Archive for the 'Good Preaching' Category

Wrapping up Romans

Published by Nancy Ann on August 16, 2010 in Good Preaching. 0 Comments

Yesterday my husband finished the book of Romans, and what a rich wrap-up it was! I’ll just select one point that I particularly appreciated, but it’s hard to choose. (You’ll have to listen to the sermon yourself!)

God made us to be small creatures, but He did not make us petty creatures. When Christ became a man, He humbled Himself, but His humility wasn’t in the fact that He became small; it was because He took on our sins.

We, on the other hand, turn small things into petty things. We focus on rules about petty things rather than seeing the big picture. We get all worked up over mud tracked in on the carpet, and that is a petty thing! We let petty things become enormous things.

The gospel sheds light on all the small, ordinary things in our lives and transforms them into extraordinary things. And so we can glory in the mundane. Quoting Thomas Howard, we can find “splendor in the ordinary.”

There are big things afoot in the universe, so we ought to look up! We are going to live forever! When we stare at our feet and the ground under them, we miss what is really going on around us, and we get wrapped up in petty things. Instead, we need to look up! We need to quit looking down and start looking up to Christ, for that is where our life is hidden. God does not want us to settle for petty things or get submerged in the petty things, caught up in shuffling our stuff around. God created us for so much more.

Nothing like the book of Romans to lift us up out of ourselves!

Good Preaching

Published by Nancy Ann on August 9, 2010 in Good Preaching. 5 Comments

My husband has been preaching through Romans for the past year or so, and we are closing in on the finish line. Yesterday was chapter 16, verses 17-20, and here are a few highlights.

Paul tells the brethren to avoid those who cause division. In other words, divide from the divisive, which at first glance may seem inconsistent. But God’s way to peace is by crushing the head of the serpent, not by calling for a group hug with the serpent.

We are to be simple when it comes to evil and wise when it comes to good.  When it comes to the devil’s kindergarten class, we are to be the kind of students who can’t figure out how to hold the crayon. We are to avoid evil with a very simple revulsion. But when it comes to learning righteousness, we are to be in graduate school because we have asked God to bruise the serpent’s head in us.

We are to keep it simple: love God, hate sin, read the Bible, love our neighbor, and trust in Jesus. Love the good people and fight the bad people, just like God does.

The Sidelong Glance

Published by Nancy Ann on July 21, 2010 in Good Preaching. 6 Comments

I love the way my husband writes, so I thought I’d just post up one of his good ones from a recent post over on BlogMablog:

“We are born casting sidelong glances, and worldliness is a sin that depends upon the sidelong glance. The devil nurtures the sidelong glance like it was his own precious child, which it actually is, and whenever the Holy Spirit comes upon one, He kills it dead.”

Love Trumps Everything

Published by Nancy Ann on June 9, 2010 in Good Preaching. 17 Comments

From the sermon on Romans 14:1-4, on May 30.

The weaker brother is tempted to judge the stronger brother, and the stronger brother is tempted to despise the weaker brother. Paul says the weaker brother only eats veggies, so he is tempted to judge and shake his head at his meat-eating brother. And the brother who is grilling steaks on the grill and drinking beer is tempted to despise and look down on the brother who sticks with his veggie burger and lemonade. Both men are breaking the law of love. Love trumps everything. So the judgmental brother gets cranky, but he is called to receive his brother. The one who is despising the weaker brother wants to set him straight, but Paul wants him to receive his weaker brother.

There is always a deeper right than being right. God may not care about whether we eat alfalfa sprouts or not, but He does care about the judging and the despising we do. The more I have thought about this, the more I see how often we can fall into one ditch or the other: either looking down on the weak or passing judgment on the strong. Love trumps everything.

Wake up! The Son is Risen!

Published by Nancy Ann on May 9, 2010 in Good Preaching. 1 Comment

My favorite line in today’s sermon: “We are engaged in the work of the Great Commission, which consists of racking people out of their beds.”

Good Preaching

Published by Nancy Ann on May 2, 2010 in Good Preaching. 9 Comments

Today the sermon was on Romans 13:8-10  particularly verse 8, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another.”  Here are some highlights from the application:

1. Don’t abuse your family. Do you swipe money or stuff from your parents (or siblings) and figure that it’s all in the family?

2. Just because you wouldn’t mind if someone swiped twenty out of your purse doesn’t mean they won’t mind if you swipe twenty out of theirs. So don’t abuse the Golden Rule. Just because you think you wouldn’t mind if they broke your lawnmower doesn’t mean that they won’t mind that you just broke theirs. Repair it and return it.

3. Words are free. The debtor should be chasing the lender, not the other way around. If you owe someone money, chase them down and tell them you will pay them as soon as you can. And keep chasing them down regularly to tell them you are working on it. In the world, the creditor always has to chase down the debtor.Christians should be known for their honesty.

4. Don’t abuse the passage of time. Just because you borrowed the money a long time ago doesn’t mean it is now paid. A poor memory is not the same thing as a good conscience.

5. Don’t measure your  neighbor’s love with the yardstick of your debts. His love is not your business. Your business is whether you are loving him and obeying God by taking care of your debts.

6. Don’t nickle and dime your friends to death. Kids do this. Can I borrow a quarter? A pencil? You must return what you borrow and not presume on the friendship. Your friends won’t like it. You will become known as a mooch.

7. Just because the person you owe has a nicer house or a nicer car than you do does not mean you don’t have to pay them. Physicians often only receive half the money owed them, and you don’t know whether they are having a hard time making payroll. Pay your bills regardless of what you think their needs may be. Their needs are not the point and not your business.

8. Don’t ask businessmen and women to mentor your kids for free just because we are all members of a tight-knit community. Don’t bring your sick kitty to the church potluck to ask the vet in the congregation for free advice.

9. How many of the books on your shelves (or dvd’s) belong to someone else? Return them. If you don’t, you are a thief.

10. If you break something you borrowed, replace it. Don’t return it broken and say, “Oh well, we’re friends, she won’t mind.” Enough with “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” That’s not an excuse for not paying your bills.

All these things are ways in which we love one another. Love isn’t a sticky, gooey feeling. Love obeys God’s commands. Love replaces the broken object, love pays the bill, love returns the borrowed item.

Thomas Watson said that there are three things Christians tend to forget: their faults, their friends, and their instructions.

As you can see, this was a whopper of a sermon!