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QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche

“Words are not in the power of men; men are in the power of words.”

~Hermann Bahr

“I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.”

~John Calvin

“Even though our tongue cannot be tamed by human nature, it can be tamed by the Holy Spirit.”

~Jackie Hill Perry

“A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.”

~Henri Nouwen

“That non-bony, flappable instrument between our bicuspids can be an instrument of tremendous good or cataclysmic destruction. It can be used to build people up in the faith or to destroy their hard-earned reputations. It can help bring about peace among nations or can start a war.”

~Curtis Thomas

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 13:3, 15:1-2, 4, 18:20-21, 21:23-24, James 1:26 (ESV)

Proverbs 13

3 Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life;

  he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.

Proverbs 15

1 A soft answer turns away wrath,

  but a harsh word stirs up anger.

2 The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,

  but the mouths of fools pour out folly….

4 A gentle tongue is a tree of life,

  but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

Proverbs 18

20 From the fruit of a man’s mouth

  his stomach is satisfied;

  he is satisfied by the yield of his lips.

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

   and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Proverbs 21

23 Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue

   keeps himself out of trouble.

24 “Scoffer” is the name of the arrogant, haughty man

   who acts with arrogant pride.

James 1

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office…. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

“God makes your marriage indissoluble. ‘What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder’. God joins you together in marriage; it is His act, not yours.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), to his niece on the announcement of her wedding, written while imprisoned for opposition to Adolf Hitler

“Yet man being made last of the creatures, as the best and most excellent of all, Eve’s being made after Adam, and out of him, puts an honor upon that sex, as the glory of the man, 1 Cor. 11:7. If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined….”

“That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”

~Matthew Henry (1662-1714) in his commentary on Ephesians 5:21-25

“A good marriage is one where each partner secretly suspects they got the better deal.”

~Unknown

“To keep your marriage brimming with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.”

~Ogden Nash (1902-1971), American poet

“Never laugh at your wife’s choices. You are one of them.”

~Unknown

SERMON PASSAGE

selected passages from Proverbs (ESV)

Proverbs 2

1 My son, if you receive my words

  and treasure up my commandments with you…

5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord

  and find the knowledge of God….

16 So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman,

  from the adulteress with her smooth words,

17 who forsakes the companion of her youth

  and forgets the covenant of her God….

Proverbs 5

15 Drink water from your own cistern,

  flowing water from your own well.

16 Should your springs be scattered abroad,

  streams of water in the streets?

17 Let them be for yourself alone,

  and not for strangers with you.

18 Let your fountain be blessed,

  and rejoice in the wife of your youth….

Proverbs 12

4 An excellent wife is the crown of her husband,

  but she who brings shame

  is like rottenness in his bones.

Proverbs 17

1 Better is a dry morsel with quiet

  than a house full of feasting with strife.

Proverbs 18

22 He who finds a wife finds a good thing

  and obtains favor from the Lord.

Proverbs 19

14 House and wealth are inherited from fathers,

  but a prudent wife is from the Lord.

Proverbs 31

10 An excellent wife who can find?

  She is far more precious than jewels.

11 The heart of her husband trusts in her,

  and he will have no lack of gain.

12 She does him good, and not harm,

  all the days of her life….

27 She looks well to the ways of her household

  and does not eat the bread of idleness.

28 Her children rise up and call her blessed;

  her husband also, and he praises her:

29 “Many women have done excellently,

  but you surpass them all.”

30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,

  but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

31 Give her of the fruit of her hands,

  and let her works praise her in the gates.

Proverbs 24

3 By wisdom a house is built,

  and by understanding it is established;

4 by knowledge the rooms are filled

  with all precious and pleasant riches.

Proverbs 14

26 In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence,

  and his children will have a refuge.

27 The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,

  that one may turn away from the snares of death.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I wonder if one of the sins we are entertaining beneath all other sins is discontentment, a lack of gratefulness, a lack of thanksgiving. What if when the serpent came, instead of entertaining him, [Eve] thanked God for what He gave her thus far? ‘I’ve got God and I’m thankful! I’ve got all these other trees and I’m thankful!’”

~Jackie Hill Perry, writer, poet, and hip-hop artist

“The thing at bottom is, that men have low thoughts of God, and high thoughts of themselves; and therefore it is that they look upon God as having so little right, and they so much.”

~Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) New England minister and theologian

“Sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of His love.”

~John Bunyan (1628-1688), writer and preacher

“A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), author and literary critic

“Time and again, studies have shown that performing simple gratitude exercises, like keeping a gratitude diary or writing letters of thanks, can bring a range of benefits.…. [T]he more practice you give your brain at feeling and expressing gratitude, the more it adapts to this mind-set ... a sort of gratitude ‘muscle’ that can be exercised and strengthened.” 

~Dr. Christian Jarrett, British cognitive neuroscientist

“Remember that this God in whose hand are all creatures, is your Father, and is much more tender of you than you are, or can be, of yourself.

“Consider solemnly, that though the things you fear should really happen, yet there is more evil in your own fear than in the things feared…. Fear is both a multiplying and a tormenting passion; it represents troubles as much greater than they are, and so tortures the soul much more than the suffering itself.”

~John Flavel (1627-1691) in Keeping Heart

SERMON PASSAGE

selected passages from Proverbs and Romans (ESV)

Proverbs 3

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

 and do not lean on your own understanding.

6 In all your ways acknowledge him,

 and he will make straight your paths.

7 Be not wise in your own eyes;

 fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

8 It will be healing to your flesh

 and refreshment to your bones.

9 Honor the Lord with your wealth

 and with the firstfruits of all your produce…

Romans 1

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

~Soren Kierkegaard

“Now this is to be a fool— to act contrary to your own knowledge and better judgment.”

“The moth is foolish that flies into the candle, and, having burnt itself, dashes again into the flame. We count the ox foolish that goes willingly to the shambles; but there are multitudes of men and women who take delight in sin; and, though every cup around them be poisoned, yet they drink at it as though it were nectar… We are great fools when we think that we can find pleasure in sin, or profit in rebellion.”

~Charles Spurgeon

“Only in Jesus can those born into folly, increasingly manifesting foolishness, on a crash course for destruction, be set free to true wisdom and ultimate life.”

~David Mathis

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 1:7; 1:20-33; 12:15; 18:2; 26:11; 28:26 (ESV)

Proverbs 1

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

  fools despise wisdom and instruction...

20 Wisdom cries aloud in the street,

   in the markets she raises her voice;

21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;

   at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

22 “How long, O simple ones,

  will you love being simple?

  How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing

   and fools hate knowledge?

23 If you turn at my reproof,

  behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;

   I will make my words known to you.

24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,

   have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,

25 because you have ignored all my counsel

   and would have none of my reproof,

26 I also will laugh at your calamity;

   I will mock when terror strikes you,

27 when terror strikes you like a storm

   and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,

   when distress and anguish come upon you.

28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;

   they will seek me diligently but will not find me.

29 Because they hated knowledge

   and did not choose the fear of the Lord,

30 would have none of my counsel

   and despised all my reproof,

31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,

   and have their fill of their own devices.

32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,

    and the complacency of fools destroys them;

33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure

    and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”

Proverbs 12

15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,

   but a wise man listens to advice.

Proverbs 18

2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

   but only in expressing his opinion.

Proverbs 26

11 Like a dog that returns to his vomit

   is a fool who repeats his folly.

Proverbs 28

26 Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,

   but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Imagine a society where no one had to work. Robots and artificial intelligence performed all essential jobs while advanced technologies provided unlimited clean energy, food, and consumer goods. Human beings were free to pursue their passions and spend time with loved ones instead of working. What would life look like in this futuristic work-free world? [...] For the first time in history, our jobs wouldn’t dictate how we spend our days.”

~Roy Lam, Data Scientist and Psychometrician, “What Life Would Look Like if Humans Didn’t Have to Work Anymore”

“The image of God was never meant to yawn through life. Yet those who are paying attention will also see something more in this tragi-comic sloth: themselves. We all have an inner sluggard, counseling us to sleep when we should rise, rest when we should work, eat when we should move.”

~Scott Hubbard, pastor in Minneapolis, “The Sluggard in Me: Four Lies that Lead to Laziness”

“The wise man knows that the sluggard is no freak, but, as often as not, an ordinary man who has made too many excuses, too many refusals, and too many postponements. It has all been as imperceptible, and as pleasant, as falling asleep.”

~Derek Kidner, Bible Commentator and Old Testament Scholar, Proverbs

“In short, work – and lots of it – is an indispensable component in a meaningful human life. It is a supreme gift from God and one of the main things that gives our lives purpose. But it must play its proper role, subservient to God. It must regularly give way not just to work stoppage for bodily repair but also in joyful reception of the world and of ordinary life…. When we think, ‘I hate work!’ we should remember that, despite the fact that work can be a particularly potent reminder (and even amplifier) of the curse of sin on all things, it is not itself a curse. We were built for it and freed by it. But when we feel that our lives are completely absorbed by work, remember that we must honor work’s limits. There is no better starting point for a meaningful work life than a firm grasp of this balanced work and rest theology.”

~Tim Keller (1950-2023), pastor in New York, Every Good Endeavor

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 6:6-11, 12:11, 21:5, 25-26 (ESV)

Proverbs 6

6 Go to the ant, O sluggard;

  consider her ways, and be wise.

7 Without having any chief,

  officer, or ruler,

8 she prepares her bread in summer

  and gathers her food in harvest.

9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard?

   When will you arise from your sleep?

10 A little sleep, a little slumber,

   a little folding of the hands to rest,

11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber,

   and want like an armed man.

Proverbs 12

11 Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread,

   but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.

Proverbs 21

5 The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,

  but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty…

25 The desire of the sluggard kills him,

   for his hands refuse to labor.

26 All day long he craves and craves,

   but the righteous gives and does not hold back.

Exodus 20

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Ephesians 2

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

John 5

3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“You create your story in consciousness as you interpret your own behavior, and as you listen to other people’s thoughts about you. The life story is not the work of a historian [...]; it is more like a work of historical fiction that makes plenty of references to real events and connects them by dramatizations and interpretations that might or might not be true to the spirit of what happened.”

“The inner lawyer, the rose-colored mirror, naive realism, and the myth of pure evil—these mechanisms all conspire to weave for us a web of significance upon which angels and demons fight it out. Our ever-judging minds then give us constant flashes of approval and disapproval, along with the certainty that we are on the side of the angels. From this vantage point it all seems so silly, all this moralism, righteousness, and hypocrisy. It’s beyond silly; it is tragic, for it suggests that human beings will never achieve a state of lasting peace and harmony.”

~Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist at NYU, in The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

“People don’t get depressed when they face threats collectively; they get depressed when they feel isolated, lonely, or useless.”

“In my 35 years of studying moral psychology, I have come to see this as one of humanity’s greatest problems: we are too quick to anger and too slow to forgive. We are also hypocrites who judge others harshly while automatically justifying our own bad behavior.”

~Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness

“The Christian is righteous and a sinner at the same time, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a child of God. Only those who understand the true meaning of justification will understand this apparent paradox.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) in Second Lectures on Galatians

“[Our] faith is not primarily a comfort, but a truth about ourselves.”

~Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957), English novelist and playwright

“…what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.”

~Dr. John Ashley Null on Thomas Cranmer’s (1489-1556) understanding of psychology

SERMON PASSAGE

Selected Passages from Proverbs (ESV)

Proverbs 6

12 A worthless person, a wicked man,

  goes about with crooked speech,

13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet,

  points with his finger,

14 with perverted heart devises evil,

  continually sowing discord;

15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;

  in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.

16 There are six things that the Lord hates,

  seven that are an abomination to him:

17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

  and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked plans,

  feet that make haste to run to evil,

19 a false witness who breathes out lies,

  and one who sows discord among brothers.

Proverbs 10

11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,

  but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

12 Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Proverbs 12

13 An evil man is ensnared by the transgression

  of his lips, but the righteous escapes from trouble.

14 From the fruit of his mouth a man

  is satisfied with good,

  and the work of a man’s hand comes back to him.

15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,

  but a wise man listens to advice.

16 The vexation of a fool is known at once,

  but the prudent ignores an insult.

17 Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence,

  but a false witness utters deceit.

18 There is one whose rash words are like sword   

  thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

19 Truthful lips endure forever,

  but a lying tongue is but for a moment.

20 Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil,

  but those who plan peace have joy.

21 No ill befalls the righteous,

  but the wicked are filled with trouble.

22 Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord,

  but those who act faithfully are his delight.

23 A prudent man conceals knowledge,

  but the heart of fools proclaims folly.

Proverbs 17

9 Whoever covers an offense seeks love,

 but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.

Proverbs 19

9 A false witness will not go unpunished,

 and he who breathes out lies will perish.

Matthew 15:18-20

18 “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Exodus 20:16

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Leviticus 19

17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

1 John 4

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The heart wants what it wants.”

~Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) in a letter written in 1862

“Ask yourself: if there is something you supremely want to do, do you count as self-sacrifice the difficulties encountered or the other possible activities cast aside? You do not. The time when you deliberately say, ‘I must sacrifice this, that, or the other’ is when you do not supremely desire the end in view. At such times you are doing your duty, and that is admirable, but it is not love. But as soon as your duty becomes your love, the self-sacrifice is taken for granted, and, whatever the world calls it, you call it so no longer.”

~Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), novelist and playwright (emphasis added)

“…the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies. The mind doesn’t direct the will. The mind is actually captive to what the will wants, and the will itself, in turn, is captive to what the heart wants.

“The trouble with human nature is that we are born with a heart that loves ourselves over and above everything else in this world, including God. In short, we are born slaves to the lust for self-gratification, i.e., concupiscence. That’s why, if left to ourselves, we will always love those things that make us feel good about ourselves, even as we depart more and more from God and his ways. Therefore, God must intervene in our lives in order to bring salvation…

“Now, in effect, [God’s work of] justification gives us a heart transplant. For at the same time that we receive the gift of justifying faith by which we are credited with Christ’s extrinsic righteousness, God also sheds abroad in our hearts a new love for him and one another. This new heart love for him, from him, naturally redirects our wills….

“[R]eason is not king in human beings, the heart is. Therefore, to change your actions, you must change your desires. But your desires will change, only if the Holy Spirit who wrote the Bible also writes his laws on your heart.”

~Dr. John Ashley Null, Anglican scholar at the University of Berlin (Humboldt)

“The heart’s desire for an ultimate object may be conquered, but it’s desire to have some object is unconquerable. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is through the expulsive power of a new one.”

~Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), Scottish minister, professor, and reformer

SERMON PASSAGE

The Heart of Wisdom: The Priority of the Heart

Selected Passages from Proverbs (ESV)

Proverbs 1

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

 fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 2

1 My son, if you receive my words

 and treasure up my commandments with you,

2 making your ear attentive to wisdom

 and inclining your heart to understanding;

3 yes, if you call out for insight

 and raise your voice for understanding,

4 if you seek it like silver

 and search for it as for hidden treasures,

5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord

 and find the knowledge of God.

Proverbs 4

5 Get wisdom; get insight;

  do not forget, and do not turn away

  from the words of my mouth.

6 Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;

  love her, and she will guard you.

7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,

  and whatever you get, get insight.

8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;

  she will honor you if you embrace her…

20 My son, be attentive to my words;

  incline your ear to my sayings.

21 Let them not escape from your sight;

  keep them within your heart.

22 For they are life to those who find them,

  and healing to all their flesh.

23 Keep your heart with all vigilance,

  for from it flow the springs of life.

24 Put away from you crooked speech,

  and put devious talk far from you.

25 Let your eyes look directly forward,

  and your gaze be straight before you.

26 Ponder the path of your feet;

  then all your ways will be sure.

27 Do not swerve to the right or to the left;

  turn your foot away from evil.

Proverbs 7

1 My son, keep my words

 and treasure up my commandments with you;

2 keep my commandments and live;

 keep my teaching as the apple of your eye;

3 bind them on your fingers;

 write them on the tablet of your heart.

4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”

 and call insight your intimate friend

Proverb 13

12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

  but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 17

22 A joyful heart is good medicine,

  but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 21

2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,

 but the Lord weighs the heart.

Proverbs 27

19 As in water face reflects face,

  so the heart of man reflects the man.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”

~Gloria Steinem, journalist and activist

“…pride can grow as well upon our virtues as our vices…. For you can have no greater sign of a more confirmed pride than when you think that you are humble enough.”

~William Law (1686-1761), English clergyman in A Serious Call

“On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”

~Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), French philosopher

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

~Ben’s advice to his nephew Peter Parker (aka Spiderman)

“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases…. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely…. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”

~Lord Acton (1834-1902) in a letter to Bishop Creighton (1843-1901) in 1887

“A canoe does not know who the leader is – when it turns over everyone gets wet.”

~Madagascan proverb

“…Jesus our Savior is described as Jehovah God. He is spoken of as being clothed with irresistible power: ‘See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him;’ but, as if to soften a glory that is far too bright for the weak eyes of the trembling, the prophet introduces the delightful words of the text: ‘He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.’ Here is divinity; not Jehovah the Man of War, but Jehovah the Shepherd of Israel…. It is the sign of a noble character that it can be majestic as a lion in the midst of the encounter, and roar like a young lion on the scene of conflict, and yet it has a dove’s eye and a maiden’s heart. Such is our Lord Jesus Christ; he is the conquering Captain of salvation, but he is meek and lowly of heart.”

~C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) in his sermon “The Tenderness of Jesus”

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 4 (ESV)

Proverbs 4

1 Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction,

 and be attentive, that you may gain insight,

2 for I give you good precepts;

 do not forsake my teaching.

3 When I was a son with my father,

 tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,

4 he taught me and said to me,

“Let your heart hold fast my words;

 keep my commandments, and live.

5 Get wisdom; get insight;

 do not forget, and do not turn away

 from the words of my mouth.

6 Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;

 love her, and she will guard you.

7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,

 and whatever you get, get insight.

8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;

 she will honor you if you embrace her.

9 She will place on your head a graceful garland;

  she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”

Proverbs 12

15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,

   but a wise man listens to advice.

Proverbs 15

20 A wise son makes a glad father,

   but a foolish man despises his mother.

Proverbs 19

12 A king’s wrath is like the growling of a lion,

   but his favor is like dew on the grass.

Proverbs 24

21 My son, fear the Lord and the king,

  and do not join with those who do otherwise,

22 for disaster will arise suddenly from them, and

  who knows the ruin that will come from them both?

Proverbs 25

6  Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence

   or stand in the place of the great,

7  for it is better to be told, “Come up here,”

   than to be put lower in the presence of a noble….

15 With patience a ruler may be persuaded,

   and a soft tongue will break a bone.

Proverbs 28

12 When the righteous triumph, there is great glory,

   but when the wicked rise, people hide themselves…

26 Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,

   but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered….

28 When the wicked rise, people hide themselves,

   but when they perish, the righteous increase.

Proverbs 29

2 When the righteous increase, the people rejoice,

  but when the wicked rule, the people groan….

23 One’s pride will bring him low,

   but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.

Romans 13

1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

1 Peter 3

13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I am not a greedy man. If I was, why would I donate to charity? I care about others as well.”

~John Rockefeller

“I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.”

~Ben Hecht, American writer

“Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

~Jesus (Luke 12:15)

“All treasures will demand that you die for them, but Jesus – the greatest treasure – died for you. He lost everything for you. You are more valuable to Him than the universe — than even His own glory… YOU are His treasure! You are the ultimate treasure of His life.”

~Tim Keller

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

~Jesus (as recounted by the Apostle Paul in Acts 20:35)

“Why do we not observe how the charity of Christians to strangers… has done the most to advance their cause? For it is disgraceful that… the impious Galileans [aka Christians] support our poor in addition to their own, while everyone is able to see that our coreligionists lack aid from us!”

~Roman Emperor Julian, Letter to Arsacius, 360 AD

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”

~C.S. Lewis

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 11:24-25, 28, Proverbs 3:9-10, Matthew 6:1-4, 21 (ESV)

Proverbs 11

24 One gives freely, yet grows all the richer;

   another withholds what he should give,

   and only suffers want.

25 Whoever brings blessing will be enriched,

   and one who waters will himself be watered…

28 Whoever trusts in his riches will fall,

   but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.

Proverbs 3

9 Honor the Lord with your wealth

   and with the firstfruits of all your produce;

10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,

   and your vats will be bursting with wine.

 Matthew 6

1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you….

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”

~Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974), French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker

“Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our lives.”

~Rebecca Pippert, author and speaker

“My faith is very important to me. The values that guide my work, they are very important to me. For me it is important not just to go out there and talk but that my talk is matched with the action. I don’t think I would be where I am if I didn’t have my faith in God.”

~Leymah Gbowee, Liberian peace activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and 2016 Dartmouth Commencement Speaker

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

~Attributed to Confucius (c. 551-c.479 BC)

“I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.”

~Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, aka, “Mother Teresa” (1910-1997), Albanian-Indian nun

“What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.”

~Ellen Glasgow (1873-1945) novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner

“You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner you are, to the God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together

SERMON PASSAGE

Selected Passages from Proverbs 

Proverbs 11:30 (ESV)

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,

and whoever captures souls is wise.

Proverbs 22:29 (ESV)

Do you see a man skillful in his work?

He will stand before kings;

he will not stand before obscure men.

Proverbs 3 (ESV)

1 My son, do not forget my teaching,

  but let your heart keep my commandments,

2 for length of days and years of life

  and peace they will add to you.

Proverbs 3 (ESV)

13 Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,

  and the one who gets understanding,

14 for the gain from her is better than gain from silver

  and her profit better than gold.

15 She is more precious than jewels,

  and nothing you desire can compare with her.

16 Long life is in her right hand;

  in her left hand are riches and honor.

17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness,

  and all her paths are peace.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (MSG)

“Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart;

don’t try to figure out everything on your own.

Listen for GOD’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;

He’s the one who will keep you on track.”

Proverbs 3:9 (MSG)

Honor GOD with everything you own;

give him the first and the best.

Your barns will burst,

your wine vats will brim over.

Proverbs 15:22 (MSG)

“Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail;

take good counsel and watch them succeed.”

Proverbs 16:10-16 (MSG)

“A good leader motivates,

doesn’t mislead, doesn’t exploit.

GOD cares about honesty in the workplace;

your business is his business.

Good leaders abhor wrongdoing of all kinds;

sound leadership has a moral foundation.

Good leaders cultivate honest speech;

they love advisors who tell them the truth.

An intemperate leader wreaks havoc in lives;

you’re smart to stay clear of someone like that.

Good-tempered leaders invigorate lives;

they’re like spring rain and sunshine.

Get wisdom—it’s worth more than money;

choose insight over income every time.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.”

~Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (1547-1616)

“Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.”

~Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist (1930-2013)

“A God wise enough to create me and the world I live in is wise enough to watch out for me.”

~Philip Yancy, American author

“God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.”

~Augustine, north African bishop and theologian (354AD-430)

“To all life thou givest, to both great and small;

in all life thou livest, the true life of all;

we blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree.”

~“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise,” 1867 Hymn by Walter Smith

“[Jesus’] body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things, resting in the Father alone.”

~Athanasius, Egyptian theologian (296AD-373)

“Most Christians probably tend to write God’s presence off as a stuffy, philosophical category to be handled by tenured department heads in ivy-covered university halls. Or maybe [they confuse] God with a type of super-Santa Claus who knows when we’re sleeping and when we’re awake…But when we turn to Scripture, we find God’s presence is relational and real, even gloriously manifest at times. The Bible promises that God will be with his people and that he will not forsake them.

~Ryan Lister, Professor at Western Seminary

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 2:6-11, 9:1-18 (NIV)

Proverbs 2

6 For the Lord gives wisdom;

  from his mouth come knowledge

  and understanding.

7 He holds success in store for the upright,

    he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,

8 for he guards the course of the just

     and protects the way of his faithful ones.

9 Then you will understand what is right and just

      and fair—every good path.

10 For wisdom will enter your heart,

      and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

11 Discretion will protect you,

     and understanding will guard you.

Proverbs 9

1 Wisdom has built her house;

  she has set up its seven pillars.

2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;

   she has also set her table.

3 She has sent out her servants, and she calls

   from the highest point of the city,

4  “Let all who are simple come to my house!”

  To those who have no sense she says,

5  “Come, eat my food

   and drink the wine I have mixed.

6 Leave your simple ways and you will live;

  walk in the way of insight.”

7 Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults;

   whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse.

8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;

   rebuke the wise and they will love you.

9 Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;

   teach the righteous and

  they will add to their learning.

10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

   and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

11 For through wisdom your days will be many,

   and years will be added to your life.

12 If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you;

   if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.

13 Folly is an unruly woman;

   she is simple and knows nothing.

14 She sits at the door of her house,

   on a seat at the highest point of the city,

15 calling out to those who pass by,

   who go straight on their way,

16 “Let all who are simple come to my house!”

  To those who have no sense she says,

17 “Stolen water is sweet;

   food eaten in secret is delicious!”

18 But little do they know that the dead are there,

   that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”

~Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French existentialist philosopher

“God writes straight with crooked lines.”

~Portuguese Proverb

“[‘Acknowledge God in all your ways’ (Proverbs 3:6)] has far more to do with one’s experience of God than with comprehension of doctrinal points about God.”

~John F. Evans, professor of Hebrew and Presbyterian clergyman

“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

“A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), author and literary critic

“Isn’t it interesting how simply being in proximity to God creates a moral self-awareness…? [T]here is something about God that is so pure, even if unspoken, that when near Him, it becomes so plain that nothing is like Him, especially in terms of righteousness.”

~Jackie Hill Perry, Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

“It is easier for us to get to know God than to know our own soul...God is nearer to us than our own soul, for He is the ground in which it stands...so if we want to know our own soul, and enjoy its fellowship, it is necessary to seek it in our Lord God.” 

“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”

~Lady Julian of Norwich (c. 1343-c.1416), theologian, anchoress, and mystic

“I have come to one conclusion: All that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I was before, is by the grace of God.”

~Leymah Gbowee, Liberian peace activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and 2016 Dartmouth Commencement Speaker

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 3:1-12 (ESV)

Proverbs 3

1 My son, do not forget my teaching,

  but let your heart keep my commandments,

2 for length of days and years of life

  and peace they will add to you.

3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;

  bind them around your neck;

  write them on the tablet of your heart.

4 So you will find favor and good success

  in the sight of God and man.

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

  and do not lean on your own understanding.

6 In all your ways acknowledge him,

  and he will make straight your paths.

7 Be not wise in your own eyes;

  fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

8 It will be healing to your flesh

  and refreshment to your bones.

9 Honor the Lord with your wealth

  and with the firstfruits of all your produce;

10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,

  and your vats will be bursting with wine.

11 My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline

  or be weary of his reproof,

12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,

  as a father the son in whom he delights.

Hebrews 12

5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

 nor be weary when reproved by him.

6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

 and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Character is simply habit long continued.”

~Plutarch (c. AD 46-c. 119), philosopher and historian

“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), essayist and philosopher

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.”

~Helen Keller (1880-1968), author and activist

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”

~Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-born American actor and politician

“Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.”

~J. C. Watts, former football player and U.S. Representative

“For you can have no greater sign of a more confirmed pride than when you think that you are humble enough.”

~William Law (1686-1761) in A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

~James 1:5 (ESV)

“If you turn at my reproof,

behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;

I will make my words known to you.”

~Proverbs 1:23 (ESV), the voice of Wisdom speaking

“The creature who is not filled with love of God necessarily love himself most.”

~Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), German reformer in Loci Communes

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 2:1-22 (ESV)

1 My son, if you receive my words

   and treasure up my commandments with you,

2 making your ear attentive to wisdom

   and inclining your heart to understanding;

3 yes, if you call out for insight

   and raise your voice for understanding,

4 if you seek it like silver

   and search for it as for hidden treasures,

5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord

   and find the knowledge of God.

6 For the Lord gives wisdom;

  from his mouth come knowledge

  and understanding;

7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;

   he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

8 guarding the paths of justice

   and watching over the way of his saints.

9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice

   and equity, every good path;

10 for wisdom will come into your heart,

   and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

11 discretion will watch over you,

   understanding will guard you,

12 delivering you from the way of evil,

from men of perverted speech,

13 who forsake the paths of uprightness

   to walk in the ways of darkness,

14 who rejoice in doing evil

   and delight in the perverseness of evil,

15 men whose paths are crooked,

   and who are devious in their ways.

16 So you will be delivered from

   the forbidden woman,

   from the adulteress with her smooth words,

17 who forsakes the companion of her youth

   and forgets the covenant of her God;

18 for her house sinks down to death,

   and her paths to the departed;

19 none who go to her come back,

   nor do they regain the paths of life.

20 So you will walk in the way of the good

   and keep to the paths of the righteous.

21 For the upright will inhabit the land,

   and those with integrity will remain in it,

22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land,

   and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”

~Miles Kington (1941-2008), British journalist, musician, and broadcaster

“The wise person doesn’t give the right answers, but poses the right questions.”

~Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), French anthropologist

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

~Socrates (c. 470-399 BC), famed Athenian philosopher

“The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.”

~T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), The Rock (1934)

“If you are filled with pride, then you will have no room for wisdom.”

~African Proverb

“A humble knowledge of myself is a surer way to God than a search after learning."

~Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471), German-Dutch priest

“There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God’!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), literary scholar

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 1:1-33 (ESV)

Proverbs 1

1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David,

 king of Israel:

2 To know wisdom and instruction,

   to understand words of insight,

3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,

   in righteousness, justice, and equity;

4 to give prudence to the simple,

   knowledge and discretion to the youth—

5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,

   and the one who understands obtain guidance,

6 to understand a proverb and a saying,

   the words of the wise and their riddles.

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

   fools despise wisdom and instruction.

8 Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,

   and forsake not your mother’s teaching,

9 for they are a graceful garland for your head

   and pendants for your neck.

10 My son, if sinners entice you,

   do not consent.

11 If they say, “Come with us, 

   let us lie in wait for blood;

   let us ambush the innocent without reason;

12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive,

   and whole, like those who go down to the pit;

13 we shall find all precious goods,

   we shall fill our houses with plunder;

14 throw in your lot among us;

   we will all have one purse”—

15 my son, do not walk in the way with them;

   hold back your foot from their paths,

16 for their feet run to evil,

   and they make haste to shed blood.

17 For in vain is a net spread

   in the sight of any bird,

18 but these men lie in wait for their own blood;

   They set an ambush for their own lives.

19 Such are the ways of everyone

   who is greedy for unjust gain;

   it takes away the life of its possessors.

20 Wisdom cries aloud in the street,

   in the markets she raises her voice;

21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;

   at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

22 “How long, O simple ones,

   will you love being simple?

   How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing

   and fools hate knowledge?

23 If you turn at my reproof,

   behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;

   I will make my words known to you.

24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,

   have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,

25 because you have ignored all my counsel

   and would have none of my reproof,

26 I also will laugh at your calamity;

   I will mock when terror strikes you,

27 when terror strikes you like a storm

   and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,

   when distress and anguish come upon you.

28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;

   they will seek me diligently but will not find me.

29 Because they hated knowledge

   and did not choose the fear of the Lord,

30 would have none of my counsel

   and despised all my reproof,

31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,

   and have their fill of their own devices.

32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,

   and the complacency of fools destroys them;

33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure

   and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”

Proverbs 9

10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

   and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“This may surprise many, but Christianity is growing around the world and is growing faster than the rate of population. From 2020 to the mid-point of 2024, the world’s population is expected to grow from more than 7.84 billion people to more than 8.11 billion, a 0.87% growth trend. The number of Christians worldwide is expected to climb from more than 2.52 billion to 2.63 billion, a 1.08% growth.… The fastest-growing areas for Christianity are in the global south, particularly Asia and Africa. Asia is home to more than 415 million Christians and growing at a rate of 2.11%. Meanwhile, 734 million Christians live in Africa, where the faith is growing at a 2.64% rate.”

~Summary of the “2024 Status of Global Christianity” report

“It is evidence of His importance, of the effect that He has had upon history, …that no other life ever lived on this planet has evoked so huge a volume of literature among so many people and languages, and that, far from ebbing, the flood continues to mount…. Jesus is the most influential life ever lived….”

~Kenneth S. Latourette (1884-1968),

 President of the American Historical Association

“Jesus loves sinners. He only loves sinners. He has never turned anyone away who came to Him for forgiveness, and He died on the cross for sinners, not for respectable people.”

~Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), Nazi concentration camp survivor

“The church is…made up of natural enemies…who love one another for Jesus’ sake.”

~D.A. Carson in his book Love in Hard Places

“If I love God, I must love people. I don’t have the choice to choose when.”

~Jackie Hill Perry, poet, writer, and hip hop artist

“When we are powerless to do a thing, it is a great joy that we can come and step inside the ability of Jesus.”

~Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), Dutch watchmaker, writer and speaker

“…but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

~Jesus to His disciples (Acts 1:8)

SERMON PASSAGE

Matthew 28:16-20 (ESV)

Matthew 28

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Genesis 12

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

2 Samuel 7

8 Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth….

12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Isaiah 2

1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

2 It shall come to pass in the latter days

 that the mountain of the house of the Lord

 shall be established as the highest of the mountains,   

 and shall be lifted up above the hills;

 and all the nations shall flow to it,

3 and many peoples shall come, and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

 to the house of the God of Jacob,

 that he may teach us his ways

 and that we may walk in his paths.”

 For out of Zion shall go forth the law,

 and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Matthew 1

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Revelation 7

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Revelation 22

1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“There are a lot of people who struggle mightily with this whole idea. They say, ‘If God is a God of love, he doesn’t send people to hell. If God is a God of judgment, he can’t be a God of love. I can’t reconcile the two things.’ Yet the Bible insists that not only is God a God both of love and wrath—not only do those two things not conflict with each other, but they actually establish each other. One without the other is nonsense. One without the other is meaningless. If you actually try to somehow extract, remove surgically, excise the Christian message of the wrath and judgment of God, what you actually have is nothing left at all.”

~Tim Keller, Pastor & Author

“If we do not protect God’s wrath, we lose the bad news, and if we lose the bad news, we lose the good news — we lose the gospel.”

~Tony Reinke, Senior Writer at DesiringGod.org

“God’s wrath is more horrifying than we can ever imagine, but he will pardon any who take refuge in the shelter Jesus provides.”

~John Piper, Pastor & Author

“’Til on that cross as Jesus died

The wrath of God was satisfied

For every sin on Him was laid

Here in the death of Christ I live.”

~“In Christ Alone” by Keith & Kristyn Getty

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 7 (ESV)

1 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge;

   save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,

2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,

   rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.

3 O Lord my God, if I have done this,

   if there is wrong in my hands,

4 if I have repaid my friend with evil

   or plundered my enemy without cause,

5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,

   and let him trample my life to the ground

   and lay my glory in the dust. Selah

6 Arise, O Lord, in your anger;

   lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;

   awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.

7 Let the assembly of the peoples

  be gathered about you;

   over it return on high.

8 The Lord judges the peoples;

   judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness

   and according to the integrity that is in me.

9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,

and may you establish the righteous—

   you who test the minds and hearts,

   O righteous God!

10 My shield is with God,

  who saves the upright in heart.

11 God is a righteous judge,

  and a God who feels indignation every day.

12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;

  he has bent and readied his bow;

13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,

  making his arrows fiery shafts.

14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil

  and is pregnant with mischief

  and gives birth to lies.

15 He makes a pit, digging it out,

  and falls into the hole that he has made.

16 His mischief returns upon his own head,

  and on his own skull his violence descends.

17 I will give to the Lord the thanks

  due to his righteousness,

  and I will sing praise to the name

  of the Lord, the Most High.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“My grand objection to the religious system still held by many who declare themselves orthodox Churchmen. . . is, that it tends to render Christianity so much a system of prohibitions rather than of privilege and hopes, and thus the injunction to rejoice, so strongly enforced in the New Testament, is practically neglected, and Religion is made to wear a forbidding and gloomy air and not one of peace and hope and joy.”

~William Wilberforce (1759-1833), social reformer credited with the abolition of slavery in the British Empire

“I suddenly saw that someone could use all the language of…Christianity, and yet the center was fundamentally the self…. And God is auxiliary to that…. I also saw that quite a lot of…Christianity can easily slip, can become centered in me…, and not in the glory of God"

~Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), British theologian

“Whenever you…argue within yourself how God is to be found—a God that justifies and accepts sinners: then know that there is no other God beside this man Christ Jesus…. [W]hen any of us shall have to wrestle with the law, sin, and death, and all other evils, we must look upon no other God, but only this God incarnate and clothed with man’s nature.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) in his Galatians Commentary

“…at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma…. It’s clear to me it’s at the very heart of the universe…. And yet along comes this thing called Grace…. Grace defies logic. Love interrupts…the consequences of your actions. ….I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sin onto the Cross….”

~Bono of U2 fame

“Thesis 26: The law says, ‘do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.”

~Marin Luther in his Heidelberg Disputation (1518)

“To see the law by Christ fulfilled, and hear His pardoning voice,

Changes a slave into a child, and duty into choice.”

~William Cowper (1731-1800), famed English poet in his “Love Constrained Obedience”

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 3:23-4:7 (ESV)

Galatians 3

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

Galatians 4

1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“God’s ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development. He wants you to grow up spiritually and become like Christ. Becoming like Christ does not mean losing your personality or becoming a mindless clone. God created your uniqueness, so he certainly doesn’t want to destroy it. God uses His Word, people, and circumstances to mold us.”

~Rick Warren, What on Earth am I Here For?

“Your core identity is that God chose you. He knew everything about you, yes even what you don’t like to admit to yourself...Jesus is not disillusioned with you, because He never had any illusions about who you were in the first place.”

~Adam Ramsay, Pastor of Liberty Church Australia

“Man became a living being capable of embodying God’s communicable attributes. In his rational life he was like God that he could reason and had intellect, will and emotion. In the moral sense, he was like God because he was at inception good and sinless. Woman was created to meet man’s deficiencies and to be an equal in the job of caretakers of the creation.”

~William Barclay

“Michelangelo was asked how he could make a beautiful sculpture like his ‘Moses’ out of a block of marble. His response was that he simply chipped away everything that wasn’t Moses. We must allow the Lord to chip away everything that is not of Him, or of the person He made us to be.”

~Mgsr Charles Pope, Dean of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC

“Artificial Intelligence’s ultimate accomplishment will be to remind us who we are by revealing what it can’t do. It will compel us to double down on all activities that make us distinctly human: taking care of each other, being a good teammate, reading deeply, exploring daringly, growing spiritually, finding kindred spirits...”

~David Brooks, Op. Ed. In The New York Times 8/4/2024

SERMON PASSAGE

selected passages (NIV)

Genesis 1

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Isaiah 53

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

  and like a root out of dry ground.

  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

  nothing in his appearance 

 that we should desire him.

2 Corinthians 5

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

John 15

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Ephesians 4

20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

***Please note: there was a technical difficulty that caused us to miss the first ~2 minutes of Don's introduction. We apologize for the error!

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I have come to one conclusion: All that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I was before, is by the grace of God.”

~Leymah Gbowee, Liberian peace activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and 2016 Dartmouth Commencement Speaker

“...we need to fall, and we need to be aware of it; for if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know our Maker’s marvelous love so fully...”

“...deeds are done which appear so evil to us and people suffer such terrible evils that it does not seem as though any good will ever come of them; and we consider this, sorrowing and grieving over it so that we cannot find peace in the blessed contemplation of God as we should do; and this is why: our reasoning powers are so blind now, so humble and so simple, that we cannot know the high, marvelous wisdom, the might and the goodness of the Holy Trinity. And this is what he means where he says, ‘You shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well’, as if he said, ‘Pay attention to this now, faithfully and confidently, and at the end of time you will truly see it in the fullness of joy.’”

~Julian of Norwich (c.1343-after 1416), English anchoress and writer

“Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be.”

~Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian-born philosopher

“Meek. Humble. Gentle. Jesus is not trigger-happy. Not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger but open arms … You don’t need to unburden or collect yourself and then come to Jesus. Your very burden is what qualifies you to come.”

~Dane Ortlund in Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

“Peace comes not from the absence of trouble, but from the presence of God."

~Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910), Scottish Baptist minister

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 57 (ESV)

To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.

1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,

  for in you my soul takes refuge;

  in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,

  till the storms of destruction pass by.

2 I cry out to God Most High,

  to God who fulfills his purpose for me.

3 He will send from heaven and save me;

  he will put to shame him who tramples on me.   Selah

  God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!

4 My soul is in the midst of lions;

  I lie down amid fiery beasts—

  the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows,

  whose tongues are sharp swords.

5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!

  Let your glory be over all the earth!

6 They set a net for my steps;

  my soul was bowed down.

  They dug a pit in my way,

  but they have fallen into it themselves.    Selah

7 My heart is steadfast, O God,

  my heart is steadfast!

  I will sing and make melody!

8 Awake, my glory!

  Awake, O harp and lyre!

  I will awake the dawn!

9 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;

  I will sing praises to you among the nations.

10 For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,

  your faithfulness to the clouds.

11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!

   Let your glory be over all the earth!

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“There is a strain of loneliness infecting many Christians, which only the presence of God can cure.”

“…blessing come[s] to the church when we stop looking at a picture of God and look at God Himself…when, no longer satisfied just to know about a God in history, we meet…Him in living, personal experience.... We desperately need a divine visitation—for our situation will never be cured by sermons! It will never be cured until the Church of Christ has suddenly been confronted with what one man called the mysterium tremendum—the fearful mystery that is God, the fearful majesty that is God. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He brings the wonderful mystery that is God to us, and presents Him to the human spirit.”

~A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) pastor, author, and magazine editor

“The holy is hidden and veiled; we cannot grasp it with our intellect, but only approach it with awe and wonder.”

~Rudolf Otto (1869-1937), German Lutheran theologian and philosopher

“There is an experiential knowledge of God that profoundly changes a person from the inside out. God is known in the soul in such an overwhelming way that it affects a person’s entire perception of life.”

~Conrad Mbewe, founding chancellor of African Christian University in Zambia

“It is easier for us to get to know God than to know our own soul...God is nearer to us than our own soul, for He is the ground in which it stands....”

~Julian of Norwich (c.1343-1416), English anchoress

“A believer longs after God, to come into his presence, to feel his love, to feel near to him in secret…. Ah! dear brethren, have you ever tasted this blessedness? There is greater rest and solace to be found in the presence of God for one hour than in an eternity of the presence of man.”

~Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843), minister in the Church of Scotland

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”

~C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), writer and literary scholar

“Peace comes not from the absence of trouble, but from the presence of God.”

~Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910), Scottish minister

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 114 (ESV)

Psalm 114

1 When Israel went out from Egypt,

  the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,

2 Judah became his sanctuary,

  Israel his dominion.

3 The sea looked and fled;

  Jordan turned back.

4 The mountains skipped like rams,

  the hills like lambs.

5 What ails you, O sea, that you flee?

  O Jordan, that you turn back?

6 O mountains, that you skip like rams?

  O hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,

  at the presence of the God of Jacob,

8 who turns the rock into a pool of water,

  the flint into a spring of water.

Jeremiah 23

24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.

Acts 17

28 …‘In him we live and move and have our being’…

Psalm 139

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?

  Or where shall I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

  If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

9  If I take the wings of the morning

  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me,

  and your right hand shall hold me.

John 7

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.”

~Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French mathematician and thinker

“[T]he mass of two hydrogen atoms that is released as energy when they fuse to produce helium is 0.007 (0.7%). That is the source of the heat produced in the sun.... It is the amount of mass (m) that is converted to energy (E) in the famous Einstein formula E = mc2, and it is a direct measure of the strong nuclear force. If the strong force had a value of 0.006 or less, the universe would consist only of hydrogen—not very conducive to the complexities of life. If the value were greater than 0.008, all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang, and there could be no stars, no solar heat—again, no life. As Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow put it in their book The Grand Design, ‘Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration.’”

“There is an erroneous idea that while scientists are always open-minded and searching for new ways to see truth, people of faith think they have it all figured out—they believe they know the final truth, the dogma that cannot change. In reality, open-minded people are open-minded about science and faith, and close-minded people are dogmatic about both.”

~Sy Garte, The Works of His Hands: A Scientist’s Journey from Atheism to Faith

“There are two kinds of people in the world, the conscious dogmatists and the unconscious dogmatists. I have always found myself that the unconscious dogmatists were by far the most dogmatic.”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), writer and literary critic

“If you dwell on your own feelings…rather than dwelling on the faithfulness…of God, then you’re likely to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Our feelings are very fleeting and ephemeral, aren’t they? We can’t depend on them for five minutes at a time. But dwelling on the love, faithfulness, and mercy of God is always safe.”

~Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015), author and speaker

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 93 (ESV)

1 The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;

 the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.

 Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

2 Your throne is established from of old;

 you are from everlasting.

3 The floods have lifted up, O Lord,

 the floods have lifted up their voice;

 the floods lift up their roaring.

4 Mightier than the thunders of many waters,

 mightier than the waves of the sea,

 the Lord on high is mighty!

5 Your decrees are very trustworthy;

 holiness befits your house,

 O Lord, forevermore.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”

~Jim Carey (1962-present), Actor

“Worry is like a rocking chair; it keeps you moving but doesn’t get you anywhere.”

~Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983), Author and Holocaust Survivor

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

~Matthew 6:34 (ESV)

“Our anxiety often reveals a refusal to trust God’s fatherly providence. And, whenever we start ignoring that, there’s always a devil along to adopt us, to promise us bread instead of stones, fish instead of snakes. We don’t recognize the reptilian voice, but we look into our future, or into our Bibles, and wonder nonetheless, ‘Has God really said?’”

~Russell Moore (1971-present), Author and Theologian

SERMON PASSAGE

Luke 12:22-34 (ESV)

22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“God was glorified through both his judgment and mercy, accorded in salvation to Israel. The New Testament unfolds the ultimate display of God’s glory in justice and mercy, as it was God’s righteous judgment shown on the cross that brought us salvation. God’s glory in salvation through judgment will be shown at the end of time, when Christ returns to judge his enemies and save all who have called on his name.”

~James M. Hamilton Jr. American Theologian and Pastor

“Love is the grand secret of true obedience to God. When we feel towards Him as children feel towards a dear father, we shall delight to do His will. We shall not find His commandments grievous, and work for Him like slaves under fear of the lash. We shall take pleasure in trying to keep His laws, and mourn when we transgress them. None work so well as those who work out of love. The fear of punishment, or the desire of reward, are principles of far less power. They do the will of God best, who do it from the heart.”

~J.C. Ryle 19th Century British Theologian

“Obedience to the will of God is the pathway to perpetual honor and everlasting joy.”

~Charles Spurgeon 19th Century British Preacher

“There’s a lot in Exodus the secularist would reject. First to go would likely be the miraculous events like the burning bush, the plagues, the provision of manna, or the parting of the Red Sea. But the greatest miracle of Exodus—and of the entire Bible—is how a holy God would make a way for sinful people to dwell with him.”

~Kevin Halloran American Pastor and Author

SERMON PASSAGE

Exodus 5:1-2; 7:3-6, 7:13-14, 9:13-17, 11:9-10 (ESV)

Exodus 5

1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

Exodus 7

3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4 Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. 5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” 6 Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them...

13 Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go.

Exodus 9

13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 14 For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. 17 You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.

Exodus 11

9 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

10 Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

~ G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

“How, then, are people to behave at home? If a man can’t be comfortable and unguarded, can’t take his ease and ‘be himself’ in his own house, where can he? That is, I confess, the trouble. The answer is an alarming one. There is nowhere this side of heaven where one can safely lay the reins on the horse’s neck. It will never be lawful simply to ‘be ourselves’ until ‘ourselves’ have become sons of God… home life has its own rule of courtesy—a code more intimate, more subtle, more sensitive, and, therefore, in some ways more difficult, than that of the outer world… The alternative to rule is not freedom but the unconstitutional (and often unconscious) tyranny of the most selfish member.

In a word, must we not either cease to preach domesticity or else begin to preach it seriously? Must we not abandon sentimental eulogies and begin to give practical advice on the high, hard, lovely, and adventurous art of really creating the Christian family?”

~ C.S. Lewis, “The Sermon and the Lunch”

SERMON PASSAGE

selected passages (ESV)

Hebrews 12

5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly

 the discipline of the Lord,

    nor be weary when reproved by him.

6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

    and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Proverbs 1

8 Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,

    and forsake not your mother’s teaching,

9 for they are a graceful garland for your head

    and pendants for your neck.

Proverbs 19

18 Discipline your son, for there is hope;

     do not set your heart on putting him to death.

Proverbs 22

15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,

   but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Proverbs 29

15 The rod and reproof give wisdom,

    but a child left to himself brings shame

   to his mother.

17 Discipline your son, and he will give you rest;

    he will give delight to your heart.

Ephesians 6

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

5 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Oh! that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force!”

~Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), novelist and poet in Jane Eyre

“Meek. Humble. Gentle. Jesus is not trigger-happy. Not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger but open arms … You don’t need to unburden or collect yourself and then come to Jesus. Your very burden is what qualifies you to come.”

“When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them.”

~Dane Ortlund in Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

“Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.”

~Irving Berlin (1888-1989), famed songwriter

“People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.”

~John C. Maxwell, author and speaker

“As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others – and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.”

~Brennan Manning (1934-2013), author and clergy

“The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that it’s most potent.”

~Bryan Stevenson, lawyer, activist, and professor at NYU School of Law

SERMON PASSAGE

selected passages

Galatians 5 (ESV)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Proverbs 15 (NIV)

1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. 2 The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly.

Ephesians 4 (ESV)

29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Philippians 2 (NIV)

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,

 did not consider equality with God

 something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing

 by taking the very nature of a servant,

 being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man,

 he humbled himself

        by becoming obedient to death—

 even death on a cross!

Matthew 12 (ESV)

[said of Jesus, as quoted from Isaiah 43:1-3]

18 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,

  my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.

  I will put my Spirit upon him,

  and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud,

  nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;

20 a bruised reed he will not break,

  and a smoldering wick he will not quench,

  until he brings justice to victory;

21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

Matthew 11 (ESV) [Jesus speaking]

28 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“…you want the best robe without your Father’s giving it you, and shoes on your feet of your own procuring; you do not like going in a beggar’s suit and receiving all from the Lord’s loving hand; but this pride of yours must be given up, and you must get away to God, or perish forever. You must forget yourself, or only remember yourself so as to feel that you are bad throughout, and no more worthy to be called God’s son...”

~C.H. Spurgeon

“The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?”

~C.S. Lewis

“Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently. It’s a shocking message: Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God.”

“If we say, ‘I believe in Jesus,’ but it doesn’t affect the way we live, the answer is not that now we need to add hard work to our faith so much as that we haven’t truly understood or believed in Jesus at all.”

~Tim Keller

“Legalism breeds a sense of entitlement that turns us into complainers.”

~Tullian Tchividjian

“Unlike a fairy tale, the parable provides no happy ending. Instead, it leaves us face to face with one of life’s hardest choices: to trust or not to trust in God’s all-forgiving love.”

~Henri Nouwen

SERMON PASSAGE

Luke 15:1-2, 11-32 (ESV)

1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

...11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.

23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“God is God. Because he is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.”

“If you dwell on your own feelings…, then you’re likely to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Our feelings are very fleeting and ephemeral, aren’t they? We can't depend on them for five minutes at a time. But dwelling on the love, faithfulness, and mercy of God is always safe.”

~Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015), author and speaker whose husband was killed bringing the gospel to the Auca people of eastern Ecuador

“If you look to Christ for your beginnings, beware of looking to yourself for your endings. He is Alpha, see to it you make Him Omega, also.”

“[The] faithfulness of God is the foundation and cornerstone of our hope of final perseverance. The saints shall persevere in holiness, because God perseveres in grace. He perseveres to bless, and therefore believers persevere in being blessed. He continues to keep His people, and therefore they continue to keep His commandments.”

“There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.”

“It is folly to think the Lord provides grace for every trouble but the one you are in today…. As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, He will be with them in it.”

“Do not become self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is Satan’s net where he catches men, like poor silly fish, and destroys them. Be not self-sufficient. The way to grow strong in Christ is to become weak in yourself. God pours no power into man’s heart till man’s power is all poured out. Live, then, daily, a life of dependence on the grace of God.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London preacher

“You may be tempted to believe that God has changed because your circumstances have, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t be God. He’d be you.”

~Jackie Hill Perry in Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV)

Galatians 5

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Deuteronomy 7

6  “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 11 You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

Isaiah 41

10 fear not, for I am with you;

   be not dismayed, for I am your God;

   I will strengthen you, I will help you,

   I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

1 Thessalonians 5

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

Hebrews 6

13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself…. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 12

5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly

  the discipline of the Lord,

 nor be weary when reproved by him.

6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

 and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?... 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The triunity of God is the secret of His beauty. If we deny this, we at once have a God without radiance and without joy (and without humor!)….”

~Karl Barth (1886-1968) in Church Dogmatics

“Creation’s being is God’s pleasure, creation’s beauty God’s glory; beauty reveals the shining of an uncreated light. … Creation is only a splendor that hangs upon that life of love and knowledge, and only by grace; it is first and foremost a surface, a shining fabric of glory, whose inmost truth is its aesthetic correspondence to the beauty of divine love. … It is delight that constitutes creation, and so only delight can comprehend it, see it aright, understand its grammar. Only in loving creation’s beauty—only in seeing that creation truly is beauty—does one apprehend what creation is.”

~David Bentley Hart in The Beauty of the Infinite (2003)

“…all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that Being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory; God . . . is the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty.”

~Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) in The Nature of True Virtue

“A sin…consists in doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God.”

~J.C. Ryle (1816-1900), Anglican bishop, in Holiness

“Sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of His love.”

~John Bunyan (1628-1688), writer of The Pilgrim’s Progress

“If God is holy, then he can’t sin. If God can’t sin, then he can’t sin against me. If he can’t sin against me, shouldn’t that make him the most trustworthy being there is?”

“We will want and choose to put to death what is earthly in us when we believe God is infinitely better than everything we are tempted to leave him for.”

~Jackie Hill Perry in Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:22-23, Psalm 118:1, Psalm 34:8-10 (ESV)

Galatians 5

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Psalm 118

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

  for his steadfast love endures forever!

Psalm 34

8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

9 Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,

  for those who fear him have no lack!

10 The young lions suffer want and hunger;

  but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is accord. Harmony.”

~Laini Taylor, award-winning fantasy author

“Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”

~Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Trappist monk and writer

“The theologian who has no joy in his work is not a theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking are intolerable in this science.”

“Loving us, God does not give us something, but Himself; and giving us Himself, giving us His Son, He gives us everything.”

~Karl Barth (1886-1968), Swiss Theologian in Church Dogmatics

“The Trinity is not some inessential add-on to God, some optional software that can be plugged into him. At bottom, this God is different, for at bottom, He is not creator, ruler, or even ‘God’ in some abstract sense: He is the Father, loving and giving life and love to his Son in the joy of the Spirit. A God who is in himself love, who before all things could ‘never be anything but love.’ Having such a God happily changes everything.”

~Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity

“From harmony, from Heav’nly harmony

This universal frame began…”

~John Dryden (1631-1700), England’s first Poet Laureate

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

~Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Confessions

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

~Jesus in John 14:17 (ESV)

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:19-26 (ESV)

Galatians 5

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

John 16 [Jesus speaking]

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Romans 5

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 8

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

Romans 14

17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”

~Henry David Thoreau

“Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful that he forgot to be frightened any more, and when Rabbit went on to say that Kangas were only Fierce during the winter months, being at other times of an Affectionate Disposition, he could hardly sit still, he was so eager to begin being useful at once.”

~A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“The Lord has made me drink

The cup of his severity

That he might kindly show to me

What I would be when only he

Remains in my calamity.

Unkindly he has kindly shown

That he was not my hope alone.”

~“The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God” by John Piper

SERMON PASSAGE

Proverbs 19:17, Romans 2:4-5, Titus 3:1-8, Luke 10:29-37 (NASB)

Proverbs 19

17 One who is gracious to a poor person

  lends to the Lord,

   And He will repay him for his good deed.

Romans 2

4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God…

Titus 3

1 Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, 2 to slander no one, not to be contentious, to be gentle, showing every consideration for all people. 3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He richly poured out upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 This statement is trustworthy; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and beneficial for people.

Luke 10

29 But wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31 And by coincidence a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.’ 36 Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 37 And he said, “The one who showed compassion to him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn’t become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there’s no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the inexorable law of diminishing returns.”

~Alan Jacobs, scholar and literary critic

“To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.”

~Mark Twain (1835-1910), writer and humorist

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”

~Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), English novelist and poet

“Happiness is only real when shared.”

~Jon Krakauer, writer and mountaineer

“Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.”

~Malcolm X (1925-1965), Muslim minister and activist

“As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a [person].”

~John Chrysostom (c. 347-407), church leader and preacher

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

~Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th president of the United States

“Since the love which binds the Trinity together is the same love which binds the church to the Son and the saints to each other, we can rightly conclude that the structure of relationship which constitutes the glory of God or God’s internal fullness is the same structure which constitutes the reality of the church…. The re-presentation of the societal and relational structure of God’s Trinitarian life in the community of the saints, is, in a manner of speaking, the visibility of the God in the world.”

~Krister Sairsingh, university professor, in his Harvard doctoral dissertation, “Jonathan Edwards and the Idea of the Divine Glory: His Foundational Trinitarianism and its Ecclesial Import”

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:13-15, 22-23 (ESV)

Galatians 5

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another….

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Matthew 3

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Isaiah 42

1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold,

 my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

 have put my Spirit upon him;

 he will bring forth justice to the nations.

John 15

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Philippians 4

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“[Self control is] control over one’s behavior and the impulses and emotions beneath it.” 

~Philip Towner

“Self-control is...not the same as self-dependence, in which we rely on personal will power to control ourselves. Instead, self-control is a gift of the Holy Spirit, given through faith in Jesus Christ... Self-control is a strategic countermeasure to the insatiable cravings of sin.”

~Edward Welch

“Our minds are mental greenhouses where unlawful thoughts, once planted, are nurtured and watered before being transplanted into the real world of unlawful actions... These actions are savored in the mind long before they are enjoyed in reality. The thought life, then, is our first line of defense in the battle of self-control.”

~Jerry Bridges

“People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

~D.A. Carson

SERMON PASSAGE

selected passages (ESV)

Galatians 5

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Proverbs 25

26 Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain

  is a righteous man who gives way

  before the wicked.

27 It is not good to eat much honey,

nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.

28 A man without self-control

  is like a city broken into and left without walls.

1 Corinthians 9

23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“PATIENCE and I have traveled hand in hand

So many days that I have grown to trace

The lines of sad, sweet beauty in her face,

And all its veiled depths to understand.

Not beautiful is she to eyes profane;

Silent and unrevealed her holy charms;

But, like a mother’s, her serene, strong arms

Uphold my footsteps on the path of pain.

I long to cry, – her soft voice whispers, ‘Nay!’

I seek to fly, but she restrains my feet;

In wisdom stern, yet in compassion sweet,

She guides my helpless wanderings, day by day.

O my Beloved, life’s golden visions fade,

And one by one life’s phantom joys depart;

They leave a sudden darkness in the heart,

And patience fills their empty place instead.”

~Edith Wharton (1862-1937), first woman to win Pulitzer Prize

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

~Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate

“What I long for is a love big enough to be disturbed by what people are doing, and strong enough and patient enough to carry them to the place where Christ wants them to be!”

~C. John Miller (1928-1996), Pastor and Missionary

SERMON PASSAGE

2 Peter 3:8-15 (ESV)

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him…

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than your own.”

~H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940-2021), inspirational author

“The happiness you feel is in direct proportion with the love you give.”

~Oprah Winfrey, talk show host and media mogul

“Happiness is only real when shared.”

~Jon Krakauer, writer and mountaineer

“We are not those who pay homage to stones, that are without sensation; but of the only God, who is before all and over all, and, moreover, we are worshippers of His Christ, who is truly God the Word existing before all time.”

~Melito, Bishop of Sardis (written c. 169-170) in his “Apology to Marcus Aurelius”

“Jesus is the Word, the Image, the Expression and Exegesis of God.”

~Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), Swiss theologian

“To receive God’s grace, the main thing you need is need—the main thing you need is nothing. But not many people have it.”

~John Gerstner (1914-1996), theologian and professor of church history

Question 8: Is there more than one God? Answer: There is only one, the living and true God.

Question 9. How many persons are in the one God? Answer: Three persons are in the one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Although they are differentiated by their own individual, personal qualities, these three are one true, eternal God, the same in substance and equal in power and glory.

~Westminster Larger Catechism (1647)

“In space, astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that draws them to the center. Where there is no ‘moral gravity’…there is spiritual weightlessness. We float on feelings that will carry us where we were never meant to go; we bubble with emotional experiences that we often take for spiritual ones; and we are puffed up with pride. Instead of seriousness, there is foolishness. Instead of gravity, flippancy. Sentimentality takes the place of theology. Our reference point…is merely ourselves. We cannot possibly tell which end is up.”

~Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015), missionary and author

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 6:1, 6, 13-15, 19-26 (ESV)

Galatians 5

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery….

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love….

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another….

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Ephesians 4

1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The Name Bryan Johnson may not ring a bell....The 46-year-old tech millionaire has made the rounds time and again on social media for going to extreme lengths to curb the effects of aging in a longevity project called Blueprint, which he calls an ‘algorithm’ for preserving his body. Johnson takes more than 100 supplements a day, submits himself to constant medical assessments, keeps to a strict diet that prohibits any food after 11 a.m., goes to bed at 8:30 p.m., and pursues experiments with a dizzying array of treatments….”

~Rolling Stone interview with biohacker and technologist Bryan Johnson, September 11, 2023

“From its very first verse, dearest friends, this psalm urges us to seek happiness. Yet there is no one who does not long for this. Is there anyone, has there ever been anyone, will there ever be anyone, who does not want to be happy? Surely not….Why, then, do we need to be invited to will something that we are incapable of not willing? Only because, though men and women all long for happiness, many do not know how to reach it.”

~Early Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Commentary on Psalm 119

In the ancient world, “Philosophy did not consist in teaching an abstract theory, much less in the exegesis of texts, but rather in the art of living. It is a concrete attitude and determinate life-style, which engaged the whole of existence. The philosophical act is not situated merely on the cognitive level, but on that of the self and of being. It is a progress which causes us to be more fully, and makes us better. It is a conversion which turns our entire life upside down, changing the life of the person who goes through it.”

~Pierre Hadot (scholar of ancient philosophy), Philosophy as a Way of Life (1987)

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 119:1-24 (ESV)

1 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,

   who walk in the law of the Lord!

2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,

   who seek him with their whole heart,

3 who also do no wrong,

   but walk in his ways!

4 You have commanded your precepts

   to be kept diligently.

5 Oh that my ways may be steadfast

   in keeping your statutes!

6 Then I shall not be put to shame,

  having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

7 I will praise you with an upright heart,

  when I learn your righteous rules.

8 I will keep your statutes;

  do not utterly forsake me!

9 How can a young man keep his way pure?

   By guarding it according to your word.

10 With my whole heart I seek you;

   let me not wander from your commandments!

11 I have stored up your word in my heart,

   that I might not sin against you.

12 Blessed are you, O Lord;

   teach me your statutes!

13 With my lips I declare

   all the rules of your mouth.

14 In the way of your testimonies I delight

   as much as in all riches.

15 I will meditate on your precepts

   and fix my eyes on your ways.

16 I will delight in your statutes;

   I will not forget your word.

17 Deal bountifully with your servant,

   that I may live and keep your word.

18 Open my eyes, that I may behold

   wondrous things out of your law.

19 I am a sojourner on the earth;

   hide not your commandments from me!

20 My soul is consumed with longing

   for your rules at all times.

21 You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,

   who wander from your commandments.

22 Take away from me scorn and contempt,

   for I have kept your testimonies.

23 Even though princes sit plotting against me,

   your servant will meditate on your statutes.

24 Your testimonies are my delight;

   they are my counselors.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“To any normal person, the practice of communion is one of the most bizarre things that Christians do. Jesus’ cannibalistic tendencies offer explicit evidence that Jesus is not God.”

~Marshall Brain, Atheist blogger

“The story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupils... Thirstily – O horror! they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged together; with this consciousness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence.”

~Minucius Felix, 3rd century Christian apologist, describing a common Roman misunderstanding of Communion

“If Melanchthon were alive today, he might not weep because of controversies that surround the Lord’s Supper, but he might well sorrow because of our indifference to its meaning and importance.”

~Erwin Lutzer, Canadian minister and radio broadcaster

“In the presence of Christ the Lord’s Supper joins the past and the future. History and eschatology in a unique way, and becomes the token of liberating grace…Understood as a eucharist in this sense, the feast of Christ’s fellowship is the great thanksgiving to the Father for everything he has made in creation and has achieved in the reconciliation of the world, and has promised to accomplish in its redemption.”

~Jürgen Moltmann. 20th century German theologian

“As two pieces of wax fused together make one so he who receives holy communion is so united with Christ that Christ is in him and he is in Christ.”

~Cyril of Alexandria, 5th century Egyptian theologian

“The purpose of the Lord’s Supper is to receive from Christ the nourishment and strength and hope and joy that come from feasting our souls on all that He purchased for us on the cross, especially His own fellowship.”

~John Piper, American pastor and author

SERMON PASSAGE

1 Corinthians 10:14-17, 11:23-33 Mark 14:12-24 (NIV)

1 Corinthians 10

14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.

1 Corinthians 11

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. 32 Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.

33 So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together.

Mark 14

12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

13 So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”

16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”

19 They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely you don’t mean me?”

20 “It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”

23 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

24 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“…the more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”

~Freeman John Dyson (1923-2020), theoretical physicist and mathematician

“If the experience of science teaches anything, it’s that the world is very strange and surprising. The many revolutions in science have certainly shown that.”

“[The] destinies of human beings and of the whole universe lie together in the world of God’s new creation…. In Christian thinking, the seed event from which this new creation has already begun to grow is the resurrection of Christ. His tomb was empty because the matter of his corpse had been transmuted into the ‘matter’ of the new creation, to become his risen and glorified body in which he appeared to the first witnesses.”

~John Polkinghorne (1930-2021), theoretical physicist and theologian

“For the sake of suffering humanity [Christ] came down from heaven to earth, clothed himself in that humanity in the Virgin’s womb, and was born a man. Having then a body capable of suffering, he took the pain of fallen man upon himself; he triumphed over the diseases of soul and body that were its cause, and by his Spirit, which was incapable of dying, he dealt man’s destroyer, death, a fatal blow.”

~Melito of Sardis in his “Apology to Marcus Aurelius” (c. 169-170)

“Faith is not just a question of abstract knowledge…. I can’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God and was raised from the dead without it affecting my life. It isn’t just a question of ticking the boxes: it is a question of how you orient your whole existence.”

~John Polkinghorne (1930-2021), theoretical physicist and theologian

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

~Julian of Norwich (c.1343-after 1416), medieval mystic

“Christians, at their best, are the fools who dare believe in God’s power to call dead things to life.”

~Esau MacCaulley, professor, author, opinion writer for the New York Times

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 1:1-5 & 6:14-15 (ESV)

Galatians 1

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Galatians 6

14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Revelation 21

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Isaiah 24

4 The earth mourns and withers;

  the world languishes and withers;

  the highest people of the earth languish.

5 The earth lies defiled

  under its inhabitants;

  for they have transgressed the laws,

  violated the statutes,

  broken the everlasting covenant.

6 Therefore a curse devours the earth,

  and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt…

SERMON PASSAGE

John 13:1-17, 31-35 (ESV)

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them…”

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“When Christ entered into Jerusalem the people spread garments in the way: when He enters into our hearts, we pull off our own righteousness, and not only lay it under Christ’s feet but even trample upon it ourselves.”

~Augustus Toplady 18th Century British Minister and Hymn Writer

“We are often like the worshippers on Palm Sunday: eager for the party, not quite ready for the cross.”

~Kevin DeYoung American Pastor and Author

“‘Hosanna in the highest!’

that ancient song we sing,

for Christ is our Redeemer,

the Lord of heaven our King.

O may we ever praise Him,

with heart and life and voice,

and in His blissful presence

eternally rejoice.”

~“Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” by Jeannette Threlfall

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

~Zechariah 9:9 (ESV)

“Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

~Psalm 118:25-26 (ESV)

SERMON PASSAGE

John 12:12-19 (ESV)

12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” 14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,

15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion;

   behold, your king is coming,

    sitting on a donkey's colt!”

16 His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. 17 The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. 18 The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“If you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection.”

~Lecrae, rapper and producer

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”

~Attributed to Lao Tzu, 6th century B.C. Chinese philosopher

“I can’t tell you the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.”

~Ed Sheeran, singer-songwriter

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), diplomat, activist, and First Lady

“He that hung up the earth in space was Himself hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that bore up the earth was borne up on a tree; the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body—God put to death!”

~Melito, Bishop of Sardis (writing circa 160-177)

“At the heart of the gospel is the promise that in Christ we can have a new beginning, a fresh start where…we can experience the new creation power of God, the same power that he will one day use to transform all of creation into a new heavens and new earth for his people to dwell in with him forever.”

~Matthew S. Harmon, New Testament scholar

“Lo! my God, without merit on my part, of His pure and free mercy, has given to me (an unworthy, condemned, and contemptible creature) all the riches of justification and salvation in Christ. For such a Father then, who has overwhelmed me with these inestimable riches of His, why should I not freely, cheerfully, with my whole heart and with an eager will, do all that I know will be pleasing to Him, and acceptable in His sight?

“I will therefore give myself, as a sort of Christ, to my neighbor, as Christ has given Himself to me; and will do nothing in this life, except what I see will be needful, advantageous, and wholesome for my neighbor, since by faith I abound in all good things in Christ.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), On the Freedom of the Christian

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 6:11-18 (ESV)

Galatians 6

11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

2 Corinthians 5

11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Galatians 2

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I note the obvious differences between each sort and type, but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”

~Maya Angelou (1928-2014), poet and activist

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), poet and educator

“Much that we have interpreted as a defect of [holiness and happiness] in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure people…. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce, defensive assertion of their own righteousness [or ‘rightness’], and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge the suppressed anger.”

~Richard Lovelace (1931-2020) in The Dynamics of Spiritual Life

“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth. This is now exactly reversed.”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), writer and literary critic

“When diversion becomes a way of life, we avoid the very issues to which we should be most attentive…the grim, unpleasant truth that our lives lack meaning without God…”

~Dick Staub, contemporary cultural commentator

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), diplomat, activist, and First Lady

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:22-6:10 (ESV)

Galatians 5 (ESV)

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh….

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Galatians 6 (ESV)

1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.

6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

1 Corinthians 13 (NIV)

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen.”

~Elizabeth Elliot (1926-2015), Christian missionary, author, and speaker

“[The] kingdom may be inherited [only] by the children of the King; and such are all believers in Christ, for through union with him and by virtue of his redeeming act they have become Abraham’s true offspring and God sons and heirs according to the promise…. But God’s reign or rule is moral in nature; those who consistently behave in ways that are opposed to God’s nature…show thereby that they have not accepted God’s rule through Christ in their lives.”

~R.Y.K. Fung, professor at China Graduate School of Theology (Hong Kong)

“…the Holy Spirit…puts…eagerness of unconstrained love into the heart…. That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law; faith it is that brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ. The Spirit, in turn, renders the heart glad and free, as the law demands. Then good works proceed from faith itself.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) in his Romans Commentary

“There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both…a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.”

“Latter-day skepticism is fond of calling itself progressive; but skepticism is really reactionary. Skepticism goes back; it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its plough, it simply tries to break up the plough.”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer

“It has become an unquestioned moral assumption…that people should be free. What that means in the popular mind and popular culture is that people should be permitted, if not actually enabled, to do what they want. This is almost always joined with the assumption that what people do want is to enjoy pleasure. Sometimes they speak of ‘happiness,’ but that term has little meaning to most folk other than feeling good…. From this we get our overall culture of sensuality, in which people are almost totally governed by their feelings.”

~Dallas Willard (1935-2013), professor of philosophy at USC

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:13-25 (ESV)

Galatians 5

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Galatians 6

1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“One of the challenges that we have collectively as a society is that in this country, we do victory great, we do success great, we do power great. We do not do shame very well; we do not do guilt very well. We don’t own up to our mistakes. And the absence of shame is what makes us vulnerable to discrimination and bigotry and abuse of power…If you see two people who’ve loved each other for fifty years, if you ask them what the secret is; they’ve learned how to say I’m sorry to one another…”

~Bryan Stevenson (1959-present), lawyer, activist, and author of Just Mercy

“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

~John Owen (1616-1683), British theologian and church leader

“There is a mean streak to authentic self-control. Underneath what seems to be the placid demeanor of those who are not ruled by their desires is the heart of a warrior… Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin…The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war.”

~Ed Welch (1953-present), Counselor and Author in Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave

“See dawg I live by the Spirit so I don’t gratify

All them old sinful desires that never satisfy…

[Sin]: Man you know you miss them old days…

Yeah you right possibly

But after that I sober up and think of Jesus holding up

His skin up on the cross for all them drunken nights I’m throwing up

Every thought of blowin’ up is captured in his flowing blood

I start thinking Philippians 4:8 when you showing up.

[Sin]: You know I ain’t gone quit right?

Yeah I know but I’m dead to you

And one day I’ll be present with Jesus who died and bled from you

Colossians 1:15 that’s the God that I trust in

The Father crushed Him

In doing so he has crushed sin.”

~Lecrae Moore (1979-present), Grammy-winning hip-hop artist in song Indwelling Sin

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:13-26 (ESV)

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:13-26 (ESV)

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“You are happy when God blesses you, but not as happy as God is.”

~C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London pastor

“Wash the plate, not because it is dirty nor because you are told to wash it, but because you love the one who will use it next.”

~Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (1910-1997), a.k.a. “Mother Teresa”

“Christ did not die to redeem us in part. …[W]e must understand that God is after…any and all sin that would hinder the whole person from serving God fully and freely.”

~Jackie Hill Perry, writer and hip-hop artist

“Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.”

~John Stott (1921-2011), London pastor and theologian

“…the freer [the] gospel, the more sanctifying is the gospel; and the more it is received as a doctrine of grace, the more will it be felt as a doctrine according to godliness.  …[I]n the gospel…our desire after Him is not chilled into apathy by that barrier of human guilt….”

“Retain a single shred or fragment of legality with the gospel, and you raise a topic of distrust between man and God. You take away from the power of the gospel to melt and to conciliate. For this purpose, the freer it is the better it is. That very peculiarity which so many dread as the germ of Antinomianism [i.e. lawlessness], is, in fact, the germ of a new spirit and a new inclination against it.”

~Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) in “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”

“Unless this freedom be comprehended, neither Christ nor gospel truth, nor inner peace of soul, can be rightly known.”

~John Calvin (1509-1964), French-born reformer and theologian

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 5:1-15 (ESV)

Galatians 5

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

Romans 13

8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Deuteronomy 30

6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

Jeremiah 31

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Ezekiel 36

26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I was given eyes to see societal ‘beauty’ in a new way; ‘beauty’ was exposed for what it really was. Totally empty and not beautiful at all.

“I saw how societal ‘beauty’ ran on insecurity and shame. And that it was all on purpose. Making women feel like their face, or body, or skin is ‘wrong’ so they’ll adhere to a diet or buy a product to ‘fix’ themselves. In short, I was awakened to the black hole that is American ‘beauty,’ its gravity impacting the minds, the hearts, the souls of so many girls and women.”

~Melissa L. Johnson, Soul-Deep Beauty: Fighting for Our True Worth in a World Demanding Flawless

“…the promises of the law are conditional, promising life not freely, but to those who fulfill the law; therefore, they leave people’s consciences in doubt, for no one fulfills the law. But the promises of the new covenant have no such condition attached. They do not require anything of us; they do not depend on any condition of our worthiness but freely give us forgiveness of sins, grace, righteousness, and everlasting life for Christ’s sake.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), famed religious reformer

“…our conscience must be instructed and prepared beforehand, so that when we feel the accusation of the law, the terrors of sin, the horror of death and the wrath of God we may remove these dire sights and fearful ideas from our minds and replace them with the freedom purchased by Christ, the forgiveness of sins, righteousness, life, and the everlasting mercy of God. Although the contrary feeling may be very strong, we must assure ourselves that it will not last long (Isaiah 54:8). But this is very hard to do. Therefore, it is easier to speak of the freedom that Christ purchased for us than it is to believe it.”

~Martin Luther in his Galatians Commentary (1535)

“Unless this freedom be comprehended, neither Christ nor gospel truth, nor inner peace of soul, can be rightly known.”

~John Calvin (1509-1564), Genevan religious reformer

“True freedom is to be one’s true self, but my true self is made for loving, and loving is self-giving. So in order to be myself, I have to deny myself and give myself. In order, then, to be free, I have to give up my freedom. In order, then, to live, I have to die to my self-centeredness. In order to find myself, I’ve got to lose it.”

~John Stott (1921-2011), English pastor and theologian 

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 4:28-5:6 (ESV)

Galatians 4

28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

Galatians 5

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hopeof righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“To me there is in happiness an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable you are intensely conscious of yourself, are a solid little lump of ego weighing a ton.”

~Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), English chemist, philosopher, and educator

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”

~CS Lewis (1898-1963), A Grief Observed

“When God guides us down paths of grief, He isn’t leading us away from hope. He’s trying to lead us to the point where those streets intersect, so that we never believe the lie that our joy is tied to our circumstances.”

~John Onwuchekwa, pastor and author

“All those who do not in all their works or suffering, life and death, trust in God’s favor, grace and good-will, but rather seek His favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep the First Commandment, and practice real idolatry, even if they were to do the works or all the other Commandments, and in addition had all the prayers, fasting, obedience, patience, chastity, and innocence of all the saints combined.” 

~Martin Luther in his Treatise Concerning Good Works (1520)

“How did Christ welcome us? By taking on our human flesh, by living with a bunch of sinners, and most stunningly of all, by dying on a Roman cross, so you and I could live with him forever.”

~Rebecca McLaughlin (PhD, Cambridge), speaker and author

“He who thinks lightly of sin thinks lightly of the Savior.”

~C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 4:21-31 (ESV)

1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,

    “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;

       break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!

      For the children of the desolate one will be more

      than those of the one who has a husband.”

28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTIONS

“Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), literary scholar and profess at Oxford and Cambridge

“I had no idea who I was, or what I could be away from tennis. I was depressed and afraid because so much of my life had been defined by my being a tennis champion. I was completely lost. Winning made me feel like I was somebody. It made me feel pretty. It was like being hooked on a drug. I needed the wins, the applause, in order to have an identity.”

~Chris Evert, tennis star and record-holding seven-time French Open winner

“Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she want to please. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our lives.”

~Rebecca Manley Pippert, speaker and author

Modern man “still had to merge himself with some higher, self-absorbing meaning … If he no longer had God, how was he to do this? One of the first ways that occurred to him, was the ‘romantic solution’ … The self-glorification that he needed in his innermost nature he now looked for in the love partner…. The failure of romantic love as a solution to human problems is so much a part of modern man’s frustration … No human relationship can bear the burden of godhood … However much we may idealize and idolize [the love partner], he inevitably reflects earthly decay and imperfection … After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to this position? We want to be rid of our faults, of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified, to know our existence has not been in vain.”

~Ernest Becker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Denial of Death

“We obey God not because we are afraid of what He will do to us if we do not. Rather, we obey Him because we are moved by all that He has done for us in Jesus Christ. He has lovingly elected us and sprinkled us with the sin-forgiving, grace-abounding blood of Jesus.”

~Anthony J. Carter, pastor and author

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 4:8-20 (ESV)

1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or

despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The dogma of…skepticism about truth-claims—a routine feature of humanities instruction these days…is part of the atmosphere of our times. One does not need college to inculcate it; one needs college to disabuse young people from it.”

~Prof. Wilfred M. McClay, contemporary historian

“If the truth is what sets us free, then why not walk in it at all times? With wisdom and love, of course, but also with the reality that truth is where freedom begins.”

~Jackie Hill Perry, writer and hip-hop artist

“Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.”

“Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer and literary critic

“True freedom is to be one’s true self, but my true self is made for loving, and loving is self-giving. So in order to be myself, I have to deny myself and give myself. In order, then, to be free, I have to give up my freedom. In order, then, to live, I have to die to my self-centeredness. In order to find myself, I’ve got to lose it.”

~John Stott (1921-2011), English Anglican priest and theologian 

“Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.”

~George MacDonald (1824-1905), Scottish minister and writer

“And isn’t that what freedom is supposed to be? The ability to not do as I please, but the power to do what is pleasing.”

~Jackie Hill Perry, writer and hip-hop artist

“The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), literary scholar at Oxford and Cambridge

“To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, and hear his pardoning voice,

changes a slave into a child, and duty into a choice.”

~William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 3:23-4:7 (ESV)

Galatians 3

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Galatians 4

1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“[T]he moment you begin to have faith, you learn that all things in you are altogether blameworthy, sinful, and damnable. When you have learned this, you will know that you need Christ, who suffered and rose again for you, so that if you believe in him, you may, through faith become a new man… [Y]our sins are forgiven, and you are justified by the merits of another, namely of Christ alone.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) in The Freedom of a Christian

“If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?”

~Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French mathematician and thinker

“Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.”

~John Stott (1921-2011), English theologian

“This bruising is required before conversion that so the Spirit may make way for himself into the heart by the leveling all proud, high thoughts, and that we may understand ourselves to be what indeed we are by nature. We love to wander from ourselves and to be strangers at home, till God bruises us by one cross or other, and then we ‘begin to think’ and come home to ourselves with the prodigal. It is very hard thing to bring a dull and an evasive heart to cry with feeling for mercy. Our hearts, like criminals, until they are beaten from all evasions, never cry for the mercy of the Judge.”

~Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) in A Bruised Reed

“He who thinks lightly of sin thinks lightly of the Savior.”

~C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), London preacher

“The dying Jesus is the evidence of God’s anger toward sin; but the living Jesus is the proof of God’s love and forgiveness.”

~Lorenz Eifert (1913-1986), pastor

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 3:5-9, 15-26, 29 (ESV)

5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith….

15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith…. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

 “Gather ‘round, ye children, come

Listen to the old, old story

Of the pow’r of death undone

By an infant born of glory

Son of God, Son of Man.

So sing out with joy for the brave little boy

Who was God, but He made Himself nothing

He gave up His pride and He came here to die like a man.”

~ Andrew Peterson, “Gather ‘Round, Ye Children, Come”

“Now the same Spirit dwelling in Christ’s heart in heaven, that does in yours here, and always working in his heart first for you, and then in yours by commission from him; rest assured, therefore, that that Spirit stirs up in him bowels of mercy infinitely larger towards you than you can have unto yourselves.”

~ Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth

“As Bunyan says, describing his first and illusory conversion, ‘I thought there was no man in England that pleased God better than I.’ Beaten out of this, we next offer our own humility to God’s admiration. Surely He’ll like that? Or if not that, our clear-sighted and humble recognition that we still lack humility. Thus, depth beneath depth and subtlety within subtlety, there remains some lingering idea of our own, our very own, attractiveness. It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little - however little - native luminosity?”

~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

~ Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

SERMON PASSAGE

Micah 6:1-8 (ESV)

1 Hear what the Lord says:

 Arise, plead your case before the mountains,

  and let the hills hear your voice.

2 Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord,

  and you enduring foundations of the earth,

  for the Lord has an indictment against his people,

  and he will contend with Israel.

3 “O my people, what have I done to you?

  How have I wearied you? Answer me!

4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt

  and redeemed you from the house of slavery,

  and I sent before you Moses,

  Aaron, and Miriam.

5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,

  and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,

  and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,

  that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,

  and bow myself before God on high?

  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

  with calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

  with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

  Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

  the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8 He has told you, O man, what is good;

  and what does the Lord require of you

  but to do justice, and to love kindness,

  and to walk humbly with your God?

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

~Source Unknown

“Darkness is only the absence of light. Turn on a light and it banishes the darkness.”

~Terry Pratchett (1948-2015), English author and satirist

“There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

~Edith Wharton (1862-1937), first woman to win Pulitzer Prize in Fiction

“The darkness always passes, and the light comes back.”

~Khaled Hosseini in The Kite Runner (2003)

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

~Victor Hugo in Les Misérables (1862)

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

~Martin Luther King Jr. in Strength to Love (1963)

“The deepest thing in Christianity is God’s love for earth. That God is rich in his heaven is something known also by other religions. That he wanted to be poor together with his creatures, that…he wanted to and did indeed suffer for his world, and that through his Incarnation he enabled himself to prove the suffering of his love to his creatures: this is the hitherto unheard-of thing.”

~Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), Swiss Theologian

“The Bible is God’s anthropology rather than man’s theology.”

~Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), leading Jewish theologian-philosopher of the 20th century

SERMON PASSAGE

John 1:1-5, 9-14; 3:16-21, 8:12 (ESV)

John 1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 3

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

John 8

12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“On a starlit hillside, shepherds watched their sheep.

Slowly, David's city drifted off to sleep.

But to this little town of no great renown

The Lord had a promise to keep.

Prophets had foretold it, a mighty King would come,

Long awaited Ruler, God’s Anointed One.

But the Sovereign of all looked helpless and small

As God gave the world His own Son.

Wondrous gift of heaven: the Father sends the Son.

Planned from time eternal, moved by holy love.

He will carry our curse and death He’ll reverse,

So we can be daughters and sons.

And who would have dreamed or ever foreseen

That we could hold God in our hands?

The Giver of Life is born in the night

Revealing God’s glorious plan

To save the world.”

~“Who Would Have Dreamed,” Sovereign Grace Music

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

~“O Little Town of Bethlehem,” Phillips Brooks

“God promises to keep His people and He will keep His promises.”

~ Charles Spurgeon, 19th century Baptist preacher

“King of Kings yet born of Mary,

As of old on earth he stood,

Lord of lords in human vesture,

In the body and the blood,

He will give to all the faithful

His own self for heavenly food.”

~“Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” The Divine Liturgy of St. James

SERMON PASSAGE

Micah 5:1-5, 7:7-20 (ESV)

Micah 5

1 Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops;

   siege is laid against us;

   with a rod they strike the judge of Israel

   on the cheek.

2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

   who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

   from you shall come forth for me

   one who is to be ruler in Israel,

   whose coming forth is from of old,

   from ancient days.

3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time

   when she who is in labor has given birth;

   then the rest of his brothers shall return

   to the people of Israel.

4 And he shall stand and shepherd his flock

   in the strength of the Lord,

   in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

   And they shall dwell secure,

   for now he shall be great

   to the ends of the earth.

5 And he shall be their peace.

   When the Assyrian comes into our land

   and treads in our palaces,

   then we will raise against him seven shepherds

   and eight princes of men;

  Micah 7

7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord;

   I will wait for the God of my salvation;

   my God will hear me.

8 Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;

   when I fall, I shall rise;

   when I sit in darkness,

   the Lord will be a light to me.

9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord

   because I have sinned against him,

   until he pleads my cause

   and executes judgment for me.

   He will bring me out to the light;

   I shall look upon his vindication.

10 Then my enemy will see,

  and shame will cover her who said to me,

   “Where is the Lord your God?”

   My eyes will look upon her;

   now she will be trampled down

   like the mire of the streets.

11 A day for the building of your walls!

   In that day the boundary shall be far extended.

12 In that day they will come to you,

   from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,

   and from Egypt to the River,

   from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.

13 But the earth will be desolate

   because of its inhabitants,

   for the fruit of their deeds.

14 Shepherd your people with your staff,

   the flock of your inheritance,

   who dwell alone in a forest

   in the midst of a garden land;

   let them graze in Bashan and Gilead

   as in the days of old.

15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,

   I will show them marvelous things.

16 The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might;

   they shall lay their hands on their mouths;

   their ears shall be deaf;

17 they shall lick the dust like a serpent,

   like the crawling things of the earth;

   they shall come trembling out of their strongholds;

   they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,

   and they shall be in fear of you.

18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity

   and passing over transgression

   for the remnant of his inheritance?

   He does not retain his anger forever,

   because he delights in steadfast love.

19 He will again have compassion on us;

   he will tread our iniquities underfoot.

   You will cast all our sins

   into the depths of the sea.

20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob

   and steadfast love to Abraham,

   as you have sworn to our fathers

   from the days of old.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.”

~Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” 

~The Gospel of Matthew 26:52-54

“The Trumpet Child will blow his horn

Will blast the sky till it’s reborn

With Gabriel’s power and Satchmo’s grace

He will surprise the human race;

The trumpet he will use to blow

Is being fashioned out of fire

The mouthpiece is a glowing coal

The bell a burst of wild desire.

The Trumpet Child will riff on love

Thelonious notes from up above

He’ll improvise a kingdom come

Accompanied by a different drum;

The Trumpet Child will banquet here

Until the lost are truly found

A thousand days, a thousand years,

Nobody knows for sure how long.

The rich forget about their gold

The meek and mild are strangely bold

A lion lies beside a lamb

And licks a murderer’s outstretched hand;

The Trumpet Child will lift a glass

His bride now leaning in at last

His final aim to fill with joy

The earth that man all but destroyed.”

~ “The Trumpet Child,” Over the Rhine

SERMON PASSAGE

Micah 4:1-7 (ESV)

1 It shall come to pass in the latter days

  that the mountain of the house of the Lord

  shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

  and it shall be lifted up above the hills;

  and peoples shall flow to it,

2 and many nations shall come, and say:

 “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

  to the house of the God of Jacob,

  that he may teach us his ways

  and that we may walk in his paths.”

  For out of Zion shall go forth the law,

  and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

3 He shall judge between many peoples,

  and shall decide disputes

 for strong nations far away;

  and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

  and their spears into pruning hooks;

  nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

   neither shall they learn war anymore;

4 but they shall sit every man under his vine and

  under his fig tree,

  and no one shall make them afraid,

  for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

5 For all the peoples walk

  each in the name of its god,

  but we will walk in the name

 of the Lord our God forever and ever.

6 In that day, declares the Lord,

  I will assemble the lame

  and gather those who have been driven away

  and those whom I have afflicted;

7 and the lame I will make the remnant,

  and those who were cast off, a strong nation;

  and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion

  from this time forth and forevermore.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior.”

~Charles Spurgeon, Reformed Baptist Minister (1834-1892)

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch towards prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

~D.A. Carson, Author and New Testament Scholar

“A significant majority of Americans were agreed that the following are sins: Adultery 81%, Racism 74%, Using ‘hard’ drugs such as cocaine, heroine, meth, LSD, etc. 65%, Not saying anything if a cashier gives you too much change back 63%, Having an abortion 56%… Not reporting some income on your tax returns 52%.”

~Ellison Research Poll 2008

“Sin is believing the lie that you are self-created, self-dependent and self-sustained.”

~Augustine, theologian and pastor in Africa (354-430)

“Happiness won’t arrive, it has to be cultivated. Only behavior and its consequences will make you happy. Being happy requires you to work your ‘how’ muscles and to be aware; you need to consciously focus on the good things and not the bad. This is not to bury your head in the sand, some things need to be faced up to, but you need to focus on those things you can have agency over.”

~Psychology Today 2021

“It’s a sin, a sin the way I love you, because I know our love could never be. It’s a sin to say that I don’t miss you, When silence proves that you’ve forgotten me.”

~Marty Robbins, country singer (1925-1984).

“The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting point of all preaching; but today it is gone. Characteristic of the modern age, above all else, is a supreme confidence in human goodness; the religious literature of the day is redolent of that confidence. Get beneath the rough exterior of men, we are told, and we shall discover enough self-sacrifice to found upon it the hope of society; the world’s evil, it is said, can be overcome with the world’s good; no help is needed from outside the world.”

~J. Gresham Machen, Author and Theologian (1881-1937)

SERMON PASSAGE

Micah 2:1-11, 3:1-12 (ESV)

Micah 2

1 Woe to those who devise wickedness

   and work evil on their beds!

   When the morning dawns, they perform it,

   because it is in the power of their hand.

2 They covet fields and seize them,

   and houses, and take them away;

   they oppress a man and his house,

   a man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says the Lord:

   behold, against this family I am devising disaster,

   from which you cannot remove your necks,

   and you shall not walk haughtily,

   for it will be a time of disaster.

4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you

   and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined;

   he changes the portion of my people;

   how he removes it from me!

   To an apostate he allots our fields.”

5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

   in the assembly of the Lord.

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—

   “one should not preach of such things;

   disgrace will not overtake us.”

7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

   Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds?

   Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;

   you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

   with no thought of war.

9 The women of my people you drive out

   from their delightful houses;

   from their young children you take away

   my splendor forever.

10 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest,

   because of uncleanness that destroys

   with a grievous destruction.

11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

   saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

   he would be the preacher for this people!

Micah 3

1  And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel!

   Is it not for you to know justice?—

2  you who hate the good and love the evil,

Micah 2

1 Woe to those who devise wickedness

   and work evil on their beds!

   When the morning dawns, they perform it,

   because it is in the power of their hand.

2 They covet fields and seize them,

   and houses, and take them away;

   they oppress a man and his house,

   a man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says the Lord:

   behold, against this family I am devising disaster,

   from which you cannot remove your necks,

   and you shall not walk haughtily,

   for it will be a time of disaster.

4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you

   and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined;

   he changes the portion of my people;

   how he removes it from me!

   To an apostate he allots our fields.”

5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

   in the assembly of the Lord.

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—

   “one should not preach of such things;

   disgrace will not overtake us.”

7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

   Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds?

   Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;

   you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

   with no thought of war.

9 The women of my people you drive out

   from their delightful houses;

   from their young children you take away

   my splendor forever.

10 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest,

   because of uncleanness that destroys

   with a grievous destruction.

11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

   saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

   he would be the preacher for this people!

Micah 3

1  And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel!

   Is it not for you to know justice?—

2  you who hate the good and love the evil,

who tear the skin from off my people

   and their flesh from off their bones,

3 who eat the flesh of my people,

   and flay their skin from off them,

   and break their bones in pieces

   and chop them up like meat in a pot,

   like flesh in a cauldron.

4 Then they will cry to the Lord,

   but he will not answer them;

   he will hide his face from them at that time,

   because they have made their deeds evil.

5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets

   who lead my people astray,

   who cry “Peace”

  when they have something to eat,

   but declare war against him

   who puts nothing into their mouths.

6 Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,

   and darkness to you, without divination.

   The sun shall go down on the prophets,

   and the day shall be black over them;

7 the seers shall be disgraced,

   and the diviners put to shame;

   they shall all cover their lips,

   for there is no answer from God.

8 But as for me, I am filled with power,

   with the Spirit of the Lord,

   and with justice and might,

   to declare to Jacob his transgression

   and to Israel his sin.

9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel,

   who detest justice

  and make crooked all that is straight,

10 who build Zion with blood

   and Jerusalem with iniquity.

11 Its heads give judgment for a bribe;

   its priests teach for a price;

   its prophets practice divination for money;

   yet they lean on the Lord and say,

   “Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

   No disaster shall come upon us.”

12 Therefore because of you

   Zion shall be plowed as a field;

   Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,

   and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Author & Theologian

“It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the ‘turn’ comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.”

~J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), Author

“But wait, I haven’t even told you the best part yet.

You see - as if there wasn’t enough here already to impress you -

The best part about this story is this story is true.

The only fairytale that’s not a fairytale.”

~“The Damsel and the Villain” by Jimmy Needham

“What does Christmas feel like for me? It feels like I’m in a courtroom where my life hangs in the balance. The prosecuting attorney is the unassailable law of God, and the defense attorney does not exist. There is no defense. It is manifest to everyone in the courtroom that all evidence is against me, and the judge, the son of the king of the realm, brings down the gavel: ‘Guilty.’ I’m sentenced to execution and everlasting ruin. And as they leave the courtroom with me in bonds, the son-judge follows me out, pulls me aside, and says, ‘I’m going to take your condemnation… I love you.’”

~John Piper (1946-Present), Pastor & Author

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

‘Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”

~“O Holy Night” by Adolphe Adam

SERMON PASSAGE

Micah 1:1-7; 7:18-20 (ESV)

Micah 1

1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

2 Hear, you peoples, all of you;

  pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it,

 and let the Lord God be a witness against you,

  the Lord from his holy temple.

3 For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place,

  and will come down and tread upon the high   

 places of the earth.

4 And the mountains will melt under him,

  and the valleys will split open,

 like wax before the fire,

  like waters poured down a steep place.

5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob

  and for the sins of the house of Israel.

 What is the transgression of Jacob?

  Is it not Samaria?

 And what is the high place of Judah?

  Is it not Jerusalem?

6 Therefore I will make Samaria

  a heap in the open country,

a place for planting vineyards,

  and I will pour down her stones into the valley

   and uncover her foundations.

7 All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,

   all her wages shall be burned with fire,

   and all her idols I will lay waste,

  for from the fee of a prostitute

  she gathered them,

  and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.

Micah 7

18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity

   and passing over transgression

   for the remnant of his inheritance?

  He does not retain his anger forever,

   because he delights in steadfast love.

19 He will again have compassion on us;

   he will tread our iniquities underfoot.

   You will cast all our sins

   into the depths of the sea.

20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob

   and steadfast love to Abraham,

   as you have sworn to our fathers

   from the days of old.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“You may be tempted to believe that God has changed because your circumstances have, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t be God. He’d be you.”

~Jackie Hill Perry in Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

“We should challenge the relativism that tells us there is no right or wrong, when every instinct of our mind knows it is not so, and is a mere excuse to allow us to indulge in what we believe we can get away with. A world without values quickly becomes a world without value.”

~Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020), former Chief Rabbi in the UK

“If we don’t re-enact Jesus’s dying and rising, then justification by faith can become a feel good formula…. The Gospel turns in on itself and becomes one more thing to make us feel good about ourselves.”

~Paul Miller in The J-Curve

“On and on the rain will fall

Like tears from a star like tears from a star

On and on the rain will say

How fragile we are how fragile we are.”

~from “Fragile” by Sting

“Look, if someone wrote a play, to glorify what’s stronger than hate,

Would they not arrange the stage, to look as if the hero came too late?

He’s almost in defeat; it's looking like the evil side will win,

So, on the edge of every seat; from that moment the whole thing begins.”

~from “Show the Way” by David Patrick Wilcox

“When through the deep waters I call you to go,

The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow,

For I will be with you your troubles to bless

And sanctify to you your deepest distress.

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

~from the hymn “How Firm a Foundation”

SERMON PASSAGE

Deuteronomy 8:1-10 (ESV)

Deuteronomy 8

1  “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

Hebrews 12

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the

 discipline of the Lord,

  nor be weary when reproved by him.

6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

 and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.”

~Doris Day

“...God’s command to be thankful is not the threatening demand of a tyrant. Rather, it is the invitation of a lifetime—the opportunity to draw near to Him at any moment of the day.”

~Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

“...God isn’t asking you to be thankful. He’s asking you to give thanks. There’s a big difference. One response involves emotions, the other your choices, your decisions about a situation, your intent, your step of faith.”

~Joni Eareckson Tada

“Let us thank God heartily as often as we pray that we have His Spirit in us to teach us to pray. Thanksgiving will draw our hearts out to God and keep us engaged with Him; it will take our attention from ourselves and give the Spirit room in our hearts.”

~Andrew Murray

“It’s one thing to be grateful. It’s another to give thanks. Gratitude is what you feel. Thanksgiving is what you do.”

~Tim Keller

“Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.”

~John Ortberg

“If you fail to carry around with you a heart of gratitude for the love you’ve been so freely given, it is easy for you not to love others as you should.”

~Paul David Tripp

SERMON PASSAGE

Colossians 3:12-17, Philippians 4:6-8 (ESV)

Colossians 3

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Philippians 4

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Clean shirt, new shoes

And I don’t know where I am goin’ to

Silk suit, black tie

I don’t need a reason why

They come runnin’ just as fast as they can

‘Cause every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp-dressed man.”

~ZZ Top, “Sharp Dressed Man”

“[One] realizes that without his clothes a man would be nothing at all; that the clothes do not merely make the man, the clothes are the man; that without them he is a cipher, a vacancy, a nobody, a nothing… There is no power without clothes.”

~Mark Twain, “The Czar’s Soliloquy”

“And yet another man can be so beautiful,

he looks like an immortal, but his words

are empty of all grace. That’s how you are.

Your appearance is extremely handsome—

a god could hardly make that any finer—

but your mind is empty.”

~Odysseus to Euryalus in Homer’s The Odyssey, Book VIII

“We can, perhaps, train ourselves to ask more and more often how the thing which we are saying or doing (or failing to do) at each moment will look when the irresistible light streams in upon it; that light which is so different from the light of this world and yet, even now, we know just enough of it to take it into account. Women sometimes have the problem of trying to judge by artificial light how a dress will look by daylight. That is very like the problem of all of us: to dress our souls not for the electric lights of the present world but for the daylight of the next. The good dress is the one that will face that light. For that light will last longer.”

~C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 3:23-29, Colossians 3:9-11, Romans 13:11-14 (ESV)

Galatians 3

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

Colossians 3

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Romans 13

11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“We must never look at any sin in our past life in any way except that which leads us to praise God and to magnify His grace in Christ Jesus.”

~D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) in Spiritual Depression

“What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are … because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.”

~Frederick Buechner (1926-2022) in Telling Secrets

“The Christian is righteous and a sinner at the same time, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a child of God. Only those who understand the true meaning of justification will understand this apparent paradox.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) in Second Lectures on Galatians

“[T]he moment you begin to have faith, you learn that all things in you are altogether blameworthy, sinful and damnable. When you have learned this, you will know that you need Christ, who suffered and rose again for you, so that if you believe in him, you may, through faith become a new man… [Y]our sins are forgiven, and you are justified by the merits of another, namely of Christ alone.”

~Martin Luther in The Freedom of a Christian

“We obey God not because we are afraid of what He will do to us if we do not. Rather, we obey Him because we are moved by all that He has done for us in Jesus Christ. He has lovingly elected us and sprinkled us with the sin-forgiving, grace-abounding blood of Jesus.”

~Anthony J. Carter, pastor and author

“Of all the things the serpent could come for, it is our faith he attacks most.”

“You may be tempted to believe that God has changed because your circumstances have, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t be God. He’d be you.”

~Jackie Hill Perry in Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 3

15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Genesis 3

14 The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

 cursed are you above all livestock

 and above all beasts of the field;

 on your belly you shall go,

 and dust you shall eat

 all the days of your life.

15       I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Better to have a small role in God’s story than to cast yourself as the lead in your own fiction.”

~Lecrae, singer, songwriter, and producer

“[T]he moment you begin to have faith, you learn that all things in you are altogether blameworthy, sinful and damnable. When you have learned this, you will know that you need Christ, who suffered and rose again for you, so that if you believe in him, you may, through faith become a new man, in so far as your sins are forgiven, and you are justified by the merits of another, namely of Christ alone.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) in The Freedom of a Christian

“…to fulfill the law means to do its work eagerly, lovingly and freely, without the constraint of the law; it means to live well and in a manner pleasing to God, as though there were no law or punishment. It is the Holy Spirit, however, who puts such eagerness of unconstrained love into the heart…. That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law; faith it is that brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ. The Spirit, in turn, renders the heart glad and free, as the law demands. Then good works proceed from faith itself.”

“Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness; I am Your sin. You took on You what was mine, yet set on me what was Yours. You became what You were not, that I might become what I was not.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) from various writings

Nothing either great or small—

Nothing, sinner, no;

Jesus did it, did it all,

Long, long ago.

“It is finished!” yes, indeed,

Finished every jot:

Sinner, this is all you need—

Tell me, is it not?

Till to Jesus’ work you cling

By a simple faith,

“Doing” is a deadly thing—

“Doing” ends in death.

Cast your deadly “doing” down—

Down at Jesus’ feet;

Stand in Him, in Him alone,

Gloriously complete.

 ~James Proctor

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 3:1-14 (ESV)

Galatians 3 (ESV)

1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Numbers 6 (ESV)

22 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

24 The Lord bless you and keep you;

25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you  

  and be gracious to you;

26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you  

  and give you peace.

27  “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Romans 8 (NASB95)

1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Tell the young, tell the poor, tell the aged, tell the ignorant, tell the sick, tell the dying — tell them all about Christ. Tell them of His power, and tell them of His love; tell them of His doings, and tell them of His feelings; tell them what He has done for the chief of sinners; tell them what He is willing to do until the last day of time; tell it to them over and over again. Never be tired of speaking of Christ. Say to them broadly and fully, freely and unconditionally, unreservedly and undoubtingly, ‘Come unto Christ, as the penitent thief did; come unto Christ, and you shall be saved.’”

~J.C. Ryle

“Unless we’re very intentional about meditating on these truths [that show God’s love], they slip from our thoughts like misty dreams that evaporate in the morning light. That’s why Luther said we must ‘take heed then, to embrace...the love and kindness of God...[and to] daily exercise [our] faith therein, entertain no doubt of God’s love and kindness.’”

~Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

“In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more and nothing I have done that makes You love me less.”

~J.D. Greear

“[N]obody can produce new evidence of your depravity that will make God change his mind. For God justified you with (so to speak) his eyes open. He knew the worst about you at the time when he accepted you for Jesus’ sake; and the verdict which he passed then was, and is, final.”

~J.I. Packer

“Jesus does not divide the world into the moral ‘good guys’ and the immoral ‘bad guys’. He shows us that everyone is dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways.”

~Tim Keller

“Don’t ever degenerate into giving advice unconnected to the good news of Jesus crucified, alive, present, at work and returning.”

~David Powlison

“This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified.”

~Martin Luther

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 3:1-6 (ESV)

Galatians 2

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 3

1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“It is better to be hurt by the truth than to be comforted with a lie.”

~Khaled Hosseini, Afghan-born novelist and physician

“We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except that we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.”

~John Calvin (1509-1564), Genevan reformer

“Take heart sinner, and do not despair. Hope in him whom you fear, flee to him from whom you have fled…. Dear name…of delight, name of comfort to the sinner, name of blessed hope. For what is Jesus except to say Savior? So, Jesus, for your own sake, be to me Jesus.”

~Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4-1109), monk, theologian, and archbishop

“We obey God not because we are afraid of what He will do to us…. Rather, we obey Him because we are moved by all that He has done for us in Jesus Christ.”

~Anthony J. Carter, pastor and author

“To see the law by Christ fulfilled, and hear His pardoning voice,

Changes a slave into a child, and duty into choice.”

~William Cowper (1730-1800), poet and hymnwriter

“I don’t believe it is wise or truthful to the power of the gospel to identify oneself by the sins of one’s past or the temptations of one’s present….”

~Jackie Hill Perry, writer and hip-hop artist

“Justification by faith alone frees me to love my neighbor…for his or her own sake…. Since we no longer have to carry around the intolerable burden of self-justification, we are free ‘to be Christs unto one another,’ as Luther put it, to expend ourselves on behalf of one another, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us.”

~Timothy George & John Woodbridge in The Mark of Jesus

“My grand objection to the religious system still held by many… is, that it tends to render Christianity… a system of prohibitions rather than of privilege and hopes, and thus the injunction to rejoice, so strongly enforced in the New Testament, is practically neglected, and Religion is made to wear a forbidding and gloomy air and not one of peace and hope and joy.”

~William Wilberforce (1759-1833), British politician and slavery abolitionist

SERMON PASSAGE

Galatians 2:11-21 (ESV)

1 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. 7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.