Father,
Your name is great and greatly to be praise for you have assembled your church from all four points of the compass. From Belmont to Rock Hill, York to Charlotte, we are gathered in your presence, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, presenting ourselves to you for your glory and praise.
You are our King, O God (Ps. 44:4) and while other rulers govern our earthly affairs, your name alone we bring to …
Almighty God,
You are the fount from which every blessing pours forth. Every good thing we have comes from your gracious hand. You are the King of Heaven; and as you are our Lord and Maker, we owe you perfect obedience.
And yet none of us have obeyed you in all things. If we claimed to be in the right, our own mouths would condemn us. (Job 9:20) Father we agree with your Word that …
INTRODUCTION
As I write this letter, many of you have already cast votes in the 2024 election. I know this because many of you have sent pictures of you and your kids standing in line at the polls. Praise God. This week, I want to exhort you to prayer and preparation for the future. First, prayer.
PRAYER IN TROUBLOUS TIMES
Essentially, the Old Testament book of Habakkuk is the record of one man’s prayers and …
Our God and Father,
Unto you, O Lord, do we lift up our souls. (Psalm 25:1) Your name endures forever, and your renown goes through all ages. (Psalm 135:13)
You are the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. (1 Timothy 6:15-16)
Yet your eyes are in every place keeping watch on …
Charles Spurgeon once remarked, “Words are not the essence but the garments of prayer.” In a similar fashion, Francis of Assisi is reported to have said, “We should not seek so much to pray but to become prayer.” I would add that if a Baptist minister and a Roman Catholic both say the same thing there may just be some truth to it. What I believe Spurgeon and St. Francis are teaching us is this: …
The third of the 10 Commandments declares:
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
To take the name of the Lord in vain means to use God’s holy name as if it were cheap or worthless. How is this done? Human beings take the name of the Lord in vain when they curse God, …
The first of the 10 Commandments declares:
You shall have no other gods before me.
This commandment is the foundation for every other law God gives because this command declares God to be the ultimate foundation for everything else. There are no other gods, therefore we ought not to treat any other person or thing with the same adoration, trust, or respect that we give to God.
It’s good to compliment your spouse or children, …
The Lord gave his law, the 10 Commandments, to Moses on Mount Sinai. Listen to how he introduces himself as he delivered these binding commands:
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, (Ex. 34:6)
Even as he delivers iron-clad laws, he says, “I am the God of mercy.”
This is the moment in our service in …
As Bible-believing Christians, we know that we are not saved by our works. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So, we want to make sure that no one misunderstands what is about to take place.
Each week we confess our sins as a congregation. God requires that we confess our sins—but these confessions do not save us. Our repentance is not a good work that earns us merit or …
As we approach the midterm elections on Tuesday many are asking themselves, “How did our nation get here? How did we get to the point of denying what a human is or installing a Supreme Court Justice who says she can’t define the word “woman?” Abraham Kuyper tells us how we got here when he said:
In any successful attack on freedom, the state can only be an accomplice. The chief culprit is the …
