Tag: Salvation

The Message that Saves

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If we are going to share the Gospel in a post-Christian culture, we have to be clear on what exactly the Gospel is ourselves. We’ve spent the previous two installments of our teaching series, When Faith Isn’t Assumed, talking about the reality of truth and the person of Jesus. Today we are rounding out this sequence by coming back to Jesus again. This time, instead of focusing so much on who He is, we are giving our attention entirely to what He does: Jesus saves. Let’s talk about it.

The Message that Saves

If you were to walk up to a random stranger on the street and tell them you think they are a sinner in need of salvation, you may get one of a variety of reactions, but none of those will likely be very positive. They may just roll their eyes and walk away from you. They may tell you where to take your opinion of them. They might even punch you in the nose for saying something so offensive to them. Simply put: They won’t like it. But just because they won’t like hearing it does not for that reason make it any less true. 

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The Way to Life

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In Psalm 139, David celebrates the detailed and intimate knowledge God has of him; that He has of all of us. In the second part of the psalm, he continues to celebrate that knowledge with some of the most important pro-life themes in the Scriptures. But then he makes a turn to expressing his passion for God in a way that is deeply uncomfortable for modern readers. What are we supposed to do with all of this? That’s what we are talking about today as we wrap up our series, Fully Known. Read on to find out.

The Way to Life

Little kids can get excited. Like, really excited. If you have little ones at home or still remember when yours were little, you perhaps know what I’m talking about. Little kids can get so excited they can’t hold it in, and they’ll start to do silly things to let it out. They’ll run in place, run all over the place, yell and scream, just kind of vibrate where they are standing, and so on and so forth. It can be pretty entertaining to watch. The nice thing about little kids and their excitement, though, is that they don’t tend to get destructive with it. Older kids and adults, on the other hand, can’t say that quite as consistently. 

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Advent Reflections: Luke 15:7, 10

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“I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance. . . .I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Kids have a built-in desire to do what makes their fathers happy. There was a time when I was growing up that I said I wanted to be a lawyer. Why? Because my dad is an excellent lawyer, and I wanted to be like him, to make him happy. I soon thereafter realized I was built to be a teacher, and thankfully he gave me the extremely significant gift of supporting me in whatever I pursued, so all was well. But that desire to please him never really went away. I suspect that if you have a healthy relationship with your dad, you’re the same way. Well, God is consistently described in the Scriptures as our heavenly Father. Let’s talk about something that makes Him happy.

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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: Romans 3:10-12

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“As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Family is hard. It’s hard in a lot of ways. It’s hard because you don’t get to pick your family. It’s hard because your family shapes who you are whether you want them to or not. It’s hard because you are stuck with your family. You can try to deny them, but those hooks are in deep. It’s hard because you love them and love makes you vulnerable. It opens you to wounds of the deepest sort. But family is good. Because of that love that can make it hard, family is where you can be received no matter what. Family gives you a home and a place of stability when the storms of the world blow. With family you know you can find support no matter how deep of a hole you’ve dug for yourself this time. The good of family outweighs the hard, and so you stick with family no matter what. A recent Disney live action remake of an animated classic offers a good reminder of this. Let’s talk about Lilo and Stitch.

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