The Joshua Victor Theory

  In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The four Gospels only share this one episode between His infancy and His adult ministry—the child Jesus in the Temple. While God obviously did not consider the rest of the “middle years” as essential knowledge about Christ, the Son of God (John 20:31), this one episode frames some important themes in His family life. As the Christmas hymn sings, Jesus is our “childhood pattern, day by day like us He grew” ( Once in Royal David’s City). Some of the themes framed by this window into Jesus’ childhood are the responsibility and trust that Mary and Joseph had for young Jesus. 12 years old was the age of “ bar mitzvah” a “son of the law”, who was responsible to God’s commandments. He was given unsupervised time and was trusted to be responsible. We also see the importance of the community surrounding the children and relatives of Jesus, and the centrality of worship in their lives. But here’s a theme that I want...

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. ·          In Romans 11 and 12 Paul gushes at God’s bottomless grace. universal disobedience of humans >>> but God showed His grace to all mankind unexpected, unnatural to show mercy to rebels or love your enemies; but this is just what God did in sending Jesus. He reached down and pulled us up out of our sin, to make us His dear children. o    zero in on Romans 12:1-2a, but first let’s launch from 11:35. No one could ever put God in our debt. God never “owes us” anything. §   Human indebtedness: kindness, money, saved life: “I owe you my life” or “I owe you my undying thanks”, etc. Our position before God… owe our life and undying thanks, but the tables can never be reversed. nothing so dramatic that puts God in our debt. §   100% pure gift of God’s grace. Not earned or des...

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. As we saw also last week, Romans 8 is rich with deep theology and comfort. Some of the most amazing promises of God are found in this beloved Scripture. Let’s focus in on how God chose us to be conformed to the image of His Son . To be “conformed” is to take on something else’s shape. In Romans 12 Paul tells us not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. So it’s really a question of whose shape or form are we going to take? The easy path, the natural pull of gravity is to adopt the shape or form of the world. It doesn’t take any effort to soak in the values, the morals, and the mindset of the world. We’re marinated in that environment. Self-gratification, self-service, self-interested—the shape of the world is easy to conform to—it fits our natural desires. But to be conformed to the image of Jesus, to be transformed in Him by the renewa...