I’m a warrior at heart. I like competition, and I don’t mind getting in the fray. However, I have learned through the years that living a “peaceful and quiet life” has afforded more opportunities for the gospel than being loud and aggressive. I have learned through the years when to fight and when to create conflict (even though I don’t believe that’s what happened).
This new series that we began on Sunday is one that I’ve been looking forward to teaching. Most of that is because of the cultural moment we find ourselves in being “on the outside looking in.” But also, I know how refreshing it was to my soul to spend in the Minor Prophets. I found solace in the fact that these prophets spoke forthrightly and directly to God’s people about their sins and how they should think during their time in exile.
I picked out two of the most common sins that create division in the church: gossip and slander. I could’ve done more, but those are sadly the most common sins. Scripture gives us clear guidance on handling such things, but it does take courage and God’s power to deal with something like this.
As we noticed Sunday, God came to us in the person of Jesus. His coming to us shows us how reconciliation works. The offended party goes, ready to forgive. In reality, Christ came to us to reconcile us to God and then empowered us to be reconciled to one another. We cannot be peacemakers, without the power of THE PEACEMAKER, within us.
One challenge with preaching on a familiar text, like 1 Corinthians 13, is that it’s…familiar. When a text is so widely known, the danger for me is to try to be cute or “original”. You know what I mean…try to do something no one else has done. Well, with true biblical preaching, that’s a very serious danger.
When the power of God goes to work in our lives after we believe in the gospel, God begins to open our spiritual eyes and appetite to a variety of things. One of the areas that happened to me was beginning to see that God has provided all things for us to “richly enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).
A major principle: Love should win the day because Christ has won our hearts. Let that guide all of this.
The past couple of weeks have allowed me some needed time off. As a general rule, the elders have asked that I am in the pulpit at least 44 out of 52 Sundays. This allows for our church to benefit from the wide-range of other men, who can preach God’s word to us. One of the joyful challenges we’re currently facing is that we…
There’s a ton to get to after Sunday’s message, so let me say a few things at the outset: This is a little longer post than normal, so I’ve tried to highlight the various sections so you can skip to things that might interest you more. I will be putting something this week about the President’s comments on Friday about churches and…
In the weirdness of our times, I really cannot thank you guys enough. Our church has been so encouraging and helpful throughout this time. I’ve heard from many of you, expressing your gratitude, as well as giving us areas of improvement. The gracious critiques, as well as the encouraging words from you have been amazing. Thank you! Also, coming up in the coming weeks, after hearing…
Several weeks ago, I made a snarky comment from the pulpit about us singing some songs that even I don’t like. Well, let me say this…”Only a Holy God” is not one of those! Introducing that song to our church was something I’ve been eagerly looking forward to. And our team did a great job with that. In that same vein of thought, this is…
There are many things about Bill Heard that have amazed me through the years and one of them was on display as he preached. Here’s a guy who has literally spent thousands of hours reading/studying God’s word. He’s literally studied Philippians 4:1-9 more than anyone I know and has used that text in counseling people for years. And yet…when it came time for him to…
YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS OUT ON THE FELLOWSHIP.