Sermons About Worldly
Luke 18:1-8 - The Right Kind of Faith
For a church to become a biblical community and make biblical disciples, the members need to cultivate an eternal prepsective and a right view of God's gracious actions. In this passage Jesus exhorts his disciples to endure, after rebuking and warning the pharisees about his second coming at the end of chapter 17. This explicitly sets the context of the passage on the second coming of Christ (not a secret rapture). The basic questions that is being asked is "Will God Find faith on earth when he comes again? Will the warnings of Jesus to remember Lot's wife, to keep the heart fixed on Christ, and to not love the world secure the faith of the disiciples? Will they endure to the end?" How can we endure to the end and don't become like Lot's wife - who was too much in love with this world to go all the way with Christ? Jesus tells His disciples not to loose heart but keep praying because God is ready to answer. Our problem with praying is that good things in life and normal beneficial activities in life can make us just as insensitive to the reality of God as gross things in life. Our heart can grow cold to Christ easily. The point of the passage is not to say that Jesus is an unjust judge, but to show his disciples the willingness of God to vindicate His elect when they pray. If an unjust judge will grant a persistant widow her request how much more will God (who is never unjust) be willing to vindiate his elect!
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Proverbs: The Wisdom of the World
Proverbs - like the Scriptures in general - is very world affirming; unfortunately, many Christians are not. Though we are quick to dismiss "wordly wisdom" as foolish and sinful, we rely upon the collective wisdom of the our cultures on a daily basis. So how do we live in these two streams of wisdom, the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God? And what does it mean that "God has made foolish the wisdom of the world?"
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