Behind what we are calling "responsibility skills" lies the need for self-discipline, and learning the discipline of the self is painful. This is a truth our society chooses to ignore. Everything from diet pills to Willow Creek testifies to our desire to avoid the discomfort of self-discipline.
The sports metaphor in this text is a radical departure from everything we have in biblical literature, and shows just how radical Paul is in adapting the faith to his culture. In antiquity, athletes performed nude. Women were forbidden to watch the contests for this reason.
How can they be told if no one goes to them to tell them? Don't take for granted that someone else will tell them. Every single one of us has that responsibility. Don't take the Joy of salvation for granted. Share it with a world that has never heard of these things that you know by faith!
Sermon Romans 8:22-39 Post 9/11 Check out these helpful resources Biblical Commentary Childern's Sermons Hymn Lists Romans 8:22-39 Post 9/11 By Pastor Susan J. Briner Unbelievable, incredible Devastating, catastrophic Gut-wrenching, eye-popping scenes Of airplanes flying into buildings Bursting into flames Of huge structures collapsing Replayed over, and over, and over again On TV, in [...]
There are at least two areas of our lives that we want to keep hidden from view: our finances and our prayers. Those are strictly our business and ours alone. If we’re going to share this information with anyone else at all – besides the IRS, of course – we’re going to share it solely with God.
If there is a cultural battle in our time, it is over the question as to which of these dimensions of human experience will dominate. Life as race, fight, battle for self-mastery, self-discipline, self-control, or life as satisfaction of desires, enjoyment of all the available pleasures, life as focused on fun and ease.
Some people would say, "Of course, I have no hope. Just look at the crazy world in which I live." But if we lived in a perfect world, we would have no need for hope. As Paul says in our scripture: "Hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees?"
In this year, what are you looking forward to? What out there in the future really excites you, grabs you, makes you want to get up and get going in the morning? What are you living toward that fills your days with meaning, your months with promise, your years with hope?
Our poverty in prayer is all about us, but the Scripture offers us good news! "The Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can't be uttered" (Romans 8:26). Precisely in our weakness we may discover help from the Spirit.
Annie's life is turned around when she is adopted by "Daddy Warbucks." Overnight she goes from being an indigent orphan to being the adopted daughter of the richest man in the world. That seems to be what Paul is talking about happening to us on a spiritual level.