Romans 12:18: Blessed are the Peacemakers: Part Three
Outline The peace we are to pursue is a peace from the heart The peace we are to pursue is a peace with all The peace we are to pursue is a peace that has principles Introduction One of the jobs of an ambassador is to keep the peace or initiate peace proceedings. We are ambassadors for Christ. Despite the public image Christianity has often had as public enemy number one, it is the job of every Christian to seek peace with all. Paul puts it this way in Romans 12:18, ‘If possible, so far as it depends on...
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Romans 12:10: Love one another
Outline Family love Family respect Introduction There are four words in the ancient Greek language for love. These words are agape; storge; philos and eros. Agape is usually used of God’s love, a love we are called to imitate in 12:9. Storge usually has to do with family affection. Philos is often used of the love of friendship. Eros over time came to be associated with lust. The bible only uses agape, storge and philos, but avoids eros, probably because of the associations it collected. In fact in Romans 12:9-10 all three of the Greek words used in the...
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The Spirit Filled Marriage 7: Husbands love your wives
Outline Defining love Describing love Introduction Why do we love? One physicist gives us the evolutionary perspective, ‘Biologically, love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then, that is not so surprising since love is basically chemistry. While lust is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine,...
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The Spirit Filled Marriage 6: Headship
Outline What it isn’t What it is Introduction ‘I hate him. I hate him because he made me feel worthless, inadequate—like a nonperson, a slave. I could never do anything that made him happy. I always came short of the mark. I was always desperately working to win his approval. I hate him for the crummy way he made me feel about myself. I don’t know whether I will ever get over the hurt he caused in my life.’ These are the words of a wife whose husband has failed to be the loving head of the home. Today...
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The Spirit Filled Marriage 4: The Institution of Marriage
Outline What makes a marriage? What keeps a marriage? Introduction What is marriage? One mother says, ‘marriage is just a fancy word for adopting an overgrown male child who cannot be handled by his parents anymore.’ But speaking more seriously, modern views of marriage are descriptive not prescriptive. Anthropologists observe marriage as they find it, or as it have been practised and then give as broad a definition as possible, here is an example, Edvard Westermarck says marriage is ‘A more or less durable connection between a male and a female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till...
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Homosexual Marriage 1: Speaking the Truth in Love
Outline Issues Truths Texts Response Introduction Eighteen countries as of June 26th 2015 have legalised same-sex marriage. We are living in a time when things are the worst they have ever been on the question of homosexuality. John Piper writes about what is new in this trend of legislation, ‘What’s new is not even the celebration and approval of homosexual sin. Homosexual behaviour has been exploited, and revelled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalisation and institutionalisation. This is the new calamity.’ We have seen the flood of rainbows in the Media in support of...
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Philippians 1:1-11: Love to abound and Holiness to increase
No manuscript is available for this sermon.
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Church Membership 5: Responsibilities of membership: One Anothering
Introduction: One of the big questions that divide people on their view of the church is this one: is the church an organisation or an organism? Those who answer organisation point to its defined leadership structure, its rules for worship and discipline and it doctrinal statements. Those who answer organism point to the church as a network of relationships and a community, a family driven by love not law. Spontaneity versus programs and relationships versus rules, these divisions spring from this dichotomy. The trouble is that this is a false dichotomy, the church is both organisation and organism. Today...
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Church Membership 4: Responsibilities of membership: Loving one another
Introduction: Picture with me Jesus last evening with His disciples before His arrest: If you could have tasted the air there would have been a strong variety of flavours in the upper room. Different emotions written on the faces of the various disciples. Some would have been slightly euphoric still high from the shouting of the crowds, heralding Christ as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Judas would have been under the cloud of his guilt and shame, anxious for what he was about to do. Others like Peter, who would have been a type of self-appointed body...
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Revelation 2:1-7: Ephesus Part 1
Introduction: Your greatest strength can become your greatest weakness, this is the lesson of the letter to Ephesus. One of our great weaknesses as finite sinners is that we cannot multitask the good. We focus in on one good thing but we do so to the neglect and at the expense of all the other good. Ephesus was good at doctrine and discernment, and this strength became their weakness. They became a loveless head church, an abomination of a floating bloated head with no heart of love. I said that I felt this was the church more than any...
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Romans 10:1: A Heart for the Lost
Introduction: Do you have a love for those who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you ever cried out as George Whitfield has done, ‘O Lord, give me souls, or take my soul’? Have you felt the love for your own country that moved John Knox to pray, ‘Give me Scotland or I die!’? Richard Baxter urges us: ‘Oh, if you have the hearts of Christians or of men in you, let them yearn towards your poor ignorant, ungodly neighbours. Alas, there is but a step betwixt them and death and hell; many hundred diseases are...
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