The Joshua Victor Theory

·          What we see in creation: beauty or suffering? The positive: the case for design/creation; beauty, engineering, puzzle. The negative: the thorns, the parasites, diseases, COVID, natural disasters, death? Led many evolutionists to doubt and reject God. ·          Rom 8—creation groaning—subjected to futility. Futile: ineffective; failure; lack of purpose or success. God subjected the world to this b/c of sin—Adam’s first sin opened the world to futility and subjugation. Sin is an ongoing, thorough devastation of the whole creation, not just humans: entire physical universe. The Christian understands this from God’s Word, that sin has infected everything, and that the world is not as it was or should be, but that what we see now is the corrupted world. But others may look at the defects, diseases, and death in the world and think God didn’t know what He was doing, or that He wasn’t a good designer....

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.  A rapidly growing technology in our everyday lives is Voice Recognition, which tells one person’s voice from another. They say that our “voiceprint” is unique, just like our fingerprints.  The technology is rapidly being developed, even though it’s been around since the dawn of mankind. God designed our brains to be incredible information processing systems, and all of the mind-boggling “technology” of Voice Recognition is programmed into your mind, and works without you even having to understand how!  Just because it's so ordinary and common to us that we recognize so many unique “voiceprints”--we don’t ever really stop to be amazed by the huge processing and identification task that our brains go through instantaneously when we recognize, oh, that’s mom, or dad, or my sister or my friend from work or church or wherever. Not only do we need a finely tuned and worki...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. “Freedom” is, at least in principle, highly prized by Americans. Judging from the attitudes and answers of the Jews who listened to Jesus’ teaching in John 8, 2,000 years ago, they also highly prized freedom. The question is, do we truly understand the nature of freedom Jesus teaches, any better than they did? Freedom and slavery are opposites. To understand one, you need to understand the other. Jesus is talking to new believers in the crowd, when He says “ If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The word “abide” or remain, talks about continuing in something, or living together with someone. When Jesus calls His true disciples to “ abide in my word ”, He’s saying His Word is their continuing life. Jesus calls this vital relationship being living branches connected to the Vine. Outside the vine, disconnected from Christ and His Word,...

Sermon outline: ·          Sorrow on disciple’s hearts—Jesus’ farewell speech (before cross, resurrection, ascension). Leaving them—we also long to be comforted by Jesus’ personal presence. Jesus’ ongoing presence—the Spirit, teaching, Lord’s Supper, joined in living relationship and salvation through baptism. Not orphans—but they won’t see Him. Disciples’ sorrow—this is not to our advantage! Jesus’ answer—it is to your advantage, because the Spirit is coming! Now Christ’s ministry, not in one location—but ministers through His Helper, the Holy Spirit, to the entire Christian ministry across the earth. Jesus is everywhere His Spirit is outpoured, and the works of the Spirit are done, and people directed to Jesus. ·          Works of the Spirit (others listed John 14-16)—convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment. As Christians we often want to celebrate the gifts of the Holy Spirit, an...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Early Christians found various ways to speak about the redemption that Jesus Christ won for mankind. They followed the descriptions in Scripture. “What was the center of Jesus’ redeeming work?”, they asked. Of course the cross of Jesus had to be central. But what exactly was happening there? A transaction? A tragedy? A judgment? A battle? An example? The most common description is that Jesus was our perfect, innocent substitute, facing God’s judgment against sin. A similar picture is Jesus as the ransom for our human bondage to sin. A third description found more in hymns than in theology books, is called the Christus Victor Theory . Christ is the Victorious champion who destroys sin, death, and the devil. It’s a more triumphal picture—but really all three images together describe facets of the one reality that Jesus has redeemed us from the power of sin, death, and the devil. One...