Moral reformation is the main source in the world for many good things, like honesty, self-control and generosity. This kind of reformation enforces rules. One wants to obey out of self-interest or out of fear. On the other hand, spiritual transformation…
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Moral reformation is not the same thing as spiritual transformation. In moral reformation, one begins to outwardly comply, but the habits of the heart haven’t changed. In other words, moral reformation comes by looking at the rules and conforming, but sp…
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On the night before Jesus is about to die, Jesus says to his disciples, “You have listened to many of the things I’ve said, and you’ve somewhat learned them, but you haven’t really changed.” Jesus doesn’t want his followers to simply start obeying rules,…
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When sharing the Christian faith with others that don’t believe, sometimes there are people who want to believe, but are just too overwhelmed by it. They see the beauty of what the Christian life is supposed to be, and they say, “I could never do it. It’…
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Today’s sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. In Mark 10:25, Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” That’s as controversial now as it was then. What’s s…
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Today’s sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. These are the statements Jesus makes in his teaching that people wrestle with. They’re either hard to understand or they’re hard to do or they’re hard to accept.
This saying is particularly…
Today’s passage from Luke 13 gives us two incidents that we would call tragedies today. The first one in verse 1 took place when Pontius Pilate, the Roman colonial governor of Judea, evidently had fallen upon some political enemies and destroyed them. Wh…
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Today we’re going to look at a hard saying of Jesus in Matthew 7:6. Verses 1–5 are music to modern people’s ears — there’s nothing hard or particularly difficult about the first five verses. But in the context of the entire passage, you will see why vers…
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Today’s sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. We find many of these throughout the New Testament — sayings that are difficult to understand or accept or both. Jesus says in verse 18: “I tell you the truth … not the smallest letter, not…
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Today’s sermon comes from a series on the hard sayings of Jesus. The hard sayings of Jesus, the wisdom of Jesus, are more like hard candy than chocolates. You can bite right through chocolate, but with hard candy you have to work on it, going layer throu…
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