Sermons on Spiritual Growth (Page 7)
The Roaring Lion
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God…
Christ Over All
When we suffer, we’re tempted to question God’s presence and sovereignty, even more so when the suffering is directly tied to our following Christ. Where is God? Does he know? Does he care? Why isn’t he doing anything? Peter’s response–as it so often is for him and other biblical writers–is to go to Jesus, specifically to his death, resurrection, and exaltation. There’s a significant interpretive difficulty in this passage, and we’ll spend a little time with it Sunday, but even…
When They Ask About Your Hope
When the world gets darker, light is more easily seen. In our text for tomorrow, Peter seems to assume this: people who don’t follow Christ will become curious about the source of our hope, and they will occasionally ask where it comes from. “I’ve noticed something different about you . . . you don’t seem to be affected by life’s difficulties as the rest of us are. How do you do that?” “How do you avoid getting caught up in…
The Renewal of the Holy Spirit
The theme for 2021 is “RENEW,” and we’ve been exploring some aspect of that theme on the first Sunday morning of each month. Tomorrow we’ll focus on Paul’s words to the young church planter, Titus, who was in a difficult environment on the island of Crete. Paul uses a quite powerful word in verse 5 when he writes that salvation comes about by the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” The Greek word behind “regeneration” quite literally…