{"id":4691,"date":"2025-01-06T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/?p=4691"},"modified":"2025-01-06T13:31:56","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T13:31:56","slug":"sermon-10-05-2025-wellspring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/?p=4691","title":{"rendered":"Sermon 10\/05\/2025: &#8220;Wellspring&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Listen here: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Ross-250105-Wellspring.mp3\">Wellspring<\/a>&#8220;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"168\" height=\"248\" src=\"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4085\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image.png 168w, https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-102x150.png 102w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 168px) 100vw, 168px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Genesis 3:14-19; John 1:35-42<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We begin today with a new preaching theme for 2025. A good title for the theme might be \u201cWho Are We?\u201d or perhaps \u201cWho Do We Think We Are?\u201d It can get pretty complex pretty quickly. So to simplify the issue let me ask the question a different way: \u201cWhose are we?\u201d or \u201cTo Whom Do We Belong?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The bottom line is whether <em>you<\/em> determine who you are, or whether <em>God<\/em> determines who you are.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>As an American, what dream are you pursuing? Whose dream are you pursuing? Whose vision guides you? Whose story are you living?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>To understand anything rightly, we need to know the whole story.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How a thing begins tells a lot about what the thing is. So, we start in the Garden because that\u2019s where it all began.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We live in a cursed world. The question is: whose fault is it that our world is cursed?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We could say that God cursed it, which He did. But why did He curse the world that He had created, which was very good?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The protoevangelium shows us that God always had the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ in mind, and informed us of His plan as soon as sin entered the world.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cThe reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil\u2019s work\u201d (1 John 3:8).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>(This is just a teaser. If you want to know more, listen to the sermon.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sunday morning messages are available on the website (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stpaulsmarietta.org\/audio\">www.stpaulsmarietta.org\/audio<\/a>). Tell your friends.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In order to embrace or believe Christianity, we must acknowledge the reality of sin, of our own personal sin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-4691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worship-this-week","tag-worship-this-week"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Paross","author_link":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4692,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions\/4692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}