Austin Life Church

We ARE in a cosmic battle between the domain of darkness and the kingdom of the Son. And if we are going to stand firm in this battle against the schemes of the devil, we must know where & when he is engaging in warfare. 

The Scripture is clear that we must stand firm, and put on the full armor of God, so that we may resist and defeat the spiritual enemy opposed to us. But before we look at what we must do, we must start with what God has done for us. Because the true secret to our success is not what we do, but what God has done for us. 

The reality of life is that we are presently, actively, caught up in a spiritual battle at all times. God is working for good, for life. The devil is working to steal, kill, and destroy. But the good news is that the One who is for us is greater than the one who is against us. So, let's stand firm and push back darkness!

With all that we have received by faith in Christ, His Spirit living in us, who will complete the good work God has begun in us… if God is for us, who or what could possibly stand against us?

From before time began, God had a plan for us. He knew that we would mess up what He created us for and that Jesus would come to fix what we broke. When we trust Jesus and repent from trusting in ourselves and living our way, the Holy Spirit will come and live in us and do the work of God to not only apply what Jesus did but bring us to the end, when He will transform us into the image of Jesus. 

To be adopted as God's son or daughter, to be coheirs with Jesus, means we WILL suffer alongside Jesus. To follow Jesus is to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him. Well, is He worth it? 

When we have true faith in Jesus, full belief and full surrender to Him as Savior & Lord, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us and fundamentally changes us, makes us new. In addition, when the Spirit of Christ lives in us, we become adopted into the family of God as His sons and daughters. Everything in the present and future changes. 

Easter is the time when we remember the death, and even more so, the resurrection of Jesus. But Jesus did not die and rise from the dead just to put on a show. There was a reason. And that reason was to set us free from sin that we might live for Him!

At the end of Romans 7, Paul paints a painfully accurate picture of a person who is trapped and defeated by their sin and flesh. Apart from Christ, we too are like this person, but in Christ, we can have real victory over the sins that once trapped us.

As humans, we are all slaves to something. Meaning, something or someone is calling the shots for our lives, telling us what is true and how to live. For those under grace, we are slaves to righteousness, slaves to God and His ways. He calls the shots in our lives now!

In faith, we have shared with Christ a death to sin and resurrection to a newness of life! Sin can no longer reign in our lives. We are set free, so live set free!

Adam was supposed to lead us to a life of knowing, trusting, and following God. Instead, in his own passivity and disregard for God, he and Eve went their own way and brought sin into the world. Jesus on the other hand, did what Adam could not do, and has introduced a new and better way for us.

By faith in Jesus, our position before God is changed, and we are moved to a place of rejoicing and celebration in all that is to come! Praise be to God for His abundant blessings. 

Often times when we look to faithful men and women of God who have gone before us, we judge their salvation by what we can see, the fruit in their lives. This was true of Jews with Abraham as well. But Paul tells us that even Abraham, the father of Judaism, was justified by faith alone. True faith. Faith that is fully convinced God is the One True God, that God is true to His Word, and thus surrendered to Him in all of life. 

When we've believed something our entire lives, it's difficult to just change what we believe. Can it really be that what makes me right with God has nothing to do with what I do, but wholly on what Jesus has done? Yes. Yes and amen! Our justification is wholly made possible by Jesus alone.

No one is good; no not one. Paul has spent the first 2.5 chapters of Romans communicating that no one - not the religious (Jews) or irreligious (Gentiles) - is right before God. But now, there is good news. Hope has come. God has justified us, made us right, through redemption in Jesus.

Christ did not come to the Earth to condemn us for our sins, but in order that through Him, we might be set free from the bondage of our sins! Paul reminds his Jewish brothers and sisters in Romans 3:9-20 that they are all under sin, just like the rest of humanity. It is because of this sin that we are in need of the Grace of Christ.

Early in the letter of Romans, Paul is wanting all people, whether Jew or Gentile, to know that God will righteously and impartially judge all according to their works. This truth is particularly challenging for the religious to understand and embrace, because they don't see themselves as those to be judged. But God's judgement is in fact impartial. Whether religious or irreligious, He will judge each impartially. 

We are created to produce Godly fruit with our lives. And to do that, we must abide in Jesus; be connected, and remain connected. And we abide as we trust Jesus, and obey His commands. Well Jesus immediately gives us a command to obey - love one another. We are to love one another as He has loved us. 

From the very beginning, God has intentionally designed us to work, to be active, to produce something with our lives. Fruit is what the Bible often calls the results of our work and our living. God has called us to bear fruit, produce good results with our lives that multiply, increase, reflect God's Glory. How do we do that? We abide in Christ and keep His commandments. 

We use the word love to mean many things. But the love of God for us primarily means the intentional choice to think and do what is kind, good, and best for another. God made the choice to love us, to do for us what is best. That is why Jesus came!

In Jesus we remember and celebrate that He is our source of great joy. In this world we all face various trials of various sizes. But in Jesus we have everlasting joy offered to us in spite of our sufferings. 

We often times think of peace as the absence of conflict. And that is true. But it's incomplete. Peace, as understood by the Biblical word peace, is both an absence of conflict, and the presence of flourishing. It is thriving free of stress and worry. And in Jesus we have peace with God, with one another, and within ourselves. 

As was revealed to Simeon in Luke 2, Jesus coming to us to live just like us brings the fullness of Hope to believers. Even when we don't have the answers for why things feel hopeless, we can know our Savior stood in the same, difficult circumstances we too stand in. Our God is one who knows our heartache and gives true Hope!

Paul is addressing Jewish Christians in Rome to remind them that they are not "better than" the lost without the power of Christ. We have all sinned and are separated from God, but praise Jesus who lowered himself so we might be made righteous! Remember His holiness at work in you when interacting with others.

Paul is eager to preach the Gospel, for it is salvation from the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. In communicating the good news, Paul wants to help people see the bad news they are living in apart from the Gospel. The bad news being, that we walked away from God, and He let us have our way. 

In John 20, the power of Jesus is on display as he calls the name of Lazarus and he comes out of the tomb. We see here that anything is possible when Jesus calls our name. So, how will you respond?

As Paul begins the body of his letter, he starts by telling the Romans why he is so eager to see them in person. He wants to mutually build one another up and reap a harvest among them by preaching the Gospel. The gospel according to Paul is the secret ingredient that brings life and helps a person grow, and Paul is obligated to, eager to, and unashamed to preach the Gospel.

Around the year 55 AD, Paul writes and sends a letter to the church in Rome to help explain the gospel of God so that the church will respond with gospel-fueled obedience - to His glory and their good.

As the story of Esther concludes, we see a great and remarkable reversal take place. What was meant for evil, the Lord turned and leveraged for good. And as people we are instructed and reminded to remember who God is and what He has done on our behalf.

God is a God who saves, who comes to our rescue. And the natural, and appropriate response to our rescue is rejoicing and gratitude.

Whether in this life, or the next, God will always oppose the proud, and lift up the humble. For His glory and the good of all people.

At all times, God is faithfully at work to fulfill His promise and lead us to abundant life in Him. Even when we cannot see Him, even when we don't acknowledge Him, God is faithfully working for our good. For us, the questions are: Will we trust Him? And will we live in such a way to be ready and be used by Him?

God's desire has never been for us to settle, to become complacent. God is always interested in us pouring our lives out, here and now, for the increase of His kingdom and for the good of others around us. We believe God is on the move in our body and is calling us to set roots in our city where we can multiply, increase, and bless others around us. 

God is a God who relentlessly pursues every single one of us. God is a God who diligently seeks after us. Until we are found. Do we share the same heart as God? Do we relentlessly pursue the one that is in our life and needs to know and find life in Jesus?

We want to be a church, a people, of overflowing, cheerful generosity, giving generously of what we have first generously received from God. We must be these people! Overflowing, cheerful generosity is the way of God, and should be the way of His people – to His glory, to the good of others, and to our own good as well. 

In closing this short letter, warning believers of false teaching creeping into the body of Christ, Jude directs our gaze back to Christ. Praise be to the Christ who presents us blameless to The Father with great joy!

As a people called to live under and contend for truth, we must keep ourselves in the love of God, while always showing mercy to those outside of faith and doing whatever we can to bring salvation to all. 

While the church is meant to be a safe haven for all, there are those who seek to destroy it from the inside by luring us away from Christ. In this passage, Jude reminds his listeners of the dangers of those who deceive God's people, and he offers guidance for how to identify them from among the flock. 

God is gracious, merciful and kind. But God is also just, Righteous Judge, and wrathful towards sin. This is good, right, and loving. We have the opportunity to repent and return. The choice is ours.

If a danger has entered into your presence, you can't just sit idly by, but you must oppose it. This is the situation Jude is writing about. A dangerous and insidious faction has entered the community - perverters of grace - and it is imperative that they oppose lies for Truth.

Life comes with many challenges. Obeying the LORD even at times is challenging. That's not a bad thing. It's actually a good thing. We grow and learn more in the challenge than in the easy. The good news is that even as we traverse forward through various challenges, in the footsteps of the LORD we already have victory. He is a King, and His is a kingdom without fail and without end. 

“But from this day on I will bless you.” What does it mean to be blessed by God? How do we get God's blessing? Do we have to obey to get God's blessing? The Israelites, in trusting and obeying, were blessed by God. We will be too.

What do we do when the road of obedience ahead of us seems too big to handle? What do we do when we feel small and dejected and defeated? When we are afraid of all that could go wrong? We look to and lean into the One who is bigger than any challenge and obstacle set before us. We keep moving forward no matter what, trusting that God is with us and will never let us down.

As people created for connection, we must learn the ways that God informs us to form, build, and keep those relationships. Today we look at the Biblical commands to honor one another, and to speak what is true and good to and of one another.

Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you did; they'll forget what you said. But they'll never forget how you made them feel.” People long to feel connected, long to belong, long to feel seen, wanted, valued. Nothing can make a person feel the complete opposite than not being welcomed in, not being show hospitality. In showing hospitality, we open the front door, pull up a chair, and invite others into our lives where they will find love and acceptance to grow and become all God has created them to be. 

Probably one of the most difficult topics to discuss, loving one another. Something that is so simple, yet so complex. How is it that we are supposed to love one other then, and where can we get the power to love those around us? Listen as we look through scripture to see how the Spirit alone empowers us to truly love one another!

We are created for connection. We all long for, because we are designed this way, deep, lasting, secure relationships. But how do we build these friendships? How do we keep them? What do we do? First, we need to look to Jesus and trust Him as friend. But then, we need to commit to being the friend to others that we hope they will be to us.

Jesus wants us to know and be known by him deeply. In this sermon, we look at how Jesus views friendship with him, ad how we are to pursue that connection everyday. 

Every single person desires to have deep, safe, lasting relationships. We all want to know and be known. And that's because we are created for connection. In order to both survive, and thrive, we need relational connection with others. Both God and others. So how do we do this? Build, keep, nurture relational connection? 

When we die, we will all face judgement before God. What will He say when we are judged? Guilty, or Righteous (Innocent)? We all know that we are not perfectly innocent before God. So what is our hope? Easter. The death and resurrection of Jesus to pay the price for our sins and justify us, make us right with God.