Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.
Phil Christopher: A Declaration of Interdependence (Matthew 5:21-24, 41-48; 6:22-23)
Phil Christopher, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas, asks his hearers if they ever feel like new sailors who have lost their bearings. The circumstances of freedom may result in a person going through life frantically, like a sailor without bearings. To get ones bearings is to understand “freedom is found from the inside out.”
Christopher turns to the Sermon on the Mount to find bearings—a North Star—for today. Within Jesus’ teaching on anger, he finds boundaries for our personal freedoms. These boundaries point to interdependence more than independence.
This sermon was delivered on July 5, 2020, for the morning worship service of First Baptist Church in Abilene as part of the series Finding Our Way Through COVID, Conflict and Chaos. A script for this sermon is available here.
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