Written by Imagine you are, for the first time, visiting someone who has a home or an apartment near train tracks. You’re sitting there in pleasant conversation when suddenly, just a few feet from where you are, the train comes roaring by and you jump to your feet in alarm “What was that?” The friend your visiting responds “What was what?” You say, “That sound, I thought your house was falling down!” “Oh that,” they say. “That’s just the train. I guess after all this time I’ve gotten so used to it I don’t notice it anymore.” In disbelief you remark, “How is that possible?!”
Clearly, this person living by the train tracks had grown very familiar with the sound of the train. What shocked you was normal for them. In the same manner, familiarity is something that takes ahold of Christians too. We become people who get used to singing the same songs, reading the same Bible, praying the same prayers, and shaking the same hands of the same people who sit in the same seats every Sunday of the year. We grow familiar very quickly. I wonder though, how many of you have grown familiar or grown tired of the most important thing – the gospel of Jesus Christ? Our text today carries within it some of the most wonderful and basic components of the gospel message that exist, and I fear for you; if you’ve become too familiar with the glory of the gospel that these words will fall on deaf ears and hard hearts. I often pray this won’t be true of you. That you’ll never tire of hearing the same gospel. That you’ll grow in the knowledge of your own wretchedness and therefore fall deeper in love with God’s grace given to us through His Son.
SonRise Community Church 