A Difficult Journey

In this second part of our series, Hard Sayings, we looked a bit more closely at the hard saying from last week that following Jesus is hard.  Here we have reaffirmed for us the difficulty of remaining faithful over the long haul, but we also get a bit of a reprieve: The rewards are pretty good as well.  Keep reading to see how this unfolds.

A Difficult Journey

When was the last time you did something that was hard, but which left you feeling like you’d done something worthwhile?  That’s a really good feeling, isn’t it?  You work hard, make some sacrifices even, and come out on top.  Like you, I’ve done this kind of thing a few times, but probably the thing that stands out the most to me was learning to play the drums.  I started when I was in seventh grade.  I had played the trumpet in sixth grade, but then I got braces.  Braces and the trumpet do not play well together.  Drums didn’t hurt.  I started taking lessons almost immediately from a teacher in my neighborhood.  That teacher moved.  I found another one.  I didn’t like him at all.  Found a third teacher who was great and stuck with him all the way through high school and into college.  And I practiced.  Much to my parents’…and probably the neighbors’ too…chagrin, I practice a lot.  Then I got to college.  I took more lessons and played with the percussion ensemble.  In fact, I played a lot, not only with the various university ensembles, but I also started playing with different bands including getting to tour and cut a cd with a rock band of some friends when their previous drummer quit. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Matthew 6:24

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had two bosses?  How did that go?  Unless it was a truly unique situation, the odds are that on some occasions you were happy with one, on other occasions you were happy with the other, and only rarely were you happy with both. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Matthew 6:25

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Jesus tells us not to worry and instead to trust in Him.  He presents worrying about even basic life necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing as a sinful mistrust in the Lord.  I remember still the first time I read these words and truly understood them.  They had a profound impact on me.  With only a few exceptions, I have largely purged worry from my own life because of them.  Sometimes, though, I have let this intention to not worry drift too far in the other direction which is laziness.  This prompts and interesting (at least to me!) question in my mind: What does it look like to live free from worry in such a way that honors Christ? Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Matthew 6:30

“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

One of the things I have told my congregations many times over the years is that we have to get God’s character right.  If we don’t get the character of God right, much of the rest of our lives will be incredibly more difficult than they would otherwise be. Read the rest…

A Hellish Problem

In this third part of our Reasons to Believe series, we spent yesterday morning wrestling with one of the more challenging doctrines of orthodox Christianity: The doctrine of Hell.  In popular imagining for centuries, the idea of Hell has been one of fiery agony stretching on into eternity.  In the modern mind, shaped as it is by tolerance and pluralism, this idea presents a huge impediment to the faith.  We are left with two choices: Reshape the doctrine to fit modern mores, or try to understand it better to see if it doesn’t present us with a stumbling block at all, but rather a reason to believe.  In what follows we aimed for the latter.  Thanks for reading and listening.

 

A Hellish Problem

Well, this morning as we continue our series, Reasons to Believe, we are taking on a challenge.  We’ve already confronted head-on the objections that truth can’t really be known and that the Bible is untrustworthy in terms of revealing anything about God to us.  This morning we are going to take on a challenge that is much more emotional than either of these previous two.  For many folks it is epitomized in the sermons of men of old, kind of like this one: Read the rest…