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Showing posts from October, 2013

Sermon on Romans 3:19-28 for Reformation Day, "Christ Alone"

Sermon Outline: ·          Last in our Reformation series: Christ alone. Previous weeks—faith, grace, and scripture alone. Triangle diagram: three points with Christ alone at center—all are interconnected. How does faith, grace, and scripture intersect with Christ alone? Christ stands as heart and center of our salvation, because faith or trust depends on Him—without the powerful Savior, faith would be aimless or helpless. Faith aimed toward anyone or anything else than Jesus Christ, is a vain and empty hope. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:60. Christ alone is our salvation. There is no other name under heaven, by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). ·          Without Christ, we would not know grace, as scripture says, “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Because of Jesus’ incredible self-sacrifice and love, salvation comes to us as a free gift. Grace means Go

Sermon on 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, for Reformation 3, "Scripture Alone"

Sermon Outline: ·          Week 3 of Reformation series—“Scripture alone”. Week 1 & 2, faith alone and grace alone—show that we are saved by faith in Jesus to the exclusion of our works, and by God’s grace, to the exclusion of our having merited or deserved it. Pastor Roschke made the excellent point that these truths stand “altogether”—that is that grace, faith, scripture, and Christ stand together. Clarifies that “alone” here does not mean “in isolation from everything else”. For example, you could say “Jenny is alone in the room”; or you could say “In our class, Jenny alone passed the test.” In the second case, it doesn’t mean that Jenny is by herself, but that the others didn’t pass. ·          Think about what this means when we say “Scripture alone.” Are we saying that we should not read or study or learn from any other book than the Bible? If so, then you shouldn’t even be listening to me preach. Rather, it does mean, that God’s Word alone is The rule and judge for all

Sermon on Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4, for Reformation 1, "Faith Alone"

Sermon Outline: ·          Reformation month—four sermons on the “mottoes” of the Reformation: 1) faith alone, 2) grace alone, 3) scripture alone, and 4) Christ alone. Meaning; origin in the Bible; application. ·          “The righteous shall live by his faith.” One of the most important statements about faith, in OT and whole Bible—obscure prophet Habakkuk. Quoted by Paul to show that we are saved by faith, not works. What setting did Hab. pen these words? What was his message? ·          Short book—three chapters. Discussion between Habakkuk and God in 1 & 2, where Hab. makes a complaint to God—God answers, Hab. complains again, and God answers a second time, and the book ends with Hab. prayer in 3. Unfortunately the way the verses were selected you only hear Hab’s first complaint, and God’s second response. ·          Quick summary: writing before Jews went into exile and captivity under Babylon. Hab’s sees his nation falling into decline, and complains to God of corr