Sermon Notes & Videos
2024-01-19 | Romans 6:1-14 | A White Canvas
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If we zoom in it all begins to come into focus. Sure there is value in viewing this from forty-five thousand feet, and that perspective is necessary to define the outer edges of our canvas. However, the time comes when standing at a distance cannot provide the necessary, but subtle details, if we wish to appraise how the Master dissolves the intricate brushstrokes.
The title of the painting is “Sin.” That should immediately cause you to appreciate the vast size of the canvas and the infinite array of colors on the palette. But now, lean in; get your nose right up to the artwork. Your concern is no longer the immeasurable size of the tapestry, nor the limitless hues of color. Right now we are interested in the bleach that will remove every last remnant of even the remotest stain—restoring our canvas to pure white. You need to get up really close to evaluate if there is even a single pixel of color remaining.
White reflects all color, and might we say deflects or rejects all color. Yet, this one question remains. What type of artist will you be? It’s counter-intuitive, but the artist God is looking for is completely satisfied with a canvas that remains pure white. I know it is tempting to splash paint all over it again; even that you’ve been programed to believe you are destined to do so, as a helpless victim. But God says something different. God says you are no longer an artist slave; you are free to keep your canvas and bright. Oh, and if you choose not to, at least recognize that it was your choice to make.
2023-12-29 | Romans 5:12-21 | If I Ran the Zoo
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It’s just your garden-variety love story: man is created by God; he is put in charge of everything; success never fully satisfies him; man becomes lonely; God has a woman for the man; man meets the woman; man loves the woman; they are both naked; man’s head spins with desire (he can’t think straight); woman makes a really bad choice; man stands by and watches (he’s too distracted by her naked body); man participates in the really bad choice; God finds out; man blames the woman; woman blames the devil; they both receive a death sentence (along with all of their future children). The outcome looks bleak.
What would you do if you ran the zoo? What would you do if you had an opportunity to rewrite the story? What if you could just advise Adam before his fateful act of utter neglect? You could warn him that what he was about to do would birth death and destruction into creation. Would you do it? Would you attempt to change the course of history and help mankind sidestep thousands of years of pain, misery, and suffering? I wouldn’t! Certainly, we’d be better off had Adam never shirked his responsibility, no? Surely, if we had the option to rewind and help Adam make a better choice, all of mankind would benefit, right?
The answer is a resounding no! Had sin never come into the world, sure things would have been perfectly pleasant since creation. Unfortunately, one thing is easy to overlook that supersedes the potential benefits of living in a world that never tasted sin—the need for a Savior! And the ultimate inheritance we have with that savior—a perfect, permanent, unalterable, incorruptible eternity with God. You see, Adam and all humans after him, would have forever carried the risk of sinning at some point—resulting in death. Human beings are potentially fallible. But the glorified body we will inherit one day because we have a Savior is permanently infallible, and I would not attempt to prevent all the pain, misery, and suffering experienced throughout human history, if losing that was the price!
2023-12-22 | Romans 5:1-11 | Also
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This or that; this and that; this and not only that; this and not only that, but much more than that. Or maybe we will just say… also! That is the main thing here. By grace through faith and also by faith with grace. And not only by faith with grace, but ALSO through trials and endurance and character development and hope. And not only by faith with grace, and through trials and endurance and character development and hope, but ALSO God’s love.
Not only are we justified by His blood, saved from permanent damnation, reconciled for an eternity, but ALSO, and much more than that, we have His life as a perfect example of how we ought to live on this side of eternity. And maybe the most beautiful thing of all is that we are supernaturally empowered to live the life He expects of us by faith with grace. What are you waiting for?
2023-12-15 | Romans 4:13-25 | The Empty Womb
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A lot can be said about the most basic tenets of the Christian faith, but maybe none is more essential than life from the dead. That’s right, Christianity hinges on the resurrection. It’s an absurd assertion to all but those who are already in the faith. Why is that? Man only understands the things of man because within him is the spirit of man. It takes the Spirit of God to know the things of God and thus, the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing. In other words, those who need it don’t have the vision to see it!
Think about it; if you use a logical thought process to contemplate the redemption story, it is simply ridiculous. God created mankind; he sinned and brought death into the world; He launched a plan to redeem fallen man; it includes Him becoming a man Himself, born as a baby; He would grow up as a normal child, become an adult, and at a specific time would step into His ministry, which would reveal His true nature and purpose. His mission would require Him to be sacrificed on a cross, so His shed blood could cover all the sins of mankind, past, present and future. Then, He’d be buried in a tomb as if defeated, only to resurrect in victory to a new life. And all you need to do to participate in this universal forgiveness of sin program, and to be redeemed to live forever in the presence of a Holy God, instead of the eternal flames of hell, is to believe this story. Accept the invitation to become His bride and you will be saved. Got it?
Okay, so we can all agree now that absent an antecedent intervention by God, we don’t have a shot at believing in the resurrection. The gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing. And that is the true beauty. God imparts His grace which gifts us the faith to believe and when our blind eyes are set free, we can see! And the deeper we look the more we see. Abraham was promised he’d be the father of many nations and he believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness. It was there all along. Sarah, Abraham’s wife was barren; her womb was dead. It had remained empty for her entire life—all eighty-nine years. But then something happened. Life came from death. God allowed this elderly woman and her husband ten years her senior to conceive. From her empty dead womb came life. When her only begotten son was birthed, again her womb was empty. But, this time as a testimony to the resurrection—life from death. And later, the father of this only son, born out of a once dead womb, was asked to sacrifice him, putting to the test the promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in all the heavens and the sands on all the seashores.
And is this not what we are asked to believe about Christ? And even a step further, not just the willingness of a Father to sacrifice His Son, but the very deed itself. God’s righteousness is imputed to all those who believe this Son was raised from the dead. Simply confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God has raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead and you will be saved. There is no other way because if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile and you are still dead in your sins!
2023-12-08 | Romans 4:1-12 | Belief is an Act of Faith
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Belief is the first act of faith! Wrap your mind around that. It can be very confusing, so Paul gives us the quintessential example from the Old Testament. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” On the surface it is easy to think this means, “Abraham had faith in God, and his faith made him right in God’s eyes.” But, there is a critical component missing from that interpretation; faith is a noun and believed is a verb. So, James takes on the responsibility to clarify how faith and belief operate in tandem. “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?” You can feel the action in James’ interpretation. At first blush it looks very different than Paul’s reference to Moses’ words. However, when you distinguish the parts of speech, nouns and verbs, it starts to come into focus. When Moses says Abraham believed and James says Abraham was justified by works—both resulting in righteousness, it can’t be a contradiction. There must be a viable explanation. James goes on to equate his position to exactly what both Moses and Paul said. “Abraham believed God” is expressed with all the verb energy of “justified by works.” He puts an exclamation mark on his interpretation when he says, “And thus the Scripture was fulfilled.” What Scripture? Abraham believed God. How was it fulfilled? Abraham was justified by works!
This can get very tortuous if we don’t define terms, especially since we learned earlier in Romans that, “By the works of the law no flesh will be justified.” And here again that, “To him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” So, to avoid contradiction, we must conclude that “works of the law” is not to which James is referring. Paul uses “justified by works” in connection to what he previously established: “works of the law” is legalism. James uses “justified by works” to connect faith with belief. In other words, James explains how belief is expressed in an act of faith. From that perspective, James’ interpretation is consistent with what Paul teaches elsewhere… “For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified.” According to James, doing the law, not just hearing about it, is what Moses meant when he wrote, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” In Hebrews we are told that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that he who comes to God must also believe. Belief must follow faith, because God only rewards those who are diligent to obey Him.
Even though right here in Romans Paul denies that a man can be justified by works, James does a stellar job explaining the flip-side of the coin, the mishmash of seemingly contradictory information. “Faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect. A man is justified by works, and not by faith only.” James writes, “by works faith is made perfect.” Paul warns, “but not by the law of works because that would be legalism.” Paul equates the law of faith—works inspired by, motivated by, and empowered by grace, to what James claims is the perfect expression of faith. Paul previously elaborated on the contrast between these two concepts in this letter. You must understand this nuance, even if it takes repeating 10,000 times. It’s critical for a correct understanding of faith. Faith absent belief is dead on arrival because faith is not authentic without the works that testify to that faith. In other words, the noun without its accompanying verb is just gibberish. Maybe in an urban dictionary it’s good grammar—faith can remain just a thought atop the pinnacle of a wonderful intellectual ascent, but for Christians, without the verb you cannot produce a proper sentence!
2023-11-24 | Romans 3:21-31 | The Romans Rollercoaster
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It’s the Romans rollercoaster. It happens throughout. One minute he seems to be saying one thing, the next something completely opposite. Up and down and up and down, some of the peaks so high you are all but certain, then the breakneck rush into the valley, only to be at the peak again before you can take a breath. Phrases like “the righteousness of God apart from the law” pepper Paul’s letter, but just when he knows your brain is settling in one direction, he drops a doctrinal truth bomb into your faith garden. “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”
There is such a heavy emphasis on righteousness, faith and grace in Paul’s writings, as well there should be, when you consider historically how poorly God’s people understood righteousness, handled faith, and how often they abused grace. It’s true even today. Yet, at the same time he is forced to temper his emphasis on righteousness in Christ through faith and his beautiful explanation of God’s grace, with occasional reminders that imparted righteousness still demands obedience, faith does not replace law, and grace cannot redefine sin.
The delicate balance necessitated by the large rollercoaster-like peaks and valleys in Romans requires Paul to accentuate that where sin rises, grace rises even higher, but that does not make it right to purposely indulge in sin, just to witness the power of grace in action. Sure, the penalties for your sins are covered, but you can’t sin sloppily, or even worse purposefully, with confidence that God’s grace will just smooth it over for you. You were delivered from the penalties for your transgressions, not from the law which defines them. The presence of the Holy Spirit in your life is not just a sign you’ve been forgiven, it’s evidence you’ve been empowered to obey God’s commands before there’s a need to be forgiven. The best way to wrap your mind around these deep revelations is to go back to the root. Search the Old Testament Scriptures; they testify of Christ. Yes, the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms were written concerning Christ. Let your mind be opened to understanding from that perspective and you just might truly comprehend the Scriptures.