purity primer...

I trust this finds you encouraged after our “community” series from Ephesians 4-6. One theme of that portion of Scripture that encouraged me from the start was our mutual sense of responsibility and dependence that we have towards one another because of Christ’s work on the Cross. God’s activity of uniting us in one Body has massive implications in how we build up one another.

One of the ways this sense of interdependence plays out is in how we encourage one another in our specific battles with and struggles against the sin patterns that can entangle us in the world. Encouragement like that means that we are all equally aware of our own history in being freed from sin and our ongoing capacity to stumble in many ways… and I love the way that humility bears fruit like this. Often, some of the ways we’ve been most helpfully encouraged comes from those who have struggled and prevailed- ultimately because we’re aware that Christ became one of us, was tempted like us, and overcame sin for us. What a faithful God we serve.

With that in mind, we’re beginning a conversation this month on the topic of purity… specifically with application in the arenas of temptation regarding sexual immorality within the world and the joys of pursuing purity for the sake of knowing God better. Here’s how the month unfolds:

• Sun am 2/7: Jonathan Putnam will teach from 1 Corinthians 6
• Fri pm 2/12*: Darren Lander to married couples from 1 Cor 7
• Sat am 2/13*: Christine with ladies on purity in marriage
• Sat pm 2/13*: Paul Michaels to singles on the battle for purity
• Sun am 2/14: Paul Michaels will teach from Matthew 5
• Sun am 2/21: Eric Grover will teach from 1 Thessalonians 4
• Sun am 2/28: Darren Lander will teach from Romans 8
  * As you can probably tell, this weekend represents a concentrated time of teaching. I’d encourage you to make these meetings a priority if at all possible as I hope they will help us to fight for purity in a more concentrated and intention manner as a church.

This specific focus and application will be most noticeable on the 12th and 13th as these conversations will be intentionally directed to areas of sexual temptation in marriage and singleness. Therefore, FNL will be targeted towards married couples or couples moving towards marriage, Saturday’s women’s meeting is primarily going to be constructed as a follow-up to this conversation, and Saturday’s singles meeting is geared towards all singles and towards teens who have been prepared for this topic by their parents. Please feel free to call me if you have any questions.