You can also see Pastor Mark’s visit to Peter’s house in Capernaum:

Peters House in Capernaum from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

More footage from Israel such as these will be shown as we study Luke together over the next few years. The new sermon series starts next Sunday, and I hope you are as excited as I am to dive into this book!

Here are my slides from my sermon yesterday as promised: trial_slides_timsmith. You can watch the sermon here or in the Mars Hill Media Library.

If you are interested in further study on the glory of God, I recommend “Desiring God” & “When I Don’t Desire God” by John Piper as well as “Unceasing Worship” by Harold M Best. All of these books are available in our bookstore here at the Ballard campus.

Hope this helps…
Pastor Tim Smith

Last week, I met with a guy who’s been dealing with sexual sin. We talked about how looking at pornography is a sin against God, ourselves, our spouse and has long-term negative consequences. I shared Romans 1 with him, which explains that sexual sin and perversion are ultimately forms of idolatry and must be treated as an issue of worship.

Paul says that being unrighteous means exchanging the truth about God for a lie and worshiping and serving “the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:24). Essentially, all forms of sin are an attempt to place ourselves and our perceived needs or desires above Jesus. But when we confess our sin and turn to Jesus for help, Jesus forgives us of our sin and redeems our life.

A few days later, I received an email from that guy. He told me that God had put two other guys in his life who were dealing with the same sin issues he’s working through. He was able to share what he had learned from Romans 1 and show them Jesus’ redemptive work in his own life. Praise God that Jesus not only redeems those who believe in him, but uses them to help others.

The past two weeks, we had a great time together digging into the book of Psalms and specifically Psalms 1 and 73. There are many godly men that have helped me to see the Psalms more clearly through their writing and here is a list of some of my top recommendations. I hope this can be helpful in your own investigation of this wonderful and unique book. What’s even better is that there is not a single book on this list over $20 and most are under $12. My late Christmas present to you…

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, writer and theologian in the time of WWII. I highly recommend his Prayerbook of the Bible. This little book was where I first got a glimpse of Jesus in the Psalms. I also recommend his great book on Christian community, Life Together.

Martin Luther
Luther wrote more on the Psalms than any other book of the Bible and much of his work is centered on seeing Jesus clearly in every page. Unfortunately, though he is long dead and gone, the Lutherans keep pretty tight control on his work and it is not widely available online. However, there is a great devotional book called Reading the Psalms with Luther that can serve as a daily Psalms reader as well as an introduction to Luther’s work on the Psalms. The Psalm texts are even in ESV. Good Stuff.

Charles H. Spurgeon
Spurgeon needs no introduction for many of us. He was one of the greatest preachers who has ever lived. What some may not realize is how much the Psalms played a part in his life. His largest single written work was called the Treasury of David and addressed each Psalm in great depth and insight. Best of all is that you can find this entire work, along with most of his other sermons and books, online for free. If you prefer to have an actual book in your hands, Crossway Publishing has a condensed version as a part of their Crossway Classic Commentary series Volume 1 & Volume 2.

Derek Kidner
I don’t know a lot about Kidner but my worship pastor friend, Bob Kauflin, recommended this little two volume commentary and sent it to me–it has proven to be a great resource.  Kidner’s Psalms Volume 1 and Volume 2 is one of the most concise and helpful commentaries I have found on the Psalms.  It looks like Amazon is out of stock and expecting a new edition at the end of the month but it will be worth the wait.

Mark Futato
Futato is the professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He has written a number of more scholarly works but he has a great little book called Transformed by Praise that has served me well as an introduction to the overarching themes as well as a very insightful and accessible introduction to Hebrew poetry.

Martin Lloyd-Jones
Last but definitely not least, Dr. Lloyd-Jones was another very influential preacher and writer from England.  His expository sermons have sold millions over the years and influenced countless preachers. He wrote a small but very dense book called Faith on Trial on Psalm 73 and it has been very helpful in my study.

If you’re among the many people who missed the two-week “Generous” sermon series because of the snow, you can now watch the videos in the media library. Pastor Jamie has also posted two reflections (week one and week two) on the Mars Hill Blog.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend the conference, the audio and video for all the sessions are posted here at www.theresurgence.com.

You can also purchase a copy of Dr. Tripp’s books Shepherding a Child’s Heart and Instructing a Child’s Heart in the Ballard Bookstore.

Echoing the woman’s example from the story and the parable Jesus shares with Simon the Pharisee, I want to provide some practical examples of how you can express your gratefulness through worship for the redemptive work Jesus is doing in your life.

First, it’s important to remember that everything we have, including our time, treasure, and talent, comes from God. As an act of gratefulness, God calls us to steward our resources in a way that glorifies him and serves others. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that we are to do this sacrificially and cheerfully even if what we have to give seems small, like the woman in Mark 12:41-44. When we give of our resources, regardless of the amount, we demonstrate our gratefulness for the resources God has provided.

Aside from corporate worship on Sundays, which includes prayer, singing, and Communion, there are three main ways in which you can express your gratefulness: giving, serving, and leading.

If you’ve paid attention to the recent numbers in The Weekly, giving at the Ballard Campus has not been great. In fact, many of the other campuses are subsidizing our budget to keep us afloat. One way to show your gratefulness is to contribute financially to the church. If you’re not currently doing this, click here to find out how.

But giving isn’t the only way we can express our gratefulness. There are also numerous opportunities for people to use their time and talent to serve the church and the city. On Sundays we need people to do everything from hospitality to production to cleanup. If you call Mars Hill Church home but aren’t helping to take care of our home and welcome more people into it, then stop by one of the Connect Desks in the foyers on Sundays or visit the “Find a Service Team” page on The City.

During the week we need people to lead Community Groups, which are not only where much of the care and discipleship occurs, but also where people are able to be the church to our city. For those of you in Community Groups, be sure to thank your leaders, support them, rally behind their mission, and consider pursuing leadership yourself so you can serve and not just be served.

Ultimately, this is a call to get involved and move from being greedy to grateful. What we know and believe in our minds and in our hearts should be evident in our words and actions.

The work we do is not in vain because Jesus is redeeming people at our campus. Here are two stories I received about people who Jesus saved this past Sunday:

This week I invited one of my best friends to come with us to church. I had been talking with her and praying for her to get saved for at least a year. Well, this Sunday she came to Mars Hill with Jared and me. As soon as you said you would be preaching out of Luke 7, I was so excited. My friend Tamara sat there, rereading the passage in my Bible and got all teary a couple times. When the sermon was over, I asked her what she thought. She responded, “I feel like I’m that woman.” I asked her if she wanted to pray with me to become a Christian, and she did. We were both crying. I got to explain Communion to her and she took Communion for the first time. She said that her whole life is going to be different, and she’ll have to change the way she looks at everything now. She told us she’d felt bells going off in her head for a while now, but had pushed them away as being over-analytical. “I just thought today, ‘How much longer am I going to keep pretending I don’t have to make a decision about this?’” She’ll be coming to church with us now, and she’s planning to attend the Community Group we’re in on Wednesday nights.

Meghan McDevitt

From Deacon Billy Clem:

There was a guy named Brandon, who I met after the 7pm service on Sunday. He was from Texas and was in town just for the weekend helping his long time friend and roommate move to Seattle to start a new Job. He came up to me after the service and told me that his whole life he felt like he was a good person. Most of the people around him drank more than him, slept with their girlfriends, talked worse than him. He felt like he was pretty good and because of that didn’t need God. He wasn’t against God, just felt like he was pretty ok without him. He came to MHC alone on Sunday because a friend of his in Texas told him he should visit while he was up here. He heard the sermon and realized that he was like Simon the Pharisee and didn’t feel like he needed very much forgiveness. I talked to him and walked him through some of Romans 3 and talked to him about how all sin is bad enough for Christ to need to die and face the full wrath of God. He said he wanted to be repentant and wanted to be like the woman at Jesus’ feet instead of the guy across the table and he prayed to accept Christ.

Deborah Erickson, who attended the conference, said that she and her husband “were delighted to hear what was taught and we will apply it to our first child who is due in October. Some of the topics discussed corrected my previous ways of thinking that I’ve applied for so many years when babysitting my friend’s children and my sibling’s children. This material is great for anyone who helps take care of children – aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, nannies, etc.”

For those of you who weren’t able to attend the conference, the video for the first session is posted here at www.theresurgence.com. You can also find the audio from this session here. The rest of the sessions will be posted in the following weeks. You can also purchase a copy of Dr. Tripp’s books Shepherding a Child’s Heart and Instructing a Child’s Heart in the Ballard Bookstore.

Pastor Tim Smith

As the book of Jonah concludes we see the heart of both God and Jonah fully revealed. We see Jonah’s heart full of nationalism, racism and most of all religious self-righteousness. In contrast, we see God’s heart full of compassion, grace and love towards the great city of Nineveh. In His mercy and patience God crushes Jonah’s idolatrous religion. Checkout the video here or in the new media library.