Ecclesiastes is a book which thinks hard about where we find meaning in our lives. Where do you look for meaning in your life? Family or friends? Job? Money? Projects? Things?
The Teacher here looks at all the different things people look to for satisfaction, and concludes that there is only one real place to find satisfaction.
Read the passage online here.
See the first one in the series here.
We live in a society that doesn’t want to talk about death. And yet, death should actually be our teacher. This is what the book of Ecclesiastes is all about.
This is the first part of a new series on the book of Ecclesiastes. I’ve basically followed the pattern from Living Life Backwards. We’ll be looking at it over the coming weeks up until Christmas. It’s a fascinating book which I think many Christians don’t spend very much time studying – so I hope we’ll all learn something new.
What’s the difference between Christianity and other religions? At the end of the day it comes down to grace. This is an absolutely fundamental thing to grasp about Christianity, and Titus 3 is all about grace.
In this sermon, instead of working our way through Titus chapter three a verse at a time, instead we look at how it contrasts religion and grace. The two things are not compatible and they lead to very different results. This is the same whether the religion in question is a secular religion, like the current cultural “woke” phenomenon, or whether it’s an actual religion. Sadly you find it in churches as well, where it is called Pharisaism.
Read the passage online via Bible Gateway.
If you like this, you might like other posts about Titus or other sermons.
Are sermons there for entertainment? Knowledge transfer? Moral instruction? Here we learn from Paul’s testimony about what Biblical teaching should be. A sermon on Titus chapter 2.
Apologies from the little interruption in the middle from my 3-year-old daughter.
I finished the sermon with the Valley of Vision prayer “Living for Jesus” but was interrupted so I didn’t include it in this video – but you can find it here and pray for yourself: https://banneroftruth.org/us/devotional/living-for-jesus/
This is the fourth part of a five-part series on Titus – see the rest of the series tagged under Titus.
Titus is one of the shorter books in the New Testament, written to a church pastor, and it concerns the pastoral role. However, it’s important for the whole church to listen to what it has to say. In particular, Titus has a lot to say about how the gospel drives our behaviour: it’s not the case that we change our behaviour to become acceptable to God. Rather, God’s grace leads to our behaviour changing. This is vital to understand!
Integrity is a quality which seems to be increasingly absent from many leaders in society today. But God calls every Christian, especially leaders, to a life of integrity.
If you’d prefer to listen to these on the podcast, you can find that here.
We are living in the era of the Selfie. Recently two American academics wrote a book called “The Narcissism Epidemic” – everyone is obsessed with themselves and their own ‘brand’. But that is not Jesus’ way – what he says in this passage is very counter-cultural and we need to hear it.
The quote from No Little People at the end which I unfortunately missed off is this. Just to explain, in this sermon he has been looking at Moses’ staff (or stick / rod) – how God even managed to use a stick of wood:
“The people who receive praise from the Lord Jesus will not in every case be the people who hold leadership in this life. There will be many persons who were sticks of wood that stayed close to God and were quiet before him, and were used in power by Him in a place which looks small to men.
“Each Christian is to be a rod of God in the place of God for him. We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places. Only one thing is important: to be consecrated persons in God’s place for us, at each moment. Those who think of themselves as little people in little places, if committed to Christ and living under His Lordship in the whole of life, may, by God’s grace, change the flow of our generation. And as we get on a bit in our lives, knowing how weak we are, if we look back and see we have been somewhat used of God, then we should be the rod “surprised by joy.”
No Little People by Francis Schaeffer
Yesterday I was leading a service on the theme of Pentecost – “What does the Holy Spirit do”. The talk is in two parts, so instead of extracting the two talks you may see the whole service here – I hope you enjoy. (And I do apologise for the technical issues with the sound in the first song – the perils of livestreaming!)
