Pastor's Corner: WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE John 7:14-24 Introduction : Healthy Christianity is marked by a hunger for the truth and a growing discernment of right doctrine, but we are a work in progress. John 7 reminds us that our fallen nature will often skew our discernment. We’ll see in John 7 and 8 controversy as Jesus presents truth to religious leaders that they are not prepared to receive.   It is a myth to think that humans are neutral, ready to honestly listen to the truth of Scripture and to give it unbiased consideration. Once we are born again, we are in the process of “ putting off the old man, and putting on Christ .” It is not instant maturity and discernment, it is a path, growing to think more like Jesus, learning to think His thoughts after Him.      The title for this message, “ Pride and Prejudice ,” has nothing to do with the Jane Austen novel (I’ve never read it, though I have read all of Tom Clancy’s books!).   I used this title to highlight two ele...

  The Hope of the Faithful John 7:1-13 Introduction :   One of the jobs I had after High School occasionally put me in the office at the Landfill, collecting cash payments from truck drivers. When the boss came in at the end of the day, he would quickly count through the bills in the cash box, and take the deposit to the bank. I recall on one occasion he was counting the money and as soon as his fingers touched a particular $20 bill he stopped, felt it between his fingers, looked at it closely and said, “This bill is counterfeit!”   Whether intentionally or not, someone had paid with “funny money!” My boss used to be a bank manager, so he had extensive experience handling cash – I was a 20 something part time college student – I didn’t have very much experience with cash at all! He tried to show me the bill and how it was clearly false, but it looked the same as the real money to me. If you know the real thing well, you’ll more easily recognize a counterfeit.   I...

  The Choice and the Chosen   John 6:60-71 Introduction : Some people have made the prediction that Christianity would fade into irrelevance. The 20 th Century English philosopher from Liverpool, John Lennon [!} once said: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that: I am right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now …” Was he right? John Piper made the observation that this chapter starts with 5,000 followers of Jesus, and it ends with 11 (plus one counterfeit still hanging on!). One recent commentator, Andreas Koestenburger, says the chapter ends with “a note of failure.”   I don’t know Dr. Kostenburger personally, but I’ve read enough of what he was written to say that if you were to ask him, he would agree that he meant “this chapter ends with a note of apparent failure.” Though it may appear to be failure on a purely superficial level, the success of God’s plan does not depend on numbers. In fact, the cont...