Tag: Christianity

Morning Musing: Romans 3:19-20

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“Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the best books on preaching I’ve read is Andy Stanley’s, Communicating for a Change. He thinks of his sermons in terms of movements. He aims to have five movements in each sermon. He labels them me, we, God, you, we. If the previous section had Paul in the “you” part of his message, he brings things around here back to “we.” Paul has been dumping truth on his audience. Here, just before the turn, Paul plants himself squarely in the midst of the rest of his readers. He was someone who was covered by the law too. And it was just as incapable of saving him as it was everyone else. In other words, rules can’t save us. Let’s talk about it.

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How to Talk Right

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A whole lot of our relationships are tied up in communication. This is especially true for our marriages. If we want to have the kind of marriage we desire, communicating well is going to be an essential part of the process of getting there. And, if we have put in place negative communication patterns along the way, getting this right is going to require us to get back to the basics in order to fix our foundation before building properly moving forward. In this next part of our teaching series, Back to the Basics, we are talking about how to communicate well in marriage. Let’s dive in.

How to Talk Right

The largest cruise ship in the world right now is the Icon of the Seas from Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. It’s big on a scale that’s hard to imagine. For starters, it’s as long as four football fields back-to-back-to-back. It weighs approximately 250,000 tons. It’s 20 decks high—that is, it’s as tall as a 20-story building. It can hold up to more than 10,000 people between passengers and crew. You could take the entirety of Oakboro on a cruise…times three…and still have room to spare. It’s so big that if you were to completely hollow it out, you could fit the Titanic inside of it with enough room to still play a football game at one end. In short: It’s enormous. Exceedingly enormous. So big, that you really can’t grasp it until and unless you’re standing in front of it looking up. Even then, it’s still hard to grasp. By comparison, though, the mechanism for steering it—the rudder—is remarkably small. Sure, the rudders of ships scale up with the size of the ship, but by comparison to the whole thing, it seems incredible that such a small thing can successfully steer something so large. 

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Morning Musing: Romans 2:5-8

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“Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. He will repay each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Salvation is based on grace. If you’ve been around the church for long, you’ve probably heard that. It’s sort of one of the church’s central messages. In fact, if you’ve been around the church for very long and that’s news to you, you should probably find a new church because the one you’re at now isn’t very good. But as much as salvation is based on grace, judgment is not. Let’s talk about the basis of judgment and what it means for us.

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Morning Musing: Hebrews 11:13-14

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“These all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth. Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes life is hard. It’s hard for all sorts of different reasons. Sometimes it’s hard because we’ve made it hard. Sometimes it’s hard because somebody else has made it hard for us. The end result generally winds up being the same regardless of the starting place. We’re left looking around and wondering how we got here. More than that, we’re left looking around wondering how long we have to stay here or even what we can do to get out of here. But the truth is that in so many of the hardest hards in our lives, leaving isn’t a viable option. What if, though, there was a way to transform the hard into something else entirely? A song I’ve been listening to recently offers a bit of reality both of the now in our hard, but also a window into what could be. Let me share it with you today.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 2:2-4

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“Now we know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth. Do you think — anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same — that you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Self-righteousness is not a good look. What exactly is self-righteousness, though? Oxford says it is having an unfounded certainty of one’s moral superiority. Essentially, it’s the feeling that you are better than the people around you. Of course, you don’t feel that, but I’ll bet you know a bunch of other folks who seem to as far as you are concerned. In somewhat more robust theological terms, self-righteousness is the mindset that you have made yourself right with God. If our culture generally condemns the Oxford sort of self-righteousness, it ranges from being more ambivalent to openly encouraging of this second sort. Paul doesn’t agree. Let’s talk about why.

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