[This sermon was preached by our guest speaker Pastor Thomas Hodzi]
Dan Lee
What can we know about God? Scripture teaches that He is the absolute Creator and the absolute Being—self-existent, self-sufficient, a se, and self-defining. He is simple and one, not composed of parts but wholly identical with His attributes; He is divinity itself. As such, He alone is the true God, and there can be no other.
Dan Lee
In addition to spiritual warfare, Paul introduces a second metaphor—seafaring—to highlight the gravity of maintaining a good conscience. Just as a careless captain can lose his ship through neglect, so a person who fails to nurture and guard his conscience shipwrecks his faith. Paul cites two men who did precisely this: Hymenaeus and Alexander. These two were handed over to Satan—disciplined out of the church—in the hope that they would hit rock bottom, come to their senses, repent, and return to God. Without continuing in a life of holiness and obedience to God’s Word, we cannot maintain fellowship with the holy God or live a life of dependence on Him.
Dan Lee
We are all soldiers of Christ in a spiritual war. Satan not only opposes men like Timothy but all God’s people. The call to fight the good fight has implications for all believers. We are all to take up the full armor of God and resist the devil’s schemes. In this passage, Paul highlights the two aspects of this basic Christian fight: faith and a good conscience. We must fight for faith and we must fight for a good conscience. Keeping faith is no passive activity but an active fight to turn our thoughts on the Lord and His truth and to think His thoughts after Him. It is to live as His disciples. Keeping a good conscience is also an active fight to respond affirmatively to the pangs of conscience when our thoughts and actions contradict the word of God. It is to steer away from sin and it is to confess and repent (change/renew the mind) when we have sinned. May the Lord evermore guide us to fight to live another day, fight for faith and fight for a good conscience.
Dan Lee
Christian life and love are meant to flow from the fountain of gospel gratitude. It is as we brim over with thanksgiving and praise for mercy and grace that we exude the life of Christ and manifest His love. Paul warms our hearts through his own testimony of how the gospel truth transformed his life. May the Lord teach us to live with gospel gratitude.
Dan Lee
On this Mother’s Day, we turn to the book of Ruth and its beautiful story of redemption. To redeem means to free by the payment of a ransom—deliverance that assumes a desperate plight. In this story, we encounter both the stunning devotion of a woman to her mother-in-law and the greater reality of spiritual redemption that ultimately points us to Christ. Join us as we consider: 1) Naomi’s plight, 2) her redeemer, and 3) how this story speaks to us today.