Paul says the sacrifice God desires is a genuine commitment of self to divine service. He asks us to live our daily lives for Him and not ourselves. Whether in our marriages and families, our careers or citizenry, God wants disciples who present themselves in service to Him. We labor in our jobs primarily in worship and service to God, not our bosses; we submit and engage our civic responsibilities for the Lord; we train our children, so that they will serve God. Success is defined by God’s pleasure, not our performance.

The Jewish believers were committed to sacrifices but not of themselves. They operated out of fear leading to performance. Their service was not born out of genuine worship but an act of pay to play, Quid pro quo. As they pressured the Gentile believers to conform, they created fear and expectations of performance. With that pressure to perform came pressure to be holy and acceptable to God. After all, sacrifices are required to meet certain standards, to be without blemish. Instead of serving out of affection and freedom, fear and performance formed the impetus.

Paul presents a new paradigm of grace. Join us Sunday as we consider this paradigm.

The passage in Romans 12:1-3 calls us to live in light of the great truths of the Gospel. Paul, having spent eleven chapters expounding the mercies of God in the salvation of sinners and the doctrine of grace, now shifts to exhort us in how we should respond. For those justified by faith, sanctification is not optional but a necessary fruit of our union with Christ.

A politician must run to get elected. Elections cost money, lots of money. The politician solicits donations from donors. Large donors give for a benefit to their enterprise if the politician is elected. Once elected the politician must act for the benefit of their donors or lose future donations and future elections. It’s a simple pay-to-play scheme. It’s performance for benefit. But do we take that model into our relationship with God? Can we manipulate and control God? Is God beholden to us? Does the gospel address this?

The Apostle Paul describes the great sin of humanity in Romans chapter one saying, “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:25). This pattern goes all the way back to the garden of Eden and continues today. We know this, but maybe we haven’t considered that Christians can continue this pattern, bringing a paradigm of self-worship into their faith. We believe that we are serving God, but in fact we’re worshipping ourselves in a twisted pay-to-play scheme. We believe that if we obey God, He will praise and bless us. Instead of living in the received righteousness of grace, we seek to establish our own righteousness. This is functional paganism and high-handed idolatry. The paradigm of the created order which the gospel restores is the creation subject to and in service of the Creator, who alone is worthy.  Join us Sunday as we consider the paradigm of grace!

If you haven’t read Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why, you need to! The heart of the book is the importance of the root motivations for life, the why to any action. It’s the heart of the book of Romans: why do we obey God? More specifically, if there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, and Christ is the end of the law to all who believe, then what should motivate my obedience?

The Jewish believers in the church answered the question, saying, “we obey because that’s how we have standing with God and avoid His judgment.” They pressured the Gentile believers to adopt their pious practices, saying, “you can’t be right with God unless you convert to Judaism and all its patterns.” Paul routs this paradigm and condemns it.

But he doesn’t leave us there, holding the ruins of our paradigm. He gives us a new model for life as believers. Join us Sunday as we begin examining this pattern in Romans 12:1,2. Let’s pray that our hearts will be freed to love and live for God.

On October 25, 1964 an NFL Vikings defensive end recovered a fumble and scored a touchdown for his team. The only problem was it was at the opposing team’s end zone! He got a pat on the head from his teammates with sarcastic encouragement and humor.  Although the Vikings team would end up winning the game, the touchdown run to the opposing team signals a sad reality in our cultural moment today. 

Sociologists and pastors across the country are saying this about our current cultural moment: we are in the fastest religious shift in US history, but going the opposite way! More people are exiting church buildings more than they were entering them during the Great Awakenings just a century prior. Pastors around us teach with deconstructed faiths, church hurt is rampant, and ministries are closing their doors. This is the reality we’re facing as God’s people in a broken world. 

This Christmas season we’re reminded that in the face of great opposition, Christ has come to bring peace to the world through His kingdom reign. He will bring peace to the world, and will use people from an unlikely place to do so. Little did the Jews in Jesus’ time know that those outside of Israel would be among the first to herald this great news! Join us this Sunday as we peer into the story of the Magi and learn from their faithful response to the birth of Jesus Christ.

When I was a child, a long time ago, my family would gather to watch Little House on the Prairie. This TV show aired from 1974 until 1983. I can’t imagine Hollywood creating something like that today, nor do I think that our culture would value it. This series was based on a series of children’s books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She wrote the series from her childhood experience living in Pepin, Wisconsin and several family transitions to Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Did you know that she published her series when she was sixty-five years old?

I’ll admit, at fifty-three, her age doesn’t seem that far off. Some reading this might think that sixty-five is young. Our passage this week lists two people, Simeon and Anna, who were in their later years. Both were devout people who communed deeply with the Lord. Both had experienced a lot of life and were blessed to see God’s Christ. Join us as we consider the first Christmas of these wise, faithful people.

Have you ever heard of Thomas Obadiah Chisholm? Probably not. He was born in 1866 in a log cabin near Franklin, Kentucky and grew up on his family’s farm. At sixteen he began teaching in the one room schoolhouse. He came to faith at twenty-six and worked for a religious newspaper in Louisville, KY. At thirty-six he entered the ministry, pastoring a small church in Scottsville, KY for just a year. He resigned due to failing health, moving back to the family farm.  He spent the rest of his life as an insurance agent living in New Jersey. You might not know his story, but you know his work because he wrote Great is Thy Faithfulness.

In explaining the song, he writes, “My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health. But I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God, and that He has given me many wonderful displays of his providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness.”

It’s stories like Chisholm’s and our text this Sunday that demonstrate God’s delight in using humble, unknown people to do his work. Join us as we consider Joseph and Mary’s first Christmas.

C.S. Lewis was asked for his response to the creation of the Atomic Bomb. Fear had gripped the world at this invention. Here is an excerpt from his response:

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies, but they need not dominate our minds…Let the bomb find you doing well.

This reminds me of Psalm 11:3,4: “if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.”

For the faithful believers, people like Zechariah and Elizabeth, experiencing their first Christmas, God’s sovereignty guided their response to perilous times. Luke opens with an ominous line, “In the days of Herod, king of Judea.” That sets the context for the narrative. What do we learn? The angel of God comes and says, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and bring you this good news” (Luke 1:19). Gabriel finds God’s people faithfully serving and worshipping Him. But more than that, it tells us that God is sovereign over His creation, leading us through perilous times. Join us Sunday as we consider the experience of the first Christmas and worship our Sovereign Lord.

The election is over, but I think I might need some therapy. Between the over-the-top rhetoric from both sides about America ending if their opponent won and the fear these statements generated in people I love, I’m glad it’s over. Unfortunately, now the sides are forming ranks as those in power seem determined to continue the fight. In my fifty-three years, I’ve not known it to be different. It’s at times like these that I’m thankful for Psalm 2. The Psalmist says, “He who sits in the heavens laughs…I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill…Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son…Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” 

As we begin our Christmas series, Experiencing the First Christmas, we’ll go a bit deeper into the story and examine the experiences of the participants in the first Christmas. This week, we’ll consider the politicians of the first Christmas: Caesar Augustus (Octavian), Quirinius (Governor of Syria), and Herod (King of the Jews). All their political power, plots, and maneuvering against the Lord and His Anointed, played right into God’s sovereign decrees. Join us as we worship the One who sits in the heavens and his Anointed Son.

In one of my favorite movies, What about Bob, the psychotic Bob, played by Billy Murray, is extoling the wisdom and skill of his psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin, played by Richard Dreyfuss. In a classic line, Bob says, “We can't be expected to understand him. He is so far above us. We are like ropes on the Goodyear Blimp.”

Likewise, the Apostle Paul ends his teaching on justification by faith through grace with a stunning doxology! He erupts into praise, proclaiming the distance between God and mankind in wisdom, knowledge, judgments, and ways. God does not submit his plans to us for approval, nor has anyone given or done so much for Him that parity is established or a debt created. All things come from, pass through, and return to God! Truly God alone deserves our worship, service, and praise. Join us Sunday as we consider this doxology and declare His glory.