Today's Sermon

Today’s sermon:

“Gravity Lessons” – The purposeful plummet everyone experiences when making the attempt to live by the Ten Commandments or by any laws or rules, rather than by the Spirit of life.

Romans 7:8,13 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
Romans 8:2 …through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
2Corinthians 3:6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

My Daughter, Remember

Satan would have you to estimate yourself based not upon the world you're from—the one you can’t see—but upon the world you're in—the one you can. And that will not do. It's a deception, a temporary cover-up. It’s not nearly good enough because the truth about you is so stunning and powerful and heavenly. God knows! And, increasingly, you do too.

John 17:14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.

Visible Or Invisible?

Each of us is in constant, invisible war for what defines life.  The devil and his demons strategize that we should identify ourselves and others according to what we see and nothing more.  God and the angels work for us to believe that we and others are what God says we are—and nothing less.  The primary battle is over whether life is defined by what we see or what we know.  What we do must and will come from one or the other.

2 Corinthians 4:18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Black Friday Deal!

Here’s a pretty good Black Friday deal—my book for $8.99, and FREE shipping! (Continental USA only.) That’s $4 off the already low price, and it has never been discounted before!  You can get this deal beginning at midnight tonight (MST), until midnight on Friday—24 hours only!

And here’s a great opportunity to give a Christmas gift you’ll love giving. Have copies sent to yourself for gift giving later, or simply include the address you’d like the book to go to, and we’ll take care of the rest. Go to http://lifecourse.org/Ralphs_Book.html to get your copies!

Thank You

For your love, for your support, for your comments, and for walking with me in these days, I am deeply thankful. Though sometimes at great distance, it is monumental—even miraculous—that we are together in so much. And I am very glad. Thank you, my friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Knowing The One

Whatever persuades you to become preoccupied with the results and benefits of knowing Jesus but not with the reality is deadly. Remembering this will save you from an awful mess.

For example, very often when couples are searching and working diligently on ways to better love each other, what they’re really seeking is the result of Jesus loving them. They can have that anytime. They’re both set up for that. Perfectly. And no matter how long they’re married, the set up is the same. When people want to have better relationship skills, what they’re really looking for is the result of Jesus relating to them. When people are wanting to be more confident, more compassionate, more understanding, more kind, more disciplined, more patient, more happy, more faithful, more peaceful, more gentle, all are the result of Jesus loving and moving in them. That’s Christianity. When they’re knowing The One, they’ll have everything else.

That they’ve not experienced God’s life for them in that way does not make the hope of it untrue, but it might induce them to believe it’s not possible. So, God being the wonderful way he is, he will work with them in such a way that what they know and experience with him, will pour out of them to others—as if by accident. (But not quite!) And Jesus will become their great treasure and influence of life. The One! That’s the plan.

He Is With You

God is so good with sin. And failure. And frustration. And agony. And devastation. And depression. And confusion. In all of it, He is in us. In all of it, we have Him—the Antidote. The Life. The Comforter. The Security. The Lover. The Promise. The Treasure.

He is with you. Remember? He is the Answer. He is what you want. And He is delighted.

Today's Sermon

Today’s sermon:

“Hot Lovers” – Those invaluable and heroic people who, out of genuine and burning love of the truth, persistently annoy us to the message of the cross and the anti-slavery message it insists.

(I have found that many of those who become irritated over dilutions of God’s grace do not like the immediate effect, either what happens to themselves or to those who hear their protest. But theirs is an ongoing, difficult and invaluable service. It is to those men and women that I direct today's sermonette.)

Galatians 2:15-21 The Message
We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.
17-18 Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.
19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

My Rescuer

When I begin to experience frustration, I may be seduced to see myself (or others) as a failure, and, by default, I view life from a position outside of Christ.  I get caught up with what failure means about my past, present and future, and a different identity is pressed at me and upon me:  Hopeless.  Loser.  Idiot.  Perpetual Bad-choice Maker (PBM for short).  If I accept any of these identities and do not look to My Rescuer, who knows all about who I really am (and where I am—in Him), then the deeds of the flesh result.  And I hate that stuff. 

Revival and restoration will not come by conquering failure (and those ugly identities) but by looking again at Jesus, who is my life and who produces true life—and everything else, including confidence in who I am and how his love is my greatest motivator.  How well I fit with him!  In this world’s junk of frustration and failure, he is My Rescuer.  He will always be!  And I’m more than a conqueror through him after all. 

Romans 8:37 …in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The End Is Near!

Today's sermon:

“The End Is Near!” – While people are anxiously predicting the demise of the world as we know it, Christians are being moved confidently by the Spirit, who knows all about the beginning and the end. (Romans 8:5-6; Revelation 22:13; Isaiah 46:9-11)

Romans 8:5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

Revelation 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Isaiah 46:9 Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. 10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. 11 From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.

One Covenant Maker & Keeper

I write today to tell you about one of the greatest words ever kept out of the Greek New Testament, “Suntheke.” That it doesn’t appear is one of the greatest stories of our time.

During the days of the writing of the gospels and epistles, it was the common word used to describe the word, “covenant.” Everybody knew it, everybody used it, and lawyers were as comfortable with it then as they would be today by using the word, “contract.” “Suntheke” means, “a mutual agreement between two people or two parties; an agreement ‘with’.” So, details are worked out and, when agreement between parties is reached, the covenant is entered into and binds each party. Both promise to give or to perform something, which obligates them toward a desirable goal. That’s how it has always been.

If you have ever read Deuteronomy 28, you know covenant language. God instructs his people that if they do what he wants at all times and all the time (keep his rules and commands), he will give them what they want: big-time blessing. That was the covenant. As it is with all covenants, however, if they failed to keep their end of the agreement, everything fell apart and got ugly. Of course, God had no difficulty keeping his part of the arrangement, so the covenant pressure was ever upon the people. They failed a lot, and lived in a cycle of commitment, fear, failure, sorrow, forgiveness, re-commitment, fear, failure, and so on. . .and on and on. Inherent to covenant is pressure and judgment.

Fast-forward to the days when the carpenter’s son, Jesus, died in order to give us the next covenant, the new covenant, and something wonderfully unusual happens. No one describes the new covenant as anything we participate in. The word of the day, “Suntheke,” is nowhere to be found in the Greek New Testament. Instead, a new word is used: “Diatheke.” This word means, “an agreement of one.” It’s not a mutual agreement, it’s not a contract with, and there is no pressure on anyone because there are not two parties involved in keeping the contract. There is only one in the covenant: God. In other words, God made up the arrangement (“I’ll give them everything in Christ”) and God keeps the rules (“I’ll make sure they get all the benefits”) all by Himself!

There is no pressure. There is no judgment.

There will never be a place for “Suntheke,” never be a time when God will depend upon you to keep anything in order for you to have the everything he has provided for you in Christ. That’s the deal! This is the great gospel, this is what we serve to people burdened and wearied by the “Suntheke” covenants of this world and of the past, which they were forever breaking. You know about breaking agreements, right? Well, there is no way to break this one! Jesus is the Covenant Maker and the Covenant Keeper.

Our gospel is not, “Okay, Bud. Keep your end of the bargain and God will keep his.” Instead, our gospel is, “God took you out of the equation, so he could give you everything! No worries.”

This is why it is the height of folly to make quid pro quo commitments with God: “Father, I will do this great thing if you will do that great thing.” The good news is, he’s not paying any attention. Don’t bother. He thinks you’ve already been given everything in Christ—everything! (See Ephians 1:3; Col 2:9-10) God thinks there is now no condemnation for you because he’s taken you off the hook of earning anything (Romans 8:1-4). He’s not looking and will never look at how you’ve failed, because there is no evidence (Colossians 2:13-14) and no one’s bringing charges (Romans 8:33). That perfect relationship you’ve been working on with him has already been provided for you—you can stop trying to earn it and, instead, enjoy it—and there will never be any distance between you and him because he brought you permanently near (Ephesians 2:11-16). All he sees, all he counts, is what he has done and given to you in Christ. He’s not hoping you’ll “do your best and he’ll take care of the rest,” because he has already done everything! Perfectly. So you can rest. Done deal.

You’re safe. You’re in. You’ve got it all. No pressure. No judgment. That’s “Diatheke.” You like the new covenant. Right?

Today's Sermon

Today’s sermon:

“Grace Reigns” – If Christian speakers actually believe that those who have received Christ have been made new creations with new hearts and with Christ resident in them, they will not be inclined to teach Old Covenant-based methods of living by the attempt to avoid sin in order to please God and earn his blessing, but will instead speak about the wonder of New Covenant life in Christ and by the Spirit, where God is not counting men’s sins against them, where righteousness and grace reigns, and we have all things. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19; Romans 5:20-21; Titus 2:11-14)

2 Corinthians 5: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Romans 5: 20 The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

My Navy Dad

Here's my dad in uniform on the left. He was in the Navy during WWII, and fought in the South Pacific. He's not fighting anymore, having made the jump in 2008.

Veteran's Day

Your care and concern led you to efforts and places mine didn’t, and I’m better off by far because of you. American Military Veterans, you have my deepest appreciation.

People Like Us

Last night my wife and daughter and I watched the movie, “People Like Us.” While I’ve read a little about the film’s profanity and minor sexuality, what I hadn’t read was anything about its value. We were deeply intrigued throughout, and it wasn’t difficult for us to get past how people SHOULDN’T swear and SHOULDN’T do crazy sexual stuff, because, well, people do! Don’t we? The movie and story does an excellent job of including the viewer in both the struggle and recovery of its characters, which counts a lot in life, doesn’t it? I don’t think Jesus carried antiseptic nor earplugs nor rose-colored glasses into any of the relationships he had when walking amongst us, and I don’t either. He did, however, make good use of a whip on those who cared more for the outward model than the inward heart. (It’s probably a good thing I don’t own a whip.)

Jesus isn’t specifically in this movie—he didn’t get a part—but I am involved with people like those in the story, and it does me good to see them working through fears and false, long-held beliefs that have starved them of love. That’s where I live, that’s what counts, and that’s where Jesus in me makes himself most obvious—to me and to others.

This is an adult-themed movie, and I like it very much. Is this a “wholesome” movie? No. But since when is life? If you value people growing and recovering around each other as becoming “whole,” however, then it’s wholesome in that way. I plan to watch it again with my youngest daughter later tonight. I know we’ll have great conversation because we’ve been watching and talking about this kind of thing and these kinds of real-life, how-God-is-involved, situations for years. It’s a treasure chest of value for my family just waiting to be opened. If that’s a new or challenging idea for you, do what you think best. Duh. Maybe pre-view the movie. Maybe don’t do it at all. This is simply how we do things around my home.

Know what I’m sayin’?