Tag: Restoration

Multigenerational family standing outdoors at sunset with glowing cross behind them

Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 5:18

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“Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some movies that define a generation. For me, The Karate Kid was one of those movies. It had everything. Great action, a love story, a redemption arc, a fantastic soundtrack and score, and the acting was mostly pretty good. Oh, and like the name says, karate. Lots of karate. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the first one. The second was always my favorite. The third one was even still good. So, when YouTube announced they were creating, and then Netflix picked up, a series rooted in the world of Karate Kid, but focusing on the bad guy dojo, Cobra Kai, I was intrigued. Eight years later, I finally got around to finishing the sixth and final season. I’ve been excited all week to talk about it. Let’s jump right in.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 John 1:5-10

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“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say, ‘We have fellowship with him,’ and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus the Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, ‘We have no sin,’ we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The world is broken. People are broken. They do what’s wrong at least as often as they do what is right…sometimes more often. They are selfish. They do what they want and don’t think too much about how getting what they want will affect the people around them. And nobody seems to be able to do much about it. What if there was a way, though, to fix it? What if there was a way to make everybody do the right thing, to make them be decent people? What it be worth it? The second season of Amazon Prime’s, Fallout, ponders that very question. Let’s talk about it.

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Redeeming the Broken

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Interruptions are part of life. For the last couple of weeks in our teaching series, When Life Gets in the Way, we have been talking about the kinds of interruptions God’s plans can bring to our lives and what to do in those times. But what about when our interruptions are the cause of our own, sinful choices. What then? Today we are going to explore the story of a Bible “hero” whose choice to sin seems like it should have derailed all of God’s plans for his life. But it didn’t. Let’s talk about why and what that might mean for us.

Redeeming the Broken

People are different. Now, you can take that statement in several different ways, but what I mean is that we’re not like the rest of creation. When Moses was poetically describing the creation process, when he got to the part where God made people, he presented it differently than all the other aspects of creation. He changed the poetic pattern, which would have been a major tipoff that something was different. He said this: “So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.” In bearing God’s image—His personal characteristics, not His divine ones—God made us distinct from the rest of creation. 

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Digging in Deeper: Galatians 6:1

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“Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I’ve been talking more and more often about the church lately, and today is going to follow in that pattern. I was reminded just last night while watching one of the shows my bride and I enjoy together of yet another reason the church matters so very much. This time, though, the reason is hard. It’s hard on both sides of the equation too. Yet in spite of the difficulty of this reason and its expression, its significance to our lives and to the life of the church more generally is hard to overstate. Let’s talk this morning about birthing babies, nearly missed affairs, and why the church is so important.

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Morning Musing: Romans 8:19-22

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“For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Things in this world are not the way they should be. That’s something every religion acknowledges in one way or another. It’s not just that we’re broken, though. The problem extends to the whole world. Creation itself is broken. Creation itself needs to be restored and set right again. Believe it or not, this is part of the Gospel. Let’s take a look here as Paul explains that creation is looking forward to our redemption as much as we are.

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