Radical Grace/the Lutheran Difference

There are two edges to God's word.  One is the law, the other is the gospel.  Not hard to distinguish one from the other but...  When do you use them?  How do you apply law and gospel?  Listen to this episode to find out.

Have you ever had an infection, then had a doctor mis-prescribe the wrong medicine for your infection?  This is exactly what it's like when preachers presribe too much law to you and no Gospel, or too much Gospel with no law.

Listen up people!  Do you have faith?  A strong faith?  How about a "reckless confidence" in Jesus as your Savior?  Do we really need to test that?  I mean, seriously, most of us do wish we had a reckless confidence in Jesus, so here's the thing:  How many promises does God have to make to you before you trust him? 

In this edition of Radical Grace Radio, we talk about the Big if, or the words "if you" that get used way to often in a sermon these days.  Examples of "the big if"... "If you just smile more and have a positive attitude, God will bless you mightyly"... "God is prepared to save you by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, IF YOU repent and believe"... I could go on and on, but I think I'll let the blog post stand. http://lutherandifference.blogspot.com/2010/04/big-if.html

In this edition of Radical Grace;  what happens when people try to make the law something that's doable and the gospel is what help you do it?  You get a dumbed down law and the dumbed down gospel.   You know what you get when you read Psalm 119?  Some say law.  Pastor Gary doesn't think so.  Listen.     

Internet Monk Michael Spencer died Monday, April 5th, after a long bout with Cancer.  In this espisode of Radical Grace Radio, we pay tribute not by talking about him, but by talking about the things HE talked about during his time as a Post Evangelical commentator.

In this edition for Easter 2010, we talk about Jesus being risen from the dead and the importance of his resurrection, and we talk about how Christians bash each other over the head with the word "apostate" to the point that no one listens to each other.

We were live at Faith Viera Lutheran Church in Viera, with an open mike taking questions.  The topic moved into "what should the Message of the Church be".  Some people think it should be a law message.  Some think it should be the Gospel (Yours truly thinks so). So we wound up talking about deception and how the law can't set those who are decieved free from lies and bondage. 

We were live at Christ Lutheran in Cape Canaveral, Pastor Greg LeSieur's Church, where Pastor Gary preached to services and we did the radio show in between.  A nice crowd turned out, and listened to us talk about Angels and Demons, which got good when we talked about the Angel of the Lord...  Jesus Christ! 

There are people who lose thier minds over our message of Radical Grace.  Here's one. "Lots of unbiblical stuff & personally I think your missing the mark in regards to how God said He would write the law on our hearts vs them being written on tablets of stone OT vs NT." Confused...  St. Paul says the law is written on the hearts of all men, not just believers.  Oh well. So today, we decided to tackle a scripture that makes people crazy by itself.  The parable of the sheep and goats.  And then we talked about Ezekiel and being a watchman.  And we're going to keep going till we've tackled every confused notion regarding Law and Gospel.

Pastor Greg LeSieur serves as an interviewee for a segment on growing up in liberal protestant churches.  Pastor Greg has had an interesting life that took him from growing up in a liberal Episcopal church, three Seminaries and lots of heartache, and his experience in this regard is very important. ~Matthew

First up, we talked to Pastor Bruce Rudolf, who works with Food for the Poor, and got an update of how things are going for Haiti relief efforts. Then we talked about a question that was asked me that morning, that tied into what we were going to talk about.  The question, "How do I know if I'm reprobate"?  Now, the only reason I can think of why someone would ask that question is if they are genuinely concerned that they themselves are reprobate.  What does all of this have to do with Tall Ships?  Pastor Greg gives the low down on that, and Martin Jack from the UK brings us to think about people who have left churches who may also have been called Reprobate.  This and "Can you lose your salvation?", in this edition of Radical Grace Radio.    

Have you ever considered False Doctrine to be like Raw Sewage?  Have you ever considered twisting your spouse's words to make them say what you want them to say?  Have you ever had a girl friend or boyfriend that you didn't know anything about? Have you ever heard a radio show you didn't listen to?  Do you have a Savior who you haven't heard?  The implication is enormous when you consider how it is that Christians treat the faith once delivered to the saints.

Imagine for a second...  A person hears the Gospel, and find themselves wanting to do something...  Like contact a radio ministry in Florida and offer to translate the messages and sermons they do into other languages for them.  No one asked them to do it.  We're they prompted by the Law to do this?  Or was it the Gospel working in them?

Pastor Gary Held flies solo for this special edition of Radical Grace, which is a response to the criticism that Lutherans discourage good works, and that sanctification and good works are "hot buttons" for us.

On this week's show, Pastor Matt Harrision of LCMS World Relief joins us to talk about Haiti, from Haiti.  We also pick up on Christians broken by the church and talk about the parable of Pharisee and the Tax collector, and the implications of Jesus' teaching on Justification.

A caller asked us about Pope's comments concerning Muslims getting to heaven.  The Pope had said, "Whoever seeks peace and the good of the community with a pure conscience, and keeps alive the desire for the transcendent, will be saved even if he lacks biblical faith".  I know we're beating the horse on this, but imagine for a second a person who can't live up to this statement.  Do I have a pure conscience?  Do I always seek peace?  Do I seek the good of the community?  Also, more Pat Robertson stuff.  We always thought that the defacto leaders of evangelicalism were the likes of Rick Warren and Franklin Grahm, but it appears we were mistaken.  Most people in this world believe that Pat Robertson Speaks for all of us Christians!  But then again, after some extensive googling, I find no big name evangelicals challenging brother Pat on his statements about Haiti.  I wonder what that means?

Pat Robertson, wordsmith extraordinaire, purveyor of prognostication and prophet of the ages...  Hold on a second.  Don't play the ridicule game quite yet.  Each and every one of us has done something similar or said something stupid we wish we could take back.  We just don't have a nationally syndicated television program tied to Tivos around the world in which to pontificate on such things as why Haiti has such terrible things happen to it's population....However, this is a lesson to be learned here.  Did you know God wants us to empathize with the Haitians, even if it were true that they deserved the suffering they are getting?  No?  Maybe you'd better give a listen.

Continuing the topic, "The ex-Christian:  Broken by the Church?", we talk about the new atheists, who unlike the previous generation of atheists aren't so much arguing for the non existence of Jesus or God, are instead making the argument that Christianity is an immoral religion.  Christian Churches in Koala Lampur, Malaysia, firebombed for their use of the word "Allah" in their evangelistic literature 3000 year old pottery shows ancient Biblical inscription Brit Hume suggests to Tiger Woods that he can find forgiveness in Jesus Christ Be the first to tell us at what time code one of the hosts mentions the title of the show and receive a free copy of "The Everlasting Angel and the Mountain of Fire", by Pastor Peter Kurowski.

In "the Gospel for Those Broken By the Church", Dr. Rod Rosenbladt draws a good profile of those people we meet who have, for whatever reason, fallen out of belief in Jesus Christ as their sin bearing Savior.  In this edition of Radical Grace Radio, we dig into that profile with some testimony from me and how I used to fit that profile, and to the ex-Christian out there who is still either sad or angry about what happened to them in their Christian walk...Contact us: Click here to leave an email Twitter Radical Grace