2/25/2024 Second Sunday in Lent

RETHINKING RELIGION

Everyone has assumptions about God. Likewise, everyone has assumptions about religion. Increasingly, those assumptions are negative. Americans are walking away from Christianity in breathtaking numbers. It raises the question. How do those people know if their assumptions about religion are correct? Do they really understand Christianity at all? Do we? Do we truly understand this religion?

In the season of Lent, as much as any other, Jesus teaches things that turns the world’s assumptions about religion completely upside down. We call it “Christianity.” So, in this holy season, let us go straight to Christ and let him replace assumptions with truth. Jesus, help us to rethink religion!

RETHINKING SUFFERING UNDER THE CROSS

We know that the cross was an instrument of torture and execution. However, Scripture also uses the term “cross” to refer to any suffering that one endures because he is believer: the painful denial of the desires of the flesh; ridicule and persecution from unbelievers; etc. This is one reason people reject religion. They see Christians struggling in life with these crosses, while non-Christians often seem perfectly happy. Even the prophet Jeremiah asked, “Why do all the faithless live at ease?” (12:1).

Today, Jesus asks us to rethink suffering under the cross. It is not pointless pain. Our crosses are not how we pay for sin. Jesus already did that on his cross. Our crosses are not redemptive, but they are constructive. Any suffering unbelievers face is only bad, a foretaste of worse to come. But the suffering believers face under the cross is only good, a way Christ connects us tightly to himself with fire-tested faith.

God bless your worship.

Pastor David Clark will preach on Romans 5:1–11 “Our Lenten Boast!” * We have peace. * We have hope.

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