You can find at least three types of people. The first group is unmotivated and unambitious people. They are not raising money for start ups and they would be terrible in your college recruitment department, “Come join our college and we will make you, slightly below average.” 

The second group has the ambition. They are eager for knowledge and success, but their whole enterprise is fueld by the wisdom from below, the kind that is earthly, sensual, envious, bitter, devilish, and riddled with strife. It is full of the pushing and pulling that marks much of the American entreprenurial spirit and the men who abide by this wisdom go home needing a whiskey, or porn, or some bit of indecent entertainment to take the edge off of their work day.

The third group is what we are aiming for and it involves the people who live by the wisdom from above. James says that this wisdom is “ first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 1:17).

The trouble is, if we are honest, we would put most of those qualities in the first group, the unproductive one. We say to God, “We’ve got two roads, Lord, which would you like us to take? We can be mediocre, a bit on the lazy side, while being pure, peaceable, gentle, and easily intreatable. Or, we can get into the fight. We know how to hustle, but you have to understand, that we will show the competition no mercy, and gentle, well, that really won’t be in the equation.”

Those who talk that way are missing what it means to live by that wisdom which comes from above. “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?” James asks, “let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13).

You say, “Look, that is impossible.” Well, it is not impossible. But it does require getting the wisdom that comes from above, where Christ has ascended.

Jared Longshore – May 12, 2024

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Men, you are called to strength. In Hebrew 11 we’re exhorted to emulate men who through faith became mighty. Out of weakness they were made strong. When fights came they waxed valiant. Out of the soil of evangelical faith grow the cedar trees of strength.

This strength isn’t isolated to our inner life; as if we can tuck away our faith in Jesus deep into some inner crypt. No, the strength that arises from faith forms throughout our body, soul, and mind. Furthermore, it must be trained and maintained through disciplined diligence. You won’t be resilient in the day of testing if you don’t practice resilience every day of your life. And fathers, you won’t have sons resembling the aforementioned cedars if you fail to teach them self-denial, endurance, and long-suffering. 

Physical strength training is a determined willingness to die. Your body desires to not do any more reps; but if you kill that desire and do one more rep, one more lap, one more drill your strength will grow. Likewise, you fight sin by getting up early each day, putting to death the desire to linger in bed, and hardening yourself with a little less sleep but a little more Scripture.

Especially in these times of madness, you men must erect walls of security around your family time and time and time again. St. Paul’s simple words embody the life of Christian faith: “I die daily.” Provide for your family by hard labor one more day. Lead them with gentle steadiness one more time. Instruct your children in faithfulness once more. Do not grow weary. This is a command. But since it’s a command of Scripture it’s also a promise. By faith in Christ, God promises that you shall go, as the Psalmist says, from strength to strength with hands trained for war.

We live in a day similar to Ezekiel’s where all hands are feeble, and all knees are weak as water. Men have abdicated and grown weary of the warfare. Our currency is devalued through the vanity of our cultural greed. Our bodies are afflicted with the diseases of unbridled appetites. Our minds polluted with wicked imaginations. Many men have lost their nerve and have capitulated to the godless despair of our age. May God forgive men who claim the name of Christ for where we have compromised and joined in the follies of our society. And may our Lord raise up men who are girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core.

Ben Zornes – May 5, 2024

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The central thing we do is worship, but it’s important to underline what we mean. Worship is not in the first instance praise; worship is surrender. The word often translated “worship” literally means to bow down or kneel, and it is often coupled with other words that mean the same thing: “Oh come, let us worship [bow down] and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (Ps. 95:6). Worship acknowledges the holiness of God and trembles before Him: “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship [bow down] at His holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy” (Ps. 99:9). 

Worship means coming into the presence of the King of the Universe at His summons and laying everything that we are before Him: “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service/worship. And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:1-2). In Christian worship, the King of the Universe summons His servants to appear before Him. We are beloved servants, but we are servants nevertheless. He has purchased us with His blood. All that we are, body and soul, belongs to Him. Our money is His, our time is His, our house is His, our children are His, our marriage is His, our work is His. This is what it means to call Him “Lord/Master.” We gather to hear His authoritative Word with reverence and godly fear, and we are sent out to obey. 

This is why worship is central. We are servants of the Lord Jesus. We are under orders. He rescued us from sin and death and Hell, and He is worthy. We are here this morning to acknowledge that. We are here to bow down before Him. We are here to say that we are completely at His service. So this is the Call to Worship. We’re about to kneel down in just a moment to confess our sins: do not just go through that motion. Kneel before Your Maker. Surrender everything to Him in true humility and say, like Isaiah, “here I am, send me.”

Toby Sumpter – May 5, 2024

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Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble. So it is not a sin to have cares and concerns. But, it is a sin to hold on to those cares and concerns. The world deals them to you. And then you must deal them to God. The Apostle Peter has said so: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). This is the plague of the prideful man: He’s doomed to carry around his cares. They are too important. And he is too important, to hand them over to any other.

Now there is a difference between casting your cares upon  mighty God, and simply unzipping your anxiety luggage before Him in prayer, only to zip it back up and take it with you after you have spoken with Him. “Why Lord, don’t I feel the freedom of being carefree?” “Well,” He replies, “That freedom would require you actually handing them over.”

You might object to this with something like, “Well, I simply want to be responsible. I want to make a plan. I like fixing problems.” That’s fine and good. The problem is not you taking responsibility. It is the weight, the stress, the worry, then the coping mechanisms, and the way you are trying to manipulate the people around you to solve whatever trouble you are all twisted up about. All of that goes away when you hand the care itself over to the Mighty One.

But, you cannot merely go to the Lord for advice about dealing with your worries. There must be an actual transaction. You must hand Him your worries, and He will hand you His peace.

Jared Longshore – May 5, 2024

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One notable distinctive of our worship is our joyful singing of the psalms. This is often one of the first things mentioned by visitors to our churches, for it is both attractive but also simply really peculiar. Now of course this is not a practice that we have made up, but is rather part of our inheritance in the Reformed tradition and as God’s people. And so this morning I want to offer two simple reasons behind why we sing psalms in our worship services. 

First, the Psalter is a divinely-inspired book of 150 songs given by God to His church. It would be foolish to neglect in our worship songs that we know God is absolutely pleased to hear. As John Calvin wrote, “when we sing psalms we can be sure that God Himself has put the words in our mouths, as though He Himself were singing in us to the praise of His glory.” The Spirit wrote these words, and so we have the privilege of offering them back to our Lord in song. 

The second reason is this: the psalms are fitting for biblical worship. The writer of Hebrews calls us to worship “with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28b–29). When put to appropriate music, the psalms are up for this task, as they most accurately reflect the character of God and His will. Following the Apostle Paul’s admonition to be “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11), the psalms offer God’s people the opportunity to sing songs that are both formal and lively, and that express a zealous and militant joy. 

If the church is to conquer the nations with the gospel, the Psalter then is an excellent battle hymnal for the frontlines—whether in corporate worship, our homes, or in the town square. 

So let us hear and heed the words of Psalm 95,
“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
and let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.” 

Shawn Paterson – April 28, 2024

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