Introduction We wanted to begin this series of messages on bedrock discipleship by grounding everything we believe on the teaching of Scripture. We want everything we hold on this to be established by the Bible, and to ensure that this is so, we need to be biblically literate people. When we come to the Scriptures …
Bedrock Discipleship: Testimony
Introduction We are evangelical Christians, and so we are very familiar with the word testimony. We have heard a good many of them. But we are also reformational Christians, and this means that a number of us grew either weary or suspicious of the practice because of how it has been mishandled so regularly in …
Bedrock Discipleship: Bible Reading
Introduction Many of you were kind enough to fill out the survey on Bible reading that we sent out to the congregation. The results were of a nature to delight a pastor’s heart—which they certainly did. About ninety percent of you read the Bible either daily or multiple times weekly. That’s a good business, and …
Strangers in Your Midst
Introduction: From the beginning, the Christian faith has been at home in cosmopolitan settings. This has worked in two basic ways. One is when God’s people are living together in a way that truly honors God, and He blesses their land. When this happens, others are attracted to that blessing, and they want to come …
Working on a Building III
Introduction Water brings life, and living water more so. We have spoken before on the importance of “assuming the center,” and one of the central ways to do this is to create a place where living water can flow. Water is a gathering force. The Text: “Afterward he brought me again unto the door of …
Working on a Building II
Introduction A basic truism of modern design is that form follows function. This is self-evidently true, but the reason modern men have found themselves living, working, and worshiping in overgrown shoeboxes is that we have allowed ourselves to drift into a truncated and reductionist view of what our actual function as human beings truly is. …
Working on a Building I
Introduction As you know, our desire is to build a sanctuary that is more conducive to worship than the temporary quarters that God has graciously given us up to this point. Because we want every aspect of our lives to be governed by Scripture, this means that we must turn to Scripture for guidance and …
The Face of Jesus Christ
We honestly have very little idea what Jesus Christ looked like. We worship Him as the visible image of the invisible Father, and yet we do not know what that visible image looks like. What kind of visible image is that? We know what the paintings of Him look like, and they generally all have …
State of the Church 2014
Introduction It is our custom to have a “state of the church” message every year around this time. Sometimes the message has to do with the church nationally, and other times the point is more local, pertaining to our own congregation. This year I want to focus on this congregation, and the point of this …
Why Children Matter (4)
Introduction Biblical parenting is much more than a bag of tips and techniques. Techniques are helpful if you are learning to paint-by-numbers, but that is not the kind of thing we are doing when we are bringing up little children. Godly parenting is a function of becoming more like Jesus in the presence of little …