Trinity Baptist Church Sermons: Recent Episodes
Trinity Baptist Church
Trinity Baptist Church is a gospel-centered church serving the greater Concord area of New Hampshire.
Why did Jesus die? The religious leaders saw Jesus' death as a strategic and religious necessity. The Roman governor saw it as a political necessity. In modern times, many people see Jesus' death as a prime example of the courage to bear the burden of one's being. Jesus, however, gives us his own answer: "The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many." Simply stated, Jesus died for our sins.
Luke 1:46-55
Christmas is a natural time to explore the events surrounding the birth of Christ, a time Christians traditionally have called “advent,” which means literally, arrival. I almost like the word “advent” better (except that Christmas has the name “Christ” in it) because it highlights what this season is all about: God has arrived! And that arrival brings so much joy to the world. And what do people do when their hearts are so full of a feeling that normal words aren’t enough to express it? They put it to music—they sing! It is fitting that we sing at advent, because within the first few pages of Luke’s gospel, which records the events surrounding the birth of Christ, we find three famous songs—Mary’s song, Zechariah’s song, and Simeon’s song. We will deal first with the most famous: Mary’s song. It is known as the Magnificat because that is the first word in the old Latin translation, meaning “magnifies.” “My soul magnifies the Lord,” Mary sings, “and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (1:46). Many remarkable things (2,000 years has not diminished the value of this song) but one important to note: difference between imaginary characters at Christmas time and historical characters of the 1st century. Luke writes with the seriousness of a historian, naming the people in power at the time. What is this song, and what does it teach us? Fundamentally, it is a song of praise, and it teaches us [1] what praise is, [2] how praise happens, and [3] who can praise.
Behold Your God Series | Daniel 4:35
Everything that happens is an unfolding of God's purposes....To gaze on the sovereignty of God is to gaze on the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the face of the sovereignty of God. In fact the central work of Jesus Christ that is his death on the cross is also the focal point of God's sovereignty. Because there you see the free will of man that is the very worst thing that could that human beings could ever inflict upon another human being, and that is for sinful men to try to kill the son of God. That is the the darkest night, that is the lowest point in human history, but it is also in that very action, it is in that very moment that God's love and sovereignty are displayed because despite this God overrules he is the over Reigner, he is the over ruler of human actions to bring about the best day in human history and that is when Jesus the son of God gives his life so that we could be saved."
Behold Our God Series | Psalm 139
It is unbearable to be invisible to others, especially people whose attention we long to have. But being visible comes with its burdens too. In fact, the idea of someone knowing this much about us would be unbearable—were it not for the fact that God also loves us. The gospel reveals how God, who knows us completely, could also love us completely: he loves us in Christ. When a person trusts in Christ, he or she enjoys such a close relationship with Christ, that now God views him or her as having the same love and acceptance as his own Son. Paul puts it this way in Ephesians: “In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-7).
Behold Your God Series | Isaiah 45:18-25
Jesus of Nazareth, the only perfectly righteous human being who ever walked the earth, bore “the iniquity of us all.” Through Jesus’ death on the cross, God both proved himself to be righteous—sin deserves death!—but also declared righteous those who find refuge in Jesus. The Apostle Paul describes this amazing act as follows: “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).
Behold Your God Series | 1 John 4:11 & 1 Corinthians 13
Last week Pastor Jonathan went through the love of God in 1 John 4. This week he follows up with how we are to love one another because of God's love for us.
Genesis 15:20
“I know God is good. I just don’t think he’s good to me.” Maybe you’ve heard people say this, or something similar. Maybe you yourself have said or thought it. The feeling is understandable. On the one hand, no one wants to deny what Scripture clearly teaches: “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good!” On the other hand, however, we experience things that are clearly not good: a chronic illness, the death of a loved one, or a crushing disappointment. Is it possible for someone who goes through intense, even devastating, trials to say sincerely, “God is good to me”? When the Bible speaks of God’s goodness, it is not just delivering information we must memorize. Rather, it is inviting us into a relationship with a Person who may be experienced. For example: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” Psalm 34:8 “Oh, taste and see,” the psalmist sings, “that the Lord is good!” To taste something like sweet honey means to have a direct, personal experience of that sweetness. When it touches your tongue, you say, “I know that honey is sweet.” But you also say, “And it’s sweet to me,” because you are tasting it. The next phrase helps us understand what this means with respect to God: “Blessed is the man who takes refuge in [or, trusts] him!” This line of poetry puts tasting parallel to trusting, indicating that tasting is to honey (for example), as trusting is to God. To experience the sweetness of God’s goodness, then, means to trust him. But let us see how this works practically in the life of someone who went through extreme difficulties and still knew God to be good to him. Joseph, the son of Jacob, is well-known for the way he was mistreated by his brothers. Driven by jealousy, they wanted to kill him but instead sold him into slavery where he spent the rest of his adolescence and young adulthood in prison. Through a series of events, Joseph eventually became second in command of all Egypt. With this authority, he instituted an ingenious program of agricultural conservation, saving Egypt and surrounding territories from starvation—including his own brothers who had mistreated him. In a tender moment, when his brothers were afraid that Joseph would take his revenge on them, he assured them: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Genesis 50:19-21 Joseph’s statement teaches us three truths known by people who “taste and see” (i.e., “trust”) that God is good. They know: (1) something about evil, (2) something about God’s plan, and (3) something about God’s power to bring about that plan.
Isaiah 6:1-13
God’s holiness is the most daunting of all topics, because to study it is to study the very “Godness” of God. If we got a tiny glimpse of God’s holiness, we would experience something that is so utterly unlike us, so totally distinct from anything else we know. The result would be the terrifying feeling that our very self is being disintegrated—like what would happen if a drop of water could come into contact with the sun. There is no such thing as a casual approach to God’s holiness. So if we study this topic properly, we must proceed with caution. If we cannot identify with Isaiah’s cry of woe in God’s holy presence (“Woe is me, for I am undone!” Isaiah 6:5) we have not sufficiently understood God’s holiness. It might seem that a topic such as God’s holiness is a million miles removed from our day-to-day lives. “What, does it have to do with my friends at school, my stress at work, my struggling child, my aging parents, my failing health? Thinking about God’s holiness might be a suitable activity for monks and mystics, but I need to hear about God’s love, power, and faithfulness!” But what if we can’t even understand God’s love, power, and faithfulness until we see them in light of his holiness? And what if the very reason we struggle as we do at work, school, home, etc. is because we know so little about God’s holiness? The most practically-oriented book in the Bible—containing topics as relevant as money, friends, marriage, sex, anger, alcohol, health, and happiness—has this statement: “The knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10). There is no more practical topic than the holiness of God. What is holiness? The word in Hebrew (שׁדק, qōdeš, pronounced koh-desh) has the idea of something that is separate, or having its own specific purpose or category. In the Old Testament, people (such as priests) or objects (such as utensils) were considered “holy”—separated for a unique purpose from everything else. It was crucial to draw a clear distinction between that holy person or item, and everything else that was considered “common.” God’s holiness, then, is everything that makes him above, beyond, and distinct from everything else. And because everything about God is above, beyond, and distinct from everything else, holiness is not just one of his many attributes; rather, it is the foundation of all his attributes. For example, to say that God is holy in his love means that he loves in a way that is above, beyond, and distinct from every other kind of love.
Pastor Jonathan Threlfall starts a new series today, Behold Your God: Discovering Who God Is And What He Is Like, with "God is Knowable" from Matthew 11:25-30.
In 2008, a book in my local library grabbed my attention. In large letters against an ominous black and red background—the red part exploding like a dying star—the title read, The God Delusion. Just having gotten married a few months prior and starting out as a youth pastor at a Baptist church, I read aloud to my new bride a line from that book: “If this book works as I intend,” wagers its author Richard Dawkins, “religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.”
My wife assured me of her prayers—and worries.
But something more than my wife’s prayers and my strong Christian upbringing frustrated Dawkins’ aim for me. I was struck by a curious feature of Dawkins’ approach. He opens his second chapter with a lengthy description of the God of the Old Testament, ending with “capriciously malevolent bully.” This seething characterization of God—conspicuously absent of any mention of his love, kindness, and patience—made me wonder why Dawkins so raged against a God he did not believe in. This did little, in my mind at least, to assure me that my faith was about to be dismantled.
But something else was at work to blunt the effect of Dawkins’ militant atheism, not only in my mind, but also in Western culture at large. We are living in what some sociologists call “late modernity”—an environment in which the exuberance of the Enlightenment has waned into the malaise of uncertainty. It’s not that we don’t believe one way or the other; rather, it’s that we are less sure of what we believe. As James K. A. Smith has put it succinctly (summarizing Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor), “Believers are beset by doubt and doubters, every once in a while, find themselves tempted by belief.”
In this epistemically hazy atmosphere, Dawkins’ confident denial of God’s existence hasn’t really caught on. Instead, people are willing to be “spiritual, but not religious.”
If this is not the case in the southern United States, it certainly is in my region of the country, New England. If you asked people to express exactly what they believe about God, many would say something like this: “If God or gods exist, we can’t know for sure who or what he, she, or it is, or what they are.” Perhaps, after careful reflection, they would say that a person’s idea of God really depends on what they find personally or socially useful. If it is useful to think of God as Mother Earth, because this settles the mind and promotes peaceful coexistence between humans and nature, so be it. If it is useful to think of God as Jesus, who loved and sacrificed himself for others, so be it. The important thing, they would say, is not to impose one’s conception of God on others, not to let one’s conception of God tear the fragile fabric of society.
Acts 28:30-31
"Each one of these words—Lord, Jesus, and Christ—is essential to the meaning of how God reigns. We start with Jesus—the peasant Jewish carpenter of lowly Nazareth. He was sinless, but his life ended in complete embarrassment. Condemned as a criminal, hung naked on two pieces of wood, jeered and scorned by his own people. Now, this would have been a confirmation of the normal way things work in this world: the powerful crush the weak; the innocent die just like the wicked. But in Jesus’ case, a mighty reversal took place. Three days later, his heart began to beat, his blood began to flood, his cold, mangled corpse warmed again. Now this must mean that Jesus is the Christ—the anointed one long anticipated from ancient times. And if he is, then he is also the 'Lord'—that is, the Sovereign master over all. And if Jesus is Christ the Lord, that tells us how God reigns: he subverts the cruel power and cunning wisdom of this world. Instead of taking from others for his own advantage, he gives to others for their advantage. He turns it all upside down. He shows us that the way up is down, the way to greatness is humility, that love triumphs over hatred. Most importantly, he offers to us a way to be part of his kingdom—not by demanding that we climb the lofty heights to his throne, but by descending to us in love. That is what it means to 'proclaim the kingdom of God and teach about the Lord Jesus Christ.' It means to say, 'There is a kingdom, and God reigns through Jesus who loves us and gave himself for us.' The Christian mission is to prove that this world has a King, and that this King is Jesus."
Philippians 2:5-11
"We must not view our ability to rule and create as something to be used for our own advantage. . . . Jesus has come and lowered himself further than we will ever go, and now is exalted higher than we will ever be. When you focus on Christ’s exaltation, you become less focused upon your own self-exaltation."
Acts 27:21-44
A friend of mine recently moved from a western state to an eastern state with his young family, along with a son who has severe ongoing health needs. The decision to move had been a painful one, as their efforts to plant a church had been unsuccessful. So now they planned to join a ministry to help people understand and follow Jesus. After driving for two days straight, they had a fun destination in mind for their young boys. But then they ran into trouble. An hour from their first destination, their car broke down. The cost of the repairs was $800 dollars, but that was all they had budgeted for some family fun. They settled for a hotel that at least had a swimming pool, promising their boys they’d take him swimming there. But when they got there, but pool was closed for maintenance. On top of all this, just as they were putting their boys to bed, the one with the severe medical needs broke some essential medical equipment. When I read this update, I must admit the thought crossed my mind: “Why does that happen to them? They’re just trying to serve Jesus!” There are two things that would have made this situation less troubling: The trouble might have made more sense if he was running away from God—moving across the country to rob a bank there. But he was going to serve God! The issue might be someone less complicated if he didn’t believe in God at all. “This is infuriating. I hate it. But it’s bad luck. Life played me a bad hand.” But as a Christian, he believes in a God who has a purpose for his people and who has providential control over every circumstance. Why would God put a storm in the path of obedience? We could wonder the same thing about the Apostle Paul as well. He’s going to tell people the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. Why the trouble?I want to put even more tension here by showing you a contrast between two Bible characters. We read the story of Paul in a storm, which is a deliberate echo of an even more famous story about another Israelite preacher in a storm: Jonah. In the story of Jonah, God had told Jonah to go to Nineveh, a city full of wicked people, to tell them to repent or they would be destroyed. Afraid that the Ninevites would actually repent, Jonah gets into a boat going the opposite direction. God hurls a storm his way, and when Jonah gets thrown overboard, is swallowed by a great fish who eventually vomits him back on land. One preacher put it this way: “If you say NO when God says GO, you’ll be in a MESS till you say YES.” But with the story of Paul’s storm, we have to revise that a little bit: “If you say YES when you hear God’s call, you’ll be in a mess—after all!” (No, it doesn’t have the same ring to it!) The question I want to pose to you is a question every Christian must wrestle with: “Why do I, a believer in Jesus, find myself in such storms?” But it’s a question non-Christians should think about too. After all, most of Paul’s travel companions were not Christians. They too needed to understand why such a God, if he even existed, would allow his follower to go through such a trial.
Matthew 14:22-33
So I want to preach to you this morning from this passage, “Faith Through the Storm.” At this point I should answer a question that some of you might be thinking, and if you’re not maybe you should be. You’re wondering it because walking on water is something so far out of the realm of our experience; so you think, “Did it really happen this way?” Maybe you’d be able to express your skepticism this way: “Bible stories like this are fables—not historically accurate, but psychologically helpful. Whether or not it really happened like this is less important than whether people find it emotionally satisfying.” “It’s effective, even though it is untrue.” There are a lot of examples of ancient literature we can talk about that are clearly mythical: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, for example. Gods and goddesses walk in and out of the scene with no one is very surprised. But the gospels just don’t fit that kind of literature. [a] They are written in a straightforward way, with historical details that are confirmed from other sources. [b] They were written too soon to be legendary accumulations. [c] They contain embarrassing facts about the disciples, which we could assume would as easily have been left out if they had been making these things up. [d] attempts to explain away the “miraculous” end up getting us tangled up in even more difficult problems. We would do far better to take this at face value, and when we do, it makes more sense of the historical data, the Bible as a whole, and even your own life, as we’ll begin to see. When we look at it this way, something opens up to us—not that is powerful even though it did not really happen; but because it really did happen. It is a historical event that makes a theological point to teach a spiritual lesson. In other words, [a] it really happened, [b] what really happened shows us something about Jesus, [c] what it shows us about Jesus changes us. [overview] Let us move through the narrative as Matthew presents it, following the spotlight from the storm, to Peter’s walk toward Jesus, then to Jesus himself. We will learn something about [1] what we go through [the storm], [2] how we go through it [faith], and [3] who enables us to.
Acts 24
Our journey through the book of Acts takes us to the point where Paul has reached Jerusalem, was the center of a dangerous riot, was rescued by the Roman army, taken for his safety to Caesarea, and now stands on trial before the Roman governor named Felix. Felix is the character we will focus on because his response to the message about Jesus is typical of the responses many people have in 21st-century America—people in America, people in NH, probably people right here this morning. Of course, we have already seen in Acts different ways people responded: some felt offended by the message that a crucified man would be the king, and so were enraged; others thought it was ridiculous that a dead person would come alive again, and so responded with amused scorn. But Felix’s reaction was neither rage nor scorn, instead, as 24:24 tells us, he “was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.” (NLT: “When it is more convenient, I will call for you again.”) Felix’s response is the response of a procrastinator—a person who puts something off until later. I think we can be honest with ourselves for a moment about our tendency to procrastinate. You might have seen the T-shirt or sign that says in bold, confident letters, “Procrastinators unite! . . . Tomorrow.” We all procrastinate about some things some of the time. But I’m not talking mostly about the all-too-human tendency to put off some task we know we must do—that thank you note, that employee performance review, filing your taxes, writing that research paper, updating your will. It would be a failure on my part if someone went away thinking I gave you some advice on time management and how to get things done! No, I’m talking about our tendency to push off into some indefinite date some decision we know we must make in light of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the King and Savior of the world. I’m talking about procrastinating in your response to King Jesus.Now, at the outset please resist the urge to think I’m talking about someone else. It’s too easy for us to sit here and nod and say Amen on behalf of someone we think really needs to hear this. The fact is responding to Jesus as King and Savior is something every person in this room must do, and which every person in this room has a tendency to say, “Later, later.” So let us, for a moment, see in Felix a mirror of ourselves. We will look at (1) the method of a procrastinator, (2) the crisis of a procrastinator, and (3) the hope for a procrastinator.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23
I hope that the passage puzzled you; it sure puzzled me. The Apostle Paul is back in the city of Jerusalem. He reports to the Jewish Christian leaders that his journeys have been successful—people are trusting in Jesus as their King and Savior. These leaders are happy to hear this, but something else is worrying them. A rumor has been going around that Paul teaches not only that the Jewish customs (circumcision, not eating pork, observing certain holy days) are no longer necessary in order to be accepted by God, but also that the Jews should make a clean break with their customs. So they suggest that Paul, along with four other men, undergo a Jewish ritual, so that all can see that he’s not against Jewish customs, thus proving that this isn’t what he’s really teaching. You might have thought that Paul would say, “Not on your life! God accepts me because of Jesus, not my observance of Jewish customs. And furthermore, people can think of me what they want. I’m not a slave to their suspicions. I’m free in Christ, and you can’t make me go back to those Jewish customs.” But instead, Paul goes through with it! This prompts us to wonder: (1) Was this a temporary lapse into legalism? (2) Or was Paul being a cultural chameleon—changing his color to match his surroundings? (3) Some commentators have even gone so far as to call Paul hypocritical. These views hold in common that this incident is a sour note, something off-key. But, as we’ll discover, this incident is perfectly in tune with the Christian teaching on freedom, which Paul states in a nutshell in a letter to the Corinthians: “Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them” (1 Corinthians 9:19), which is the text we will unpack this morning. [tension] What does it mean to be a free as a Christian? [overview] We will discover (1) What freedom is, (2) Where freedom comes from, and (3) How freedom works. [prime for application] I’ll warn you that this will upset two seemingly opposite impulses in you, and people will always misunderstand from both sides. On the one hand, this will scandalize the part of you that says, . . .
Acts 20:29-32
This is the second in a two-part series on the role of pastors in the church. If it concerns you to hear the reports about pastors and churches being involved in horrific crimes such sexual abuse, I think it will be important for you to understand what the Bible teaches pastors really ought to be doing, and why churches must insist that their pastors be people of integrity. The first part dealt with three duties of a pastor: to teach, model, and nurture. This second part deals with the fourth duty of a pastor, which is to protect the flock. Paul says the following to the pastors from the city of Ephesus: “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert.”
Acts 20:17-38
"A big personality, dazzling gifts of communication, or administrative genius can easily awe people but distract them from defects in a man’s character. Whether at this church or whatever church you are a part of, insist that the pastor be a man of humility, integrity, and godliness." The Barna Research Group tells us America’s pastors are facing a credibility crisis. From a 2020 survey of Christians and non-Christians the researchers concluded that “overall, U.S. adults are unsure whether pastors in their local community can be trusted, are in touch with their community’s needs and are reliable sources of wisdom and leadership.” Even more seriously, a report was released in the past few weeks that revealed horrifying details about the largest Protestant denomination in the U. S. According to this report, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse—abuse committed by pastors in the denomination—were ignored and even covered up. Instead of protecting the flock, these pastors were preying on the most vulnerable in the flock. These things weighed on my heart and mind as I prepared to preach on Acts chapter 20:17-35, a classic passage dealing with the topic of pastoring. It is brimming with personality and pathos, shimmering with love and affection, yet rooted in the soil of suffering and frailty. We can enter into this passage—like a garden at harvest time—and come out with a wagonload overflowing with goods. But to narrow our focus, we will put one question to this passage: What must pastors do? From this passage we discover three basic duties of every pastor. There may be a variety of ways of arranging these, just as you can choose different arrangements for a bouquet of flowers, but it is worth examining them in the following order: pastors must (1) teach, (2) model, and (3) nurture.
Acts 19:18-20, 23-41
"Everyone—whether ancient or modern—has something they believe will can bring security, significance, and satisfaction. It is what has captured our heart’s imagination. And whatever we believe can bring us these things, is what we will love, trust, and obey. Idolatry is when we believe that anything except God can bring final security, significance, and satisfaction."
2 Timothy 2
Missionary Phil Hunt encourages us to embrace suffering for the advancement of the gospel. "Fear is the face of an idol in your life."
Acts 17:16-34
"Heart-ignition happens whenever something touches your heart’s treasure—and your treasure is the glory that has captured your heart’s affection."
Acts 17:1-9
"True victory is not taking from people for the advantage of the king; it's giving of the king for the advantage of the people."
Acts 16:11-15; 25-34
"The gospel not only reveals the problem behind our problems, but it also reveals the solution to that problem."
1 Corinthians 15
"For Paul, the difference between the resurrection and no resurrection is not the difference between running the race with two legs or with one. It’s the difference between running around insanely, for no reason, having no start line and no finish line, no path forward or backward, no up, no down, no meaning at all. In other words without the resurrection, you’re better off quitting. To put it succinctly: If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, nothing matters; but if he did, it changes everything."
Acts 15:1-11
"You can't get away from the fact that beliefs are the bedrock for feelings and action. If doctrine is at the base level of everything we ought to be alert to it around us and within."
Acts 14:8-13
"The gospel is not just a message that you are a sinner and that God is holy....The gospel fundamentally is a message about who Jesus is and what He has done to save sinners because God loves us."
Acts 13:16-43
"The central promise throughout Scripture is that God will be our God, and we will be his people. The fulfillment of that promise would involve the forgiveness of sins (for sin separates people from God), and the freedom from the consequence of those sins (for every sin has dire consequences)."
Acts 12:1-24
"Am I finding my satisfaction in Christ now? Am I living for Jesus not then, but now? The word about Jesus the Messiah triumphed even through hardship."
Acts 11:26
"Being a Christian is a radically personal thing, and because it's radically personal, it's completely public....A Christian is someone who trusts and follows Jesus."
Acts 10
"If anyone is going to be converted, God must take the initiative! We loved Him because He first loved us."
Acts 9:26-31
"When no one else would believe that Paul had genuinely been converted, Barnabas believed. He gave Paul his personal support. He didn’t simply say, “Give this guy a chance.” No, he brought Paul personally to the apostles. By personally taking him, by giving Paul his personal support, he was binding his reputation to the character of ex-Christian killer."
Acts 9:1-31
"But the voice of Jesus of Nazareth was the last thing Saul of Tarsus expected! Saul believed that Jesus was an impostor who had (fortunately) been executed, but whose maverick, untutored followers insisted in their shrill and disruptive sermons that he was alive. But now—now he was hearing this voice speak, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me,' and in response to the question, 'Who are you, Lord?' the voice identifies himself as Jesus of Nazareth. Paul’s experience doesn’t fit the category of religious ecstasy, because seeing Jesus of Nazareth was the last person Paul expected to see. No, this was no religious ecstasy. It wasn’t a seizure or sunstroke. This was Paul encountering Jesus of Nazareth."
Acts 8:26-40
"The reason everybody—even the most religious, educated, etc. needs Christianity is not because it is a system of reform, but because it is a message about how God has come to put you right with him. Religion is about what humans must do; Christianity is about what God has done."
"A Christian’s hope is a hope that transcends this present world, but is not irrelevant to this present world. On a cosmic level, Christians look forward to a new creation—a renovated earth. But on a personal level, until then, we look forward to our spirit being with Jesus when we die. Notice that you don’t get the hope without the faith. Unless you know that Jesus stands as your advocate, you could never hope that he would receive your spirit."
"The gospel and good works are like fruit and the plant the fruit grows on. The plant produces it; the fruit proves it."
"You can recognize that the craving to be told, 'Well done. You’re accepted,' is, in fact, a desire God has put in your heart which he alone can satisfy. The only 'well done, you’re accepted' you will hear that will comfort and satisfy you will be the one God says."
"We turn up our noses at this idea of sacrifice only because we fail to see that we are always sacrificing to something—except the somethings we sacrifice ourselves to leave us as a pile of ashes. They are merciless."
"It's easy to fake faith; it's easy to fake hope. But where faith and hope merge into reality is whether you love other people."
"Despite that grand decree issued twenty centuries ago, now no one counts the years by the birth of Caesar Augustus, the most powerful human alive that night. Instead, every calendar from east to west, marks its years by the birth of a baby born into a lower class family in the zenith of Augustus’ reign. A baby whose family couldn’t even find a suitable place for him to be born and had to place him in a feeding trough."
"The injustice of their situation reminded them of the injustice done to Jesus. But the injustice done to Jesus was the outworking of God’s plan to bring about salvation through Jesus. But that simply reinforced their need to tell everyone who Jesus really was."
Acts 4:1-12
If the Christian message disturbs, it disturbs because when you go to investigate, you’ll always find a door open you thought for sure was shut.
"The fact that Jesus is the Savior changes everything. In fact, there is not a spiritual problem in this room that could not be solved by a fuller understanding of the apostles’ doctrine. People have said that churches can be judgmental. You come in, and people are inspecting you, you feel watched. There is sufficient dynamite in the gospel to blow apart any hint of judgmentalism, because anyone who believes the gospel must also believe that they didn’t deserve a bit of God’s favor."
"The essence of Christian success is when the gospel reaches more people, and when the gospel reaches people more."
"If you think the Christian message is just an uplifting story that keeps you going, you don’t understand it. And if you think the Christian proclamation is a rigorous program of moral or political or social reform, you don’t understand it. The Christian message is the declaration that Jesus is the Lord of all and the Savior of all who believe in him because he died, rose from the dead, and now has the authority to forgive you and pour out the Spirit. Because Jesus lived, died, and rose again, he is the Lord and Savior whom you must trust."
"The Holy Spirit takes everything Jesus did and makes it real for those who believe in him."
"When people suffer to tell others people about Jesus, that shows how worthy Jesus is."
"The observing world when Jesus was crucified thought Jesus' death was a defeat. The Spirit says that's not defeat, that's power."