Sermons

James asks us two revealing questions: Who is wise among you? What is it that causes division among you? Wisdom from God is both self-forgetful and God-centered. In other words, wisdom looks a lot like Jesus.”

We believers strive by God’s grace to live accountably as those who shall give account.

Some people beg for troubles. In this temporal world, our merciful and patient God does not regularly punish evil doers with a violent flourish of ‘fire and brimstone,’ More commonly His judgments are subtle and silent rather than noisy and spectacular. Which is to say, day after day His normal way is simply to punish human sin with more sin. (Romans 1:18-32) That is, He lets our bad behaviors breed their own natural consequences. And as that sobering cycle never realizing these divine principles: Be sure your sin will find you out, God is not mocked, and we reap what they are sow. But when people dare to act as if divine judgment is a religious myth, go their own way, do their own thing, thumb their noses at God, when the bills finally start to come due, it rarely occurs to the blind that court is in session. There are particular behaviors that in the eyes of God are red letter evils that God abominates. These He has broadcast beforehand and we all would do well to take careful note and keep our heads down so that we do not finds ourselves in the cross hairs of bitter consequences.

From both sacred and secular history, it appears to me that our sovereign God does one of three things: He blesses some with the leadership they deserve (relatively speaking) or He tests some with leaders better than they deserve or He will burden some with the leaders they so richly deserve.