We think we have everything under control and know how to anticipate our weaknesses, yet sin still sneaks up looking attractive and attacks when least expected. In Genesis 3 a crafty serpent made the forbidden tree seem good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable for wisdom.
Pharmaceutical commercials fill the screen with daisy fields and frolicking joy so you’ll tune out the side effects. Are God’s Commandments filled with killer side effects, too?
We keep wanting peace now—the right circumstances, the right outcome, the right person in charge—and that hunger is not wrong, just misdirected. In Luke 19:41–44, Jesus weeps over a city shouting for peace while blind to the only kind that lasts, and his tears raise an uncomfortable question about what we’re actually seeking when we seek it.
Most of us are quicker to panic over a dying phone battery than over a dying spiritual one—we coast along, confident we’re fine, while the indicator drops lower than we’d ever admit. As Jesus calls a written-off man in Jericho, He challenges all of us on this: “Do we know how much we need Him?”
Clear words can still sail right past us when they aren’t the news we want. In Luke 18, Jesus tells the Twelve exactly what’s about to happen to Him, yet they were just like us: they didn’t want to hear.
There’s always one thing we’d rather not put on the table when God asks us to give something up—and we usually know exactly what it is. In Luke 18, a rich man walks away from Jesus grieving because that one thing is precisely what Jesus names, and the disciples’ stunned question in response—”then who can be saved?”—turns out to be our question too.
Most of us have something we’d rather not put on the table before God—something we’re holding just tightly enough that we hope He won’t notice. In Luke 18, a ruler who has kept the commandments since his youth comes to Jesus asking what he still must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus names exactly the one thing he isn’t ready to hear.
Pastor Tim helps us think about the next question in the New City Catechism (“How does the Holy Spirit help us?”) as we continue to explore how God the Holy Spirit helps us.
Melanie helps us think about the next question in the New City Catechism (“What do we believe about the Holy Spirit?”) as we continue to explore how God the Holy Spirit is with us.
Pastor Tim provides an update about our new sermon series and special Sunday school class tonight along with a brief look at our next catechism question (“Since we are redeemed by grace alone, through faith alone, where does this faith come from?”) and accompanying Scripture.