- Sermon series: How the church works o Last week we looked at the sacrifice of submission o This week we are looking at the sacrifice of praise
Three points: Foundation of praise; nature of praise and the right to praise
1. The foundation of Praise (v8-12)
• The foundation of praise is the human heart
• If the heart has had an encounter with God it results in praise
• If the heart is sure and stable and secure it results in praise
1.1 The enemy of our heart: diverse and various teachings
• The specifics are unknown, would have been known to the original audience o Basically these were Jewish converts who came from a background where food meant a lot to their spiritual walk o The temptation would be to think that some form of …show more content…
o Well heart here means the non-physical part of you, the thinking and feeling part of you
In Ephesians 3:16 Paul describes it as the inner person o So how do you give stability and strength to the inner person, the part of you that has to:
fight for assurance of faith,
love their spouse,
love their children
love their enemies
made decisions in …show more content…
In our attempt to create a more organic, natural lifestyle, it can be easy to begin looking down our noses at someone who isn’t on our bandwagon. When promoting our own choices for food and medicine is becoming the latest form of evangelism, we are showing where our hope really lies — and that we are close to forgetting the gospel we say we hold dear... my growing concern in our Christian communities is that we be careful not to become more passionate about convincing others to feed their families the same way we do, rather than pointing them to Christ. When we strongly identify ourselves with a certain lifestyle choice, we evidence our temptation to find our identity and righteousness in that personal preference. Eating and schooling and vaccinations are areas of personal and family choice that can easily become our cause in life. How intent are you in trying to convert someone to the same schooling method as your family? Or are you out to get everyone to use the same oils as you, while looking down on a sister in Christ who just put their child on a round of antibiotics for an