Simple Grace Radio: Recent Episodes
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Simple Grace Radio exists to share Christ's glorious grace for a transformed life. We pray that God will powerfully work by connecting the realities of the Good News in Christ to the everyday patterns of our life. We are confident because the Bible says real transformation comes from hearing this Good News, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel [Good News]," Paul writes in Romans 1:16 "for it is the power of God unto salvation." The Gospel shows us how serious the consequences of our sin are: Jesus had to die a painful death on a cross to bear our sin. It's not enough, therefore, to live a basically good and moral life. Everybody needs forgiveness and salvation offered only in Jesus. Come to him to find life, peace and lasting joy.
If you are a Christian, one of the most painful issues you will face is the reality of loved ones who do not believe in Christ. You know how Paul feels when he says, in 9:1-2, “I speak the truth in Christ, I am not lying, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.”
“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.”
That’s how every child of God feels about loved ones who are not walking in faith. We want them to turn and believe and be saved. But sometimes, that doesn’t happen. Sometimes, loved ones refuse to turn and walk resolutely to their eternal death.
Why do people who’ve heard the gospel, reject the gospel? Have you ever wondered about that? I mean, it’s understandable why people who’ve never heard about Jesus don’t believe. How could they? We talked about that last week. But why is it that many people who do hear, who know the gospel story – refuse to embrace it? That’s a confounding thing. The gospel is the most incredible, glorious message in the whole world. It promises the most precious gift a person could ever receive. It is literally the difference between life and eternal death. And it is entirely free. Why would people reject such a glorious message?
I’d like to start by asking a simple question: Why bother with missions? I mean it’s hard, it’s expensive, it can be dangerous. It involves a lot of loss – particularly for the missionary and their family. And, if we are honest, the work seems to go on fairly well, whether we are engaged or not. I would guess that most of us don’t really think a lot about missions or missionaries. We’re busy with life and it’s just not something that weighs that heavily on us.
This episode, we come to some of the most beautiful words in the Bible.
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Isn’t that marvelous?? People don’t talk about getting saved much anymore. Have you noticed that? Getting saved is viewed as a fundamentalist idea. It’s for inner city missions, places like Mel Trotter where they still sing the old-time gospel hymns and call for old time gospel conversions. But sophisticated, middle- and upper-class Americans don’t get
saved. They get therapy and life-skills coaching. And good Dutch Reformed folk don’t talk about getting saved. We believe in salvation of course, but when is the last time someone asked you how you were saved? It's just not something you talk about in polite company.
The gospel is the simple message that God sent His Son into this world to provide a righteousness we could never gain. His perfectly obedient life was offered up on the cross to atone for our sin and robe us in His own righteousness. This is the righteousness that saves. And that’s why Jesus is the only way to be saved. People scoff at the exclusive claims of Christianity. Why wouldn’t God accept good, moral, Buddhists, or Hindu’s or even agnostics? And the answer is simply this – Buddha can’t atone for your sin. Buddha can’t robe you in perfect righteousness. Only Jesus can! Jesus is the only way to be saved because only Jesus came from heaven. Only Jesus took on human flesh in order to bear human sin. Only Jesus perfectly obeyed the law of God in our place. Only Jesus died on the cross to suffer our damnation and rose from the grave for our justification. And the only way to receive this righteousness is by faith in Jesus. This is what the Jews didn’t understand. This is what they refused to accept.
Intro: Do you have a favorite Psalm? I’m sure that many of you do. Maybe it’s Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”. Or Psalm 46, “God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Maybe you have a favorite verse from the Ps’s: Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. (Ps 55:22)
When I am afraid, I will trust in you. (Ps 56:3) The Psalms have been a tremendous source of comfort and encouragement for God’s saints throughout the ages. They are such an incredible comfort in times of grief or trial. Aren’t you glad to know that the Lord is your Shepherd?
In Romans 9, Paul is explaining a doctrine that inevitably makes natural man protest: loudly and vociferously. No natural man reads this and says, “Hey, I like this doctrine. This makes perfect sense to me.” The native, fallen instinct is to grumble and argue and talk back to God. Last week, in verses 14-18, Paul had dealt with one objection: if God elects Jacob and doesn’t elect Esau – before they were born and apart from them having done anything good or bad – well that’s not fair. The assumption is that God owes all men equally the opportunity to be saved. And Paul responds by saying, “No, He doesn’t.” God has the perfect, sovereign, freedom to give mercy to some and justice to others – and there is no injustice in it. God is free to act as God.“
Have you ever thought that God was unfair? Maybe you experienced some great
heartache, some great loss in your life – and it didn’t seem fair. I have to confess that I have been tempted to question God on this issue – most recently this past year as Randy was dying of cancer. It didn’t seem right that a man, in his prime, with his family still needing him, loved by so many – should be taken away just after his 53rd birthday. Some of you may be wrestling with this very thing this morning. Maybe God has given you a debilitating disease you never expected. Maybe you God hasn’t blessed you with something you dearly want – a spouse, a child, a job – things that most people enjoy, and yet God has kept this thing from you. And it doesn’t seem fair.
We get into some of the thorny issues, and yet some of the most precious issues as we deal with the sovereignty of God in election. And it's a truth that we really, really do well to get our arms around it. We need to learn how to be comfortable with a God who is beyond our understanding and be able to trust that he knows what he's about, even when we don't fully get it. And the doctrine of election profoundly helps us with that. And the reason that's important for us is because we will come to circumstances in our life where we don't understand the ways of God. And many people leave off believing in God in those times because they don't understand God and they charge God to be wrong. They've never learned how to simply be still and know that he is God, and that he knows what he's about. And the doctrine of election is a wonderful reminder and help to us in that.
This morning we’ve come to the end of this great chapter. As I’ve said before,
Paul’s grand purpose as he writes to the church in Rome is to expound the glorious truth of the gospel in such a clear and convincing way that his readers will be filled with all with all joy and peace in believing (Rom 15:13). This letter is intended to help God’s people be thoroughly convinced that God is for us, that God loves us in Christ with an eternal, saving love, and that nothing can separate us from that love.
When Paul thinks about the great need of the world, the theme of condemnation is
always prominent in his mind. The objective, existential problem with the world is that this world exists under the condemnation of the law and the wrath of God. But this is also the subjective, experiential problem with each of us, as individuals. We are born, as children of Adam, under the judicial sentence of death and condemnation. We live our lives with the nagging realization that we fall short of the glory of God. We are not whole, not sufficient, not worthy, not enough. Mankind has been burdened with condemnation ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. It makes us anxious in life and afraid of death.
But Paul sees the gospel as God’s great resolution of our condemnation. Chapter 8
begins with that great gospel declaration – “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And Paul comes right back to that theme here in verses 31ff and pounds it home with this magnificent challenge: “Who shall lay any charge against God’s elect. It is God who justifies – who is he that condemns?”
Another story of a sinner saved from eternal death by God’s infinite mercy and sovereign grace. That’s the story for all of us, isn’t it? God has accomplished
something incredibly glorious in Christ Jesus for sinners facing death. And Paul invites us to exalt in it as he concludes this portion of his letter. Romans 8:31-39 is one of the most God-exalting, soul-satisfying paragraphs in all of Scripture. The triumph of the gospel is manifested in five doubt-destroying and death-defying questions.
Our text this morning is filled with big, theological words but its message is fairly simple – the primary agent in our Christian life is God, not us. God is the painter; we are the canvas. Or, as Paul will say in chapter 9, God is the potter - we are the clay. Consequently, the foundational story of our Christian life isn’t about what we believe or what we accomplish – but what God has purposed and accomplished for us. We need to learn to see ourselves from this Divine perspective. To see ourselves primarily as a gracious work of God’s hand.
This morning we have come to some of the most precious words in the Bible. The
truth revealed here meant to be an unshakeable rock upon which all Christian peace and assurance rests. As we live in this fallen, broken world, with all the pain and tears and groaning that entails - Gods’ children have foundational reasons for a peace that passes understanding. We have a reason to face the trails of life with a hopeful assurance.
This morning we are going to see one key reason why some people who die "make it home" and why we can have great assurance that we shall make it as well. And it all has to do with the Holy Spirit as our Helper. Paul has been talking about the Holy Spirit a great deal in this chapter already. He mentions the Spirit 20 times in the first 27 verses! That’s because this a chapter on assurance – and the Holy Spirit is a key part of that story. If you remember, chapter 8 begins with that majestic declaration, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” How can Paul be so sure?? Paul’s answer to that question is saturated with talk about the Holy Spirit.
Our text this morning is the perfect companion to the sermon on bitterness. It
acknowledges the reality and the pain of the brokenness around us. In that sense, it
validates our pain. But it places that pain in the panorama of the grand story of
redemption and in that great story of God making all things new – we find our pain giving way to hope and our bitterness transformed into anticipation. The genius of the gospel story is that God, in Christ, gives us a brand-new way of looking at the world around us, and a brand-new perspective of our own life. It gives us a birds-eye view of our life in this world so that we aren’t lost or disoriented by the pain of our immediate context.
Our text this morning promises the most astonishing, over-whelming things to those who belong to Christ. We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Jesus. By grace through faith, by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and by the immutable promise of the gospel - the fields of heaven are our true home. The gleaming ramparts and towers of the celestial city are just over the horizon – and the purpose of our life here will be realized when we are welcomed there.
The doctrine of adoption is, to our great detriment, an often a neglected doctrine. If I
asked you, “What is the first thought that comes to mind when I say the word, ‘Christian', how many of you would say, ‘Child of God’?" Last week we noted that the definition of a Christian is a person who has been filled with the Spirit of Christ. This morning we see that that Spirit is a Spirit of adoption. To be a Christian is to be a beloved child of the Heavenly Father. And it’s critical that we understand this.
Paul is seeking to get us to define a Christian as something God has done and is doing. He wants our self-identity as a Christian to be rooted in the objective facts of God’s grace and love in Jesus.
The crucial question for every believer is this: “What has God done for me? The Christian faith is, at its very essence, is a faith centered around what God has done, rather than what we must do. This principle makes the Christian faith the polar opposite of all the religions of men.
Romans 8 is, without doubt, one of the best loved passages in all of Scripture. It reads like a Charter of Independence for a believer. It begins with “no condemnation” and ends with “no separation” – and all because of Christ.
If you asked people for their favorite chapter in the book of Romans, very few would
point to Romans 7. It reminds of us struggles and failures we would like to forget. It reminds us of things we are ashamed of, weaknesses we wish weren’t true of ourselves. It is precisely the sad and dark reality of Romans 7 that explains the glory and
light of Romans 8.
Nothing causes more more grief or more tears in the life of a Christian than their own ongoing battle with sin. The reason for this is due to the fact that we live in this temporary tension in which the Holy Spirit of God has regenerated our heart so that we desire obedience, and yet our flesh is still active and still fallen – and it desires sin.
When we hear the word “Christian” we tend to define the term according to the things that we do: going to church, reading the Bible, praying, trying to live a Christian life. But that’s not how Paul comes at it. Rather than talking about our believing and our doing – he points us to the massive, majestic, towering gospel truths of what God has done and is doing for us in Jesus.
As Christians striving to live the Christian life, we usually start with “how”. How do I break this habit? How do I have a better marriage? How do I get my kids to behave? How do I live a God-honoring life. Those aren’t bad questions. It’s just not the place to start. Notice, as Paul begins his discussion of sanctification, here in chapter 6, he doesn’t begin with how. He starts with “why”. Why not sin that grace may abound?
We are going to be discussing one of the most important and painful aspects of the Christian life- the battle with sin. This battle is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Christian life. Perhaps the most common false assumption is that real Christians don’t struggle much with sin. A second, and equally common mistake, is the idea that sanctification is primarily up to us. Another common error is the idea that we really can’t grow that much in sanctification.
Listen to hear how God can use different gifts in the church to reach our community in West Michigan.
Congratulations to Sandra for 2 decades of helping with VBS ministry!
Paul begins to talk about sanctification and he doesn’t begin by talking about processes or outcomes. He begins by talking about identity. He spends the first 10 verses pounding home the basic truths concerning our glorious new identity in Jesus Christ. He’s pointing out who we are – what is true about us by faith in Jesus and union with Christ-- we are dead to sin and alive to God.
One of the most precious truths of the gospel is that, if you have come to Christ in faith, there is an “old you” and a “new you” all centered around a death event. You died, in the death of Christ, not figuratively, not metaphorically, but really and truly. Your true-death experience is more profound and objectively life-changing than any near-death
experience.
Do you ever get tired of yourself? Do you get weary of your weaknesses and flaws? Wouldn't it be great if you could be transformed into a better version of you - someone who exudes grace and love and patience and wisdom? God is in the business of transforming lives. God sent his Son so that flawed, sinful men and women like you and me could be radically transformed into the image and likeness of Christ.
We see in our passage that, in spite of the hardship and heartaches that we face, the experience of the Christian life is also, and ultimately, an experience of abounding grace. The abounding grace of God to us in Jesus is meant to be the reality that overwhelms each day.
Paul has carefully explained how God, in His abounding grace, has made a way for sinners to be justified, fully and freely and forever, through the sacrifice of Christ. No matter how great our sin, by faith alone, we can receive the free gift of a righteousness.
We are always living our life according to narratives and beliefs and experiences that are hidden in our heart. And out of that heart, and the hidden motives, we feel and speak and act. The Christian life is meant to be lived under the transforming influence of a new narrative – the narrative of Gods’ eternal love and justifying grace in Jesus Christ.
We talk about why we need to leave home for missions? Alisa also explains the beautiful benefit of sacrificing our lives and comforts for the sake of the Gospel.
There is a magnificent corporate reality to our salvation: we don’t just get Jesus; we get everything and everyone that belongs to Him. And, just like marriage, it involves a radical change of social and legal status in which we cease to exist “in Adam” with all the deadly consequences of that relationship - and now exist “in Christ”.
Part 2 of a conversation with Alisa. We talked about calling to the foreign missions field and God's passion for the lost.
When Jesus stepped out of that tomb on Easter morning, the first bright rays of the Age to Come had dawned on earth. The world that had been in universal bondage to death was now a world where death was a defeated foe. The resurrected life of Jesus Christ is now the power and pattern of life for all those who are united to Him by faith.
As Paul points out in the text, God has invaded the horrid reality of this fallen work with the glorious reality of salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. And this gospel reality makes all the difference as we make our pilgrimage through this fallen world.
Adrian begins a conversation with Alisa about her upbringing and interest in foreign missions.
The key to grasping a deeper joy, a fuller assurance, and a greater confidence and peace as a Christian, is the realization of salvation by grace. Grace is what makes the gospel good news. Grace is what makes salvation an experience of being loved. When we grasp the incredible free grace of God poured out on us in Jesus, joy and peace will follow.
The doctrine of justification hasn’t ended the Devil’s war against the peace and freedom of the believer. The Devil can’t stop you from being justified – but he can work mightily to keep you from enjoying it! He will strive to get you to believe that faith in Christ is not sufficient for your justification – you need to perform.
As we will see in our text, God isn’t interested in a “cleaned up version” of our sinful self. He insists that we come before him as we really are. He doesn’t want us to try and make ourselves worthy of grace. Because, as Paul will point out – then salvation is no longer of grace. God wants us to come as we are.
Those who believe that there is something they can do to merit the grace and favor of God are alienated from Him. Boasting and salvation are like oil and water – they don’t mix. Those who wish to boast before God cannot be saved.
The Christmas story thoroughly upends our sentimentalized versions of the event. Our Hallmark version of the nativity scene involves a sweet young couple in a cozy little shed with happily observant livestock standing by. The real thing was a lot messier, harder, and vastly more disruptive than we tend to imagine.
The miracle of God Himself becoming man in the womb of the virgin Mary is the miracle that makes the Christian faith true.
Do you believe in the story of Christmas? Do you really believe it – in a way that transforms the way that you think and feel and live? Luke’s main goal for us is that we would see the sovereign power of God at work for our salvation and that we would believe it!
There is a gloriously rich and transforming experience of love and grace that is ours through believing: through our grasping, by faith, the facts of our glorious salvation. We are going to look at the word which is at the very center of the gospel – “justification”.
Why does Paul use such big, weighty words in these few verses? Because the gospel is vast and deep and heavy with glory. We are going to focus on the gospel word: propitiation.
In these verses we have the truth which empowers and underlies all true Christian faith and practice. This is the gospel in its most basic, essential form. This is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.
Many assume that their church membership and moral standing will shield them
on the day of judgement. We tend to see ourselves as “good people”, at least in comparison to the wicked people out there. The one point Paul is seeking to pound home is that there is no native difference among men. All, from the most godly Jew to the most reprobate Gentile, are “under sin”.
If you ask the question: “What’s wrong with the world?”, the human mind will
immediately look outward in search of answers. But Paul answers the question in a profoundly different way: the problem with the world is the universal bondage to sin – and it starts right here in every human heart.
Paul’s goal, in this portion of the letter, is to help people understand that we really are
worse than we imagined; to understand that our sin problem goes far beyond a struggle
here and that the law leaves us helpless and hopeless under the judgment of God. He
wants people to understand this precisely so that they will cast aside all self-salvation
projects and trust for salvation in Christ and Christ alone.
It is the issue of false assurance that Paul addresses in our text. He’s speaking to Jews
who fully believed in the coming day of judgement and yet felt no need to come to Jesus
Christ for salvation. This is exactly the world we live in. God has said that there is a coming moment of crisis, when this world will crash to a halt, and every person that ever lived will stand before the judgement throne of God.
The primary purpose of this letter to the Romans is to display the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the power of God unto salvation. Paul wants people to personally experience its glorious saving power. The only way to experience the gospel truth in life is to accept the designation as sinner.
Our text deals with one of the most perplexing questions of our time: How did our culture become so perverse? Paul is out to prove that the gospel is the one and only hope for this world – and that salvation must, by necessity, be a free gift of grace received by faith.
Every one of us has done wicked things that have confounded us. What were we thinking? Why do we do things we know are wrong? Why do we do things that we know will offend our Lord and deeply wound those who love? The great evil of mankind is that we did not see fit to acknowledge God as God.
Paul’s letter deals very specifically with the reality of man’s sin. Paul’s purpose in this is not to discourage. He isn’t angrily rebuking his readers. He is patiently, carefully, like a skilled doctor of the soul, explaining what is wrong with you. It is essential that you have a correct understanding of the reality of our soul disease.
God reveals himself to be both a God of wrath and a God of love – and in fact the category of wrath exists precisely because of God’s love. The gospel is the stunning news of God’s infinite love in which He rescued us from His own holy and just wrath through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross bearing our sin.
Paul’s letter to the Romans is an exhilarating presentation of the magnificent doctrines
of the Christian faith. Paul teaches us about the biblical doctrine of sin – its perversion,
power and penalty. But Paul also teaches us about justification, sanctification, and regeneration - and these biblical doctrines are the most incredibly relevant and the most exhilarating message that a dying sinner could ever hope to hear.
Paul delights not only in that fact that God saves sinners through the gospel – but in HOW God saves through the gospel. The gospel is specifically the proclamation of God saving lost sinners by not by their works, not by asking them to do their best, but by granting to sinners the gift of righteousness freely received by faith
The first seven beatitudes are personal qualities and they define a person's character. This final beatitude - blessed are the persecuted - is something that happens to you. It is included because those who are truly marked by the first seven will be marked by the eighth.
In some unique way, peacemaking is the mark of God' children. Peacemaking is the family trait and peacemakers share their Father's heart. You will not be able to embrace the call to peacemaking and persecution without the power of Christ in you.
The rabbis of Jesus' time blessed the acts of people, but Jesus blessed people at the center of where they live. These qualities of the beatitudes are things that flow from our hearts. A pure heart is undefiled and unstained.
We come to the 5th beatitude, the first of the second table of the Beatitudes. The second table of beautitudes are focused on our relationship with other men. Mercy is a heart of compassion that leads to practical, and often sacrificial, acts of kindness in
response to the needs, flaws, and failures of other sinful people.
Hunger is a blessing if you think of it. Like a nerve awakens us to injury, hunger awakens us to our need for nourishment and drives us to seek out God-intended satisfaction. Jesus wishes to wake in us a hunger for life!
Tonight, we come to one of the most overlooked and misunderstood of the beatitudes. We don’t tend to pray for meekness. We aren’t familiar with the concept and don’t really have a sense of its significance. What exactly does it mean to be meek? Why does God delight in it so? What is the blessedness that it brings?
We live in a nation committed to the pursuit and pretense of happiness. “Blessed are those who mourn”, is such a counter-cultural thing Jesus says. Blessed are the desolate, the grieving, the sad. It is thoroughly contrary to our cultural convictions.
We live in a world where every single person is seeking the blessed life according to the path which they believe will lead them there. We live in a culture persuaded that the American Dream is the path to the blessed life. It’s not a bad life. It’s just a wasted one – at least if that’s actually what you are living for.
We will see what this book is truly about, and the essential message for the church. In our text, we see the devastating discrepancy between Jonah’s heart and the heart of God. God cared about Nineveh – Jonah cared about himself. Here we see the fatal sin of Israel, the besetting sin of the modern church, and the marvel of Gods’ grace.
In in our text, we see that there is a profoundly sober significance to Easter. Whatever might be said about it, it isn’t harmless. Easter contains a threat to mankind. It foretells a great peril, an existential crisis for every man, woman, and child. Every person is in need of God’s grace. Praise God – he is a Missionary of Grace!
We come to a wonderful story, a repentance story. It's an Old Testament version of
"The Prodigal Son" told by Jesus. Jonah, the prodigal son, finding himself in the pit of death, is brought to his spiritual senses and restored to his spiritual status and calling.
The sailors on the boat with Jonah, the pagans, seem much more sensitive to the reality of God than the prophet. And that is why this a tragic story. God rescues the pagan sailors – but the prophet gets judgement. But the great wonder of this story is that God has provided a way for great sinners to be rescued by the sacrifice of one man.
The book of Jonah is the story of a man who believed in grace but did not understand or embrace grace. The evidence is simple – he did not share God's heart for a lost and wicked world. In this short book, God shows that his saving grace is not for Israel’s comfort but for his own glory.
In our text we see that, what breathing is for the physical body, prayer is for the spiritual body. As Paul concludes his wonderful letter – he ends with a call to prayer. Prayer is foundational for a healthy Christian life. Prayer is what makes everything else he talked about in this letter work.
One of the greatest temptations for a child of God is the temptation to ignore the reality of a spiritual battle. We are constantly being tempted to make peace with the world. Scores of professing Christians and churches are abandoning the sexual ethic of the Scriptures for the ethic of our age.
Have you ever wondered why life has to be so hard? Why is there so much conflict? Paul reminds us of two critical truths we often forget. First, we are in the midst of a battle with spiritual forces of evil – and will be until the day we die. Conflict will be a defining, unavoidable reality in the life of every believer. Second, we will only be strong as we stand in the strength of the Lord.
The text deals with the age-old problem of the relationship between workers and employees. The problem is that both masters and servants are in slavery to their own sinful desires and no social program or political system has the power to free us from our sin. But what man cannot do, God can and does, through the gospel and the regenerating, sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.
The counsel we have from God’s Word about family structure is profoundly counter-cultural. Our families should be one of the primary ways the world sees the power of the gospel at work in our lives. To that end, children and parents each have a calling.
Marriage, according to Paul, is a death-sentence. It is a willing embrace of death to self in order to love your wife or submit to your husband. A wife will evidence the power and presence of the Holy Spirit within her though a freely chosen submission to her husband. A husband will evidence the power and presence of the Holy Spirit through a Christ-like love for his wife.
We have come to one of the most unpopular passages in the Bible. In the eyes of the world, the idea of wives being required to submit to their husbands is utterly ridiculous. In an age where marriage is under assault in every way – we, the people of God, need to be absolutely clear about what the Bible teaches, about what Christ commands.
The Holy Spirit was absolutely necessary to live a truly Christian life. A truly Christian life will show evidences of the Spirit’s presence. That is clearly Paul’s point in this part of his letter.
It’s amazing how a text written over 2,000 years ago can so accurately describe the culture in which we live today. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians helps us to realize that there is nothing new under the sun. The church in Ephesus lived in a culture very much like ours - blatantly pagan and aggressively perverse.
Love for one another and towards one another is the primary and necessary evidence of a genuine profession of faith. This is precisely what ought to define the culture of the church of Christ.
In this letter we see that Christians were made for the church. It is their natural home. The authenticity of a profession of faith is revealed in the Christian community. That’s Paul’s point in this part of his letter.
Gospel transformation is usually a long, slow, process. Conversion doesn’t immediately remove old habits. The process of transformation is just that – a process. The primary point of Paul’s words in 4:17-24 is that Christians are called to intentionally live according to who we are in Christ. We are called to live lives in keeping with the truth of the gospel.
The Christian life, according to Paul, is inherently church life – it a life lived within the context of fellow believers. It is inherently communal and covenantal. But what if we were doing church all wrong? The question we have before us is: How does Jesus go about building His church?
True doctrine does not exist for its own sake or its own ends. It is the foundation upon which Jesus builds his Church. The true gospel is the power of God that creates a true people of God. And the words Paul uses to describe a church founded on true doctrine, the true gospel, would be “loving and unified”.
The essential experience of the Christian life is the experience of “Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith”. The Christian life really is, at its core, about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
There is a glorious, confounding, mystery to the grace of God. It consistently overturns and opposes human expectations. The confounding nature of grace is made manifest perfectly in the life of the Apostle Paul. This man had been a volcano of self-righteous hatred and violence against believers. But the confounding nature of grace is precisely its glory. And that is what Paul cherishes as he writes Ephesians 3:1-13.
Here, in Ephesians 2 there is a counter-cultural proclamation that there is only one thing in all the world that can truly accomplish reconciliation – the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is not merely creating individual saints; he is creating a whole new humanity.
We carry with us a fortune of infinite value, a treasure of lavish grace and eternal glory – and aren’t really aware of it. It often fails to function in our lives. We so easily live as though we were spiritual orphans instead of eternally chosen, blood-bought, dearly beloved children of God. We are going to further unpack this precious gift as Paul explains the purpose, the principle and the product of grace
To become a Christian is nothing less than being raised from the dead. To be a Christian is to have undergone the most radical, miraculous, and eternity-altering change possible. And it is all due to the mercy of God. Now, why would these believers in Ephesus need to hear this? Well, because when life gets hard, these things are easily forgotten.
The Christian life has a social reality to it – we are united to Christ, brought into the family of God where we share one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Paul prays that the believers in Ephesus might experientially know the hope to which they’ve been called, the riches of God’s glorious inheritance and the greatness of God’s power. That is the intended experience of the Christian life.
Peter talks about a normal Christian faith in and love for Jesus that results in inexpressible joy filled with glory. Is that how you would describe your Christian life? Is that what people see when they look at you? Do the people who live with you see joy and love and peace as the dominant traits of your life? Shouldn’t they?
Ephesians is a letter written to help believers see themselves in truth – as they really are, by God’s electing love and saving power. Paul planted this church and pastors them for 3 years. He is writing to them from a prison in Rome. And as he writes to this dearly beloved congregation, he wants them to grasp the sheer blessedness of being a Christian.
The glorious news of Christmas is that God miraculously intervenes. In the birth of Mary’s baby boy God invaded this world of death with the seed of Life. He began a work which would culminate in the death of deaths and lead one day to the overthrowing of every grave. Our text is the wonderful story of an old man who got to see that miracle.
The miracle of God Himself becoming man in the womb of the virgin Mary is the miracle that makes the Christian faith true. The hope is that, as we revisit this wonderful story, we will be encouraged, emboldened and empowered in our faith. That we will be more deeply convinced and more thoroughly assured in all that God has accomplished for us and promised to us in Jesus Christ, Mary’s son.
One of the things about the Christmas story is how it thoroughly upends our sentimentalized versions of the event. The real thing was a lot messier, harder and vastly more disruptive than we tend to imagine. We find Mary, both incredibly blessed and with her carefully planned life in shambles.
Do you believe in the story of Christmas? Do you really believe it – in a way that transforms the way that you think and feel and live? Does the fact that God physically invaded the world of fallen man in the person of baby Jesus – does that fact have any real impact on you? Does it change the way you see yourself and this world and God Himself? Because it’s meant to.
While the suffering of Job is extreme, the pattern of his life is the normal pattern of all those who belong to Christ – suffering now, glory later. Suffering is part of the plan. Suffering is the normal pattern for Gods’ people, not in spite of their faith in God, but precisely because of it. Job did not suffer, even though he was a believer, he suffered precisely because he was a believer.
One of the most commonly raised objections to the Christian faith is the “problem of evil”. The challenge goes like this: If God is really all-good and all-powerful, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? It’s a fair question. The book of Job was written, in part, to destroy our assumptions of what God should be allowed to do. And in the process, it reveals to us a God much greater and more glorious and worthy of worship than the small god of our self-centered assumptions.
Job’s life has been decimated by God, and it has shaken his faith. Job would like God to acknowledge that fact. Well, in chapter 38, Job gets his wish. The Lord comes to answer him.
If God is willing to bring devastation into our lives irrespective of our moral behavior -
What’s the point in being good? So, the great challenge was this: will Job still obey when it doesn’t pay? Will he still worship when there are no material benefits to being good?
Job’s devastation is still a mystery – both for Job and his three friends. How are we to make sense of his suffering – and our own? What do you do when it seems like your Heavenly Father has failed to protect you from a tragedy and then remains silent as you grieve? How do we make sense of the Lord’s seeming absence and silence in our time of greatest need?
This chapter is very helpful because it reveals to us, in wonderful detail what a righteous life looks like. We’ve been told in chapters 1 and 2, that Job was a blameless man, a man who feared God and shunned evil. But what does that actually mean? What does it look like in real life? If Proverbs 31 is a picture of a virtuous woman, Job 31 is a picture of a righteous man.
Job was living his normal life, surrounded by his loving family and enjoying God’s good gifts, and then it seemed as if the dam broke and all the wrath of God and powers of hell were unleashed, and his life was swept away. All that was left was the ash-heap on which he sat, scraping his sores, and asking “why?”
As we have been studying the book of Job, we have been watching the miracle of a
growing faith. Job’s trials have not destroyed his faith in God. The vast majority of his speeches are addressed to God. He hasn’t lost his faith – his faith is the foundation for his laments.
One of the most crucial things for a Christian to know is that the God who rules in heaven, cares for us. This is the stunning discovery Job makes in chapter 16. Job comes to a wonderful conviction that he has a Friend in Heaven, an Intercessor who would take up his cause and restore him to God.
We have one of the great questions in the Bible that we are going to ask today: “If a man dies, can he live again?” This is not a hypothetical question for Job. He asks it from the ash heap of his life, and in the shadow of his own demise. He believes he is about to die. In chapter 14 Job is reflecting on the matters of life, death and eternity from the perspective of a death bed.
Is God completely sovereign over suffering? Is He sovereign over all the pain in this world? We get to hear Job's thoughts on this particular topic as he responds to his "friends" who come to comfort him in his suffering.
In chapter 19, it is clear that Job believes that he is about to die. Job records the most painful experiences of his suffering. He highlights the loss, the loneliness and a profound sense of condemnation. And against the black night of Job’s loss and loneliness and despair – he discovers a brilliant jewel of gospel hope.
One of the things about the suffering of Job is how God uses it to expose the false assumptions and mistaken faith of Job’s three friends. They come to Job to comfort him but spend most of their time accusing him of sin. Consequently, not only do they fail to comfort him, they offend God! Little did they realize; as they were analyzing and indicting Job’s faith, God was analyzing and indicting theirs.
How do you comfort a man like Job, sitting in the abyss of all that he has lost? What do you
say to this apparently God-forsaken man, rotting way on an ash heap – though he did
nothing wrong. How do you comfort him? That is the question facing Job’s three
friends. They’ve come to comfort Job.
Job 3 is one of the darkest chapters in all of Scripture. There is no light here. Only darkness, only heartbreak and weeping, only the deep bitterness of soul caused by unimaginable loss. God is writing the story of Job’s life, as He is writing ours, and God determined to continue the suffering.
Most of us can take a shock to the system from time to time: a car accident that puts us
in the hospital, an unexpected diagnosis that alters our life, a relationship that falls apart,
a child that is wandering. These are all hard things individually – but God gives us the
strength and we move forward – wounded but standing. But when trials mount up, that’s when our resources break down and we can begin to question the character of God. What is God really like? How does He run this world?
The book of Job teaches one of the most profound and most difficult doctrines in all of Scripture. It teaches us that the glory of God is more important than our comfort. Are we willing to trust the God who loved us and gave his life for us? Are we willing to be a part of showing to the world the greatness and glory of God – particularly as the Lord calls us to suffer? Is God worth our worship – even in the pain?
Job is a book that addresses, in a unique and profound way, the reality of suffering. It’s an extremely relevant book. Life is filled with loss and sorrows. Some of you are in the midst of great sorrows right now. Job forces us to face the fact that we live in a world where great, devastating tragedies do happen – and those tragedies often seem pointless and random.
We are going to look at the last two verses of the letter which capture the two prominent themes of the letter as a whole: 1) The authority of Jesus and 2) salvation by grace alone. These are essential principles of the Christian religion. Whenever the church strays from these the consequences are devastating. But wherever you see a church thriving in spiritual health and bearing fruit to the glory of God – you will see a church intentionally adhering to these rules of the faith.
Some false teachers were causing a great deal of confusion in the church. They were blending the rules of Judaism with the religion of Christianity. Paul has written this letter to clearly outline the essential truths of the Christian faith – the truths that define the Christian faith. And he closes the letter with short reminder of those things the make a Christian a true Christian.
There are a lot of people who think that you can actually sow one thing and get another thing. They think that it’s possible to sow to the flesh – and reap something other than corruption. The gospel is actually the incredibly good news that, at the most fundamental level, in Christ, we don’t reap what we sow – we reap what He’s sown! The message of the gospel is that God does not treat us as our sins deserve or reward us according to our iniquity! In Christ, He deals with us according to His steadfast love and mercy.
What does it look like to live a “Spirit-filled” life? For the Apostle Paul, the primary evidence of a Spirit-filled life isn’t private but public. It isn’t about how well you do devotions but how well you love people, in actions and in truth.
One of the most enjoyable experiences of the Christian life is the experience of growing in faith and love by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul has just reminded us that the freedom we have in Christ is the liberty to love and serve others. It’s a glorious thing to be freed from your bondage to self, your bondage to pride and envy and lust and greed. It is important to know that to be a Christian is to experience an intense, inner battle between the Spirit of God and the sinful flesh. If you are a true child of God – you will truly be sanctified. It will be gradual but it will be real.
There is something deep within man that yearns for freedom. The problem is we don’t understand the nature of true freedom. The first lie ever told in this world was a lie concerning freedom. The Devil deceived Eve into believing that her fullest liberty would be found in disobedience. And all humanity have believed the same lie: that freedom is found in going your own way. In our text, Paul continues to define our freedom in Christ.
Paul has been waging war against the false teachers who brought false gospel into the church. Paul reminds us of the threat of false teachers. They always trouble the saints and undermine the gospel witness of the church. This is a relevant text for the church today. If a man is charismatic, if his message seems culturally “relevant”, and sounds Biblical, most people will be happy to receive it. Christ crucified is the essence of the gospel. This is the power of God unto salvation. This is our hope. This is our life. This is our peace.
Fake religion can kill you. Eternally. And that’s what Paul is dealing with in Galatians. They were believing a false gospel preached by false teachers. Paul has been showing that any attempt to add law to the gospel destroys the gospel. He then moves to teach that faith working through love is the definitive mark of a real Christian.
Christ has set us free. Past tense. Accomplished action. He isn’t in the process of setting us free. He fully accomplished our liberty when he gave His life on that Roman cross. This is the freedom we have received in Christ. “If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed."
Have you ever felt a deep anxiety and longing to see Christ formed in someone you love? Maybe one of your children, or a family member. This is how Paul felt writing to the church in Galatia. He expresses his deep concern for them. To help them grasp the astounding folly of their actions, Paul reminds them of their former life, and of their newfound life in Christ.
We live in a world full of people who are profoundly lost – not only in a spiritual sense, but
in a psychic sense. They don’t know who they are. They have no sense of why they are
here. This is, in part, what makes the gospel such glorious good news! It gives us an identity. It
gives us a Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. He provides for us and protects us and
explains exactly who we are and why we are here.
There are many people in our world today, and even in the church who assume that they are part of God's family, that God is their Father, and they are his children – but they’re not. They might go to church. They may believe in God; believe the Bible stories. And on the last day Jesus will say to them, “Who are you? Depart from me, I never knew you.”
If you are a son – then you are blessed above angels. The Living God has made you an heir of everlasting glory in His presence.
Do you know what the experience of finding out that you’ve been adopted looks like? It looks like initial disbelief when you don’t dare believe it could be true. And then overwhelming joy - usually expressed in tears. The central idea of our text is that God sent Jesus into this world to accomplish our adoption. To bring us into the family of God. Let yourself believe it. In the fullness of time, the Father sent Jesus, His only begotten Son, to make all those who believe in Him, His adopted sons. In Jesus we have found our forever family and gained an eternal home.
Jesus is on his way to the cross. A crowd is following him. Women are weeping. Jesus turns and speaks his final words to the people of Israel. Jesus wants these weeping women to understand that the tragedy of this moment, is not Jesus on his way to the cross, but Israel on its way to unrelenting divine judgement. They were a people that sinned and would face the unflinching, unrelenting, terrifying justice of God. The truth is that we have all sinned - and we are all responsible. How will we escape the penalty of our sin? The answer is in the cross. The incredible love of Christ, warns the Israelites, that there is still time to repent, and turns and makes his way into the fury of divine judgment that is the cross, to bear the wrath of God for all those who will believe in him.
The gospel story is not about you being worthy, it is about God and his glory. It tells us that God saved you when you were thoroughly unworthy. There is far more joy in being loved than feeling yourself to be worthy. The cross does not exist to attest to how valuable you are, but how loved you are. The gospel is about the glory of God, the most magnificent thing in all the universe. The gospel is about how God has glorified his name by inviting you into that glory. Take hold of this truth, repent and believe, and give God all the glory.
The promise of God is given – not earned. It’s a free gift of eternal life to those who
believe. That promise is meant to define your life. This promise is intended to be your joy and your peace. No matter what circumstances you are facing in your life today – if you have cast yourself upon the mercy of God in Jesus and believed in His Name – then the promise is for you.
Imagine knowing for certain and forever that your sin had all been pardoned and that God, in all his glory and might – the God whom you so deeply and profoundly have offended with your sin – that very God, so loved you, that he gave his only begotten Son to die for you – so that you might receive the blessing of Abraham. That assurance is yours for the having by faith. Will you believe Gods’ promise of righteousness for you the sinner placarded before you in the death of his Son?
Paul is distressed with the Galatians as they are abandoning the true essence of the gospel. He is in anguish because their salvation is compromised. He preaches that Christ was crucified, using the past tense “crucified” to show that Christ's death didn't simply happen in the past – but it is something that happened with dynamic relevance and power for the present. The single requirement for this glorious salvation is faith. The single key to experiencing the power of the cross for your own soul is to believe it.
The cross of Christ stands as the greatest display love in all the world in all the ages of time and eternity. “Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends.” Every person who trusts in Jesus can have these certain assurances. This is what Jesus has done for you. He gave himself for you. He gave himself to rescue you from the penalty of the law. He gave himself to purchase you for himself. He gave himself so that He could dwell within you. He gave himself so that you could eternally dwell with Him. He loved you and gave himself for you.
God has found a way to save sinners by sending us a substitute - someone who would be able to stand in our place as man. Someone who would be able to obey the law perfectly in our place, suffer the penalty of the law for us, and achieve , for us, the verdict of "righteous before God", all while we still struggle with sin.
The core truth of the gospel, the exact thing that makes the gospel good news is the
declaration that sinners who deserve only judgment can be justified - declared legally
righteous and innocent before the court of God in heaven – NOT by works of the law, but
simply by faith in Christ Jesus. That’s the good news of the gospel.
Paul was commissioned directly by the Lord Jesus to preach the pure Gospel of grace. There is a connection between trusting the Bible's authority, and resting in the grace of the Gospel. Listen as Pastor Dale unpacks the freedom we find in listening to Christ, as we read the text of Galatians.
True freedom comes believing a Gospel that saves us all by grace! Paul is astonished that the Galatians have drifted from relying on this Gospel and his holy anger burns because he wants them to come back. We need to hear this simple and straightforward reminder not to abandon the Father who called us in grace.
When we put our faith in Christ, grace and peace are the defining reality of our lives, no matter what today holds. Paul introduces this transformative book that holds out the powerful truth that our standing with God doesn't depend on what we've done, but only on what Christ has accomplished for us.