A new blog design for a new sermon series.
So we started the sermon series on the New Birth. I hope and pray you find this space as an opportunity to engage, question and search more deeply into these matters. So don't hesitate asking questions or making comments. When you do, make sure you tell us who you are.
Two things seem to be true: 1) we want to have assurance of our salvation. 2) God wants us to be assured that we are saved...when we really are. That's really encouraging to me. God doesn't want me wondering endlessly if I'm really saved; he wants me confident of my standing with God.
But that confidence is found in the New Birth and the evidences of the New Birth, not our typical evangelical responses.
What was your big "take home" from this sermon? What was your main observation or question? Let's talk about it.
Pastor Brian
2 comments:
This discussion is so huge. In fact, Sam and I have been talking over and over about this for months now. We both appreciate that you are continually challenging all of us to search the Scriptures and line up our thinking to what God's Word says. This is what we have been and continue to do.
There's so much I could say or comment about but I think the main tension we feel is that we absolutley, with out a doubt, know that God's Word teaches we are saved by grace through faith, because of the shed blood of Jesus, and that we are saved once and for all, and cannot lose that salvation. We know this is your heart too and what you believe and teach, ("order is everything"). However, we also see Scripture teaching that the evidence of saving faith seems to produce (or WILL) produce the fruit of the Spirit. The difficulty comes in measureing that fruit....I am very uncomfortable looking at someone else's life and deciding weather or not their fruit is the saving faith kind. Granted, there are some red-flag indicators. But, the drug-addict who's just recently been regenerated is going to take some time to get completely clean. Their fruit might seem "small" to someone else looking in, but HUGE for them. They might even take some huge set-backs. Thankfully, our great God makes these judgments. I think what Sam and I have concluded and what we hear you saying (and the Scriptures!) is that it is not how we sin, or even how hard we fall (for we know there have been even Biblical accounts of huge moral failures of truly believing people), but it is in how we respond to that sin.....are we convicted?...does it bother us?..or are we completely comfortable and do we feed the sin habitually?
So much more that Sam and I are processing through. We grew up with a very tradiational evnagelical background that is very "free-grace", and it has been a challange to wrestle with what Scripture has to say about our lives measuring up to what we believe. This topic has huge implications not just for our personal lives, but in how we share with our children and others. Sorry for the long post...this is just a snippet of all we've been discussing in our home! Thanks for the outlet!
Hey Tawnya,
Yeah, great thoughts. We'll be covering more this in the sermon series so sit tight, but maybe I would say that (and I'll be using this metaphor in upcoming sermons so keep it under your hat) a huge evidence of the new birth is where you run when you sin. Do you run to Jesus or do you run away from him? People born again still sin, but the Holy Spirit is at work in them drawing them to confession and repentance. You are so right; may be never look at particular sins or progress and have some artificial litmus test. I'm guessing I'll sin the day I die.
Keep telling me what you think.
thanks
Brian
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