Ironworks

We sing when we are happy. We sing the truth. Can we sing and be at peace? When we consider when we are happy, yes we can sing and be at peace with contentment in Christ. If we sing in truth, we certainly receive peace with God and enjoy His righteousness. It begins to be more difficult when we are melancholy. There will be times when we are sad. A lost loved one. A broken relationship. Sin and the lasting consequences of sin can break our hearts, and stifle our desire to sing. I am reminded of a Psalm written in Babylon when the children of the southern kingdom were taken into captivity because of their sin. “By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps. For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing Jehovah’s song in a foreign land” (Psalm 137:1-3)?     ...

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  1 Cor. 9:19-22 What are you willing to give? That will be the question that is posed repeatedly in the new sermon series. It has been laid out last month that God is the great provider, Jehovah Jireh, who has lavished us with a grace that can cover all of our sins. Considering that, how can we give and be better givers? The first thing we can do is give up. I know that is not the most common of encouraging phrases, but it is truly per...