With what attitudes should we approach God in prayer? Christians should pray with a sense of duty, with a pure heart, in faith, with humility, with a sense of submission, and with earnestness.

John is encouraged that Gaius prospers spiritually and is walking in the truth of Jesus and giving careful attention to hospitality toward God’s servants. But there was in the church a divisive man named Diotrephes who did not want to exercise hospitality for God’s servants, and instead of being a servant of the servants of God, desired to be preeminent in the church. So John confronts him and calls for the believers to imitate the good examples of Gaius and Demetrius, particularly in the matter of helping God’s servants as they travel for the sake of the gospel.

To prepare our hearts to partake of the Lord's Table, Pastor Matt reviewed the texts of Scripture that talk about the plant called Hyssop. Hyssop (related to our modern oregano) was used in the ceremony of cleansing a leper or someone who had touched a dead body by the sprinkling of blood or holy water. Hyssop appears in the ceremony of the first Passover, as well as at the cross when it was used to raise sour wine to our Lord's lips.

Sin creates a similar kind of uncleanness as the ceremonial impurities of ancient Israel, and hyssop is an appropriate symbol of the sprinkling blood and clean water upon a person as a symbol of God’s cleansing. Our Lord’s self-sacrifice cleanses the Christian from guilt, as if using hyssop to sprinkle the blood of Christ upon the sinner.

The book of Nehemiah covers the third phase of the return of the Jewish exiles. In this phase of the return, the rebuilding of the city and especially the wall is the focus. Nehemiah enacted reforms in the political, economic, and spiritual reforms as well.

In this message, we continue following Paul’s call for the church to keep its commitment to the giving project they enthusiastically endorsed a year earlier. It would be advantageous for them to do so (8:10) for among other reasons this key principle: they would reap many blessings. God blesses the righteous giver, so we must give joyfully and generously to experience God’s blessing. Our giving also helps others to give thanks to God.

The Corinthian church had an initial zeal to gather funds for Jerusalem, but now Paul encourages them to follow through in their giving. Now, Paul might be able to cajole the Corinthians to give despite them having a tight hold on money, but he hoped not to do that. Rather, giving should be willing and voluntary. God calls us to match enthusiasm with follow-through in our giving and all of our lives.

In this lesson we review David’s responses to Saul’s many and varied attempts to kill him. David exhibits extreme patience with Saul while knowing that Saul was determined to murder him and believing that Saul might succeed. We stress the importance of recognizing that David’s response was not mere human patience, but an expression of his relationship with his God and his decision to trust God in the situation rather than attempt to take matters into his own hands.

Prayer is communication with God. As Christians, we should pray because it is a sign of our adoption and therefore ought to be natural to the believer; because Jesus and the apostles commanded and modeled prayer; because Jesus taught us how to pray; and because prayer is God’s ordained way of appropriating His own omnipotent resources and accomplishing His will.