Who am I?

If I am created by the living God, I cannot know or even begin to remotely fathom who I am unless he makes it plain to me. The world is ripping itself apart seeking to satisfy its every whim and desire in a desperate search be authentic to themselves. You-be-you is sending millions to Hell.

Into this, God speaks. He makes plain the extraordinary entity that is man in the first chapter of his word to us. This morning, Keith Pond makes plain the importance of the truth that we are created in the image of God.

In this life under the sun, everything upon which we might set our hope will fail us. Money. Friends. Spouse. Job. Health. We have no certainty that any of these will come through in our hour of desperate need. Only one Person provides sure and certain hope: our Lord Jesus Christ. Today, Dr. Ben Dunson guides us through Romans 5:1-5 to highlight the glories of the hope that we have in Christ, a hope that will not disappoint us. He shows us our sure foundation, the clear pathway, and the wondrous outcome of our hope.

Most folks would really love the other people in their lives to be forgiving, but when it comes to their own conduct, those same folks find it really hard to truly forgive another person. Then when we do consider forgiveness, most of us have some skewed ideas about what forgiving really means. Pastor Mollenkopf takes a deep dive this morning on what God's word says about his forgiveness for us and his expectation of our forgiveness toward others.

How is it that God's justice and that he has justified us in Christ Jesus serve as an anchor point to sustain us in this life? Our sin and the sin all around us become overwhelming at times; when will it be made right? In today's passage, we see that God cares. He cares about sin and he cares about injustice. As the penalty of sin was paid in full by the blood of Jesus Christ, God not only proved himself just in dealing with sin, he put us in a right standing before him through that same atonement. That work gives us hope for this life and the life to come. Keith Pond explains.

Paul continues his ethical instructions and dives into the ugly specifics of our anger: bitterness, clamor, and malice. He turns though to show the beauty of living like Christ with kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and God has saved us and is re-creating us to speak like Him. When we do, we build up the church, the very entity that the Spirit works to build. Pastor Mollenkopf expounds on the importance of being purposed in our speech.

We often see our sinful anger as caused by others. Yet, we see from God’s word that the interrupting of our own desires leads us to anger. To overcome, we must recognize the roots of our anger, we must replace ourselves as ruler letting God be God, and we must repent of our pride. Pastor Jeremy Mollenkopf guides us through these waters.

God is perfectly holy and good, and yet, God is said to have anger. We see times of anger in the life of Jesus. Thus, there are times when anger is right, good, and appropriate. At other times, among God's fallen creatures, anger can bring disaster. This sermon examines, what anger is, how it can be good, and what makes it so destructive.

One of the first ways the new creations of God seek to live outh this new life is by putting off falsehood and speaking truth to one another. Pastor Mollenkopf walks us through the darkness of the vice of deceit, the beauty of the virtue of truth, and concludes looking at the three unexpected victims of falsehood.

God’s saving us should cause us to seek to end our old, sinful lifestyle and instead, live a new, godly lifestyle. This isn't a living-well/living-right philosophy as though Christianity was some therapeutic salve to apply to your life, but it's a love response to the love God has lavished on us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Still, to be a Christian does demand a response. If the saint does not change, the question must be asked if redemption through the gospel really has come. Pastor Mollenkopf delves into these issues in todays passages from Ephesians.