Radical Grace/The Lutheran Difference

First, you take people engorged on turkey, which makes you sleepy. Then you let them go out and get drunk. Then you let them go and try to shop. And the crowds turn ugly. And for someone reason, no one could see this coming? It's all a ruse. Black Friday is a parody of Good Friday. The crowds surrounding Jesus didn't want him. The crowds around the stores this past Friday want everything they ever wanted. They'll sacrifice everything for a cheap television. Yup, that's Black Friday.

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As Advent approaches, I want to talk about the light of hope that enters the world in Jesus Christ. We all have to admit that if hope fades, our humanity fades along with it. If there is no Christ, there is not hope.

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Today Radical Grace Radio has been overrun by the NSA. They don't get the Gospel, they think it's some sort of plot to overthrow the government. But the roman thought that might be happening as well back in the First century AD, so is it any wonder that today's governments might think that as well? Also, hating Strange fire for 300 dollars or more.

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This is an Ancient Rerun, from back when Radical Grace Radio was just "Radical Grace". The episode was called "the Only Solution", and was recorded live on AM 920 WMEL. Once in a while it's fun to listen to an old show, and this is no exception. Pastor had a list of questions he brought with him to the studio... The first question was "can you know, right now, if you're righteous enough to go to heaven?"

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The Episode titled "Live Stoned Nudes" has reached more people on X-rated websites than any other program we've done. I wonder why? Either way, this episode gets started with show titles and my obsession with naming them weird titles, plus the challenge that is the Gospel, in a funny way, where you wouldn't expect it. That's law and Gospel for you.

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It's Reformation Day, Every Day! Seriously, if we are repenting, defecting, every day of our Christian lives, than that means it's Reformation Day every day. So for this Reformation Day, Pastor Gary coined a term, "religious industrial complex" to refer to any system that gets turned around to making a buck off of Jesus' name, or even the crass works righteousness systems so may people think gets the brownie points with God. Any system like this is pretty much brown, because it's slathered in, well... You know.

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This Episode of Radical Grace Radio is filled with Monkey Business. Too much of it, in fact. Romanistic Reformed Christians calling the Pentecostal Kettle black, Crazy Taliban hoopla, Congressional upheaval, and tiny little spoons. You'll have to email me to find out what the spoons reference even means. Either way, this pre-Reformation Day show sets up our talk next week, Where of course we talk about Grace Alone, Faith alone and Christ alone, and why they are important.

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In a show about Christian Freedom and how to exercise that freedom, we wound up talking about our individual stories. Now, we're not talking about our individual testimonies or anything like that, but the simple story of each of us, and in the larger context the history of individual congregations. Those stories, both individual and corporate, are subsumed into God's story the same way our flesh is subsumed into Christ. Our lives, our stories, everything we are, have become part of God's story. That doesn't mean the centrality of the cross and the gospel are in question. Not at all. What it does mean is that God has chosen a particular people, given them a particular story, the Gospel, and has drawn us to himself and the story of creation and redemption. We are all like fish caught up in the net of God's story.

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Feelings, nothing more than feelings. Or at least that's what most of the church at large would say about being a Christian. Here's how they do it. The Holy Spirit indwells a believer, changes that believer's heart to where they feel like they want to follow God's law, and the feelings sustain the believer through hard times. Sounds nice but, what about those days when you don't "feel" like being a believer? Oh wait, what you do is manufacture a feeling, which is something the modern, feelings driven church can do in spades... unless what they do turns out to be boring, then everyone feels like sleeping.

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So we hit two topics today that people tend to ignore. One is death itself. People don't want to be reminded of their own mortality. Sooner or later it's coming, but we all tend to put it out of our minds, especially when you live in a culture that goes out of it's way to rid itself of reminders of death. The other topic is the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Most people solve this parable by trying to ignore it. Why? Because it's a terrifying parable on its face, that's why. But there's another way to understand it.

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