In today’s workout, we were joined by Pastor Dan’s friend from LA – Pastor Mike and Pastor Mike’s son, Micaiah. We dove straight into leading devotions, with the same structure of praise, reading of Scripture, propositional statements and application. During devotions, Pastor Dan also encouraged us to not always hunt for the main point of the passage, since that could be more difficult depending on the passage. However, there will always be obvious truths that we can reflect on.

LEADING DEVOTIONS

James lead the first devotion.

Hymn 176 – Be Thou My Vision
Passage: 2 Timothy 1:1-12
Observed propositional statements and accompanying application / reflection:
- Paul encourages Timothy to be a faithful minister. Timothy had a spirit of timidity, for men it can be a struggle. However, God didn’t give us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and discipline. It is good for us to be that kind of men.
- Gospel is worth suffering for. This occurred throughout church history. This is the reality for us, that we will suffer for the Gospel. We must be courageous and be willing to lay down our lives for His Word.

Ming led the second devotion.

Hymn 162 – Wonderful, Merciful Savior (note that we have replaced “embrace” with “obey” in the second verse)
Passage: 1 John 2:1-5
Observed propositional statements and accompanying application / reflection:
- Encouragement to not sin, Jesus Christ is the Advocate who can plead our case to the Father. When we sin, we still have an Advocate.
We also covered the meaning of propitiation – appeasement of God’s wrath. This is what was achieved through Jesus’ work on the cross.
Additionally, we discussed the delineation of “not for ours only” and “the whole world.” God’s mercy in Christ is enough even for the whole world. There’s no one who can say, “I’ve sinned so much, I can’t be saved.”
Pastor Mike then asked us to walk through how we would explain this to kids. The group discussion as follows:
- Definition of sin: God has a standard as defined in His commandments. Anything that goes against God’s commandments is sin.
- Expectation of obedience: God expects us to not sin (disobey God’s commands).
- Penalty for sin: When we sin, there are consequences of that sin – a penalty is required.
- Substitution of penalty: Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin on the cross. His sacrifice in our place is the only way to be saved from the penalty for our sin.
Pastor Dan also related a personal story – that kids will sometimes feel the weight of their sin, and as parents, we need to explain to them that Jesus sacrifice is big enough to cover their sins.

Nick led the third devotion.

Hymn 154 – Oh the Deep, Deep Love
Passage: Mark 1:1-20
Observed propositional statements and accompanying application / reflection:
- Connection between repenting and the forgiveness of sins, repentance and belief going hand in hand. One cannot follow Christ until they leave something. These men aren’t just following Christ physically, but leaving a different master for Christ as the new master.
Pastor Dan encouraged us to look for obvious truths, as identifying the main point can be a real challenge (often requires an in depth study). For example, Jesus is greater than John is an obvious truth in the text. And we can then reflect on this by asking ourselves: Is Jesus greater than me? My boss? Someone I look up to in history and want to imitate?
Other observations:
- Jesus is God’s beloved Son.
- Repentance is tied to the forgiveness of sin.
- John looked funny and ate funny food.
- A lot of people went into the wilderness to listen to John.

MEMORIZATION

We didn’t have time to recite last week’s passage, but we did walk through the crux of each of the antitheses of Matthew 5:

5:21-26 Christians are peacemakers.
5:27-30 Christians are pure.
5:32-32 Christians don’t divorce.
5:33-37 Christians speak truth. Main contention is speaking truth. Pharisees took oaths because their words couldn’t trusted.
5:38-42 Christians don’t take vengeance or demand restitution. In the words of Paul, why not rather be defrauded, why not be wronged?