1. Nothing moves or drives Paul more than preaching about “Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
  2. We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
  3. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  4. There is a revival, no less real and even more definitive, taking place in every church, every weekend, where God’s people gather around his gifts.
  5. Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
  6. To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
  7. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  8. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  9. Zephaniah has given us something more visceral to help us understand the love of God: the sound of salvation.
  10. This sermon was originally given at Luther Seminary chapel on May 20, 1986.
  11. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  12. Predestination, Jim knew, is no longer a frightening doctrine of mystery when you understand that God makes his choice about you in the simple word of God, given from one sinner to another.