Following Jesus Son of God …

• MP3: LESSON 8 The Righteousness of God Revealed Apart from the Law / Romans 3:19-31 / 090714

Good Friday Afternoon,

Kerry and I are going to have a pizza party this evening with four teens, one almost teen and their moms. Kerry is so excited. 🙂

After the break for the community service, it will be so good to be back in church this Sunday, and we will continue our study of the Letter to the Romans. I can’t say it enough: “God amazes me every single week with this teaching.”

This is “big words” week. Normally I don’t try to emphasize theological terms but …

• justification
• redemption
• and propitiation

… deserve our full attention. Be prepared to worship as the Holy Spirit of God continues to unwrap the gift of salvation before our very eyes!

Dave

• PDF 8 The Righteousness of God Revealed Apart from the Law : Romans 3-19-31 : FFC : dave scott : 090714 : STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF 8 The Righteousness of God Revealed Apart from the Law : Romans 3-19-31 : FFC : dave scott : 090714 : STUDY SHEET TWO

Message Title: None Righteous, No Not One!

Message Text: Romans 3:1-18

• MP3: LESSON 7 Sunday August 24 2014 None Righteous, No Not One Romans 3-1-18

Hello to All,

We continue through Romans and the Apostle Paul continues to contrast the sinfulness of man with the righteousness of God. This is a good thing. We need to know the true power of our salvation and the depths from which we have been rescued.

There is none righteous, no not one. Not even close. We know that. We sing the songs. We accept the theology.

But I wonder if we do truly believe this. Before Christ we were dead – as in dead – in our trespasses. We were without help, without hope, without God, without Christ.

Sinners at an infinite distance from a holy, righteous God.

But God made a way. Not through anything we could do but he provided his righteousness for our passage into his presence. In Christ we have gone from utter despair and infinite distance from God to an intimacy that is beyond our comprehension.

But to fully taste this goodness of the Lord, we need to know the depths of our sin. So Paul keeps beating the drum. The sinfulness of man and the righteousness of God.

Dave

Message Title: None Righteousness. No, Not One!

Message Text: Romans 3:1-18

• PDF 7 None Righteous, No Not One : Romans 3-1-18 : FFC : dave scott : 082414 : STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF 7 None Righteous, No Not One : Romans 3-1-18 : FFC : dave scott : 082414 : STUDY SHEET TWO

Message Title: Pop Quiz for Guides to the Blind!

Message Text: Romans 2:17-29

MP3: LESSON 6 Sunday August 17 2014 Pop Quiz for Guides to the Blind Romans 2-17-29

Good Friday Evening Everyone,

Time flies when we are having fun, right! NFL preseason starting, SEC football almost here. Late summer and fall can be great. But then winter … Ugh!

Anyway, we continue in Romans and Paul continues to “come after” the established religious folk. We could consider that Paul is merely venting or just enjoys kicking dirt in their face, or we could maybe consider his love for the Jewish people and look at this as softening up their hard, calloused shell so the goodness of God’s truth will penetrate as he continues through this amazing letter.

We do that sometimes …

Just venting … getting it off our chest … but why?

Today maybe we can substitute “evangelical or fundamental Christian” for “Jew,” and
“the Bible” for “the law” but the issue is the same. We claim to have it all and know ourselves as guides to the blind and light shining in darkness.

But has our religion led us into something other than an assent to, or a knowledge of, the truth of God? Is our truth compelling enough to change our lives? We say that Jesus is Lord but does he rule our lives? Do we obey him no matter what?

How foolish to call God Sovereign, when as mere humans we call his holy instruction into question and defy and disobey him in basic tenets of the faith!

We strain God’s holy words through our grids of human rationalization and personal self-interest. We no longer hear God. We merely talk to ourselves.

I love God’s people, but I have no qualms about attacking religion that takes us farther from God even though we profess intimacy with our lips.

Dave

Message Title: Checking our Firmware – Pop Quiz for Guides to the Blind!

Message Text: Romans 2:17-29

• PDF 6 Pop Quiz for Guides to the Blind : Romans 2-17-29 : FFC : dave scott : 0081714 : STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF 6 Pop Quiz for Guides to the Blind : Romans 2-17-29 : FFC : dave scott : 0081714 : STUDY SHEET TWO

Hello to You,

Here is an overview of how our study has progressed thus far:

• 1:1-15 Paul introduces his letter, establishes himself as a spokesman for God and cultivates his connection with the believers at Rome.
• 1:16-17 The great statement of the Gospel. The entire letter captured in two verses.
• 1:18-32 A general statement of the sinfulness and rebellion of mankind.

And now this week … 

• 2:1-16 Paul goes after the religious crowd.

I have never preached through Romans, so maybe this is why I have not seen this sequence so clearly before. Paul has just in general terms spoken to the sinfulness and foolishness of humankind. But now he gets more personal as he sets his sites on established religion. In this case, the Jews.

• (Romans 2:1 NCV) If you think you can judge others, you are wrong. When you judge them, you are really judging yourself guilty, because you do the same things they do.

They judged others, and in so doing, they brought condemnation upon themselves.

Message Title: You Do the Same Things!

Message Text: Romans 2:1-16

• PDF 5 You Do the Same Things : Romans 2-1-16 : FFC : dave scott : 081014 : STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF 5 You Do the Same Things : Romans 2-1-16 : FFC : dave scott : 081014 : STUDY SHEET TWO

Hello All,

Here is Sunday’s message.

Dave

• C. S. Lewis, “In creating beings with free will, omnipotence from the outset submits to the possibility of such defeat. What you call defeat, I call miracle: for to make things which are not Itself, and thus to become, in a sense, capable of being resisted by its own handiwork, is the most astonishing and unimaginable of all the feats we attribute to the Deity.

  I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.

  I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved” (The Problem of Pain [London, 1943], pp. 115–16).

Message Title: “Successful Rebels – Getting What We Demanded from God!”

Message Text: Romans 1:18-32

• MP3: 4 Sunday August 3, 2014 – Successful Rebels-Getting What We Demanded from God 080314

Hello & Happy Friday to You,

How do you picture God’s wrath being revealed from heaven? The fist of God? God having sinners under his thumb? God coming after you.

God will one day judge those who have not believed in Jesus Christ and received his gift of eternal life. It will be worse than a fist or a thumb.

But our text today tells us something very different about the wrath of God being revealed, something much more terrifying than God’s continued involvement in our lives, whether positive or negative.

So what does God do that should paralyze us with fear (if we had the sense to acknowledge it) as he reveals his wrath from heaven?

He merely leaves us to ourselves. We didn’t want God involved in our lives; we wanted to be free from God and his rules and direction. So God left us to our own way.

And the human race is in a tailspin … No hope unless … By God’s grace and mercy, we turn once again to him for his Way and his salvation.

Message Title: “Successful Rebels: Getting What We Demanded from God!”

Message Text: Romans 1:18-32

• PDF 4 Successful Rebels-Getting What We Demanded from God Romans 1-18-32 : FFC : dave scott : 080314 : STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF 4 Successful Rebels-Getting What We Demanded from God Romans 1-18-32 : FFC : dave scott : 080314 : STUDY SHEET TWO

Hello All,

Here is Sunday’s message.

Dave

Message Title: Not Ashamed of the Gospel!

Message Text: Romans 1:16-17

• MP3: Sunday July 27 2014 Not Ashamed of the Gospel Romans 1-16-17 Dave Scott