Wounds That Heal – The Narrow Door is the second message in our summer sermon series on harsh words from God. Not everything God says is warm and fuzzy. It can’t be! We need to hear the warnings that God give us.
Mt Sinai
This picture of Mt. Sinai doesn’t look too inviting does it? Hebrews 12 talks about fire, scary words, and stoning animals. Moses was afraid! Why would God bring his people somewhere so that he could scare the willies out of them? I thought the idea was to be strong, to be holy. All of the world faiths have this idea of holiness – Hindus have Siddhi, Buhdists call it Dharma or an eight-fold path, Mulsims have the five pillars, Jews and Christians have the Ten Commandments, and many Christians point to the new law that Jesus gave in the gospels – follow his example. Who wouldn’t want to snuggle up to God’s Law – to make strong those feeble arms and weak knees, to be holy before God, right? Wrong.
Do Something
It is this perverse thought that runs through everyone’s head. Do something, anything, and God will love me. This thought isn’t empowering, but crippling. God’s law leaves more questions in our head than it answers. It is by God’s Law that we become conscious, not of our holiness, but our sin – just how unholy we really are. You yelled at your kids, you lied on the job, you looked at another woman or man with an indecent thought and you liked it, you can’t even go the speed limit. How do you know if God loves you? Some days you don’t even like yourself? How encouraging are ”Be strong and be holy,” when you know that on your own you never will be? God wanted his people to visit Mt. Sinai, but he never wanted them to stay.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s message taken from our series, Wounds That Heal – The Narrow Door.
Book(s): Hebrews
Series: Wounds That Heal
Tag(s): Work Righteousness
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg