The Original Cancel Culture | Acts 9:1-31

Jesus faced the original cancel culture, a problematic person who needed to be silenced and even eliminated. In Acts 9 Saul broadened the cancel-culture to include anyone – man or woman – who happened to follow Christ. There have been and will always be those who want to cancel His followers. It has now become fashionable in this nation to criticize, scorn or shut-out those who name the name of Jesus Christ. Do not be shocked if America, in the not too distant future, becomes a killing field with believers as the prize. Are you ready?

The Walls Come Crashing Down! | Acts 8:25

For longer than 500 years the Jews had raised an impenetrable barrier between themselves and their northern neighbors, the Samaritans. They despised each other, did not speak to each other and had nothing to do with each other. Jesus, however, did not hold such hostilities in His heart. He loved and embraced the Samaritans. He even included the Samaritans in His last will and testament laid down in verse 8 of Acts 1: Don’t forget the Samaritans! When forced by tribulation to preach the gospel to the Samaritans, the walls of separation came crashing down. There were neither protests nor riots and no vigilantes from SLM (Samaritan Lives Matter) to make it happen. Perhaps America could use the model set forth in Acts 8. Perhaps we all could.

Going Forward by Going Forward | Philippians 3:13

Do you know where you’re going?  Do you have any idea about where you’d like to be when 2021 is concluded?  After the passage of yet another year will you still be doing nothing more than merely riding it out; will you be doing anything more than just existing?  What about when you reach 2023 or 2025 or 2030?  The journey to someplace wonderful starts now.  So does the journey to no place.  Start the journey to someplace wonderful right now.

Going Forward by Going Backward | Philippians 3:13

The beginning of each year is often used as a way of measuring progress, that is, where a person has been headed. In fact, the New Year is a terrific place for starting over. It is an occasion designed precisely for a renewal and/or a fresh start. I don’t know if Paul ever preached a New Year’s sermon, but I do know that two pithy phrases appear in Philippians 3:13 that give profound insight for any successful beginning or new renewal; phrases that are intensely significant for starting over.

Behold The Threats!

The church is often at odds with its surrounding culture.  That was true in the first century, and it is true in America today.  As in the first century, the church’s response to the demands of our secular culture to cease and desist is to mirror the response of the first believers when the movement began nearly two thousand years ago.