Resources For Sunday, November 7 From Each Harderwyk Preacher
I. New For This Week
Bema Podcast on Galatians 5: Set Free To Be Free - Marty & Brent dig into the Watershed passage. CLICK HERE
Ruthless Elimination of Hurry - Engaging the Quiet - The book with this title by John Mark Comer is the subject of a recent Fear & Trembling Podcast featuring Harderwyk's four pastors. CLICK HERE for that. In addition, CLICK HERE for a little companion video for the chapter on silence and solitude. It is a tutorial of sorts. Feel free to use it as a resource to walk you through some practices.
Parallels to Moses in Elijah and Jesus - Here is an article from the Theopolis Institute that walks through some of the parallels between Moses and Elijah that we will touch on this Sunday though not get at this great depth. CLICK HERE to dig in. Finally, here is an article that walks through the parallels between the life of Moses and the life of Jesus. CLICK HERE for some interesting stuff.
Celebration Sermon Outline - CLICK HERE for this Sunday's Sermon Outline.
II. From The Commentaries On This Passage
From Tim Keller on Galatians 5 from his commentary Galatians For You:
“The Galatian Christians had been pagans, who were under the slavery of literal idolatry—”the basic principles of the world” (4:3, 8–9). But here Paul once more makes his radical claim that pagan idolatry and biblical moralism (ie: keeping the laws of the Bible) are basically the same thing. The Galatians had been amoral liberals, and now they were about to become very moral conservatives.
Paul is saying that these boil down to the same spiritual slavery! Under circumcision, the Galatians will experience once again the anxiety, guilt and burdened life they knew before as pagans. They will never be sure that they are being good enough. Their lives will be as fear-based and proud and guilt-ridden as they were before; in fact, probably more so! They will fall into the touchiness, insecurity, pride, discouragement and weariness of people who are never sure that they have worth (ie: righteousness).”
“And Paul wants the Galatians to remember that you can’t add to Christ without subtracting Christ. He is either all their value, or He is without value. If law-obedience becomes part of their system of salvation, it is their only system, so they are “required to obey the whole law” (v 3); which, as we’ve seen, is simply impossible (3:10–11).”
“Assurance of salvation is not possible if we think we must earn or even maintain our salvation by our efforts. If we keep ourselves saved by good living, how could we ever be sure we were being good enough to retain God’s favor? Yet the Bible often says that we Christians can know we are safe and saved (eg: 1 John 2:3). In other words, we didn’t earn our salvation by our behavior, and we can’t “un-earn” it by our behavior.”
“His point is that true Christians are saved by grace, and show they are Christians by continuing to trust in grace!”
III. Ongoing Resources
1) Spiritual Formation Resources Page - CLICK HERE - This is still a work in progress, but be a part as we look to build
2) Scotty Smith’s Heavenward Daily Prayers - CLICK HERE - to see the daily prayer blog of Scotty Smith. You will see an option to have them delivered to your email inbox each day as well.
3) Simple Lectio Divina Overview - CLICK HERE - for a simple introduction of the spiritual practice of a more personal way of experience the Word through contemplation and reflection.
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