Avsnitt
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For Paul, one is either in Adam or in Christ—the old person or the new
person. But this reality must also be lived! Although believers are in
Christ, they must actively renounce sin and vigorously embrace
righteousness! “Cast off” and “put on” are action words. We have a choice
to make. God does not call us to simply rest in Christ - He calls us to act
in light of the fact that Jesus is now our Lord. To put on the Lord Jesus
Christ is a command to be what we are in Christ. This is the morality of
the NT: Be who you are! -
Paul masterfully defends the grace alone gospel by asserting that obedience
is the central demand of the gospel, in that it produces sincere love for
our neighbour, and thus provides for the law’s complete fulfillment.
Obedience is part and parcel of the gospel, not separate, not a balance of
grace and law, but obedience comes as a result of hearing and believing the
gospel… -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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“God’s righteousness, his holiness, elicits more than just the automatic
result of death and destruction of wickedness, it means also, that he
consciously abhors evil as well. Rightly, he is filled with just rage and
anger over sin and wickedness, which is why the bible uses the word wrath,
he hates evil as it is utterly incompatible with his holiness…Talk of an
angry God seems to some, a belittlement, that wrath ought to be beneath the
God of the bible. But this is terrible logic. You and I should want a King
who champions good and punishes evil. Anything other is itself wickedness.
Anger against sin exists because of love for righteousness, holiness,
purity and good.” -
“Through the cross we are a rescued people. And a freed people are a
singing people. If you think of nations and people groups that have been
released from captivity, the joy and the exuberance of freedom from
bondage. Today, Good Friday, tells the story of a rejoicing people…” -
“Our passage this morning still falls under the main heading of Romans
12:1-2. We are still exploring what it means “to present your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual
worship,” and this will require that we are not “conformed to this world,”
but instead are “transformed by the renewal of your mind,” so that we will
be able to discern the good and acceptable will of God…We are also still
exploring the subheadings of Romans 12:9 and 21, and what it looks like to
live out The Love Genuine by “overcom[ing] evil with good.” Giving
ourselves wholly to God, and being transformed in our thinking, is
expressed in how we relate to all of the various earthly authorities in our
lives. God’s instructions regarding how to relate to our government are
part of “the obedience of faith” to which we are called, part of what it
looks like when the gospel transforms our lives, and part of how we ensure
that our worship to God is holy and acceptable…” -
“This teaching, above any other, strikes directly against all our most
precious and ingrained inclinations. The christian church has been called
the upside down kingdom, because these few words, coupled with Jesus own
servant-like actions, flip on its head what it means to be a human created
in God’s image. There is nothing more carnal and normal, natural yet so
heinously sinful than looking out for number one. And Jesus says, there is
nothing more spiritually necessary, than to die to self and considering
others more important than yourself. So Jesus says, If anyone would be
first, he must be last and servant of all.” -
“Even though believers can be severely mistreated by others we should never
forget that we are dearly loved by God, chosen to be his own. Rejection by
others is a deep wound, but remember the mercies of God. The salve of God’s
love is our healing. But because God created us with an innate desire for
justice - at least when it comes to others - we will not be able to conquer
feelings of revenge unless we recognize that God will eventually set all
accounts right. We will fall prey to retaliation in the present if we did
not know that God will vindicate us in the future. The recognition that God
will judge our enemies is crucial for overcoming evil with good. When we
are mistreated and abused and our rights are infringed upon, we are not to
give in to the desire to set things right. We are not to give into the
desire to make this fair…to get back at them. Rather, we are to place the
fate of our enemies firmly in God’s hands, realizing that God is the only
one who is qualified to judge, and the only one who can really give people
what they truly deserve. It is only appropriate and reasonable, with this
in mind, to resist seeking revenge, because you and I cannot rightly
judge…” -
“Paul is not now just listing random pious acts. But he is teaching us that
a church which offers itself to God must do so out of a sincere love that
expresses itself in these ways. And if the impetus - the motivation for
these acts - comes from knowing the mercies of God, and this gospel is all
about being reconciled to God and adopted into his family, then we must
devote a great deal of our energy to communicating with God so that our
relationship can grow. If the genuine love we express to one another is
motivated and empowered by the love of God experienced, then we must grow
in that love. Friends, your relationship with God is not an individualistic
thing, because it affects all of us; everyone around you and everyone who
is influenced by them and so on and so on until the whole church is
strengthened by the Spirit’s work in you!” -
“It may shock you, in this modern age, to see that Paul does not deal with
the problem of pride by appealing to the concept of equality…Paul’s larger
emphasis in these chapters is the unity of the church….(T)he shocking thing
here is that the church is not called to unity by seeing our equality, but
by seeing our diversity. Certainly, Paul has earlier emphasized the
equality of all people - in that we have nothing of value to offer God and
have done nothing to deserve anything good from God at all.…(but) the
central point here is that each believer has something unique to contribute
to the proper functioning of Christ’s body, and that despite our many
inequalities, we can have unity when we each offer ourselves as living
sacrifices to God by existing for each others’ good…” -
“So why does Paul wait until now to begin discussing Christian living?
That’s what he should be focusing on right? Obeying the command of Christ
to “Go and make disciples”… Why the long theology lesson? And shouldn’t the
message of the church just focus on victorious Christian living and godly
behavior? Theology confuses and doctrine divides, right?
If we start with a list of instructions, we will tend to start trying to
accomplish those things without the gospel motivation required in order to
genuinely fulfill them from a motivation of love towards God. I can tell
you: be humble, be generous, be selfless; But these are worthless
instruction unless we begin to understand what God has done as a free gift;
the mercy he has shown to undeserving sinners like you and me; the people
God has formed from among those who had no right by birth or by merit to be
called the children of God.” -
“(I)f there’s one thing I want you to understand from this message today -
one thing that’s more important than anything else I’ll speak this morning
- I want you to catch who the father came to see with his son:
‘Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has an evil spirit.’ (v.17)
No matter what your expertise is in life, no matter how gifted a pastor or
counselor or friend you are, when someone comes to you for advice or help,
they are not coming to you. They are coming to Jesus. They are asking him
for help. You are only a messenger. You are only a conduit. If you don’t
give them Jesus, you are at best being a hindrance.” -
“He is changed in body, transfigured. And this is the english equivalent of
the original greek word metamorphao, where we get the word metamorphosis…In
that moment Jesus is recognizably himself, and yet totally altered. The
shroud of reality is temporarily lifted and Peter, James and John see Jesus
as he truly is. I think it’s really important we understand that Jesus
didn’t just suddenly start glowing all bright, but that the radiance, the
blinding white brilliance, the beaming bodily intensity that is so bright
that it actually makes his clothing luminescent, is his natural state. He
is light! Because he is himself all consuming light. What they are seeing
is his natural state, so what they see the rest of the time is a glory
hidden, only his human nature is visible…The rest of the time Jesus is
shrouded, his glory covered, radiance veiled, just as Moses had to be
veiled after he had met with the Lord.” -
“What will motivate us to persevere in faith?: ‘the kindness and the
severity of God.’ The kindness of God cannot be truly appreciated as a gift
of his grace unless the severity of God is contemplated as the just penalty
for forsaking him…Although our salvation flows out of God’s gracious and
unconditional election, this does not mean that we are merely passive
recipients of that final salvation. We are called to live by faith; and if
we choose disobedience and unbelief, we cannot expect any better of an
outcome than Israel has experienced.” -
“Throughout, we need to recognize that what Paul says here is not only true
of Jewish people, but also gives us an example of the faithful character of
God and his promises which can be relied upon by all believers today…Like
you and I, Paul was not more likely to choose faith and obedience. He was
the least likely to convert, from the least likely of people. God makes
this clear through the Scriptures, that Israel was not chosen for their
righteousness but for their weakness. This is God’s modus operandi, his
M.O…They were not chosen based on God’s foreknowledge - something which the
Bible never says…but they were chosen by grace…Now church, we must defend
this doctrine of unconditional election so vigorously, because the denial
compromises the biblical gospel, that justification is by grace alone
through faith alone. The Protestant Reformation was propelled by people
coming to believe in and preach passionately these doctrines of grace…” -
Pastor Josh continues to teach us through Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
“There is a responsibility and a necessity under the sovereignty of God, to preach the gospel and to send preachers. It is defiant insubordination to say that we will just ‘trust God to save whomever he wills’. He has already establishede that he will save through our obedience…Human responsibility and divine sovereignty are not played off against each other so that one nullifies the other; instead human responsibility is always subordinate to the sovereignty of God without ‘emptying human choices of their authenticity or validity’…”
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"The clear message is that saving righteousness is a work of God alone.
What did you do to accomplish your salvation? Did you go up to heaven and
send Jesus down to save us? No? Maybe you went down to the dead to raise
Christ up from that place? Perhaps not. Did you bring the word of God
near to you? Preach the gospel to yourself? Did you place the word of
faith in your own mouth and circumcise your own heart? No! God has taken
the initiative. He sent his Son and raised him from the dead. He gives
new hearts to understand, eyes to see and ears to hear. There is no one
else in heaven or on earth who could do it. Since these things have been
done by God, our response is not to do anything to gain righteousness, only
to respond in God-given faith. -
“…(W)e very much tend to view the things of God as something that we simply
need to fit somewhere into our schedules, not realizing that it is the
things of God that our whole life is all about. And that these things far
from merely needing to fit into our schedules, rather they should determine
our schedule. Our priorites are often so inverted towards the common things
and concerns of this world - even good things - that we fail to realize
that we are actually relegating God to the margins…” -
“We worship God by rightly enjoying what He has provided and sharing it
equally with the community. It is given to the community on God’s
behalf…Will Christ return to find that we have cared for his brothers and
sisters? Have we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger,
visited the shut-in, and provided for the one who has been persecuted and
imprisoned…No one can give anything to God. He does not need our stuff. But
what we do to the least of his disciples, we do it to Jesus…” -
“The Christmas song asks the question ‘What Child is This?’ This passage,
John 1:1-18, tells us who that Child really was.” -
“We must be deeply rooted in the truth so that we might smell the stench of
false teaching and death before it brings sin and death among us…” - Visa fler