Tag: The Gospel

Digging in Deeper: Romans 3:23-24

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“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the bits of hope more seasoned parents often give to parents who are busy navigating their way through the teenage years (count me in on that journey) is that there will come a day when your kids say to you, “Dad, you were right.” That statement will pretty much always be framed in the past tense because in the present they’re never going to admit that anymore than we would have done when we were their age. But someday – or so they keep telling me – they’ll finally reach the place of agreeing with us. Getting to that place, though, isn’t easy for either party. In a similar kind of way, one of the hardest parts of the Gospel is having to get to the point that we agree with God. Let’s talk today about what that means and what makes it so hard.

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Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 9:22

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“According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A little something different this week seeing as how we are just a few days from the single most significant day in the life of the church. This Sunday morning (at least in the Western church) we will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. This one event is the pivot on which the whole of human history swings. There is literally no more significant event in all of recorded history than this one. In order to get us ready for the day when it arrives, let’s do just a bit of thinking about how and why things had to go the way they did in order for the way to a right relationship with God to be made open to us. We’ll start this morning with a bit of context about how to get right with God in the first place.

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You Are Not Alone

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Jesus’ journey to the cross in Mark’s Gospel is almost complete. This week we are walking through the rest of Mark 14 from where we stopped last time. We left Jesus having announced the arrival of His betrayer to His sleepy disciples. As we pick up this week, Jesus does indeed get betrayed and abandoned. He is subjected to all kinds of abuse and injustice. And in the end, He is left alone to face it. It’s a pretty dark chapter, but it’s one that reminds us that Jesus has been through it. When we are going through it ourselves, we’ve got a friend in Him. Let’s explore all of this in more detail as we take the next step on our journey to the cross with Mark.

You Are Not Alone

Misery loves company. Have you experienced that? When we are miserable, we want to know that we are not alone in our misery. This desire manifests itself primarily in a couple of different forms, one of which is more helpful than the other. The less helpful way that misery seeks company is for us to try to drag down the people around us so they are as miserable as we are. Have you ever been around somebody like that? They’re like a gloomy Eeyore all the time because they secretly hope that can make the people around them as morose about life as they are so there’s at least one other person as miserable as they are. 

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 21:22-25

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“When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment. If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are not many topics hotter in our culture right now than abortion. It was burning pretty hot before the Dobbs Supreme Court decision last year overturning the infamous Roe v Wade decision. In the wild, wild west world created in the aftermath of Dobbs, things have gotten even more intense. As followers of Jesus, our thinking on this matter must be informed by the Scriptures. In that effort, this passage matters a great deal. Let’s talk about what we see here, what it means, and why it matters.

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Digging in Deeper: Luke 9:49-50

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“John responded, ‘Master, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow us.’ ‘Don’t stop him,’ Jesus told him, ‘because whoever is not against you is for you.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in a culture that is increasingly turning against the Christian faith. The level of tolerance the church receives as an institution is dropping like a stone in some places. There are still pockets where things haven’t changed very much from where they were 50 years ago (I happen to live in one and love it), but there are others where the people in power seem dead set on railroading the church out of existence. In Finland, there is an ongoing case whose outcome will determine whether or not reading certain verses from the Scriptures is considered hate speech. In the face of such a cultural tide, the internal unity of the church becomes all the more important. Big, public fights within the church stemming from differences of opinion on whether or not something is a first-tier issue on which we must plant our flag or a second- or third-tier matter where a bit more diversity of views can be tolerated do not help us. In the wake of the recent Super Bowl 58, we have seen exactly that kind of a debate unfold. Let’s talk today for a few minutes about the He Gets Us campaign debate.

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