Faith Community Church

Tim Keller writes:

If, after removing all fear of condemnation, you lose all incentive to live a holy life, then the only incentive you really had was fear. And if you change your life out of fear rather than because of joy, your moral life is basically motivated by selfishness, not love. That is what Jonathan Edwards says in The Nature of True Virtue, and what Paul says (among many other things!) in Colossians 3.

I am beginning a six week series on six parables of Jesus this weekend.  The first one is on ‘The Prodigal God’ (Luke 15.11-32), as Keller calls it.  He has a book coming out based on the parable in October.  Here is a nice interview by a former TBI student with Keller.

For Father’s Day, I sent this book to my dad.  It seems to be getting a lot of good press.  Maybe you want to consider it for your own father.

In contrast to the gospel, both moralism and simplism conspire to reduce dependence upon God.  Simplism fosters self-dependence by reducing complexity.  Reality is made manageable.  Consequently, simplism overestimates our ability to offer answer to reality.  Moralism fosters self-dependence by reducing morality.  Morality is made manageable by human effort.  Both make the fundamental error of unconsciously assuming ‘that one can go back to the Father apart from the Son’ (Eswine, Preaching to a Post-Everything World, 54).

Though I will be on vacation next week, I am beginning prep for a new sermon series beginning on July 6 and going until Aug 10.  The series is on six parables of Jesus.  The series is called Reversal: Subversive Mercy.  Because of your prayers for the last series, God displayed a great deal of grace by causing Colossians to connect with a lot of people.  So, I am asking again.

Thanks, in advance, for praying.

You have probably already heard about this site, but just in case you haven’t, check it out.  It is embarassingly funny.

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/

In my last sermon on the letter to the Colossians, we prayed that God would give us opportunities to talk about Jesus.  I have heard about 6 stories of God doing this.  I am wondering if there are any more stories out there?  Let me know!

I am switching over to a new blog publisher. I am learning the in’s and out’s. I will be posting more in the next few days.

Peace