Sunday Morning Reflections…
A few things I saw and heard this morning…
1. Tim Lee did an amazing job this morning.
2. We had over 50 people raise their hand for salvation!
3. 26 people committed to membership this morning.
4. I think Tim Lee could beat me up within 15 seconds.
5. Can’t say enough about how good our music is…Mark is doing an amazing job.
6. My world is confused…pastor does not wear a tie, but Mark does?
7. Over 100 youth are going to camp this week…sound fun and scary at the same time.
8. If you were in the 10:30 service, you missed the “what’s happening” video…check out our website to view it.
9. Our church softball team won the district championship over the weekend…yea baby!
10. Huge crowd in the second service…within a year we might be out of room…yea baby yea!
July 21st, 2008 at 8:33 am
Hey! I finally registered for the blog. If for any reason, I did so to let you guys know that I appreciate the attempt to use the blog to communicate with the church. I know it can be tough to keep spending time on something that doesn’t seem to generate much response. I’m sure you have numbers on visits to the blogs that I’m not privy to, but feedback is sometimes much better than numbers. I do try to keep up with it every few weeks or so, but now that I took the step to register, maybe I’ll visit more often. Hopefully this will grow into something that will lead to healthy growth for our church members.
Anyway, the second reason that I wanted to register is to give a little feedback from the sermons over the last couple of weeks at the church. It seems to have been the Matt and Billy show the past couple of weeks, and I’ve enjoyed it. Its great to hear from more of the staff. So, I’ll first comment on last week’s (7/13) sermon in this comment, and when I get more time later, I’ll thow some other comments out on other sermons.
Matt, I really enjoyed the sermon on combating legalism and focusing on Christ. It is definitely well needed, as even the best of us can slip into a legalistic mindset in many different areas of our lives from time to time. All of your points were well heeded (by not only me, but many in my small group as well), and I would not disagree with any of them. However, I would love to see some future discussion involving the value that we still have in God’s law. I brought this up with my small group that evening. How do we reconcile Christ’s teachings against legalism with the Psalmist who says, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.” (Psalm 119:97)? Or to take it further, how do we reconcile Christ’s statement, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matt. 5:17) with Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2:14-16, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”?
We discussed this issue as a small group, and I think most of them got it, but without going into detail, here are the points we highlighted:
1) The law has value in that it sets Christ apart as unique and holy.
2) The law has value in that it reflects the Lord’s character and values.
3) The law has value in that it demonstrates our need for Christ.
4) The law has value in that God mercifully gave it to us for our well being.
5) The law has value because it demonstrates that God cares about the injustices done to us.
There are certainly more points, and the scripture is not ambiguous in reconciling the verses I threw out. But I’ll stop here because its getting long, and because I’d love to what others have to say. Hopefully this will spark good discussion. It certainly did in my small group.
Thanks again,
Jason
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Good stuff, Jason! However, I won’t try to respond. I think we just need to do lunch. I definitely love that your group took the sermon to another level. Obviously, in 30 minutes, there is only so much I can say, so I was limited as you might imagine.
I don’t think the law is bad (and I don’t think you think I do either!) I think Jesus actually holds us to a higher standard. (”You have heard it said, ‘Don’t commit adultery’, but I say…you know the rest)
The law becomes dangerous when we think that by obeying it we become better than someone else.
Anyway, I said we needed to do lunch and here I go…we really do need to do lunch though.