Welcome to the conclusion of this GRACE ALONE worship series! Now, this doesn’t meant that we now know everything there is to know about God’s amazing GRACE, but I hope and pray that it’s wet your appetite to continue learning about God’s GRACE through scripture in the days to come… So, as we wrap this study up, let me begin with this story—to explain yet another truth about God’s GRACE… A man by the name of Victor Hugo once wrote a work called Les Misérables. In Les Misérables, the legendary...
Well, folks, we’ve been learning about the topic of GRACE (& LAW) for the past several weeks, but how are we doing? Do we understand it all yet? Is the idea of GRACE crystal clear in our lives—in our everyday lives? Every day of our lives, God’s GRACE is available to us—every day of our lives. It doesn’t matter what the past has to say. It doesn’t matter what your parents have to say … or what your siblings have to say about you. It doesn’t matter where you’re at...
Hollywood is not usually known as a culture of grace. It’s more like a dog-eat-dog kind of atmosphere. Personal value is attached to box-office sales and the unpredictable swings in fashion. SO … it was extremely shocking, then, when ONE WAY LOVE and its fruit made a surprise appearance on the big stage in 2011… The occasion was Robert Downey Jr. receiving the American Cinematheque Award—a prize given to those deemed an extraordinary artist in the entertainment industry, “making a significant contribution to the art of the Moving Picture”. A...
If you want to know when you’re encountering the LAW, do a quick inventory of your fears. What are you afraid of? I mean … really afraid of… In a survey of the general public, people were asked about the same thing. Death came in at Number 6. Number 1, by a long shot, was … public speaking. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that fear of public speaking is really about a much deeper fear—that of judgment … being vulnerable in a room full of people,...
I will never forget standing in the kitchen of the parsonage at La Farge, Wisconsin, my mother working over the sink with tears in her eyes, my father having just come in the front door … looking at me and saying, “Either you’re going to leave … or your mother’s going to leave … and your mother’s not going to leave!” I was probably in my sophomore year of high school. I was absolutely full of myself … and so unhappy! And you know they say you take things out...
Folks, if you’ve ever studied any church history before, you’ve probably already heard the term sola gratia or ‘grace alone’. It’s a term that Martin Luther (and others) used to talk about how our relationship with God is supposed to work. However, over the years, I’ve discovered that even though we claim to live by ‘grace alone’, we’re more likely to actually live by ‘grace a lot’ … but not alone. In this series, I’m determined to take back what the church has lost. For Martin Luther (and others), it...
We’re a little past midway in our late-summer series called ‘Christian’ … where we’ve been talking about what that word means and what it doesn’t mean. We’ve discovered that ‘Christian’ is a word used by those outside the faith … to describe those inside—not a nice word either. But, Jesus’ followers didn’t call themselves ‘Christian’ and Jesus never called his followers that. He had a very specific, very technical word he used to describe those who followed him: disciple. And, folks, unlike the word ‘Christian’—mentioned only 3 times in the...
We are right in the middle of a series called ‘Christian’ as we begin today. And we’ve been talking about the fact that you could be a Christian and believe just about anything you want, do just about anything you want, and adopt just about any lifestyle you want … because the Bible doesn’t even tell us what a Christian really is. Christian was a term used by those outside the faith … to negatively describe or label those inside the faith, but it wasn’t the term used by Jesus...
I’ve had the privilege of being with several people as they were approaching death. A person’s dying words sometimes simply express his/her needs: “Could you move the pillow?” or “May I have a drink?” Sometimes they express a concern for others—a final ‘I love you’ or ‘It’s going to be O.K.’ A person’s final words reveal what is on his/her heart at that time, and sometimes they reveal the nature of the person’s faith, as well. I’ve told you before what my mother’s last words were: “I’m happy!” We interpret...
Why do you think it is that Christianity gets such bad press at times? Have you ever thought about that? I think down throughout history and comments that have been made about followers of Christ… Friedrich Nietzsche said, “In truth there was only one Christian and He died on a cross.” George Bernard Shaw quipped, “Christianity might be a good thing if anyone tried it.” And even today, I continue to hear the comments of the skeptics which say things like: “I have no problem with Jesus. It’s those who...
