Total Sermons: 201
Total Amens: 1
Genuine Faith Begins With Jesus
Peter begins his letter by introducing himself as someone who is identified with Jesus Christ. There was a time when Peter was too ashamed to identify himself with Jesus and denied that he knew Him three times because of the threat of persecution. Jesus heard this but did not condemn Peter. Instead, He went to the cross to die for Peter’s sins, rose from the grave, forgave Peter, and reinstated him as a leader. After that Peter spent his remaining days as an apostle, or errand boy, for Jesus, pointing to Him and His glory and telling people about how they could find forgiveness and reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ, just like he did.
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Christmas 2007 - The Wait
Your children have it right. Christmas should be eagerly anticipated. Luke showed the significance of Christmas through the eyes of one who had waited his whole life to see the Messiah. When Simeon saw Joseph and Mary’s son he rejoiced that salvation had come, although he saw that not everyone would embrace the coming Kingdom of God. We too should rejoice and celebrate Jesus’ advent and take advantage of the opportunity to connect with God, connect with our friends and family, and reach out to those who need us during Christmas time.
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Pride or Heroics on the Narrow Road
The Apostle Paul admonishes the Galatians and us in some practical ways that we can love each other. If we see someone stuck in a sin we are to restore them with gentleness and not with a proud attitude, because we are capable of committing the same sin. We should not be envious of each other or try to make ourselves look good by comparing ourselves to others, but instead we should both live up to our own responsibilities and lovingly carry the burdens of those around us. We should also persevere in doing good, not giving up early because it gets hard or getting distracted from the task at hand but remembering that we will harvest what we plant and pressing on to complete the works that God has called us to do.
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The Power of the Spirit on the Narrow Road
God in His grace has given us His Holy Spirit to work in our hearts so that our inward attitudes are right and this leads to holy outward behavior. The fruit of living with the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Because these traits only come from living with the Holy Spirit it is vital for us to stop, set aside our busyness and distractions, and spend time reading the Scriptures and in prayer so that we can listen to what the Spirit says and live by His power.
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Walking with the Spirit on the Narrow Road
It is common to hear that all world religions are basically the same and this is said because their ethics overlap in many areas. Christianity is unique in that you are reconciled with God through faith and not through doing these good works. It is also unique in addressing the root cause for our inability to live up to these ethics: our sinful, deceitful hearts which desire to rebel against Him. God gives His Holy Spirit to Christians to rebuild their hearts so they begin to desire to walk in His ways. If we walk with the Holy Spirit by repenting of our sins, praying for His help to obey Him, learning from the Scriptures that He inspired, and stirring our affections for Christ, we can overcome the desires of our sinful hearts and live how He has called us to live.
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Freedom on the Narrow Road
Throughout the ages the church has had a bad habit of adding rules to God’s good commands in Scripture in an effort to try earn God’s acceptance by good works and to prevent people from sinning. The Apostle Paul had to confront the Galatians because they were trying to add old Jewish rituals like circumcision and particular feasts and festivals to the requirements for being right with God. Paul exhorted the Galatians, and you and I in turn, to fight for the freedom that God bought for us by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die for us and to not submit to the slavery that comes from living by rules. He then reminded the Galatians and us not to use our blood-bought freedom to be selfish and sinful but instead to love each other.
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Slavery off of the Narrow Road
Some of the people in the church at Galatia were leaving behind the gospel of grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone and were turning back to the idea that they could put themselves right with God through obeying certain rules and rituals. Paul confronts them and reminds them that going back to rule-keeping puts us back into slavery to the rules. We all end up as slave to that which we think we need for our acceptance or our happiness, whether we look to gratify our own selfish impulses that always cry out for more or the expectations of other people. Instead of such slavery God has extended to us acceptance and adoption into the family, and since this was bought by Jesus Himself on the cross, we are no longer indebted but are free people who live in His grace.
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Justification on the Narrow Road
We all want and expect judges to exercise their authority fairly by exonerating the innocent and punishing the guilty. A judge that lets the guilty off without punishment should be replaced. In order for our relationship with God to be restored He needed a way to accept sinners like us without letting our rebellion go unpunished. He accomplished this by sending His Son Jesus to die in our place. If we trust in Jesus then His death becomes the punishment that we deserve and His perfect life gets credited to our record. The Apostle Paul has to confront the Galatians because they have detoured from this great truth to follow the lie that we can do righteous acts to put ourselves right with God. This is foolish because it cheapens what Christ did on the cross and the greatness of the gift of being able to spend eternity with God by trying to purchase it with our few meager, sin-tainted deeds.
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Contending For The Narrow Road
No one likes a person who is contentious and always looking to pick a fight. Sometimes the fight erupts around you, though, and you can either surrender or contend for that which is dear to you. The Apostle Paul did not look for a fight in Galatia but the fight was brought to him as false teachers came and tried to get people to believe that they needed to be circumcised in order to be accepted by God. Paul is willing to stand up to anyone, including the Apostle Peter, to make sure that the Gospel of grace is faithfully proclaimed and lived out. He fights because he knows that Jesus died on the cross to open up the only way to God, and if there are other paths to God then Jesus’ sacrifice was meaningless.
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The Origin of the Gospel
People do not change their beliefs or habits easily. When there is a dramatic change in someone’s life it is a powerful testimony for the cause of the change. The Apostle Paul describes how Jesus came down to Earth and revealed Himself to Paul, and this changed Paul from someone who violently persecuted Christians to someone who gave his life to proclaiming the good news about Christ. Paul tells us that the good news that he preaches was given to him directly from God, which means that it is true and can be trusted, and the evidence of change in his life is a convincing testimony to the power of the God who worked this change in his life.
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