A Merciful Community (Romans 12:14-21)
We started out this series by looking at how we’re called to be actively transforming our minds, and not being passively conformed to this world. But now we finish this series by looking at how we’re to be actively renewing our world with good, and not being passively overcome with evil. The end of Romans […]
A Missional Community (Romans 15:1-13)
Romans can seem like a complex book of doctrine, but for Paul it was a missional letter. His life had been devoted to speaking the gospel, to the point where he had exhausted every opportunity around him. He was even willing to stand on the precipice of hell and be willing to throw himself in […]
A Broken Community (Romans 12:15-16; 2 Corinthians 4)
It can sometimes seem like church is a place for polite, clean-cut people who have their lives together, and broken people can feel on the outer at church. But God says that church is a place where broken people should feel at home. Even though we carry this great, glorious treasure of the gospel, “we […]
A Generous Community (Romans 12:13)
In Luke 15 we hear three stories describing God’s great joy in welcoming us into his house, ultimately at a great cost to himself. In the gospel God shows hospitality to us. Even though we were strangers, he welcomed us into his household. Because of this mercy, how could we not open our lives and […]
A Patient Community (Romans 12:12)
We all want to be loving, joyful and peaceful, but most of us are hesitant to ask God to make us patient. Because patience means that we’re admitting there are wrongs in our life, and that we have to face them: in our families, in our workplaces, in our churches. But God shows us the […]
A Zealous Community (Romans 12:11)
How can we burn in the Spirit without burning out? How can we be offering our bodies as living sacrifices, without dying from exhaustion? In view of God’s mercy, we’ve been given a Spirit of zeal. And because of Christ’s finished work, he promises to give us rest for our souls. But how can we […]
A Devoted Community (Romans 12:9-10)
We all want to be loved with complete devotion and sincerity, but we also know how difficult it is to do. In the face of all of our half-hearted love, this passage says: “Let love be sincere;” literally, without hypocrisy. In view of God’s absolute, proven sincerity of love in the gospel, we’re called to […]
A Diverse Community (Romans 12:3-8)
Are you gifted? It’s easy to feel like you don’t have much of a gift, or that you have much less to offer than others. But in Romans 12, we hear that in the community of Christ God gives gifts to everyone, and everyone is valued. And all of these gifts are given to us […]
A Distinctive Community (Romans 12:2)
It’s so easy to be passive, and to become like the world around us. But in the gospel, we’re called to be distinct–to be transformed by grace, for our whole lives to be made new by the mercy of God. In this talk, Sam walks us through some of the challenges in this, as well […]
A Gospel Community (Romans 1:1-12:1)
As we begin our series, looking at how the gospel transforms our community, we took a whirlwind tour through Romans, looking at sin, wrath, faith, grace and the new people God is creating. After all of this, Romans 12:1 says “therefore,” in view of everything that has come before, this is how we are to […]