Join us online! - Next online service starts Sunday at 9 AM • Watch Live →
Feb 11, 2024
Included | Romans 6:1-14
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” In our service today, we heard testimonies from those being baptised and becoming a member at St. Paul's Leaskdale.
Songs for this week: Spotify
- What is your story so far with God? Share that with the group. Give us the 120 second version.
- Part of becoming a member in a Christian church is renouncing (means saying “No more”) the devil, the flesh and the world. What do each of those mean?
- Christians declare: “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour”! What did he save you from and what is he Lord of in your life?
- Christians have always additionally vowed to ‘plug into the church’: continue to mature, give financially, serve significantly, join Jesus’ mission to the world. Which do you find easiest? Which is hardest for you
Share with a friend
Recent Sermons
Paul never recovered from God including the Gentiles in the salvation invitation.
Like some of us, perhaps, he felt like some people should be excluded by virtue of where they were born or how badly they have behaved.
More than included, Paul instructs that former ‘outsiders’ should be treated as precious insiders, treated even better than we would treat ourselves. What would it look like if love came to town?
Human beings need reminders about how to get along, and Christians are no exception. We especially need reminders about how to love each other while we disagree. Paul draws the believers' hearts and minds back to what Jesus has done, and that paves the way for loving each other well through conflict.
How do we live with Jesus in a society that opposes him? Paul tells us to wake up to our resurrection hope. When we do that, loving others and rejecting sin in our own lives makes sense.
Romans 12 is the description of what happens when God’s mercy overflows in a church’s life. Lifelong attitudes change, love becomes genuine, mocking enemies are not met with equal and opposite force but, quite the opposite, with peace and gentleness. Be praying even now for how God will speak uniquely to your small group.
All along, we’ve been saying that God’s heart is to see us INCLUDED. That’s why Jesus came, and that’s the subject of Paul’s letter to the Romans. At times, Christians forget God’s radical inclusion of them and go back to the old patterns of competing and comparing. Sadly, that was happening in the Roman Church. Paul has one powerful dose for that sickness.
The resurrection changed everything! The story includes an invitation, a blessing, and a commission for the first witnesses … and for us today.
