is a most fitting theme to make your own, to explain the journey of your life. What is your autobiography? It is carrying a cross in Jesus’ footsteps, following him from one place to another. From the place that Jesus first ...
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    46 分
  • Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 - Filioque

    Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 - Filioque
    2025/06/16
    The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 – Filioque Sunday, June 8th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA John 20:19–23 Prayer Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus who has power to forgive sins. And we thank you on this Pentecost Sunday for the Holy Spirit, who was given to the apostles and their successors so that the church today may bind and loose, remit and retain, as ministers of Christ on earth. We ask for your blessing now as we approach and contemplate the highest of all mysteries, who you are in yourself. Teach us now by the Spirit of Truth, in the name of Jesus, and Amen. Introduction Every Lord’s Day in our worship service, after we confess our sins, we arise and confess our common faith. This is an important act of worship, because it says in Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” And so from the earliest days of the Apostolic Church, it became necessary to confess the Lord Jesus, his full divinity, his perfect humanity, his death and resurrection for sinners, Jew and Gentile alike. It was necessary to confess these truths in such a way that no false Jesus or false gospel could be understood. We find in Scripture itself various creed-like statements. Romans 10:9-10 is one example. Another is what Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3:16, “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” You can hear the creed-like rhythm of that confession of faith. So creeds became necessary in the church for two main reasons. 1) To protect and preserve the truth, and 2) to more quickly and understandably propagate the truth. Especially in a time before everyone had a personal copy of the Bible! The earliest heresies in the church said that Jesus was either a created being and therefore not equal to the Father in divinity (what became later known as Arianism), or that he was not really a human being with a nature like ours (we call this Gnosticism or Docetism), or that the Son and Spirit were just God the Father wearing different masks, no real distinction in persons (Sabellianism). So even in the New Testament we find various heresies popping up that need to be refuted (much of the New Testament is written to refute such errors). And as time went on, new heresies arose that required new refutations, new articulations of the common faith once received. So the creeds did not invent or create new doctrines, they were meant to clarify and make explicit what the Word of God had always taught. The purpose of creeds is to make explicit what is implicit, that is, logically contained within that simple confession that Jesus is Lord. And so while it might seem trivial or routine to some that we confess the Nicene Creed every Lord’s Day, it is actually a matter of salvation or damnation that we believe and confess rightly the true Jesus and none other. Because only the true Jesus can save. Now this morning we are in part 2 of a short series on The Holy Trinity, and because it is Pentecost Sunday, I want to consider more closely the person of the Holy Spirit. Who He is, and what He does. And so the outline of my sermon is as follows. Outline First, I will give you a brief history lesson on what is called the Filioque controversy, which is about answering the question, Who is the Holy Spirit as unique Divine Person?Second, we’ll consider, How is the Holy Spirit’s procession from Father and Son reflected in the life of the church? So 1) Who is the Holy Spirit? And 2) How is the Holy Spirit manifest in the church? #1 – A Church History Lesson The year is 589 AD. And a church council has been called in Toledo, Spain to address the rise of Arianism and Sabellianism amongst the Spanish Goths. Recall that Arianism teaches that Jesus is not consubstantial (of the same nature) with the Father, and it therefore introduced subordination and difference of essence within the Godhead and divided/destroyed the unity of the Trinity. Arianism was the long archenemy of true Christian faith and the reason for which the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), and the Council of Constantinople (381) had convened and written the Nicene Creed. These creeds where in large part written to exclude and refute Arianism, and later Sabellianism.Now at this Third Council of Toledo (589), the newly converted Spanish king, King Reccared, said that the Holy Spirit is not only from the Father, but is a Patre Filioque, from the Father and the Son. And this was a doctrine that had long been taught in the Latin West, most famously by St. Augustine and later in the Athanasian Creed. However, it had never been confessed as part of the Nicene Creed.This idea that...
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    49 分
  • Sermon: CKA Graduation 2025 - The Man As City

    Sermon: CKA Graduation 2025 - The Man As City
    2025/06/09
    CKA Graduation 2025 Friday, June 6th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Proverbs 25:28 Prayer Father, we thank you for the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another, and as these two graduates, these two young men, go forth into the world we ask you to protect them, to preserve them, and to prosper them in every way. We ask for your blessing upon the ministry of Your Word now, and we ask it in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction As we just heard from Proverbs 25:28, every person is like a city. And this evening the question I want to pose for all of us, but especially to Ezra and Chapman is, What kind of city are you? What kind of city are you becoming? What kind of city do you want to become? According to King Solomon, if you lack self-control, if you cannot rule your own spirit, your passions, your body, your mind, then you are like a city broken down and without walls. You are a city in ruins. A city easily invaded and overcome by others. However, on the flipside, this also means that if you can control your spirit, if you are learning to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit which includes self-control, then imagine what you can become?You can become a great and magnificent city, with high and majestic walls. Or as Jesus says in Matthew 5:14, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”So what kind of city are you? A city of darkness and decay, or a city of light and refuge? Regardless of what you think yourself presently to be, I am just going to assume that everyone here has room to grow in their ability to rule their own spirit. Whether because of our own sin, or weakness, or ignorance, all of us have walls in need of repair, gates in need of mending. All of us have areas in our city where we lack self-control and need to be built up into mature manhood in Christ. For example, the Apostle James warns of how difficult it is to rule your own tongue. We might liken the tongue to the media outlet or newspaper of your city. He says in James 3:2, “For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.” And then he says a little later in verses 7-8, “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”Jesus says in Matthew 12:34-35, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” So if you want to rule the tongue, first you have to rule the heart, you have to bring into the gates of your city good things (truth!), and then store them up in the treasure house of your memory, so that when you speak only good things come out. Good words, good things, the good life, starts with receiving the Spirit of God, the spirit of Christ, so that you can rule well your own spirit.And so this evening I want to briefly develop this idea of the person as a city, and I want to offer you three qualities of a great city, that you ought to pattern your life after, especially in this next season of life. #1 – A Great City Is A Place of Productive Work It says in Proverbs 12:24, “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: But the slothful shall be under tribute.” And in Proverbs 22:29 it says, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men.” Notice what Solomon presents as the path to success. It is not a short and quick path for one, in fact it is usually a long path that can at times feel monotonous, and yet which Scripture extols under the virtue of diligence. What is diligence? It is doing the right thing with a good attitude, day in and day out, especially when you do not feel like it. Diligence is that long obedience in the same direction. It is the grinding work of a young ox, who bears the yoke in his youth and yet plows in hope. Hope is the virtue that inspires the virtue of diligence, and without hope, people procrastinate, they suffer from analysis paralysis, or sometimes they give up entirely and become sluggards. And so if you want to cultivate diligence and a productive city, you must start by cultivating hope in God. God is the one who holds your life in His hands, and He wants you to be ambitious. He wants you to aspire to great things that will honor Him. Sloppy work does not honor God. Half-hearted effort does not honor God. Never taking a risk does not honor God. Hope on the other hand trusts God and then is decisive. Hope seeks out wise counsel, hears good advice, and then makes a decision and owns the consequences. Hope remembers Proverbs 24:15, “For a righteous man may fall seven times, but rises again.” So imagine within your city there is a central park, you could name it Hope...
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    23 分

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