Out of sequence, but who’s in charge?

Closing speed. It carries a sense of a hunter bursting forth to capture the prey. Today it is just me catching up to my tasks. This month I heard sermons on friends, wrath, progression, and faith. These topics hit home as they are each constants in our lives either by their presence or absence.

One of the great shortcomings in my life is how I tend to stop engaging with people we do not reciprocate. When I was a kid, I had a list of friends, and I would just go down the list until I found someone to do something with. It was easy to get on the list, but if they never said yes, they eventually got off the list. I liken it to having a pen pal. You write a letter, they right a letter and it keeps going until it doesn’t and then its over. As a husband, the procedure has changed, and as a father more so. I have a built-in short list and others only get on the list if compatible with the first three in some form or fashion or when the first three are not an option. I have struggled to utilize my free time on others when sometimes I just need to be by myself and recharge. It is probably not healthy, but here I am. The lesson though was how to make people friends, friends into real friends, and real friends into close friends. We can only have so many people in the closer circles strictly due to the time we have to engage.

The lesson says that our call to love people means we need to seek people to be friends to. We need to make it a priority. We need to make it happen. We need to make it personal. And we need to be grateful for the opportunity. We need to build this all on a foundation of prayer. Pray for the opportunity. Pray to recognize it. Pray for the strength. And then we need to pray for the person and get their input for our prayers. And then finally, we need to understand that we are not making friends to have friends, but we are making friends to be impactful for the spread and strengthening of the gospel.

I went a bit deep there and without diminishing the rest, I’ll try to be brief at least.

Wrath of God. The lesson talked about the sources of God’s wrath, especially in terms of today’s world. God’s wrath comes from:

• Suppressing the Truth of God – If we can decide truth, sin runs rampant.
• Suppressing the truth of Creation – if we were not created, we can lead ourselves.
• Suppressing the need for gratitude to God – Humility is the last thing we will try to fulfill ourselves.
• Suppressing the reality of sin – The penalty is eternal damnation, and it is real.

In the end, men will not set up a system in which they cannot avoid condemnation. God has created the system that demands condemnation for sin. His wrath results from sin and specially unrepentant sin. God sets truth, He created us, only He fulfills us, and we need to be saved from sin.

Progression was really about the steps from sin, to admitting the need to be saved, to being saved. It is a short process, but one that everyone needs. Romans has the key phrase of “all y’all fall short”. At least that is what the pastor said. The idea is that we all sin. The progression is that we move from sin to being justified. Justified means “Just as if I had never sinned.” “Just – If – I’d”

Faith was dominated by the point that even the best are only saved by faith. No matter how good anyone in the Bible was, they were only saved by faith. The effect of faith is that we swap “But I think:” for “The scripture says:”. Faith humbles us because our salvation is not earned. Faith receives salvation as a gift. Faith works: Not only is it true, but it provides the source for us to serve. Faith works for anyone when they have faith in Christ and His salvation. And once you have it, faith works in you to save others.