Theology That Bites Back
Introduction: As we continue our consideration of the whole question of gift-giving at Christmas, we have been studying the background. What does the Bible teach about giving and receiving generally, and how can we apply these general principles to specific situations—like our Christmas shopping and our presents? So we started with the ultimate gift of …
A Brief Explanation: The form of this sermon is unusual, and so I need to give a brief word of explanation before presenting the message. We have four gospels that contain many examples of our ...
Introduction: So this is the fifth in a series of topical messages from 1 John. The words we have been considering were lust, lies, life, light, and this week, love. Remember that the lust of the eyes, ...
INTRODUCTION: As we seek to live our lives as faithful Christians, informed by the Word of God, we soon discover that it is not a simple process. It is not as though the Spirit gave us a rule book, in outline form, fully indexed. Rather, He gave us laws, histories, principles, stories, poems, and parables, …
Introduction: The presence of the Lord Jesus, alive just as He had promised He would be, transforms everything. We can see this very clearly in the fall and restoration of the apostle Peter after the resurrection. The account of Christ’s care for Peter is given to us so that we might understand more of His …
Introduction: : Every time we say the Apostles’ Creed, we confess that we believe in the forgiveness of sins. This is reasonable we might think—isn’t forgiveness of sin the entire point? “Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Yes, it is the entire point, but it is also part of the point …
Introduction: First we must begin with a statement of our problem. Many glorious truths were recovered in the Reformation, and one of them was the doctrine of vocation. Unfortunately, this is part of our Protestant heritage that we have shamefully neglected, and have almost lost. One of the principal indications that we have lost this …
Introduction: As Reformed Christians, we naturally think in terms of covenants. We do this when thinking about our salvation, and the covenant of grace, and we also do it when it comes to some of our horizontal relationships—we have a rich understanding, for example, of the covenant of marriage. And related to marriage, we also …
Introduction: When we are forgiven for our sins, there are two fundamental aspects to this. First we are delivered, definitively, all at once, from the penalty of sin. Our sins and our lawless deeds God will remember no more. They are forgiven, meaning they won’t come up at all in the Day of Judgment. You …
Introduction: We are considering the two components of growth in grace. The first is getting rid of impediments to that growth, which is a necessary thing—but preliminary. The second thing is actual growth in grace. This growth in grace is a form of life, and like all life it requires food. Our spiritual life in …
