God the Father is the Creator of heaven and earth. By his word and for his glory, he freely and supernaturally created the world of nothing. Through the same Word he daily sustains all his creatures. He rules over all and is the only Sovereign. His plans and purposes cannot be thwarted. He is faithful to every promise, works all things together for good to those who love him, and in his unfathomable grace gave his Son Jesus Christ for mankind’s redemption. He made man for fellowship with himself, and intended that all creation should live to the praise of his glory.
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.
It’s an art to give honor correctly without flattery. Honor is about recognizing the work that God is doing in a person’s life and honoring them for obeying God or doing something well.
One of the things that I’ve been particularly burdened about as a pastor is to take the ‘weirdness’ out of spiritual gifts and if I can be frank here, take the ‘weirdness’ out of being a Christian. By that, I acknowledge that there will be times when being a Christian or God doing something miraculous will seem ‘weird’.
Grace is more powerful than our sin. Grace is more forgiving than our consciences. And grace motivates us to change and inspires us to love Jesus more.
We must admit that much of the confusion about gender and gender roles is not because God is not clear or that God has not spoken. It has to do with the Church misapplying or even in some cases, abusing the truth. This has created an overreaction in our world to these abuses or misapplication (not in every situation). The Church, must not only correct these misapplications and abuses, but we must live lives in our manhood and womanhood for the glory of God and the good of others.
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).