The Attributes of God:

Living In the Will of God Colossians 1:1-12 “So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”                   When faced with difficult decisions, when we are confronted with life at a crossroads, and when we are uncertain regarding the direction of our lives, then we pray for God’s will.  We desire to do God’s will, but it seems elusive and hidden.  We struggle to know God’s will in our daily events and decisions.  As a result, our prayers often focus on God blessing our decisions and fulfilling our desires.  We make our plans, set our goals and then focus on obtaining them.  However, to live in a relationship with Christ is to reorient our life so that He determines our goals, values, desires, and wants.      ...

The Sufficiency of God and Contentment in Life. Phil. 4:10-20 “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”                   In his classic book,  The Rare Jews of Christian Contentment , Jeremiah Burroughs writes, “If I become content by having my desires satisfied, that is only self-love; but when I am contented with the hand of God and am willing to be at His disposal, that comes from my love for God.”  We all struggle with contentment, the satisfaction that our present circumstances and situation are sufficient for our desires, wants, and longings.  More often than not, no matter how much we have, no matter how much we have achieved, we are still left longing for more.  We are left with the illusion that if only we have one more thing or reach one more goal, then we will be delighted, only to discover that in attaining them, we are still left with the...

The Cure for Anxiety Phil. 4:5-9  “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”   With all the uncertainty of life, it is easy to become worried and anxious about the future.  The command is very emphatic, “Stop being anxious about even one thing.”  As the Christians in Philippi were facing the challenges of the day, they were becoming gripped with worry and anxiety.  We like life to be predictable and controllable.  We want order in our lives so that we can anticipate and respond to every situation we face.  But life is not always predictable.  We encounter circumstances outside our control, and the outcome is uncertain. As a result, we become gripped by feelings of fear and uncertainty.  We fear the outcome due to the uncertainty of our lives.  For many of us, the command seems to be an impossibility. ...

The Lifelong Journey Phil. 3:12-16 “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”                   “Are we there yet!”  was the question we would incessantly ask our parents when traveling on an exciting vacation.  Sometimes, we would become so excited about where we were going that we forgot to enjoy the journey.  The same is true in our Christian life.  It is easy to become impatient and want to be at the end, to want to achieve the perfection that God promised to accomplish in us.  However, Paul points out that the Christian life is not an event, it is a journey, a journey of faith and transformation as we lay aside the former life we lived and embrace the ...

Our Greatest Accomplishment Phil. 3:4-11 “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”                   Deep within us is a desire to succeed in life. We want to have a sense of meaning and purpose, a feeling of accomplishment that leaves a mark on the world in which we live. We don’t want to be famous or renowned; we just desire to be successful by living a life of purpose. At the end of life, we want to know that our life is worth living.  This sense of achievement may come from our jobs or interactions with people.  It may be an achievement that benefits others or a lifestyle that influences the people we associate with.  At the end of life, we want to feel that we have lived life well and had a po...

Be Like Jesus Phil. 2:1-11 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.”                   We live in a culture of self.  In our culture, it is about self-empowerment and identity.  Today, the focus is taking control of our lives and making decisions based on what we want. Authority and leadership are defined by the ability to motivate others to fulfill the leader's vision.  It is the pyramid view of leadership where the person at the bottom serves those who are at the top of the pyramid. In relationships, we demand our way and take offense when people mistreat us or violate our interests.  We hold grudges when we feel disrespected or devalued.                     In contrast to our culture, Christ points us in a different direction, for Ch...

The Forgotten Jewel of Suffering Phil. 1:27-30 “For to you, it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake.”                   No one enjoys suffering.  We try to avoid it at all costs and to alleviate it by any means.  At the first appearance of pain and discomfort, we run to the medicine cabinet to a whole array of pills, all designed not to heal us of the problem but merely to alleviate the symptoms so that we do not have to suffer.  We take aspirin and Tylenol for our headaches, Ibuprofen and Aleve for our aches and pains.  When the pills do not remove our pain, we go to the doctor to get something more substantial, even at the risk of becoming addicted to these drugs.  Today, there is an epidemic of addiction to opioids, which are prescribed to alleviate pain.  In the end, the cure be...

The Priorities of Life Phil 1:21-16 “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”                   Paul was sitting in prison with a possible death sentence.  As Paul wrote this letter to the church at Philippi, he faced an uncertain future.  While he was hopeful and confident that he would be released, he had no assurance that this would happen.  Confronted with the reality of death, Paul had time to reflect upon life.                    When confronted with the reality of death, it takes us to the core meaning of life.  It confronts us with the question, “At the end of life, what really matters?”  This is no idle question.  Tragically, too few people contempt this reality.  They live for the moment and give little thought to the en...

Praying for Boldness Ephesians 6:18-20 “Pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”                   The desire for acceptance and popularity is compelling.  There is something deep within us that lurks and desires to be part of the group.  No one wants to be seen as an outsider who is not accepted.  Research has shown that we will compromise what we know to be true in order not to stand alone.  This is even a danger for pastors.  It is much easier to stand before the congregation and say what they want to hear rather than preach a message we know they will not like.  We can even justify it by thinking that we need to make the gospel acceptable ...

Imitators vs Imitation Ephesians 5:1-21 “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”                   To the casual observer, an imitation is often difficult to distinguish from the real thing.  Today, it is estimated that 2 to 3 trillion dollars are spent on counterfeit products.  Research reveals that counterfeit products cost U.S. businesses over 300 billion dollars and a loss of more than 75000 jobs per year.  The difficulty is that the counterfeit and the original are almost identical to the casual observer.  However, when an expert looks at them, they can quickly distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine, for they look beyond the superficial and see the hidden differences. For example, one of the giveaways for ...

Recognizing Ownership Ephesians 3:1-7 “For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles.”             When Paul wrote the letter to the church in Ephesus, he was sitting in the one place no one desired to be. He was sitting in the prison of the Roman Empire.  The Romans regulated his life and day and what they would allow him to do.  It was a place where discouragement could quickly descend upon the soul.  However, amid his circumstances, Paul changes the narrative so that the focus shifts from the Romans to God’s sovereign control of his life.             In 3:1, Paul makes a surprising statement.  Paul does not write that he was a prisoner of the Romans for the gospel's sake.  Nor does he state that he is a prisoner  for Christ Jesus, thus pointing out that he was in prison because of his association with Christ...

Rewriting History Ephesians 2:1-10 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved.”                   It is easy to remain living in the past, trapped by its shame and guilt. These events have such a strong negative impact that they continue to haunt us into the present—so much so that we look at them as our defining point in life, an event that not only defines the present but becomes inescapable into the future.                     In verses 1-3, Paul describes the past lives of those in the church at Ephesus.  Instead of living a life of moral excellence, they were living by the patterns of the world.  Apart from Christ, they were spir...

The Purpose of Divine Election Ephesians 1:3-14. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1:3-14 remains a hotly debated passage.  It stands at the center of the debate on the relationship between God’s sovereignty and humanity's free will.  It has and continuously will be, one of the most deliberated issues in Biblical theology, and we will not attempt to solve the debate here.  We can affirm that the Bible teaches God’s sovereign election as the foundation for salvation and the importance and necessity of accepting the message so that this salvation might be applied to us.  How these two interrelate is a debate we will probably not solve on this side of heaven.  This is not to say that the discussion is unimportant.  It is.  While the theological debate may not solve all the issues, it is still essential because it keeps us from the error of th...