Sundays at 9:00 and 10:45 a.m.

Sunday Prep // June 7-11, 2021

Living In The Overflow - Week 5

Read these passages each day to prepare for worship this coming Sunday.

Monday, June 7 - Psalm 23:1-6

THIS WEEK:  Pastor Scott will be preaching on the phrase "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake" in verse 3. Reflect on this Psalm in light of that passage? How has God led you in paths of righteousness and away from paths that lead to destruction?

A Psalm of David.

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. 
He leads me beside still waters. 
3 He restores my soul. 
He leads me in paths of righteousness 
for his name’s sake. 
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil, 
for you are with me; 
your rod and your staff, 
they comfort me. 
5 You prepare a table before me 
in the presence of my enemies; 
you anoint my head with oil; 
my cup overflows. 
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me 
all the days of my life, 
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord 
forever. 

Tuesday, June 8 - 1 Peter 1:16-2:22

CONTEXT:  Here the Apostle Peter is explaining that God's Word is self-authenticating... in other words, it's true because it's from God. He contrasts the authority that God's Word has to lead and guide us with other things we often turn to to lead us.

1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
 
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
 
Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
 
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

Wednesday, June 9 - Psalm 24:1-10

A Psalm of David.

1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein, 
2 for he has founded it upon the seas 
and established it upon the rivers. 
3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? 
And who shall stand in his holy place? 
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, 
who does not lift up his soul to what is false 
and does not swear deceitfully. 
5 He will receive blessing from the Lord 
and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, 
who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah 
7 Lift up your heads, O gates! 
And be lifted up, O ancient doors, 
that the King of glory may come in. 
8 Who is this King of glory? 
The Lord, strong and mighty, 
the Lord, mighty in battle! 
9 Lift up your heads, O gates! 
And lift them up, O ancient doors, 
that the King of glory may come in. 
10 Who is this King of glory? 
The Lord of hosts, 
he is the King of glory! Selah 

Thursday, June 10 - Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

CONTEXT:  These passages come from the story of creation at the very beginning of the Bible. Notice that before the fall--before sin entered into the world--God gives His Word to the man so that he can properly understand the world around him (2:16-17). Then in Genesis 3, when the serpent comes, his goal is to make the woman believe that God's Word is not reliable and that she should interpret the world around her by her own judgment. The serpent wants Eve to set her own standard by which she determines what is good and bad, right and wrong.

2:15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Friday, June 11 - Jeremiah 17:1-13

17:1 “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars, 2 while their children remember their altars and their Asherim, beside every green tree and on the high hills, 3 on the mountains in the open country. Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory. 4 You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave to you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.”

5 Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
11 Like the partridge that gathers a brood that she did not hatch,
so is he who gets riches but not by justice;
in the midst of his days they will leave him,
and at his end he will be a fool.
12 A glorious throne set on high from the beginning
is the place of our sanctuary.
13 O Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth,
for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.