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Restoring Original Love (1 of 3)
Series: The Frog in the Kettle: Restoring Lost Values and Redeeming a Corrupt Culture
Pastor Kerry Shook
Pastor Kjell Axel Johanson
This sermon includes the sermon outline and the full sermon transcript. Below you will see a preview of the outline and a portion of the full sermon.
• Revelation 2:1-7 (NIV)
The Lampstand in Marriage Provides:
• Light
• Warmth
• Fire
1. Remember
"Remember the height which you have fallen!" Vs. 5a
2. Repent
"Repent and do the things you did at first." Vs. 5b
3. Repeat
"... do the things you did at first."
----
We're starting a new series this weekend that I'm calling The frog in the Kettle because there was a famous experiment that was done a few years back where a researcher dropped a frog into a kettle of boiling water, and the frog immediately jumped out. But then he took the frog and he put it in a kettle of cool water, and he turned up the temperature very slowly, just one degree at a time, and the frog became desensitized to the increasing heat and boiled to death. So kids, don't try that at home, okay, unless you're from Louisiana, and you're cooking dinner. That's okay. I can say that. I'm from Arkansas. Frog legs are great. Tastes like chicken like everything else, of course.
No, the point is this. In the kettle of our broken culture as the heat rises, Christ's followers become like that frog. We get desensitized to the devastating effects of an increasingly Christ-less culture, and we wonder why relationships are going up in smoke. We wonder why marriages are boiling over with bitterness and hurt and the family, the fabric that holds society together, is being ripped apart.
I was talking to my friend, Matthew Barnett, who's the pastor of the Los Angeles Dream Center, and it has one of the largest homeless ministries in the country, and Matthew said: Kerry, I really believe as Christ followers we're not to be relevant to the culture. We're to redeem the culture. I couldn't agree more, and the good news is Jesus Christ is the great redeemer. But, we'll never redeem our culture with our Bible thumping. We'll redeem the culture with our brokenness as we bring our brokenness to Christ and let Him bring healing and shine through us to a broken world. We'll never redeem the culture through our judging. It will be redeemed by Jesus as the world sees Jesus' love flow through us. We'll never redeem our culture by criticizing. It will be redeemed by Christ-filled compassion as Christ loves through us because we're all trophies of His grace.
So, the series is not really about how bad and corrupt our culture is because it's bad. It's difficult to build a strong marriage in a culture that everything is going against it to tear marriages and families apart. Everything seems to be working against lasting love relationships. Everything in our culture seems to be working against really living all out on fire for God.
Series: The Frog in the Kettle: Restoring Lost Values and Redeeming a Corrupt Culture
Pastor Kerry Shook
Pastor Kjell Axel Johanson
This sermon includes the sermon outline and the full sermon transcript. Below you will see a preview of the outline and a portion of the full sermon.
• Revelation 2:1-7 (NIV)
The Lampstand in Marriage Provides:
• Light
• Warmth
• Fire
1. Remember
"Remember the height which you have fallen!" Vs. 5a
2. Repent
"Repent and do the things you did at first." Vs. 5b
3. Repeat
"... do the things you did at first."
----
We're starting a new series this weekend that I'm calling The frog in the Kettle because there was a famous experiment that was done a few years back where a researcher dropped a frog into a kettle of boiling water, and the frog immediately jumped out. But then he took the frog and he put it in a kettle of cool water, and he turned up the temperature very slowly, just one degree at a time, and the frog became desensitized to the increasing heat and boiled to death. So kids, don't try that at home, okay, unless you're from Louisiana, and you're cooking dinner. That's okay. I can say that. I'm from Arkansas. Frog legs are great. Tastes like chicken like everything else, of course.
No, the point is this. In the kettle of our broken culture as the heat rises, Christ's followers become like that frog. We get desensitized to the devastating effects of an increasingly Christ-less culture, and we wonder why relationships are going up in smoke. We wonder why marriages are boiling over with bitterness and hurt and the family, the fabric that holds society together, is being ripped apart.
I was talking to my friend, Matthew Barnett, who's the pastor of the Los Angeles Dream Center, and it has one of the largest homeless ministries in the country, and Matthew said: Kerry, I really believe as Christ followers we're not to be relevant to the culture. We're to redeem the culture. I couldn't agree more, and the good news is Jesus Christ is the great redeemer. But, we'll never redeem our culture with our Bible thumping. We'll redeem the culture with our brokenness as we bring our brokenness to Christ and let Him bring healing and shine through us to a broken world. We'll never redeem the culture through our judging. It will be redeemed by Jesus as the world sees Jesus' love flow through us. We'll never redeem our culture by criticizing. It will be redeemed by Christ-filled compassion as Christ loves through us because we're all trophies of His grace.
So, the series is not really about how bad and corrupt our culture is because it's bad. It's difficult to build a strong marriage in a culture that everything is going against it to tear marriages and families apart. Everything seems to be working against lasting love relationships. Everything in our culture seems to be working against really living all out on fire for God.
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