Brothers and Sisters, This past Lord's Day we reflected on the fact that there is a difference between godly repentance and superficial repentance. The difference is the work of God in us. We ever need to remember that there is joy in repentance. Spirit-given joy due to Spirit given power to turn away from sin and to turn to Jesus Christ. David Murray in his wonderful boo...

Brothers and Sisters, Naboth and Jesus: have you considered their similarities? Until I was preparing for last Sunday's sermon, I had not really thought much about how there were shadows of Christ in the life of Naboth. One of the ways in which Naboth's life pointed to Christ's was the great miscarriage of justice he endured. This reminds me of a book that a brother in th...

Brothers and Sisters, This past Lord's Day from 2 Kings 2:22 we reflected on the power and potency of God's Word. There we learned that it was not Elisha's throwing salt into the spring of water that brought life that was simply the visible sign which attended the miraculous work of Word of the Lord. It was the Word of the Lord that brought healing and life. And Elisha s...

Brothers and Sisters, A few weeks ago, during the membership course, I was asked a difficult question about one of the thorniest areas of Christian theology how do we relate to the law of God? I did not have a straightforward or succinct answer. There are two terrible troughs we can fall into. One is called antinomianism (against the law), and the other is legalism (an a...

Church Family, How do you look at your life? How do you think about when and where God has placed you? Do you think your life, with your background, experience, and present location are an accident or full of purpose? What if God has been at work from the beginning? What if God is at work in the present? What if God has been at work surrounding you with people who need to...

Church Family, What motivated the Lord Jesus Christ to leave heaven, become incarnate, and bear our curse? One word, love. Consider how Donald Macleod describes the pactum salutus (the pact of salvation) in his book Christ Crucified: The most important of these is that Christ takes our place voluntarily, and behind this lies the fact, already noted, that he came into t...

Church Family Friends, As of right now, we are planning to hold Sunday School (9:30AM) Morning worship (10:30AM) as normal, but we are watching the weather. We will make a final call on what to do about the men's training on Sunday night immediately after the morning service tomorrow. If you can help the Deacon of Services with snow removal prior to Sunday School and t...

Church Family, I'm looking forward to reading through the New Testament with many of you beginning on September1 and concluding on December 31. In this email, I wanted to give you the schedule and some tips to help you make it through the New Testament Reading Challenge (or NTRC from here on out). SCHEDULE Here is a spreadsheet of the schedule (Link). Note: I'll send ou...

Church Family, Do you love God's Word? Part of the reason that I'd like for us to undertake this challenge to read through the New Testament is because I want each of us to grow in love for God's Word. That happens, in part, by reading God's Word, and remembering afresh the love of God toward us. Take 10 minutes andwatch this testimony from Elder D.J. Wardabout receiving...

Church Family, Beginning in September I'd like for as many of us as possible to read through the New Testament together. In about 15 minutes a day, we can read through the whole New Testament from September through December (and that includes a break on Sundays, and only one chapter on Wednesdays). I was struck by the ease with which we can accomplish this as I was finis...