The most important thing you could possibly say today isn’t:
It’s not:
It’s not even:
The most important thing you could possibly say today is in Psalm 116:16.
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We recently noted that Titus 2:11-14 draws a Scriptural connection between the grace of God and the zeal God wants to see in his people.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
Zeal is defined as “great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective.” In the Bible, zeal (zelos) is presented as a burning desire to please and glorify God.
The question brought up by this sermon is a very practical one: HOW? How do we build and maintain a spiritual fire for the Lord?
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“Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)
If no commandment is greater than these, no environment needs them more than our homes. When God first commanded the children of Israel to love him with all their heart, soul, and might, he directly attached his expectations to everyday life at home.
“These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut 6:6-9)
By God’s design, home is “where the children are led to know Christ in his beauty who loves them so.” Home, as God envisioned, is “where the altar fires burn and glow” (B. B. McKinney). Home may be “where the heart is,” but nothing matters more in Christian homes than the heart of God.
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It’s hard to read very far in the New Testament without coming across a reference to baptism. But why? What is baptism? What does it do? And what does it not do?
This sermon emphasizes respect for God and his authoritative will. The authority for baptism isn’t difficult to find in the New Testament. The sermon explores a variety of New Testament examples in order to discern the historical background and significance of baptism, as well as what baptism does and does not do.
Baptism: What It Does Not Do
Baptism: What It Does
We run across the “cherubim” several times in Scripture. By compiling what God-breathed information we have, we can gain a sort of “big picture snapshot” of the Bible—from the Garden to the Gospel.
This sermon was delivered on February 3, 2013.
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In January-March 2013 we’re engaged in a textual study of 1-2 Peter and Jude at Laurel Canyon called Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of Jesus. Lesson 5 — “Honoring Christ the Lord in our Hearts” (2/3/13) — of that 13-week study can be viewed below. Click here to download the interactive class material.
_____ Praise the LORD!
_____ He gives snow like wool;
________ he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
_____ He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
________ who can stand before his cold?
_____ He sends out his word, and melts them;
________ he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.
_____ Praise the LORD! (Psa 147:12, 16-18, 20)
The potential for ruptures in Christian unity is not an exclusively modern problem.
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. (1 Cor 1:10-11)
Paul leads Christians in Corinth to understand that their attitude as followers of Christ is just as important as (if not more so than) their actions. Thousands of years later, unity among disciples continues to be ruptured by…
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In Ephesians 4:1-6 Paul writes,
I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
From this God-breathed passage we learn that:
