Pastor Neal's Blog

Grace

pastorrneal — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:50:19 +0000

The New Testament writer Jude speaks of certain people who have “perverted the grace of our God (v.4),” which means they have twisted the meaning of grace to be something different than God intended. This breaks down into still living selfish lives and yet expecting God to bless us.

So what is grace?

1. Grace begins with the fact that we have sinned against God and rightly deserve His righteous judgment. To let our sin go unpunished is a blemish against His holiness.

2. Grace is God not giving us what we deserve. Instead of pouring out His righteous wrath upon us, He sends His Son to suffer in our place.

3. Grace is not ignoring the seriousness of our sin. It is handling the punishment for our sin in a different way.

Our God is perfectly just and at the same time perfectly loving and full of grace.

The Faith (Jude 3)

pastorrneal — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:45:49 +0000

The New Testament writer Jude tells us the Christian faith was delivered once for all to the saints (Jude 3). He says we got everything we need to be set right with God. What is the Christian message? Simply put…

We were created for a relationship with God.
We sinned.
God loved us enough to send Jesus Christ to die for our sins and raised Him from the dead on the third day to proclaim His victory over sin and death.
We must believe that Jesus died for us on a personal and individual level. God has no grandchildren. This is what it means to be born again.
We are called to live a godly lifestyle as confirmation of our change, but not to earn God’s love.

We Are Family

pastorrneal — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:09:02 +0000

We returned from my wife Carol’s brother’s wedding in Monterey, CA. A simple civil ceremony along the central California coast in Carmel. So now I have a sister-in-law and my kids have a cousin.

I don’t think I laughed so much in a long time as I did on the ride there and the ride home with Carol, myself and our three kids in the car. It was delightful having all five of us in one place at the same time with minimal interruptions. As my kids get older, and I assume times like these will be fewer and fewer, I am thankful to God for the opportunities to enjoy being together as the Montgomery family.

God’s Love Seen In His Creation

pastorrneal — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:57:13 +0000

I am currently (re)reading a book by a professor I had in seminary many years ago. Daniel P. Fuller, son of Charles E. Fuller who was the founder of Fuller Theological Seminary (where I attended and graduated back in the mid-80′s), wrote a book titled The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding Gods Plan for Humanity (Zondervan, May 1992). I love this book as it helps me to see how the Bible all ties together.

In chapter 9, God’s Free Work of Creation, Fuller distinguishes between the “necessity” of God being a Trinity and God’s freedom to create the world. In other words God has to be who He is, but He didn’t have to create this world, with you and me in it. His act of creating the universes and then creating people to love is an act of God’s grace. Fuller says, “So God’s having delayed creation for a long while makes it unmistakeably clear that he created not out of need but in the freedom of his benevolent love, out of mercy and grace (p.134).” Isn’t it good to know God loved us that much that the One who is free to do whatever He pleases found it good to create us.

Trying Something A Little Different

pastorrneal — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:59:23 +0000

Carol and kids and I are getting ready to head north to Monterey for a wedding this Sunday.Carol’s brother is getting married. So I will be away this Sunday. When I return I will begin a new sermon series on the New Testament letter of Jude. I want to try a little bit of a different preaching style of a verse-by-verse with no real outline developed ahead of time. Instead I will cover whatever topics the writer addresses and seek to bring understanding from what the text says and then application of how we live this out ourselves. i am looking forward to getting started!