One of the disadvantages of an expositional, verse by verse style of preaching is that sometimes you find yourself having to deal with a passage of scripture that you would rather not have to deal with. Charles Spurgeon said of this passage that it was not worthy of public discussion. He refused to preach from this text because he felt that it was too upsetting to proper decorum. While I might sympathize with him, I ultimately feel that I must recognize that if God felt comfortable talking about it, and Paul felt comfortable enough writing about it, so that it

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Last week we studied verses 16 and 17, in which Paul lays out his thesis for the epistle of Romans. The thesis for the book of Romans is simply justification by faith. The righteousness of God applied to man on the basis of faith. The righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, it is conveyed to man by faith, resulting in imputed righteousness, or to say it another way, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to man’s account by faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross. That is the gospel; the good news from God

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If you are a person who has achieved even a basic level of maturity, who has even a rudimentary intelligence, then you probably have come to the realization that life is not all that we wish it to be. It doesn’t take too long for the average person as they live their life to realize that something’s wrong, something’s missing. It may seem like some other people manage to get it right and things seem to work out for them, but we think for us it’s just not the case. But I think that rather than that being a personal

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Last week, as we began our study of Romans we saw that Paul introduced himself as a bond servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.  And if you will recall we talked about this idea of servanthood, and how foreign it is in modern Christianity.  The concept of servitude is something abhorrent to our modern culture. But having the attitude or heart of a servant is fundamental to the principles of our faith, even though it be alien to our nature.  In this age when individual rights are championed, in our culture of self gratification, and self promotion on social

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We are beginning a new study today on Sunday mornings in the book of Romans.  I have preached through Romans before many years ago, but I don’t think very many of you were here then.  And so I want to look at it again as Romans is the most thorough book concerning the nature of our salvation.  Many notable people down through the years  have credited the book of Romans as the source of their salvation, such as Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Wesley to name a few.  And so it is an unparalleled source for understanding our great salvation.

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As most of you probably are aware, I do not usually make a point to preach messages that correlate with the holidays. We are usually studying a certain book of the Bible verse by verse, and I let that be the guide for the subject matter of my sermon, and not what a holiday, either secular or religious, might suggest. However, we have recently concluded a long study in the Sermon on the Mount. And as I said, I believe that sermon title might better be titled “The Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.” In that sermon Jesus laid out

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We have finished our study of the Sermon on the Mount, or what I prefer to call the Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  This message of Christ described and delineated the character and nature and practices of those who are citizens of the Kingdom.  And yet sprinkled throughout this message are references to different aspects of the Kingdom which are what I would like us to think about today.  Because as Jesus teaches it, there is a progression to the present and future aspects of the Kingdom which are not always that clear to us.  Modern Christians often have

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Today, after more than 7 months of exhaustive study,  we reach the conclusion of the first recorded sermon the Lord preached, known as the Sermon on the Mount. And in the last chapter of His sermon He has shown us that there are only  two types of people, two ways in which to live, and two possible destinations or outcomes of their lives.  He has shown us three illustrations of that principle, and now the one in today’s passage is another one, which is the third.  In the first illustration, Jesus presented two ways, entered into by two gates, leading

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Last week we considered what really is the beginning of the culmination of the Lord’s message in the Sermon on the Mount.  He begins to wrap up His message by showing that the contrast between the natural man and the spiritual man reaches it’s eventual destination.  And since Jesus has been teaching that there are two possible types of men – the natural and the spiritual, the unregenerate and the regenerate, those born again and those who have not been born again – then it stands to reason that He indicates that there are  but  two possible destinations. So Jesus

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It’s interesting, if not ironic, that the world has picked up on certain statements or principles contained in  the Sermon on the Mount, and yet in considering them out of the context of the rest of the sermon they fail to understand what Jesus was really teaching.  We come to another such statement today, which is commonly known as the Golden Rule. It used to be a stand alone principle that was taught in secular as well as religious settings with a certain amount of frequency.  I can faintly remember one of my teachers from public elementary school talking about

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