Tag: new creation

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Celebrating Pentecost – A Sermon for Pentecost Sunday

Text: Acts 2:1-4, 12 LSB

And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3And there appeared to them tongues like fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance… 12And they all continued in astonishment and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

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A Christmas Sermon: The Pathos of Advent

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind (John 1:4).

The Incarnation of the eternal Son is situated within human experience. In other words, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) means that God experienced the fulness of human experience, and humans might experience the fulness of God. Pathos is an expression of emotion, or passion. So, to speak of the pathos of Advent is to reflect on how the coming of Christ moves us towards faith in God. The pathos of Advent is illustrated in the candles of the Advent wreath. As we moved towards the celebration of Christmas, we light a candle and reflect.

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A Political Gospel has Fallen from Grace

You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace (Galatians 5:4).

Paul was deeply concerned about the believers at Galatia. Some of the leaders have disturbed the church by preaching a “distorted” gospel (1:7). The believers have deserted Christ by embracing “a different gospel” (1:6). This distorted gospel has “bewitched” the Galatian believers (3:1) to such an extent that they “have been severed from Christ,” they have “fallen from grace” (5:4). What heresy had they embraced? They were “seeking to be justified by law” (5:4). In seeking to be made righteous by the law they were distorting the Gospel of Christ.

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When God Comes Down – 1st Sunday of Advent

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence—To make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence! (Isaiah 64:1-2 NASB).

Advent is a word that speaks to the arrival, or appearing, of a notable person/event. Advent denotes hope, expectation, joy, and even fear. Christians celebrate a season of Advent as a time in between. The first Sunday of Advent is both historical and eschatological, that is, it remembers God’s appearances in history, and it anticipates the culmination of God’s kingdom in the future.

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Why we need an Apocalyptic Gospel

With the rise of Constantine in the 4th century the Christian faith took a decidedly political turn. What began with the toleration of Christianity under Constantine later became legalization, and ultimately the establishment of the Christian faith as the state religion throughout Catholic and Protestant Europe. Although the Christian faith had a profoundly positive affect upon European civilization, Christendom led to centuries of conflict and warfare among the various Christian kingdoms. Christendom is a failed experiment.

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