Sermons From My Heart

In Romans 15:1-13, Paul begins by actually writing about Scripture and its purpose. This purpose is surprising in itself, given our present-day debates on the nature of Scripture! Paul doesn’t write that it provides us with a moral code or a detailed recipe for a prosperous and good life. No, Scripture’s primary goal is to create hope in us. But we must still ask, what type of hope?   The hope tha...

The apostle makes a surprisingly strong affirmation of his conviction that in the matters he is discussing there is nothing fundamentally right or wrong about the meat or the day. But if the other person has a strong conscience about the wrongness of participation in the meat or the rightness of recognition of the day, then to that person it is a matter of right or wrong. From a purely biblical po...

In Romans 14:1-13 Paul exhorts the Roman Church to focus on offering their lives to God through Christ, not on judging one another's actions and practices. They were not to spend their time judging themselves as strong in the faith and their brothers and sisters as weak, their eating and Sabbath practices as righteous and others' as below the mark. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.s...

God is love, and the law reflects God’s character; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Obedience is never about slavishly following rules, but always about eagerly pleasing a loving God. Since God’s love for us has been poured out on us, Paul here calls us to allow this love to extend towards our neighbor. Why doesn’t Paul mention what Jesus calls the first commandment–to love God with...

Throughout the epistle Paul has described God in authoritative terms. It was His authoritative word that created things that were nonexistent; it is through the obedience of nature to His laws that the visible things portray something of the invisible God; His dealings with His chosen people clearly demonstrate that He is their God and demands their allegiance; and His freedom to deal with them an...

The message of Romans is that sin’s mastery over humankind has been broken in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The opening verses of Romans 6 are a helpful summary of the new state of things. Former slaves of sin have been buried with Christ in baptism. While it is a drastic form of escape, it is an effective one: a dead slave is a free slave. Paul says simply, “whoever has died is free...

God has not revealed everything about Himself. In our fallen state, we couldn’t handle it if He did. Therefore, as long as we live in these mortal bodies, we must remain humble. We must let God be God. But many are doing the exact opposite-working as hard as they can to humanize God and deify man.   We will never completely understand God’s ways or grasp why He does what He does, but we can worshi...

In Romans 11, Paul develops a crucial point in his argument. In verses 1-10, he presents a panoramic view of God’s plan for Israel, past, present, and future. God has preserved a remnant, and His election is by grace, no longer of works. The grace of God and works for salvation are mutually exclusive. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sermons-from-my-heart--24236...

Too many times, when God talks to us at church, we don't hear God. We aren't listening. We need to pay attention and listen for God when we are at church and when we aren't at church. God is going to help us do wonderful things. When we leave church each Sunday, we should be different than when we came to church. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sermons-from-my-...

Christ is the goal or fulfillment of the law, the object to which the law pointed. Christ, Paul says, “is the end of the law for righteousness,” meaning that He is the end  in the sense of the fulfillment of the law, but also in that He terminated the era of the law and introduced the new era where men and women could be delivered from the hopeless task of fulfilling the law and could be invited t...

Paul’s question about God being unjust is the theme of Romans 9-11. His answer “Certainly not!” rings loud and clear. If God is unjust then He cannot be God, for God is perfect justice in and of Himself.   God is absolutely sovereign and is doing what He wills to do. He may choose or not choose. He may bless or not bless.  He is God. God’s mercy is not in response to man’s will. Nor is God’s mercy...

As Paul begins this important section in Romans, he is speaking the truth in Christ and with great compassion for his people: “I am speaking the truth in Christ–I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit–I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart”. These are remarkable words coming from the heart of Paul; he carries a personal burden, but he is also aware that the only...

The Letter to the Hebrews is about the person of Christ-His deity, humanity, supremacy, priesthood, sacrifice, and glory. The letter contains more than 20 names and titles for Jesus, with the most common being “Son” and “priest.”   God spoke at various times-to Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, and to the prophets-and in various ways, from thunder and lightning to the voice of a trumpet; in a s...

In Romans 8:1, Paul summarizes not just chapter 7, but his whole argument up to this point. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Having carefully expounded the divine principle whereby God justifies sinners and frees them from all condemnation for their guilt, Paul now shows that the believer has much more to enjoy in terms of freedom f...

One issue surfaces in virtually every one of Paul’s letters: What good is the law? To most of Paul’s audience, the word “law” stands for the huge collection of rules and rituals detailed in the Old Testament. Whenever he starts talking about “the new covenant” or “freedom in Christ,” his Jewish listeners want to know what he thinks about Moses’ Law. Does God still require obedience? Become a suppo...

Once upon a time we were “married” to God’s law—and it wasn’t such a great marriage, was it? Never any peace, not for a single moment—because our own sinful desires and actions were constantly fighting with God’s law. It wasn’t the law’s fault--- we can all see for ourselves that the commandments are good. But  we  are not good—not healthy, whole, and happy, the way God made us to be. We are broke...

Romans 6:15-23 continues Paul’s discussion of sanctification by reminding his readers of their past slavery to sin and their new slavery to righteousness. He wants them to live in submission to their new master, Jesus Christ, and not to be entangled again with the sins that characterized their old life, sins which no longer have any claim over them. People are either obedient slaves of sin, which...

Sin put you in prison. Sin locked you behind the bars of guilt and shame and deception and fear. Sin did nothing but shackle you to the wall of misery. Then Jesus came and paid your bail. He served your time; He satisfied the penalty and set you free. Christ died, and when you cast your lot with Him, your old self died too.   The only way to be set free from the prison of sin is to serve its penal...

When Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity, it is said there were only twelve men who were intelligent enough to understand its implications. Forty years later the number had risen to millions as the horror of Hiroshima unfolded. Relatively few could see great significance in E = mc2, but even fewer failed to understand that through one man the race had been ushered into the atomic ag...

The center. As human beings, we often try to find the center of things. It is just the way we are. We want to find the center. What is the center of Christianity? The bull’s eye?  The nucleus? We all know the answer. Jesus Christ. There is no argument about that. What does God want from us? We all know- faith in Jesus Christ, believe in Jesus Christ, trust in Jesus Christ. Christ and faith in Jesu...

What does it mean to believe in Christ? To trust God like Father Abraham did, not wavering or doubting but firmly believing that God could do what he promised. That is what faith is: to believe that God can do what he has promised. It is to trust the promises of God so implicitly that you act on them. Paul uses the model of Abraham to prove justification by faith alone because the Jews held him up...

It was Paul’s conviction that in our lives, we make such mistakes that there is no way that we can buy our way out. We can’t wiggle our way out of it, as we so often try to do. We hurt others by our sins of commission, of what we have done wrong to hurt others. The way that we have hurt people and our family. We cannot pay God back for all the sins of our lives. For all that we have done wrong. Fo...

Scripture is brutally honest about the sinful condition of humanity. Nobody is righteous, and no one fully reflects the image and glory of God. Paul elaborates in Romans 3:12-16 that humanity has become absolutely worthless, deceitful, poisonous, cursing, bitter, barbaric and brutal. Only through God’s law do we become aware of the reality of sin’s presence in our lives, and our inability to fulfi...

Knowing God’s will is not the same as discerning a specific decision or path. To know His will refers to a revelation in Scripture that is agreeable to Him, what He requires us to do, what he commands, what He prohibits, what He approved and what He rewards. The Jews inherited this treasure trove of truth through their covenant relationship with God, yet they were blind to the promises being fulfi...

In Romans 2:1-16 Paul is “speaking” to an imaginary Jewish scholar who appreciated the indictment against the Gentiles in Romans 1. Religious moralists are indignant at and critical of other people’s shortcomings and indulgent of their own, but judging others is evidence that they themselves might be judged. God’s judgment is a fact of human existence that must be reckoned with if people want to e...