Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. So, the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?

Exodus 4:10-11

The exhortation this morning is an encouragement to this congregation to continue to serve God with singing. Become skilled at it. Learn the songs, understand the theory, and when you sing unto the Lord sing with all your being. 

We have a wonderful music leader in Mr. Bonet and we have skilled musicians accompanying us in worship. But it is not enough to just be here and soak it in, and even if this singing is new to you and all you can do is mumble and bumble along with your song packet, that is fine if that is you today. But take heart and look up ahead to where you are going. 

Singing appears over 400 times in Scripture with a direct command to sing given over fifty-times. Both the opening passage and psalm this morning exhorted us to sing to the Lord. 

So as Christians, we don’t have the option not to sing. And you don’t have the excuse that you are not very musically talented. As the Lord said to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth?… Have not I, the Lord?” Lord has called you into His choir, and He knows every bit about you. 

But why singing? What is God doing with Music?

Think of the children of Israel singing on the banks of the red sea. Think of Moses singing on edge of the promised land. Think of Deborah, David, Zacharias, Mary, the heavenly hosts over Bethlehem, the greeting of the saints in Ephesus and Colassae.

Singing is words said victoriously. 

Singing is the rightful response to God’s victory in our lives and in this world. 

And Song is powerful. Song is warfare. Both against sin in our lives and sin in the world.

So be thankful to be in such a musical community, but do not allow yourself to be satisfied with where you are today. Remember you will be singing before the thrown into eternity. So as the saying goes, further up and further in. Praise the Lord, for His mercy endures forever.

Zach Browning – February 11, 2024

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Ingratitude thwarts fellowship. Whether it be fellowship with God or fellowship with our family and Christian brothers and sisters, ingratitude will be like a tire with a slow leak.

In regards to our relationship with the Lord, ingratitude always comes with an accomplice or two. Lust rears its head because you aren’t grateful for the spouse God has given you. Envy arises because you refuse to thank the Lord for all that He has given you. Anxiety grabs your throat because you’ve neglected to offer up sincere praise to the Lord for the whole host of tendnermercies He’s shown you. Failure to regularly offer unto the Lord gratitude at every turn and in every season is an invitation to a whole host of other sins to come take up residence in your life.

But ingratitude also weakens earthly bonds of fellowship. A demanding husband who fails to praise his wife in the gates is a Pharaoh demanding brick without straw. A parent who gripes to their kids about how naughty they are is pouring sawdust in the gears. An employer who treats good employees by alway finding fault and never providing praise is adding a liability to his balance sheet.

Gratitude trains you to see glories and opportunities where you never saw them before. This in turn, means that being grateful is a force multiplier. Instead of finding all the faults in those around you, or grumbling about how difficult the circumstances are which God has given you, take the time this week to do two things each day. First, deliberately take a few minutes to pray to the Lord and list a handful of things you’re grateful to Him for. Secondly, on a daily basis thank someone in your life for something you appreciate about them. One last thing, be specific not vague.

Ben Zornes – February 4th, 2024

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From 1 Corinthians 13:5, “Love is not self-seeking.” If it were possible to eliminate selfishness from the world. What would that be like? Political corruption would not exist. We could elect our officials with confidence, knowing that they would govern not in their own self-interest, not in the interest of their political allies, but in the interest of the people. Their motivation would not be personal gain, but everything would stem from a heart of charity. Come to think of it, why would we need a government at all? Of course we recognize that the fallen world needs laws. What is to prevent selfishness from turning into abuse if there are no laws? But if selfishness doesn’t exist, what laws are necessary? Fear that is derived from the malfeasance of man finds no foothold. For example, should you lock your door at night? Only the selfish would want to deny another man of his possessions. What about laws prohibiting drunk driving? Only a selfish man would put the lives of others at risk for the convenience of driving home from the bar. What about getting drunk in the first place?

If you’re 21, it’s perfectly legal to sit in your house alone, and drink beer until there’s two moons in the sky. And while observing such a person would give us cause for concern, I don’t think we would immediately jump to the conclusion that this behavior is a result of selfishness. Our default would be to say something like, “He’s depressed.”

But the selfish person takes the blindfold, covers his own eyes, and then says, “It’s not my fault I can’t see.” Self-deception is an essential constituent of selfishness, because you have to convince yourself that you’re the only thing that matters. Your needs, your desires, your wants supercede everyone else’s. If someone is being selfish, in a family context, it manifests in a very obvious way. Dad says something like, “Who ate the last slice of pizza? Mom still hasn’t eaten yet.” But if you live alone and the bottle of vodka is your roommate and you say, “I’m not harming anyone else.” It might be depressing, but it’s not selfish to get drunk in the privacy or your own home, right?

Ephesians 5 says, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.” The drunkard living alone has a desire to get intoxicated. God does not want him to do that. But selfishness, by its very definition, doesn’t care what other people think and by extension doesn’t care what God thinks, so it’s down the hatch.

But the selfless person does care about what God thinks and if God says, “No,” then honoring his commandment takes precedence over our own desires, whether or not the sin is sanctioned by the state.
So whether it’s a surface sin, like being inconsiderate of others, or the type of sin you can commit when you’re all alone, do not neglect this truth: wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. And wherever sin casts its shadow, selfishness lurks in the darkness.

Daniel Namahoe – February 4, 2024

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Here is your exhortation in a nutshell: Killing sin is a different thing than getting into a tizzy over it. And you must not get into a tizzy over sin. Confessing sin, yes. Forgiving sin, yes. But no tizzys allowed.

By all means, let zeal for the house of the LORD consume you as it did our Savior. If the question is, “Should we not model Jesus who turned over tables at the sight of flagrant sin?” then the answer is, “Yes, indeed, we should.” But taking it to the high and mighty who slam the door of the kingdom in people’s faces is a different thing than getting fussy because a fellow covenant member slandered you or wronged you.

Now, if Eli heard this word when he was failing to restrain his vile sons, he would be tempted to misunderstand it and  misapply it. So don’t be like Eli who failed to honor God and love his sons. And remember our options are not: Neglectful Eli on the one hand and Frazzled Freddy on the other.

If you get all worked up in disbelief over the shortcoming of a fellow Christian, you can pretty much guarantee sins will start compounding.

So here is a little test for when you are considering how another Christian has missed the mark. Whether it be a sin you simply observe or a sin that has been committed against you or your children, either way, consider the Apostle Paul’s question, “What do you have that you didn’t receive?” Answer that question honestly, and your attitude toward your brother or sister will be just right. What do you have that you did not receive?

Jared Longshore – February 4, 2024

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How often do you consider the effect that your private sins—the sins you do in the dark, the sins no one knows about—how often do you consider the effect of these sins on those around you? Is there an effect? Does your secret hidden sin as an individual effect this body of people gathered in this room? This is important to consider because to be part of this fellowship, the church, the people of God, is to be covenantally bound to one another. In other words, God does not view us, King’s Cross Church, merely as individuals but as a covenantal body. 

Now consider the sin of Achan in Joshua 7. Achan defies God’s commands and keeps some of the plunder from Jericho for himself. And because of the unknown sin of this one man, God punishes all of Israel and they are defeated in battle at Ai. And it’s only once Israel puts Achan to death for his private sin, purging the evil from among themselves, that God relents from his wrath and punishment on them.

We need to remember this morning that as a body, the holiness of the parts matters for the holiness of the whole. If you are here this morning, if you are baptized into Christ, and if you proclaim to have faith in him, you belong to Jesus, and you belong to his bride. And if you choose to walk in darkness—hiding your sin, sneeking around, thinking its not that big of a deal—you are making a mockery of Christ and his bride for whom he died. You are incurring judgment on yourself and bringing reproach upon this body. 

Be assured, God is not mocked: “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17). Be assured, your going to step into the light. You’re going to have your sin exposed one way or another. It will either happen despite your best efforts to keep it hidden. Or if you would humble yourself, casting yourself upon the mercy of God this morning and bring it into the light willingly, a promise awaits you: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). 

Zach Wilke – February 4, 2024

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