Introduction: When these precious doctrines of ours—referring to the absolute sovereignty of God over all things—are twisted in such a way as to perpetuate gloom, severity, introspection, accusations, slander, gnat-strangling, and more, the soul is never safe. The doctrines of grace are doctrines of gladness. But whenever God delivers His people in any remarkable way, …
Calvinism 4.0/Biblical Absolutes and the Spirit of the Age
Introduction: In the second chapter of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar the king promoted Daniel after he had been able to interpret the troubling dream that the king had had. As a result of Daniel’s influence, Daniel’s three friends were established in the rule of Babylon. Sometime later, Nebuchadnezzar established a giant gold statue of himself in the …
Calvinism 4.0/The Sin of Sectarianism
Introduction: What I would like to do, Lord permitting, is preach a series of messages through the basic doctrines of the Reformed faith, as we understand the teaching of Scripture. This is particularly important for you if you have been attending here for many years, or if you have grown up in this church. It …
How to Worship Jesus Christ
Introduction: The apostle Paul wanted to sing in the Spirit, but he also wanted to sing with the mind (1 Cor. 14:15). In a similar way, we come here week after week to worship God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Spirit of God. But it is important for us …
Joy Unspeakable and Full of Glory/1 Peter 1
Introduction: The point of this epistle is to encourage believers to live lives of personal holiness during a time of persecution—that is, during a time when the challenge of personal holiness is beyond inconvenient. If God had wanted His people to be extraordinarily holy, the argument might go, He would have given us more help—times …
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 …
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 …
The God Who Stoops
Introduction: The message of the gospel is one that not only brings us forgiveness of sin, but also one that upends all our categories. God unmakes our tawdry pasts, and replaces them with a fresh start, a new birth, a clean slate. But He also intends to unmake our officious assumptions about what all those …
The Potency of Right Worship
Introduction: Many of the problems confronting modern Christians is that they diligently try to do the right thing . . . in the wrong categories. They try guitar fingering on a mandolin; they try chess rules on a backgammon board; they apply the rules of French grammar to English. And for us to draw attention …
500 Years of Cumulative Grace
Introduction: So we have now come to the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. What I want to do is briefly remind you of certain key elements in that Reformation, and then address the meaning of time and anniversaries. What are we doing when we commemorate things like this? Recall that 500 …