We serve and worship the God of surprises. Before Christ came, the Jewish people were expecting God to send His Messiah, and He would deliver His people from the Romans, overcome their enemies, and bring in the resurrection. But God is the God of surprises. He did all this, but not in the way expected. …
The Apostles Creed 21: And the Life Everlasting. Amen.
Introduction: The gospel is given to us so that fellowship with God might be restored. God created us without fault or failing, and yet through our father Adam we all grasped for the fruit, and fell into spiritual death. When we reached for the knowledge of good and evil, we were attempting to seize the …
Which Ditch Beckons
God is the great giver of gifts. When we give things away in imitation of Him, we are learning how to become like Him. When we give things away with strings attached, we are becoming more and more like the devil, growing in the ways of manipulation. We are in the shopping season for Christmas, …
Eating and Drinking Weakness
We must be careful not to slip into the assumptions of modernity, thinking that the principalities and powers, against which we do battle, have somehow disappeared in our enlightened age. And we must also take care not to misunderstand the nature of these principalities and powers, which is always in this world, most respectable. We …
The Apostles Creed 20: The Resurrection of the Body
Introduction: We began by confessing that God the Father is the Maker of heaven and earth. This means, among other things, that the material created order is good. There is nothing wrong with being made of matter, and there is nothing wrong with being finite. The difficulty that has plagued our race since the Fall …
Not a Stingy Wisdom
God has been kind enough to give us yet another Advent season, and so we should be resolved to live in it as true Christians. This means standing against the spirit of this age. This means learning what Scripture intends when it says that there is a way that seems right unto a man, and …
Becoming Israel
The Lord Jesus arrived in Israel two thousand years ago in order to show Israel a new way of being Israel. Of course this “new” way was the way that God had always intended; the new way was actually the old way. A new commandment I give you, John said, but it is not actually …
False Witness
Introduction: For Christians who want to be biblically grounded, the sin and crime of bearing false witness is a very big deal. It is serious for two great reasons. The first is that it is a violation of God’s holy law, which reflects His character. It was by means of this particular evil; technique that …
The Potency of Right Worship
Introduction: Many of the problems confronting modern Christians is that they diligently try to do the right thing . . . in the wrong categories. They try guitar fingering on a mandolin; they try chess rules on a backgammon board; they apply the rules of French grammar to English. And for us to draw attention …
Start by Dying
The cross of Jesus Christ is the grace of God, extended to the world. When we are given the privilege of being joined to Christ in order to die in union with Him, and to be raised in union with Him, this too is grace. It is liberation from self-absorption. The cruciform life is therefore …