“This is really a wonderful subject to think about because it is rooted in the fact that God is very prolife. He has life in himself and he has given life to us and he has made us in his image so that we have the capacity to experience life at a very deep level. We are spiritual beings and we are psychological beings and we are physical beings and the life that we are given to live is experienced at all of these levels.”
Sermon Series: The Ten Commandments
“So, if we take everything together, we find that 10 percent is a number to give us an idea of what is appropriate and how well off we are financially will influence whether we give more than that or less than that. But the pressure that comes to us from the Bible is towards stretching ourselves and making sacrifices. Certain people are held out before us as examples to inspire us. And if we consider our giving in the light of the general teaching of the Bible on the Christian life, this is an area where we should consider as an area for growth just as we must always be striving to grow in living not for ourselves but for Christ.”
Read: Exodus 20:13
Matthew 5:21-26
“Clearly Jesus is passionate about relationships between people. Clearly relationships are a priority for God. The Sixth Commandment speaks directly about murder, but it addresses us long before it comes to murder. The Six Commandment is about living at peace with all men. What Paul wrote in Romans 12:8 summarizes what Jesus is teaching in these verses, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.””
Sermon Series: The Ten Commandments
Read: Matthew 25:14-30
“The life of stewardship is not a life of asceticism where the focus is mostly on self-denial and sacrifice. But neither is it a life which is all about ourselves and our pleasures without any self-denial and sacrifice. We are saved to love. Love is other-centered. Love involves doing things for other people. Love involves putting others before ourselves. And it involves being engaged in building the body of Christ – supporting the work of the kingdom, contributing to the great commission.”
Read: Exodus 20:13
Numbers 35:9-34
“The Bible is the story of how God is overcoming death. The great plan of salvation that the Bible describes is about God’s victory over death. That victory was not painless for God. It required him to absorb the penalty for sin himself in Jesus Christ. While it is not true to say that God died when Jesus died, the close relationship between Jesus’ divine and human natures means that there is a sense in which death came close to the very heart of God when Jesus died.”
Sermon Series: The Ten Commandments
“These are just a few aspects of the biblical teaching about the meaning of life. It begins with being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Apart from salvation, we only live for ourselves rather than living for God and the Bible teaches that that is the way of death. But it also teaches that those who believe in Jesus and follow him find their purpose in pleasing God and enjoying fellowship with him. And it insists that living this way is the most satisfying and joyful and fulfilling way to live. And it insists that living to please God has an eternal significance. It matters now, but it will also matter forever.”
Sermon Series: Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs
“ Human life is almost infinitely valuable. The glory of God is the most important value of existence. The human beings as the image of God are glorious beings because they reflect the glory of God. Sin is such a horrible thing that it requires the destruction of the most glorious thing. And the love of God is so great that he was willing to sacrifice his dearly beloved Son for the rebels. And so this God is even more glorious and more worthy of our love and worship than we could have ever known apart from his saving love for sinners.”
Sermon Series: The Ten Commandments
“Evolution cannot rationally account for anything because of the huge role it gives to chance, but it certainly cannot account for the deeper spiritual and psychological and moral aspects of human life. The jump from nothing to something and then from random something to orderly something, and then from orderly physical stuff to the profound spiritual, psychological and moral aspects of life is a whole list of impossibilities. At the end of the day our experience of life is nothing like what you would expect if the secular worldview were true.”
Sermon Series: Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs
“As we have been seeing in our studies of the Fifth Commandment, we are to submit to those whom God has placed in authority over us and that doing so is for our good – it is the way of life and blessing. But as we have also seen along the way is that that is sometimes problematic because authority is often misused and abused because all authority figures are sinners and many of them are not saved. There is an awful lot of suffering in the world because of the abuse of authority.”
Sermon Series: The Ten Commandments
“ If you do not start your thinking with the God of the Bible, it is impossible to give a reasonable account of the world and the big questions of life. You don’t start with reason and reason your way to God. You start with God and show that any reasoning about ultimate things that does not start with God is actually irrational. ”
Sermon Series: Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs
