Gifted By Grace Sermon Audio

Here is a sermon I was honored to preach at the Awakening Conference.  The conference was geared toward college students (like myself) and was held at Walnut Memorial Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky on February 28, 2015.  I was given the topic of Spiritual Gifts, so I chose Romans 12:1-8 as my text in hopes of showing how the gospel is the foundation for our gifting and then I hoped to show three practical applications for our gifting(s).

May God be glorified, His gospel preached, and His people edified.

Biting the Hand that Feeds You

Facebook has been filled with noise, very unpleasant noise.  This week the Supreme Court has taken up the case for same-sex marriage.  Every time a story like this hits the news I notice two things.  First, secular people all of a sudden become Bible scholars.  Second, Christians become cowards.

The first observation looks something like this: “Wow.  Look at all of those Christians, who say homosexuality is a sin, they must also believe that we can’t eat shell fish too!  Get with the times.  Aren’t we supposed to love our neighbor?  Ugh!”  Regardless of what these scoffers may proclaim, people who use this kind of thinking are secular regardless of what their Facebook or Sunday morning routine may say.  Their reasoning is ignorant and the foundations of their worldview are empty.  Secular thinking must presuppose, while also suppressing, Christian thinking. 

Source

The above scenario shows this to be the case.  First, one simple Google search could provide theologically consistent answers as to why being homosexuality is a sin while eating shellfish is not.  American Christians need to realize that many of those who attack our faith are ignorant of what it teaches.  Willfully ignorant.  A simple reading of Jesus shows us that this is in fact consistent.  Mark 7 opens with Jesus putting the smack down on the Pharisees about embracing men’s traditions.  He then began to teach about how it’s not what is outside of people that makes them unclean, but what is inside.  His disciple then ask him to explain the parable further.  In classic Jesus style his answer was pretty straight forward:

And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,  since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. – Mark 7:18-20