Sermon Podcast - Round Rock Church of Christ

In our text today, Paul challenges us to use the power of the Holy Spirit to align our lives with God’s will for us. The decision to repent may be ours, but the power is that of the Holy Spirit.  Paul also encourages us by reminding us that we do so from a position of strength. Much of this same chapter is about the love of God that is stronger than anything that would trip us up. The grace of God inspires us to align ourselves with his will. 

Normally, we do all we can to avoid thinking about dying. But what if thinking about death actually gave your more life? What if it encouraged you to be grateful for what is right in front of you?

Paul’s letter to Galatia deals with the problem of replacing Jesus with the law of Moses. Although most of us don’t deal with this particular tissue, there is a sense in which repentance can become a law; that is, a substitute for the grace of God. The way to keep repentance from becoming a law is to realize that the goal of repentance is to become like Jesus. God is trying to shape us so we look more like him.

This week we look at two more forces that can move us to repentance: Sorrow and grace. Sorrow means that our sin makes us feel guilty; grace means that we don’t have to feel that way anymore. Our lives are lived best when these two forces are kept in balance.

The woman in John 8:1-11 is a powerful model of sorrow and grace working together. Jesus puts his own reputation on the line by loving her enough to forgive her, but also by challenging her to do better from that point on.

Repentance can be intimidating because we usually associate it with something very difficult, a change of behavior. But repentance is not a change of behavior; that is the result of repentance. Repentance is a change of mind and heart that leads to a change of behavior.

This week we begin a series on repentance by talking about the centrality of repentance to the Gospel message. It was very much a part of the message of Jesus, the early disciples and Paul. The message of our culture is that it doesn’t really matter how you live. The message of the Bible is that it does.

This week, Matt closed out our sermon series which focused on struggling and wrestling as a part of our Christian identity. Even more we focused on asking these questions: Who will we be as a church? Who will you be as a person? Will we be a people of apathy or a people of engagement? Will we be a people of the flab and atrophy that accompany unexercised relationships? Or, will we be a people who wrestle?

This sermon, delivered on Easter, will encourage us to elevate our participation in the resurrected life. Just as the grave, and along with it the power of sin, were robbed of their victims, so too were our lives robbed of futility and emptiness. The resurrection of Jesus catapults us into lives that are set on the realities of heaven. Easter invites us to live out our own resurrection.

The goal of this sermon is to increase our trust in God during times of struggle. Jesus died as a criminal but was given a king’s burial. Something transformative happens in the grave. Hope is stronger than fear because God does his best work in dark places.

This series seeks to bring the death, burial and resurrection into our own experience. This lesson seeks to inspire us to embrace Jesus’ call to die to self by reframing it from a negative to a positive. Beginning with physical death as a crossing over to new life, we will draw a parallel to what happens spiritually. When we die to self, we remove the biggest obstacle to fully realizing life in God.