I had a neighbor who made life difficult for my family. She was a Christian woman, as she liked to say, who didn’t like the noise of my children or the weeds in my grass. She was convinced that the birds were eating the seeds of my weeds and dropping them in her yard. After hurricane Ivan, she kindly (?) collected all the shingles from my roof and piled them in my yard for me. When I got back from securing my family in Atlanta, I found piles of shingles just over the property line. She expressed her displeasure with my absence and the debris in her yard. That occurred just five days after we moved into our home in Florida. I knew then that this was going to be a challenging relationship. At the beginning, I was overcome by her unkindness. Emotionally exhausted, I was ready to exclude her from my life. After all, I had enough to deal with repairing my home, starting a new job, and all with my son Matthew due in just three months. By the end of our four years, God enabled me to conquer my resentment and move into her life with grace, but it took me a while.

How do we know if we are overcoming evil with ethical kindness? What are the signs that evil has not conquered our hearts? This is especially important for the people of God in the First Presbyterian Church of Rome as the Jew and Gentile believers were pressing on each other. Additionally, it’s an important text for the Roman church which increasingly faced persecution from the Roman culture. It’s an important question for us, who experience the mercies of God despite our offenses toward Him. Join us as we consider God’s kind response to our evil and the grace available through Christ to love people who make life hard for us.

We will be looking at Peter's second letter in which he addresses the false teachers, not by directly engaging them, but by reminding his readers of the truth. He speaks to the orthopraxy of their faith, a call for holy living as they bear witness to the truth they know and are established in. Peter seeks to stir them to remember whose they are, the promises of God's word and power, and to live out who they are.

The great story of Jean Valjean, in Les Misérables, highlights the grace of our text. Inspector Javert pursues Valjean relentlessly. One time, Javert heard about a local village where the poor were constantly getting money from a generous donor in a yellow coat. Knowing that Valjean regularly supported the beggars in his community, Javert suspected that this new development was the presence of this benefactor. So, he dressed as a beggar and sat on the corner of the square in this city to catch Valjean. While he doesn’t capture him in this moment, you know that at the end of the story, Valjean saves Javert from the revolutionaries who attempted to kill him. Javert couldn’t accept this act of kindness from the man he had relentlessly pursued. Grace didn’t make sense in his worldview of law and order.

It illustrates the grace of our text where the Apostle urges the believers to overcome evil with kindness. It answers the question, how do I respond to someone who relentlessly pursues me? Join us Sunday as we consider the grace of Christ for us and how to live that with our opponents.

Have you ever run out of gas? It’s an embarrassing thing for sure. I remember driving to seminary in Detroit, and my truck ran out of gas in the area of the highway marked by signs that said, “Prison Zone; Don’t pick up hitchhikers.” Thankfully, someone took a chance on a young man in a suit.

Have you ever run out of emotional gas with someone? You’ve been engaging, loving, giving, serving, and not getting the response that you hope and desire. What do you do next? Do you take a break? Walk away? Knuckle down and try harder?

God has answers for you! Join us Sunday as we continue to engage Romans 12:9-13 and worship Christ who never tires of loving us!

As a parent with adult children, I find myself praying for them to find someone to genuinely love them. My concern is that in our culture, love is not defined as the emptying of self for the sake of another, but more like a squishy rom-com or sappy Hallmark movie. Scripture does a fabulous job explaining what sacrificial love for others looks like.

The Apostle Paul calls on the believers in the Roman church to have genuine love for each other, whether Jew or Greek. This is the immediate context of his statement, “love must be genuine,” Romans 12:9. Then he explains the difference between hypocritical love and genuine love. Join us as we consider this text and get a glimpse at God’s love for us in Christ!

The apostle Paul says, For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out (Romans 7:18). If God knows that I lack the ability to carry out His commands, then why does He continue to command? An illustration I used this past Sunday was of a parent commanding a two-year old to wheel the large 96-gallon trash can from the house to the street and then punishing the child for failing to do so. How unjust a command would that be?

Is that what God is doing when He commands us? How does He expect us to respond to His commands? Join us Sunday as we consider this question and worship our obedient Savior.

Have you ever heard someone say, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”? How about this one: “God doesn’t ask us to do something that we can’t do”? Do these square with Scripture? We could ask Gideon who was told to attack tens of thousands of Midianites with only 300 soldiers.  We could ask the Apostle Paul who was told that God gave him a thorn in the flesh so that everyone would know that the fruit of Paul’s ministry was God’s doing.

What about the commands of God? God tells us to abhor evil, to love our enemies, to be patient in suffering, to not lust, to not complain. Do we have the ability—the power within us—to obey these commands? As new creations by faith in Christ, do we have the ability to obey? It’s an important question to ask as we move into the exhortations of Romans 12. Join us Sunday as we worship Christ and learn to depend on Him.

The more we know the love of Christ for us, the more we can express our faith in love to others. We need more understanding of Jesus's love to overcome our disbeliefs, so we live with less fear and less self-focus. In addition, to grow as a worshipper of our Lord, we need to increase our understanding of the magnitude of his love; even though His love surpasses all knowledge. Together this Sunday let's gather to declare his love through song, prayer, confession, fellowship, and hearing of the Word of God.

I watched a video years ago about the Johnson family of the Johnson and Johnson company. The founding members, Robert, James, and Edward, (circa 1886), had passed off the scene; but their children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren were still receiving income from the family trust. His great grandchildren, who have moved into the media world, received a $1 million annual salary from the family trust when they turned eighteen. The didn’t need to go to college, and they would never need to hold a job. The family is worth over sixteen billion dollars. One of the great grandchildren, Jamie Johnson, was challenged by his father to find something he is passionate about and fill his life with meaningful pursuits. Today he is a filmmaker and socialite.

Can you imagine being told as a teenager that you are financially set for life and have to find something to live for? What would you do? How would you live?

Christian, the resurrection of Jesus, provides our justification. We are acquitted by God, robed in the righteousness of Christ. There is no fear of what comes after death for us, nor is there the motive of “being a good person,” hoping our good deeds will outweigh our bad deeds. We’re filthy rich in the righteousness of Christ. So, what do we live our lives for? What is the  “dash” of our life about? Join us Sunday as we consider the Christian’s philosophy of life.

In one of my favorite movies, Gladiator, Russell Crowe plays Maximus Decimus Meridius, a Roman soldier who becomes a gladiator. The opening scene is the final conquest of the tribes of Germania. While the infantry attacks from the front, Maximus leads the cavalry in attacking their rear flank. As he leads his men into battle he says to them, “Men, what we do in life echoes in eternity!” In other words, your deeds today will be remembered forever and will affect you in your next life.

In her poem The Dash, Linda Ellis speaks about the importance of the dash on our tombstone, what separates the date of our birth and death. She says, “So, when your eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say about how you lived your dash?” Is she right? Is Maximus right? Join us Sunday as we consider how death changes the meaning of life for the Christian and why Christ’s resurrection changes everything!