No Separation: God’s Everlasting, Amazing Love in Christ Our assurance: God is FOR us not against us! NO CONDEMNATION! More assurance: God’s love is FOR us forever! NO SEPARATION! God’s forever love is FOR us because of what Jesus has done for us.
We can rest assured! God’s plans work for good as he conforms us to the image of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Live in the Spirit! The Spirit will help us! We have such great assurance in God’s plans & purposes! Pray! We have assurance that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are working through our prayers. Be Conformed to Christ! Embrace God’s plans for our past, present & future.
There is GLORY to be revealed! As Christians, we do suffer, but not without HOPE of a far greater, future glory. That sure hope of a glorious future strengthens us to patiently persevere through the trials we are faced with now.
Paul reminds us that it is by the Spirit you have been freed from your sinful flesh, found as adopted sons of God whom you now call Abba! Father!, and have been made co-heirs with Christ by the fellowship of his suffering for the fruit of eternal glory with him.
Our passage this week takes up the issue mentioned at the end of Romans 8:4— how does this new walk, walking according to the Spirit, come about? We looked at three ways set out in Romans 8:5–11: We walk by the Spirit as we set our mind on the Spirit. We walk by the Spirit if (and only if) God’s Spirit dwells in us. We walk by the Spirit in hope of the resurrection power of the Spirit.
In Romans 8:1-4, we have the glorious proclamation that IF we are in Christ, we are no longer under condemnation, but have liberation in Christ, propitiation through Christ’s sacrificial death for sin, and sanctification through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives.
Romans is a detailed explanation of the heart of the gospel and how it works in our lives. Apart from God and his grace, we are utterly without hope. In this episode Pam Larson reviews Romans 1–7 to open our study series on Romans 8, examining various aspects of the gospel much like a jeweler would examine the facets of a beautiful diamond set off by the dark black velvet background ... the bad news that none of us are righteous and all are under God’s wrath apart from Jesus and his work on the ...
Three of our North Church women share about their experience in a Titus 2 multigenerational community, encouraging one another to hope in God through many different seasons and circumstances.
Suffering is hard and fear is real, but suffering also brings surprising gifts to those who know Jesus.
We have been set free from the law and walk in the new way of the Spirit. The law is holy, righteous, and good, but it can’t make us holy, righteous, or good. Even though we struggle in the fight against sin (which is powerful), thanks to Jesus, his grace is stronger. The focus shifts from the power of sin (Romans 6) to the powerlessness of the law . (Romans 7) 1–Romans 7:1–6 | Two husbands 2–Romans 7:7–11 | Story #1: Is the law sin? 3–Romans 7:12-13 | The law and sin 4–Romans 7:14–25 | Story #2...
This week in Romans 6:12–23, Paul reminds us that because of what Christ did, we are not slaves to sin and our passions anymore. Instead, we have a new master, a master Paul calls Obedience, Righteousness, and finally, God. And what a gracious master God is! Under this new master, we have become obedient from the heart, we devote ourselves to righteousness, and we bear the fruit of sanctification by living unto God —for eternity. When we believe God, this is our reality, and Paul entreats us to ...
Paul offers a sustained argument debunking the outrageous idea that by saying that “when sin increased, grace abounded all the more,” he was suggesting that we should “continue in sin that grace may abound.” His chief argument is that the old, sinning, self has died giving rise to a new righteous life. Sinning is incompatible with this new life. It’s actually the transformation of sinners into righteous people that really highlights God’s grace. Such is God’s grace. Not only did he declare you r...
YouTube & Podbean DESCRIPTION: Paul uses a “how much more” logic to show us how much better the free gift of righteousness is than the sin that necessitated it. We have a better Man than ourselves . We are not saved by our understanding of the law or our ability to keep it, but by Christ’s act of obedience at the cross. In Christ we have a better work than Adam’s . It is not our work of righteousness, or Adam’s work of sin, that defines us. It is Christ’s work alone that defines the believer...
In Romans 5:1–11, we learned that justification leads to a restored personal relationship with God. In Jesus, we are reconciled and can rejoice in our past redemption, even our present sufferings and our future in glory. Our past is redeemed by the blood of Jesus. Our present is increasingly becoming more like Jesus, and our future is secure. * Remember and rejoice in all that Jesus has done for you. He died for you while you were still a sinner, declared you righteous, has given you peace with ...
This week Paul offered Father Abraham as an example of how to obtain righteousness with God— through Christ by faith alone . We learned that Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness BEFORE he was circumcised. God made a promise to and covenant with Abraham to redeem the world—both the circumcised AND the uncircumcised—and it would be carried out by Abraham believing God and his promises, not by his own keeping the law. When we are under grace, believing God , then our sin is forgiven ...
A jeweler puts a diamond on a black velvet background in order to highlight the stunning beauty of the diamond shining all the more brightly against the dark background. The gospel is the same way—it shines at its brightest when seen against the backdrop of the condemnation of sin and death that we deserve. Knowing our desperate condition—that we are under God’s wrath and hopeless without a Rescuer— makes God’s saving grace in the death of Jesus the sweetest news ever. This week in Romans 3:21-3...
The Jileks share some of the observations they’ve made over the years as college student ministers, providing some helpful considerations for parenting kids through the college transition, as well as how this impacts the parenting of little ones — all while keeping our eyes on Jesus, knowing that He holds our kids and is the author and sustainer of their faith.
No one gets a pass. Not the flagrantly immoral and not the private idolater. This is Paul’s argument so far: God judges each person—Jew or Gentile—according to his works. The standard for judging those works is God’s righteousness, explicitly stated in his laws. Both Jews and Gentiles have failed to keep God’s righteous standard. What should we do when we hear a word like this? Paul already told us. Stop our mouths. Make no more excuses. Hear the oracles of God as his mercy to us. Conviction ove...
In God’s mysterious grace, the starting point for hope is to face our desperate, hopeless condition. Our problem is the stain of sin, which we can never scrub away. Sin of exchanging the glory of God for a love of ourselves—that terrible exchange, which trickles down into a hundred other fruits of wickedness. But there was another exchange. The holy, almighty God we rejected, He made another exchange. The righteous Judge took all the eternal wrath and punishment that our sins deserve, and He pou...
This week we heard the "Overture to Romans” (Paul’s introduction in Romans 1:1–17). As in a musical before the curtain rises, the overture sets the mood and introduces motifs that are developed later in the play, and you hear familiar melodies from each scene or episode.
Dr. Naselli gives us a powerfully rich "jet tour" of the book of Romans. For more extensive information, we recommend Dr. Naselli's excellent book, Romans: A Concise Guide to the Greatest Letter Ever Written .
Start the new year by considering how we can feast on the life of Jesus by thirsting for prayer and consuming God’s Word. We come to him so that we may have life! You can access Kristin's recommended resources here .
Judges concludes with a deeply sobering illustration of what the kingdom of this world is like. While the author doesn’t shrink from revealing the horrors of what humanity becomes when they reject God as king, he nonetheless ends his history of the judges on a hopeful note. He invites us to look through the gloom of “those days” to a new day when “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his [King], and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev 11:15). That day is coming! A...
Feelings of inadequacy, fear of failure, indecision, and guilt often rob us of joy and effectiveness. Why are these pitfalls so prevalent today, even in the church? How can we as Christian women avoid them and approach life with contagious confidence?
Sometimes, in order to repent and worship God, we have to take a long hard look at what life apart from him looks like. This week in Judges 17 and 18, we saw the ironic and devastating effects of Israel’s rejection of the one true God: “There was no king in Israel, and everyone did right in their own eyes.” The fruit: relational manipulation, deceit, generational sin, the perversion of the priesthood, and death. The proud, thieving son is robbed, betrayed, exposed, and abandoned. Israel is lost....
Samson’s story captured our attention with daring exploits, romantic betrayal, and a last-minute plot twist. It’s clear, however, that Samson is not the hero of the tale. He walked contrary to God’s ways and took God’s gifts for granted. His life offers warnings about the dangers of compromise and presuming on the Lord’s kindness. Our covenant-keeping God is the real hero of Samson’s story. God strengthened Samson for his acts of Philistine judgment. God disciplined his people and Samson, allowi...
In Samson’s life, we saw the glorious character of God revealed. When Israel was unfaithful, God remained a covenant-keeper. He disciplined Israel and sent the help they didn’t ask for. When Manoah’s vision was small, God revealed himself as "too wonderful." He accepted their offering and promised a baby boy. When Samson wanted to marry a Philistine, God’s plans were not thwarted. He used Samson to judge the Philistines, removing a portion of their fighting men and destroying their food supply. ...
Jephthah’s story is both triumph and tragedy. The author of Judges recounts Jephthah’s life in such a way that his “victory is swallowed up in death.” But Jephthah’s story is just prologue to the best story. His life illustrates the inability of all other saviors to deliver us from our worst enemy. He prepares us for another judge who will rise to deliver his people. Like Jephthah, this judge will be despised and rejected by his brothers. His own people will drive him away. He too will die alone...
Four takeaway truths we glean from this passage about Abimelech: 1. Abimelech’s dark chapter in Israel’s history harbors this lovely truth about God: that he is loyal to his own beyond death. 2. Abimelech’s story illustrates how deeply God cares about the unity of his people. 3. Abimelech’s life warns us of the internal danger of sin. 4. Abimelech prepares us for the incomparable Jesus.
This week we saw the wonders of the Lord’s sovereign mercy and grace in Judges 6–8; his grace is much greater and higher than all of our sins and our shortcomings. The Lord, in sovereign grace and mercy, called Gideon, calmed his fears, clothed him with the Spirit of God. But, also in grace, he kept stacking the deck against his people. Why? So that God could get all the glory for the victory rather than leaving an opportunity for boasting about strategy or leadership tactics or their own streng...
