Scriptures teach us that the service of the Lord should follow a definite pattern. We come to the Lord first, and we receive forgiveness of sins from Him as we confess our sins. This corresponds to the guilt offering in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. Then we hear His Word read and proclaimed, …
Red, White, and Blue Idols
We are gathering to worship God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit through the name and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. In short, we are a congregation of Christians. We are doing this as citizens of a nation that continues at war, and we have a two-fold duty in this respect. …
Where Peace Rules
Rightly understood, contentment is impossible to understand. A preacher who sets himself to explain it is therefore heading into treacherous waters. He needs to take care to explain only those aspects of it that are laid out in the Word, and then leave the the Holy Spirit to His work in bringing about contentment in …
Drinking Love
A number of years ago, as a congregation we abandoned the practice of serving grape juice in communion and began serving wine. This was not an incidental change, because we also moved from observing communion monthly to the practice of observing it at the culmination of each service. Although we did this, we also reserved …
Strength in Meekness
Jesus taught us that when all men speak well of us, we should be greatly concerned. In a corrupted and compromised world, universal acclaim is a great danger sign. All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, St. Paul tells us. So when we do not receive universal acclaim, …
Worship As Our Central Warfare
When we approach the Lord in order to worship Him, we must remember the context. God is in the process of bringing everything into submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has made us kings and priests on the earth in order to rule with Him. God has not brought about the final manifestation …
The Signature of God
The Scriptures teach us in countless places that we are to be unsurprised when God’s faithful ones come under attack. When they tragically come under attack from fellow Christians, the charge against them is (obviously) not that they have been faithful, but rather unfaithful. This also should be no surprise. Jesus was executed for blasphemy, …
Fellowship and Office
Once there was a young man who worked for a retail store that was owned by a fellow Christian, and his job was that of a cashier. Although he was tender-hearted, he was also undisciplined and weak-willed, and when he was running short on funds one month, he “borrowed” from the till one day with …
How Water Means
We serve the living God, and we are to be characterized by that same life, the life which He has imparted to us. This is the basic division in Scripture—life and death. The division is not between those who know the passwords and those who do not. The division is not between those who go …
A Weekly Deadline
When we gather together, we must remember the wisdom and grace of God. In an assembly like this, there must be countless offenses, grievances, hurts, misunderstandings, and more. These are knots that should not be untied; the more we try to untie them, the worse we make it. God’s way is far simpler. Love dissolves …