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| St. Paul: On The Same Page
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| What is this blog about? - Friday, June 01, 2007Each week I'll be writing some thoughts about the upcoming Sunday lessons, two Sundays ahead. My hope is that this will help laity be better prepared for worship, that it will help me to be better prepared for preaching, and that it might possibly be a service to some of my fellow pastors as well. NOTE: this is not a heavy exegetical blog. I won't be digging into the Hebrew or Greek. That is step-one of the sermon preparation. This is step-two, some cogitating about the devotional application of the text. How can we apply it to our lives. I hope it's helpful.
You can find a schedule of all the Sunday readings here.
You can read the SPOTS Devotion from St. Paul here in pdf format. read more ... |
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"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin... Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
People often debate "difficult" parts of Scripture. They might find it hard to believe miracles, or hard to understand concepts like the Trinity. I have spent years trying to help people see the truth and trustworthiness of God's Word. But in these verses there are two words that even I have trouble with. "We know..."
This is a funeral sermon.
At least that's how I think of it. Zechariah (whose name means "Yahweh remembers") is a priest and prophet after the Babylonian exile. The people he is preaching to are the folks whose parents and grandparents had been dragged off to captivity with hooks in their cheeks. They lived 70 years in a foreign country while their homeland was destroyed. And now these are the remnant, the smaller number who returned after the Babylonian Empire fell. What would their life be like?...
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on the earth."
That's a disappointing phrase, isn't it? We prefer Jesus' words just one chapter later, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Can both those phrases be true at the same time?...
You might want to pay special attention to the epistle lessons for the next couple of months. They are all in sequence from a very important part of Paul's letter to the Romans. I'll be preaching on them the first 2 Sundays in July.
Here at the beginning of chapter 7 Paul is concerned with the question, so what do we do with the law? Have you asked yourself that? What is the place of the law in your Christian life?...
OK, so I never got back to blog on the Gospel lesson for last week, but I preached on it and that sermon audio is posted (for what it's worth), so you can check that out if you want.
I really wanted to preach on the Jeremiah text because it has always fascinated me how he openly confessed that he didn't want to preach. He tried not to preach. But he found that he had to - and whenever he did, he had to tell the truth... which was bad news and got him into trouble...
"Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires."
Man, this is frustrating. I'm sitting here trying to come up with words for this weekend's sermon and I'm getting nowhere. Note: this is not a new experience. I've got soft instrumental music playing on the computer (I recommend www.pandora.com - it's great and free). I've got a cold soft drink to supply the caffeine. I've got a great text to work with (Matthew 10, about being sent out as sheep among wolves). But I don't know how to begin to put it all together.
Pursuing an idea for an opening illustration, I read through several recent commencement speeches. It discombobulated me - so that I am a mixture of depression, cynicism, irritation, doubt, and determination. In other words, frustration.
Or, to pick a much more accurate word... sin.
"Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies." Easier said than done...
"O Lord, you deceived me..." There are lots of interesting things about these verses, not least of which is this one raised by Jeremiah's opening words. Did God "lie" to Jeremiah?
The word translated "decieved" could have been rendered "seduced" or "enticed". But the effect would be the same. Does God mislead us?...
Is it law-and-then-gospel, or is it gospel-and-then-law?
We normally preach God's law, which convicts us of sin, and then preach the gospel, the good news about his forgiveness and love for us so that we can be comforted in our grief over sin. But in this case God tells the Israelites the gospel first. "I carried you on eagles' wing and brought you to myself."
Why?...
We're back in business with sermon audio files. Our technical issues were overcome (mostly - we still have some trouble with the recordings). So go on over to that page and catch up on the 3 recent sermons we just posted!
Today I'm starting to work on this text for my sermon this coming weekend. I find the hardest Scriptures to preach about are those that seem the simplest and most straightforward. After all, what's left to say?
Jesus tells Matthew to follow him. Matthew does. Some people don't like it because Matthew is a tax collector. Jesus tells them that he came for people like that, for sinners, which is something we already know, right?
But...
"It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise..."
What promises have you received? I got a document in the mail the other day that told me what the government would be giving me in Social Security when I retire. By law they have to give it to me... but I'm a bit doubtful that it will be there.
Many of us expect that when our parents pass away we will recieve an inheritance. That's their promise. It's in their legal will. On the other hand, a lot of things can keep that from happening - a long illness, a lawsuit, an unexpected expense...
I've often thought that Hosea should be published as a marriage manual - but if it were, who would ever get married?
What do people want out of marriage? We want companionship, sexual intimacy (the primary thing if you follow the magazines), economic stability, perhaps children, a sense of tradition and home. But who among us ever got married just to prove the power of God's love?...
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a man who built his house on the rock..."
Which words? It's interesting that most Christians today talk about building their house on the rock in the sense of building upon Jesus. Perhaps because Paul says (Romans 9:33) that Jesus is a rock that causes men to stumble, or because he says (1 Corinthians 10:4) that Jesus was the rock in the wilderness that gave water to the Israelites. But is that what Jesus is talking about?...
"There is no difference..." It's interesting to think of those words in light of what we see around us. My eldest son, James, has been participating in a journalism institute in New York. On his blog he has been describing the wide and fascinating variety of people he meets in the big city. An artist in the park with a Russian accent, a gift store clerk who is a sherpa from Nepal, a street cleaner from Peru, a homeless woman from Bosnia...
While we're in this chapter I can't resist commenting on verses 10-12. "The land you are enteringn to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to the end."
In a few weeks, on June 8, Karen and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Those verses were the sermon text we chose for our service...
"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds..."
My wife is really good at memorizing things. A Bach sonata, a 15 verse hymn, a book of the Bible, she likes to take a piece at a time and commit lots of things to memory. And the result is evident. When we face any trouble or need she is often ready with "salty" words - words of comfort and wisdom that she has committed to memory.
But is that all these verses are about?...
"No one can serve two masters."
Of course not. But surely a person could serve one master... and then just have a little part-time thing on the side, right? I could love Jesus with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength - but I could maybe carve out an hour or two a week for a favorite TV show that Jesus might not like. Or I could just reserve a day here and there on special occasions to indulge in too much drink?...
I heartily recommend Dr. Al Mohler's blog. Dr. Mohler is president of a Baptist seminary, so you know that we have some profound theological disagreements. But we also have some very important things in common - especially an understanding of the importance and faithfulness of God's Word.
See his blog today (Tuesday) for an excellent discussion of the California court decision legalizing gay marriage.
"First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world..."
Is that what you do FIRST? Not me. By nature I'm a recluse. My first inclination would be to find a good book and a nice quiet place to read it. When my kids want to play a game, my first inclination is to pass. But then, when I play, I have a lot of fun. What do you think of FIRST?...
(25 May) Let's try a larger font and see it that's more friendly.
Prophecy is weird and confusing. I don't mean to be negative. It's just that there is a cultural disconnect here that frequently messes us up. We "moderns" (and even in this so-called post-modern age we are still pretty much modern in our outlook) always see things in a linear fashion. We like our history in timelines. We like our books to have numbered pages and chapters. We expect movies to move from exposition to conclusion...
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