Run to Obtain the Promise

Sermon given by the Rev. Nathan Stomberg on 18 Pentecost (9/26/2021).

We are running to obtain God’s promises. And the greatest of God’s promises is that He so loved us that He gave His only begotten son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal Life. We for our sin deserve eternal damnation, but Jesus Christ bore that sin on the Cross, and His righteousness is imputed to us if we only trust in Him. But at the point of trusting is where we get mixed up in our understanding.

If we do not run to obtain the promises of God, we will slide back to the promises of the world. American cultural Christianity has most definitely normalized the prosperity and self-indulgence of the age, as with the culture at large. We have forgotten how hard it is to live a life of holiness. Rather than sober contemplation of God’s judgements, we give ourselves to the addiction of constant entertainment. Twenty-first century Christians have bought into the trivializing of daily life.

Readings: Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Psalm 19:7-14; James 4:7-5:6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48