Apologia Church Utah

John 13:31-38 In the wake of Judas departing into the night to betray Jesus, He knows now will be the time the Son of Man is glorified. What brings Him the most shame is precisely what brings Him the most glory. Likewise, what He is about to endure will be bring great glory to the Father. God is glorious in many ways and without the problem of sin and a need of a Savior we would never see the glory of His grace. Jesus tenderly tells His disciples He is leaving soon and they can’t come with Him now. His work is almost finished, theirs is about to begin. Now in the midst of all this consolation Jesus exhorts them with a “new commandment” to love one another as He has loved them. The Mosaic legislation has always been concerned with loving God and loving neighbor but the newness aspect of this is in the qualification Jesus added: “even as I have loved you.” The apostles and all of us Christians have now experienced the love of God in a colossal way. What we have received is so significant it necessitates a change in our love toward others. It becomes like the Messiah’s. We have an abundance of love and therefore we can freely give it. We look to the example of Christ on how to love. He loves with action. He loved with self-sacrifice. He loved in a way that had tangible results. And so should we. This is such a significant thing that love will be the identifying marker of a follower of Christ. If one doesn’t love the Bride of Christ then you offend Him as a husband is offended if his wife is hated. Hatred and bitterness in the body of Christ are faith-destroying and self-polluting. The world looks upon Christian in-fighting and mocks, while the devil laughs. They will know we are Christians by this unique love.

Jacob, Eric, and Ryan have a great conversation with a young Atheist. The discussion centers around truth and the reality that God indeed exists since there is absolute truth and morality. Watch as three Christians Challenge an Atheist on Objective Truth.

John 12:27-36 At the coming of the Greeks, Jesus recognized His hour of crucifixion had come. And despite the predominant theme of the deity of Christ in the Gospel according to John, we see here glimpses of the humanity of Jesus. His soul was greatly troubled. The horror of the cross will be unprecedented in the history of the world. He stands upon the edge of a chasm about to face His fate. Because He became like one of us, He can represent us on that cross and He can sympathize with our weaknesses; He has seen the effects of sin. These qualities make Jesus the perfect Savior. Despite a desire for this cup to pass, His desire for obedience and glory to the Father is supreme. Jesus prays to the Father to glorify His own name. And an audible voice thundered from heaven that even the nearby crowd heard. This was an attestation that Jesus is who He says He is. Now that His mission is about to be fulfilled judgment has come upon the world. Judgment because when Christ dies and rises again, if you are with Him, you are saved, and if you are against Him, you are judged. And thus also begins the casting out of the devil, the ruler of the world. The cross may have seemed like his victory but it was actually Satan’s greatest defeat. Because when He is lifted up on the cross, He will draw all types of men to Himself. The eschatological promises of the Messiah begin now and consummate at His second coming. The crowd did not understand why He would have to be exalted and leave them when they see the Messiah as one who establishes an earthly reign that stretches into eternity. Jesus will leave that be for now and tell them their opportunity is in this moment. Believe in the Light while it is still light. Don’t wait until He leaves and darkness comes. And when He finished saying these things, almost as if to act out the foreboding statement He just made, He left and hid Himself from them. The mission of the Christ is soon to be finished.

Deacon Andrew Soncrant of Apologia Church Utah critiques Dallin H. Oaks' most recent Mormon General Conference speech, "The Kingdoms of Glory." The reality is that Dallin H. Oaks Is A False Teacher and the Mormon Organization is not a church. There are millions of LDS individuals all around the world who are enslaved to false doctrine and false teaching and desperately need to hear the truth. Link to 2023 General Conference Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Ts8kOpipQ

John 12:20-26 Some Greeks who were going to worship at the Feast in Jerusalem sought out the apostle Philip to arrange a meeting with Jesus. The text is silent on why but we can surmise that they, being Gentile God-fearers, had heard rumors of the Messiah’s coming. The Greeks’ coming, however, was an indicator of something bigger. Upon hearing of the Greeks, Jesus said the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. If Gentiles are seeking the Messiah the times of the Gentiles has come; therefore the hardening of the Jews will begin leading up to His crucifixion. To explain this, Jesus gives an illustration. It seems unnatural but for a seed to produce life or produce fruit it must die. In other words, for the children of God to come into existence the unique Son of God must die. And the fruit must follow in the example of the seed. If you love your life in this world you will perish but hating your life in this world will lead one to life eternal. Love and hate contrasts were used in Jewish idioms to establish essential preference, not hatred on some absolute scale. The fact is the love our lives in this world and the love of the Father don’t mix. John says if you love this world, the love of the Father is not in you. Jesus finished the seed and life figures of speech by bringing it back to discipleship. If one is a fruit, it comes from the Seed, it follows after the Seed, and therefore Christ desires for His disciples to follow Him. The fruit is to be in the likeness of the seed, they are interconnected. If you are saved by Christ, you will serve and follow Christ. There is no alternative. These things will be the characteristics of a Christian.

Deacons Eric Collins and Dusty Marshall have a great conversation with a young Mormon man on why Mormonism is not Christian. Watch and share this conversation! Pray for this young man!

John 12:12-19 The crowd of people that went out to meet Jesus and see Lazarus is now spreading the news of Him and all of Jerusalem is anticipating His entry. The people took palm branches and laid them before Jesus in the same way they used palm branches in celebration of God’s salvation over His people and national victories their nation had previously experienced. They shouted “Hosanna!” or “Lord, save us we pray!” And then quoted from Psalm 118 with full messianic fervor. They proclaimed Him the King of Israel and yet did not know what kind of King He was. Jesus then ordained a colt of a donkey to be made ready for Him to ride on thereby fulfilling yet another prophecy of Him from Zechariah. Jesus isn’t coming in on a pure white stallion, that is what He rides on in the Revelation. The King comes lowly, gentle, and riding in on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. John admits that even the apostles didn’t understand what kind of King Jesus was at that moment. They only became certain after His death, resurrection, and the coming of the Spirit. We, too, sometimes don’t understand certain things about God but He reveals them at the right time. And not only that, sometimes we don’t understand why He allows things to happen in our lives the way they do and it’s not until later we make the connection point. But what we need to know about the Lord, the Christ, and salvation He has made clear to us. The large crowd acted as witnesses for Christ and soon many of the people went to meet Him. The Pharisees are concerned the world is going after Jesus and while they state that in an exaggerating way, the reality is the world will indeed go after Jesus. But only after the King dies, rises, and saves. His greatest act is the last thing we could have expected of a King. In the end, He wasn’t the King we wanted but the King we needed.

Deacon Dusty Marshall and Craig Bullock speak with two Young Mormons about various subjects regarding Mormonism and Christianity. What sticks out most to the young Mormon Man is that in order To Follow Jesus You Must Count the Cost.

Our forgiveness is from God, and our forgiveness is a pardon, We did not DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE IT and our records against God as offenders are wiped Clean. Please hold onto this for the heart of this sermon series is FORGIVENESS, what it is to be Forgiven by our Master and how we should forgive others. The Master’s Forgiveness is not the fallen Human Forgiveness, in order to truly forgive we must first look at our Master and the Forgivess, He purchased through Humility and Self-Sacrifice. Because as fallen human beings, forgiveness is a difficult concept. But the hardest thing about forgiveness is not the act of forgiving (for that act was done by God and it is something that we cannot even do) it is the dying to yourself and counting others higher than yourself, that is the most difficult. Forgiveness takes humility and humility comes from not thinking higher of yourself than you are. God gave forgiveness at the expense of His Son, for your benefit from nothing you have done. If God, the ONLY one who does not need to forgive any trespass against Him, took it upon Himself to satisfy the requirements of sin, then you OUGHT to extend forgiveness as a Creature who has been forgiven by the Uncreated God at no expense of our your own. The heavenly reality of extending forgiveness is tough, but it can be overcome, through and to God, for the Glory of God. We can live in the freedom of our Master’s Forgiveness in which we can genuinely extend that forgiveness to others as those whom we ourselves have been pardoned, not by our works, but by the blood of Christ.

You do not want to miss this conversation. We thoroughly enjoyed conversing with these two men, they are great guys. However, we begin the discussion by asking a simple question. What is the Gospel and what happens next is An Amazing Eye Opening Conversation with Two Young Mormons. Please pray for them. ALSO I KEPT SAYING GALATIANS 3, I MEANT GALATIANS 2:21. Forgive me.

John 11:47-57 The mourners who witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead departed back to Jerusalem to report what they saw to the Pharisees. Jesus, His ministry and signs have become such a problem for them that the chief priests and Pharisees called together the Sanhedrin. The Jewish high council that controlled all internal affairs outside of Rome’s jurisdiction. And they pose the question. “What do we do? This man is performing many signs.” Their worries are expressed in many men believing in Jesus, losing the authority and power given them by the Romans, and the semi-autonomous nature of their nation. They are corrupt leaders hungry for power, influence, and status. God, His Word, truth, and goodness are far from their minds. Caiaphas, a Sadducee and high priest, barked at his colleagues. He sees the only viable option to maintain their authority is to kill Jesus. Jesus is “proven” guilty before He even gets a trial. The apostle John points out though that Caiaphas unknowingly prophesied that by the sacrifice of this one Man, He would save the nation. And not only the Jews but all of the children of God. And the reality is that God has often used wicked men to accomplish His purposes. Balaam spoke of the Messiah’s coming even though He attempted to curse Israel. Truth be told, everything is on the trajectory of Christ’s redemption of His people and His final coming. God sovereignly operates through and with the intentions of men: even their scheming. Jesus departed 13 miles north to Ephraim because it was not yet God’s timing for Him to go to the cross. But the announcement of the coming Passover is the final bell. Between Caiaphas’s prophecy and the Passover, the reader is reminded of the substitutionary atonement of the lamb. The blood that caused the angel of death to pass over God’s people. However, death has still been ever present. Only the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world could accomplish this for good. And He has.

Pastor Wade Orsini and Deacon Dusty Marshall get into a conversation with a Hindu man from India who believes that all paths lead to god. Watch as two Christians are Giving a Hindu the Gospel.