“Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Sometimes the thing you see first isn’t the only thing to see. I had a puzzle book growing up where you had to find things hidden on each page, and use those things to solve a bigger mystery. Everything was there to see, but you had to spend a fair bit of time taking in each picture if you were going to see it. Once you saw it, you couldn’t miss it, but until then it might as well have been invisible. The Scriptures can be kind of like that sometimes. Everything we need to see is right there in the words, but some of it takes more time than others to find. This passage represents one of those places. Let’s talk about it.
“For you may have countless instructors in Christ, but you don’t have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
When was the last time you got advice from someone else? I suspect it was fairly recently. Oh, it may have not come directly from a person – we tend to be far too isolated from one another these days for that to happen – but if you engage with any form of media (especially social media) you’ve probably received some advice. We live in a world in which there is no shortage of people waiting to tell us how we should live our lives (including, I suppose, this very blog). Some of the advice is general, some of it is very specific, but it is all looking for an opportunity to be given to us. And for all this advice, how are we doing as a people? Are we healthier, wealthier, and wiser? Maybe what we need is not more advice. Maybe Paul is onto something here in what otherwise seems like a stray observation. Let’s explore this a bit together this morning.
“So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things above, not on earthly things.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
What you think about most determines a great deal about your life; what it looks like and the direction it will go. The challenge of this fact is that we live in a world in which we are bombarded by things to think about all the time. Everywhere we look there are things thrusting themselves in our faces, demanding we give them our attention. If following Jesus is something you endeavor for at all, how do we manage such a feat with anything resembling faithfulness? Paul offers us some pretty sound advice here.
As we continue in our series, Live Big, we have talked about the big life Jesus wants for us and why sacrificial generosity is one of the major secrets to living it. This week we are talking about something that doesn’t get talked about much in church, but can also be a major tool in our quest for living the big life of Christ with respect to our finances. This week we are talking about saving. Here goes…
Living with Tomorrow in Mind
Do you know what the problem with suckers is? (Not people, the candy.) The whole time you suck on them, you have that stick poking out of your mouth. When God designed our mouths, He designed them really well to clear out excess saliva. You simply seal your lips, suck everything in your mouth to one place, and swallow it down. No problem. I suspect you weren’t expecting to hear about the process of swallowing in the sermon this morning. You’re welcome.
“God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.’ God also said, ‘Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth – everything having the breath of life in it – I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
When you start watching a particular television series, it sometimes takes a few episodes for the worldview of the writers to come out. In the first few episodes they are spending all their time introducing and establishing the main characters. They are revealing which characters are the protagonists and which are the antagonists. They are clarifying the various problems the characters are going to be facing together. And while you might get glimpses of the writers’ worldview in the midst of all of that, it is often difficult to tell which is the worldview they are promoting, and which are the worldviews they are simply presenting. This is all especially true for a traditional series that will run for 23 episodes. But as our television culture continues to shift in the direction of limited series of 8-13 episodes with higher production values (consider, for example, every single Disney+ original series), questions of worldview are being clarified much earlier. And so, as I recently watched the third episode of 1883, a major piece of its worldview was revealed, and I can’t help but to comment on it. I know we talked about the series earlier this week, but let’s come back to the series again this morning in more detail.
The Nexus 