Home - Biblical Truths from West Palm Beach church of Christ

The Power of Influence (2 Chronicles 21-24)

There is great power in influence. We even have a term today for a special group of people that we call influencers. An influencer is someone that people listen to and, because of that, are able to use their good will to encourage people to do or not do things. Businesses understand the power of influencers and will try to pay them or send them free products so that they will review their product and influence people to buy their product or service. Influence is powerful. We have another term for influence called peer pressure. Because we care about what other people think and respond, we will do certain things because of their influence. Things that we would not consider doing we might consider doing because of the influence of others. Influence is powerful. This is the key message that we are going to study in this lesson from 2 Chronicles 21-24. In these chapters were are going to read three examples of influence. As we read about these influencers I want us to think about who is influencing us and who are we influencing…

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The Righteousness of the Gospel (Romans 9:30-10:4)

In our last lesson we looked at the mercy of the gospel. God’s mercy generates two outcomes: either people will respond to his mercy and be saved or people will reject his mercy and remain lost. God’s patient mercy brought about Pharaoh’s hardening of his heart. Further, God’s patient mercy toward Israel only brought about a further rejection of God. Before we look into the next paragraph in Romans, I want us to think about why it is so important for us to look at the example of Israel. Twice in Romans the apostle Paul has marked off all of the blessings and privileges that Israel experienced (cf. Romans 3:1-4; 9:4-5). In 1 Corinthians 10:1-5 he also lists off some of those blessings. But then Paul says these words: “Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:5). A few verses later Paul will say, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). These things are recorded for us so that we will learn from their example and not fail like they did. In Romans 9 we saw that it was not that God’s mercy or promises had failed. God was not the problem. God did what he said. God patiently offered mercy to Israel. So the word of God did not fail. So what happened so that the Jews are excluded and Gentiles have come into the kingdom of God? In Romans 9:30-10:4 the apostle Paul is going to explain what happened to Israel. In particular, he is going to help us understand why they failed so that we will not fail like they did…

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Ruled By Our Own Eyes (Judges 1-3)

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The Mercy of the Gospel (Romans 9)

In our study of Romans we now come to Romans 9-11. These three chapters are considered the more difficult parts of this book. Volumes have been written about the meaning of these chapters. But are these chapters just deep theology and hard teachings that are reserved for intellectual academic studies? I think sometimes we can come across complicated scriptures and think that there is nothing there for us and these things are just for the academics to argue over. But I would like to remind us that all scriptures were given for the average person. Even scriptures that Peter may have called “hard to understand” (cf. 2 Peter 3:16) are scriptures that are given to all people. We recently looked at 1 Corinthians 1 in our Sunday morning Bible study where we learned that the Lord did not reveal these things to the noble, wise, or powerful (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-31). The point is that you do not have to be someone special to understand what the Lord is teaching us. So I want to challenge you to want to know the meaning of Romans 9-11. I am going to challenge myself to not get lost in the weeds and get too deep into the details that I lose the message of these chapters. I will not speak on every verse but try to capture the meaning, paragraph by paragraph, as we move through these chapters. Lord willing, we are going to take four lessons to cover these three chapters so we can see the main message Paul is teaching about the gospel and what these things mean for our walk with Christ today…

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Current Studies

The Power of Influence (2 Chronicles 21-24)

The Righteousness of the Gospel (Romans 9:30-10:4)

Ruled By Our Own Eyes (Judges 1-3)

The Mercy of the Gospel (Romans 9)