We spoke at length last week about the deceitfulness of sin and its capacity to harden the softest heart. Sin will lie to you, do anything to make you no longer trust Christ. Be afraid of what sin can do. Its carnage is all around you. Walk through Walmart. Go sit in the back of a courtroom 1 at the Campbell County Courthouse. Just think about the sins you have committed in the last week. Sin is deceitful, and its deceitfulness hardens like you wouldn't believe. But that said, the book of Hebrews points to the single most effective way to stop sin in its tracks. That way is the power of the group. Just being part of the group isn't enough, though. We in the group have to actually speak up, have to say something about sin. This is hard. It's much easier to just let others sin. It's much easier to be a group that gives lip service to obedience to but does little to ensure obedience. Because encouraging and exhorting one another is so difficult, I am going to preach a whole sermon this morning on how exactly we ought to be doing it. What I plan to show is that just as you are called to be a Christian, a little Anointed One, so you are called to be a Paraclete in miniature, a smaller version of what your Lord is. This task is not just for the super-Christian, but for every Christian. And it must be done skillfully. Merely desiring to do it and trying to do it isn't enough. You actually have to learn, to practice, to get good at this work of encouragement, this work of being a paraclete. Today's sermon will be an attempt to begin training you all in this crucial Christian skill.
Featuring a sermon puts it on the front page of the site and is the most effective way to bring this sermon to the attention of thousands including all mobile platforms + newsletter.
Text-Featuring a sermon is a less expensive way to bring this sermon to the attention of thousands on the right bar with optional newsletter inclusion. As low as $30/day.
Caleb Nelson grew up in Ft. Collins, CO. Born into a Christian home, where he eventually became the eldest of 11 children, he has been a lifelong Presbyterian. He professed faith at the age of six, and was homeschooled through high school. He then attended Patrick Henry College...
