Over the years at DGCC I've preached a number of sermons related to money and giving. For those of you who would like to explore this issue further, here are…
During Sunday’s sermon, I briefly discussed the implications of being in Christ on three different aspects of a person’s life:
- First, the inner life: How do you think? What occupies your mind? What do you value and treasure? What do you long for?
- Second, the personal life: How you work, how you allocate your time, how you spend money. These are decisions you make on your own that primarily affect you.
- Third, your Life in Community with others: Your relationships in marriage, in your family, among your neighbors, among your colleagues.
These are the verses referred to during the sermon on baptism yesterday.
On Sunday we sang the great hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns” by Matthew Bridges. Here is one of the verses:
Jesus died and now lives “that death may die.” This week I’ve meditated on that biblical theme, looking at passages throughout the history of redemption that discuss the coming of death into the world, God's plan to overcome death, Jesus' victory over death, and the final destruction of death. Here is a selection of key passages on that theme. Read them - and rejoice that death will die.Crown Him the Lord of life, Who triumphed over the grave, And rose victorious in the strife For those He came to save. His glories now we sing, Who died, and rose on high, Who died eternal life to bring, And lives that death may die.
In last Sunday’s sermon text, Malachi 1:1-5, God proves His love for the returned Israelite exiles in a strange way. “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? . . . Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.” There was nothing to choose between Esau and Jacob. Both were horrible sons; both were disobedient to God; the descendants of both were stiff-necked and rebellious. Both deserve judgment. Both deserve condemnation. Both peoples deserve hell. But God chooses to destroy Esau’s descendants and to love Jacob/Israel and his descendants. This is His sovereign choice. Only because He loves them are they not cut off.
We too need to see ourselves as deserving of hell, as undeserving of His mercy, and thus to bow before Him, asking for that mercy only on the basis of Jesus’ death on the cross. That is the clear message of the passage.
But a question remains: How can God say He hates Esau when God is said to love the world (John 3:16)? Doesn’t God love everyone? Doesn’t God desire all to be saved?
Galatians 6:9-10 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
In last Sunday’s sermon, I asked: How do you fight temptation to grow weary of doing good? For we all face that temptation. Every one of us at times feels like giving up, like stepping back from whatever ministry we do. But as we saw, Paul says it is absolutely vital for us not to grow weary. Indeed, he makes not growing weary in well-doing a key part of the test to see whether or not we are saved.
So how can we fight against this common, serious temptation?