Sermons
Missed last Sunday’s message?
We’ve got you covered.
“So this church (in Rome) that is struggling with this unity because they are of mixed ethnicity (Jew and Gentile) and they can’t get along, they think that some are superior to others — Paul puts everyone in the same boat. Some of us grew up in church. We learned the rules, we got the Sunday School lessons, we had the Word. And we are in the exact same boat as those who just discovered it today!! All are in desperate need for God to save.”
“Don’t you want to lack in nothing? I know I do. But the path, according to scripture, to a life lacking in nothing is paved with struggle…Jesus was a prophet without honour in his hometown. We are to be prophets in our hometowns…We are to live and share the good news, in season and out of season, when its convenient and when it’s totally awkward. Know that the world will reject you - but some won’t. So we tell all. And we win just by being faithful, just by saying “Jesus saves”, just by living that out, day-to-day.”
Pastor Leighton takes us through the connected stories of the death of Jairus’ 12 year old daughter, and the nameless woman who was afflicted with 12 years of bleeding and sought to steal a miracle, in Mark 5:21-43. One had life begin 12 years ago and had it tragically cut short, and the other began the process of dying 12 years ago and stands as a social outcast due to her affliction. He shows us how the Gospel of Mark repeatedly emphasizes that when Jesus touched unclean persons rather than making him unclean, like the Jewish Law dictated, he makes them clean. How this duet of stories demonstrates that both persons of means (the synagogue ruler) and persons without means (the impoverished nameless woman) are all in the same boat: death awaits us all - and we are all in need of a rescuer.
“There is no good news without this bad news…Only this kind of ultimate bad news will lead you to despair of yourself and turn in utter dependence to Jesus, for outside of union with Him, no human being can rightfully be called righteous…You can say I’m a Christian and I believe in Jesus, I love Jesus, Jesus has done so many great things for me — what is really hard about sharing the gospel is to share the whole truth. To actually say: And you need this. Here’s why…”
“Obedience is the commanded and necessary consummation of our faith…But How? How do we obey? How has God availed his great power to us to give us all things we need for a life of godliness? Look at the passage this morning (v.3): It is through a knowledge of Him! Colossians 3 would supplement this passage and say that we are being renewed in knowledge after the image of our Creator. We must realize that partaking in life and godliness is not some mystical, secret, complicated, higher knowledge sort of process, but rather it is simply a growing and experiential knowledge of our Great God.”
“There developed in the history of Israel a belief that circumcision, the sacred rite which was the sign of the Old Testament covenant, was all it took to be saved. We have a similar confusion in the Christian church today where some people believe that they are automatically guaranteed salvation by some rite or response. This passage in Romans refutes any thought that one gains membership into the people of God by baptism (infant or otherwise), or that any other rite of passage can grant us assurance of salvation. The New covenant counterpart to circumcision is not baptism, or any other thing which can be accomplished by human choice and human hands— but circumcision of the heart, and that is accomplished only by God.”
“2 Corinthians 5:14-15 reads:
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
So the pertinent question, this morning, is not whether Christ was crucified, but whether I am crucified with Christ.”
“The stand-alone message of: “do better” has no place in the gospel presentation apart from being a necessary consequence of understanding that Christ has done better on our behalf. Our ability to do better, our desires to do better - and our desires to follow these ‘one another’ passages of scripture - must be understood as flowing from this Grace Alone through Faith Alone reality”
“From one test to another, Jesus purposely leads his disciples to greater and greater levels of trust. Jesus does this for us too. Because he is the author of life, and is sovereign over all events, he as the good shepherd leads us to and through trials and struggles, in order to strengthen our faith and grow our trust in him. Faith is not downloaded, it’s not presto. In general, our depth of confidence in God is hard fought, slow, a long-suffered growth. But, God creates a faith filled people by again and again being a faithful God...”
“…Paul uses the term justification in two senses with two different tenses: a here-and-now justification by faith — an alien righteousness applied to wicked sinners through the obedience of Christ — and…the final verdict of ‘justified’ which was declared by God over them already through faith…
With Paul, we can say with integrity, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel,’ because this is a gospel that acknowledges the gravity of sin and the sober reality of coming judgment, while at the same time being the power of God to both justify and sanctify all who place their faith in Jesus Christ. It is a gospel in which faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin, a gospel to celebrate and revel in, and not one to be ashamed of.”
