Sermon Video Introduction: In these annual “state of the church” messages, we sometimes address our local circumstances here in Christ Church. At other times the message has addressed our ...
State of the Church 2021
Our Ebenezer Stone/State of the Church 2020
Introduction: The Lord has been blessing our congregation in many striking ways. We have been growing in remarkable ways, and an essential part of this growth entails the inevitable growing pains. Quite a few of you just moved to our community just within the last year, and it may seem to you that you have …
State of the Church 2019
Introduction: As you know, it is our custom to present a “state of the church” message every year around this time. Sometimes the message addresses the state of the church generally, as in, across the nation. At other times, like today, the message concerns particular issues that pertain to our congregation. The Texts: “And let …
Church and Kingdom, Cathedral and Town/State of the Church #7
Introduction: Remember that the Spirit moves throughout the earth, converting and restoring individuals, fashioning them into saints, into believers. As His fruit is manifested in them, one of those fruits is self-control, self-government, or self-mastery. This self-government is the basic building block for establishing non-tyrannical governments in the other spheres that God has established among …
Sexual Sanity/State of the Church #6
Introduction: We are living in a time of sexual bedlam, sexual madness. The frenzy that has captured the Western world has many manifestations—open marriages, pornography, same sex mirage, robo-sex, trannies, and worse. My point is not to get into all these deviations in order to attack or refute them point by point. My point is …
Huguenot Hustle/State of the Church #5
Introduction: According to Scripture, a spiritual man is one who walks in step with the Spirit in this material world (Gal. 5:16). A spiritual man is not an ethereal man, or a wispy man, or a semi-transparent man. A spiritual man is never a worldly man (1 John 2:15), but he most certainly is a …
The Meaning of Love and Justice/State of the Church #4
Introduction: The central difficulty with the great idol of the collective, the false god of statism, is that we have wanted to substitute the word of man for the Word of God. We want to define love according to our own lights. We have wanted to define justice without reference to biblical law, and this …
Membership, Like-mindedness, and Loyalty/State of the Church #3
Introduction: As we build these new city walls in the midst of a ruined and ruinous old order, we will be attacked in ways that seek to divide us. We will be accused of being cultic, in thrall to charismatic “leaders.” But the Scriptures do require us to cultivate like-mindedness, and also require us to …
Alternative City Walls/State of the Church #2
Introduction: The need of the hour is for the church to help establish a defined counterculture. This requires much more than defined denominational boundaries, or sectarian carve outs. There needs to be a defined center (worship) and a defined mission field (the world). In order to accomplish this, we need brick and mortar to build …
Our Culture, What Remains of It/State of the Church #1
Introduction: Instead of a stand-alone “state of the church” message this year, as has been our custom, I want to spend a number of weeks on the topic. Lord willing, I intend to drill down into the subject, and I trust that the reasons for doing so will become increasingly apparent as we work through …