We can miss the more urgent thing because we get distracted by the immediate. As we begin exploring John 5, Jesus encourages us not to miss what’s truly important.
Lots of things claim to be of value — but which ones really are? Which ones are just so much “Monopoly money”? Pastor Tim explores the question as we continue in John 5 tonight.
When wise men arrive in Jerusalem asking where to find the one born king of the Jews, Matthew 2 says Herod was deeply disturbed—and all Jerusalem with him. It's a strange reaction to the fulfillment of a centuries-old promise, and it looks a lot like what we do when God's work threatens the status and stability we've been quietly building our joy around.
We know we're going to die—it's as inevitable as buttered toast landing face-down—but Romans 6:5 asks whether that death has to mean the same thing it did before Christ.
When the old broken software finally gives way to something that works, the last thing you'd do is press every button just to break the new one on purpose. Yet that same impulse faces us in the Christian life, and Paul confronts it head-on in Romans 6:14-15: since we are not under law but under grace, shall we sin?
We crave freedom, but Bob Dylan was right when he sang, “You Gotta Serve Somebody.” No matter how strong that craving, we’ll find ourselves serving either righteousness or unrighteousness.
We’ve all stepped into a conflict hoping to bring peace and walked out having made things worse—turns out we didn’t understand the system as well as we thought. Jesus calls the peacemakers blessed in Matthew 5:9, promising they shall be called sons of God, so the question worth sitting with is: what kind of peace does He actually have in mind?
We keep reaching for more—a better version of the Christian life, a deeper secret, some upgrade that will finally make everything click—when Ephesians 1 says God has already lavished wisdom and insight on us and made known the mystery of His will. What does it look like to actually live in that, rather than keep reaching past it?
