The admonition to love one another is placed directly after the admonition to not compete, because it is difficult for love and competition to coexist. One of the most destructive things to a marriage that a married couple can do is to compete with one another. God does not tell a man and woman married to one another to become a team, or to work together, but to become one.

A good marriage is a prerequisite for good parenting, and a good marriage is the joining of two minds, bodies, souls, spirits, hopes, dreams, needs, personalities, and two very different genders into one entity.

Jesus is the seed; He is the first cell of the body, and He must die and be buried before He can reproduce. Jesus has committed no sin, and so is not eligible for the penalty of death. However, Jesus lives among plenty of sinners, all of whom are eligible for the penalty of death. So Jesus voluntarily takes on our sin; He pays the penalty of death that we owe for the sins that we have committed.

The first requirement for any good servant of God is that they must humbly recognize that they are serving God because of God’s grace. The second requirement for a good servant of God is that they faithfully preach the actual Word of God to the people, and do their best to model the life about which they preach.

Jesus became a man, and increased His stature above perfection by not just obeying the law perfectly, but by sacrificing Himself for mankind. To sacrifice for someone else rather than to place blame on them is the true meaning of the Golden Rule, Matthew 7:12: 12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

As grateful as we may be to our fathers for their provision and instruction, we know that we never would have reached the point at which our fathers could help us had it not been for the physical sacrifice of our mothers. Fathers are analogous to the surgeons who perform heart transplants; mothers are analogous to the donors who give the hearts.

Keeping the physical commandments is the elementary level of Christianity. The more advanced level of Christianity involves developing a Christian attitude, which is an attitude that works and hopes for the repentance of others.

This is a recording of the Q&A session held after the 3/1/09 sermon at the Family Life Baptist Church.