Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

We do not bring our children along through this service with the end goal simply being keeping them quiet by all means possible – even if it feels that way sometimes. They are with us because we want our children to grow up in the Lord, worshiping him with all the saints from their earliest memories.

INTRODUCTIONOne very common problem that Christians have in their Christian lives is the problem of spiritual clutter. Many Christians don’t know what to do with various unresolved sins and problems, and so they do nothing. Over time these problems accumulate, and before long there is a real mess.You have seen this phenomenon in various places, have you not? It happens in closets, it happens in your junk drawer, it happens in your home’s designated fright room, it happens at the back of your garage, it happens when your garden fills up with weeds, and so on. Why wouldn’t it happen in your spiritual life? It certainly will if you let it.“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).So one of the first things that Christians should learn is this. They need to learn to deal with the sin . . . of not really dealing with sin. If we are told to lay aside every weight, then it would be a sin not to. If we are told to deal with the sin that “so easily besets” us, then it would be a sin not to.ON NOT KIDDING YOURSELFSo the first thing to realize is that confession of sin is an ongoing necessity. I described the problem as being one of spiritual clutter, but the thing about clutter is that you get used to it as it accumulates. You begin by thinking that perhaps your life is “a little untidy,” and then move on to excuse the fact that it looks like a bomb went off in your conscience, and by the end of the process your conscience looks and smells like a closet at the crazy cat lady’s house.So ongoing and regular confession of sin is a necessity for everyone. What must you do if you want a garden filled with weeds? What you need to do is absolutely . . . nothing. Just let it ride.We know that sin can accumulate in this way because of the way Scripture speaks of it. If we just go on in our own fashion, we will get used to how disheveled we are. But if we look into the looking glass of Scripture, we will there see our true condition. We don’t learn that true condition by means of morbid introspection—we learn our true condition through faithful and submissive Bible reading.As James puts it:“But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25).No one should ever simply assume that he is “doing fine” simply because the roof hasn’t fallen in yet.“If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” (Psalm 130:3).Scripture tells us our true condition.“If they sin against thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them . . .” (2 Chronicles 6:36; Job 4:18-19)And the apostle John sums it up.“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us . . . If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8, 10).Suppose someone is learning how to do maintenance on his car, and he is told to change his air filter every 12 to 15,000 miles. Suppose he were to raise the earnest question of whether he still would have to do this if the filter hadn’t gotten dirty. The problem with this young man is that he doesn’t know what kind of a world he is living in.WHAT TO DOThe way to deal with the effects of such accumulated guilt through sinning is by means of confession.“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).This is a glorious promise, so let us take a moment to consider it carefully. In this verse, we are described a certain way, and then we are to do something. In addition, God is described as being a certain way, and then He does something.We are described as sinful (we cannot confess sins unless we actually have some). So we are described as sinful, and what we are told to do is confess. God is described as being faithful and just, and what He does is forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We are sinful, and He is righteous. We do the confessing, and He does the cleansing.So what is it to “to confess”? The Greek word that is rendered here as confess is homologeo, a very interesting compound word. The first part, homo, is the Greek for same. The logeo is a verb that means to speak. Consequently, homologeo means “to speak the same thing,” or putting it another way, to acknowledge.If Scripture calls it a lie, and you call it mild prevarication, that is not confession. If Scripture calls it adultery, and you call it infatuation, that is not confession. If Scripture calls it theft, and you call it requisitioning, that is not confession. The reason it is not confession is that it is dishonest.So the central issue in confession of sin is honesty.“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).A paraphrase of this therefore would be that people who are dishonest about the way they are living are people who will not flourish, who will not prosper. The alternative is what is promised to the honest—honest confession and honest forsaking results in mercy. This mercy means that God is blessing that man.THE BLESSING OF FORGIVENESS“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Psalm 32:1–2).Forgiven transgression is the blessing of God. To have sin covered is the blessing of God. To not have iniquity imputed to you when it easily could have been imputed to you is the blessing of God.But not that descriptor—“in whose spirit there is no guile.” Honesty before God is the ticket. And even there, remember that if God were to mark iniquities in our confessions no one could stand.“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1–2).This is why, at the end of the day, all our sins must be confessed in Jesus’ name.

INTRODUCTIONThe aim of this sermon is to remind you all that there is absolutely no one who can condemn you. And that message of “no condemnation” has a purpose. The purpose is not merely to leave you feeling happy, though happy it should leave you. The purpose is to increase your joy and confidence so that you would be bolstered in your conquering.THE TEXT“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:31–39).NO ONE TO CONDEMNThe passage tells us that there is no one to condemn us. But that does not mean that there is any shortage of those who will try to condemn us. And these attempts come in various forms and from many directions.DO MORE THAN CONQUERBeing justified, we are then more than conquerors. We not only conquer. We do more than conquer. The conquering is extensive, which means that the things which need to be conquered are extensive.IT IS CHRISTColossians 1:17 says that by Christ all things consist. Christ holds all things together. And your justification is one of those things that Christ holds together.

A return to faithful and biblically ordered worship of the God of Abraham is our nation’s only hope.

INTRODUCTIONThis psalm is untitled, and it is truly a curious composition—it is a scriptural mosaic. Most of this psalm is laid together like tiles from other portions of Scripture. One scholar has said that “every verse in this Psalm either echoes, quotes or is quoted in some other part of Scripture.” Consider verse 5 (Ex. 18:11), verse 7 (Jer. 10:13), vv. 15-18 (almost verbatim with Ps. 115:4-8), verse 13 (Ex. 3:15), verse 14 (Dt. 32:26), and more. This psalm is a collage from other places which then stands alone in its own right.THE TEXT“Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord; Praise him, O ye servants of the Lord. Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, In the courts of the house of our God, Praise the Lord; for the Lord is good: Sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant. For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, And Israel for his peculiar treasure . . .” (Psalm 135:1–21)SUMMARY OF THE TEXTThe first portion of this psalm is a series of exhortations to praise God, with various reasons for this praise being given (vv. 1-14). The following section is a condemnation of idols and idolatry (vv. 15-18). The last section returns to the praise of Yahweh (vv. 19-21).Those who serve God in the house of the Lord are charged to praise Him, as He is good, and it is pleasant to praise Him (vv. 1-3). God should be praised because He chose Jacob for Himself, and placed Israel in His own jewelry box (v. 4). God is to be praised because no other god compares to Him (v. 5). He is no effeminate god—He does whatever he pleases anywhere (v. 6). He is the God of evaporation, lightning, and wind (v. 7). But He is also a political God—He is the one who struck the firstborn of Egypt, man and beast alike (v. 8). He not only threw down Egypt, but also sent tokens and wonders to Pharaoh (v. 9). He destroyed great Canaanite nations, and gave that land to Israel (vv. 10-12). God’s name is forever, and He will turn back from destroying His own people (vv. 13-14).Idolatry is nothing but wind and vanity, the service and worship of tatterdemalion gods. Heathen idols are fashioned out of metal by men (v. 15). Despite their carved mouths, eyes, ears, and mouths, they are dumb, blind, deaf, and lifeless (vv. 16-17). Those who make them are just like them—deaf, dumb, blind, and lifeless (v. 18). Those who trust them are the same. These gods are just a bundle of infirmities—these gods get to park in the handicapped spots.And then absolutely everyone who is associated with the Zion of God is summoned to gather around, in order to bless the Lord (vv. 19-21).WHATEVER HE PLEASESWhat does God do? In this psalm we are told that God does whatever He pleases, wherever He pleases. That applies absolutely everywhere. In verse 6, we are told that the Lord does whatever He pleases in Heaven, in earth, in the seas, and down in all the deep places. This is the teaching of Scripture throughout.Nebuchadnezzar knew this was true (Dan. 4:35). Solomon knew that it was true (Prov. 16:33). Isaiah vaunted over the false gods over just this point (Is. 41:23). The apostle Paul exulted in the truth of it (Eph. 1:11). He works out all things according to the counsel of His own will.So pick out a typhoon in the middle of the Pacific, and pick out one particular rain drop in the middle of that typhoon as it hurtles toward the ocean. God named that rain drop before the foundation of the world, and the precise moment it would join the ocean. He decreed the number of water molecules that it would contain throughout the course of its existence, along with the shape and contours of its surface at every instant. So be of good cheer—you are worth more than many rain drops. What on earth are you worried about?THE LORD OF EVAPORATIONThe world is not governed by natural law. The world is governed by the words of the Lord Jesus. He is the one who makes vapors ascend all over the earth (v. 7). He mixes lightning with the rain (v. 7). He has treasuries where He stores the winds, and He brings them out when it suits Him.But whether we are talking about natural processes, or the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, we are always talking about the activity of the one true Jehovah God.This is the God who selected Jacob (v. 4), who upended Pharaoh (v. 9), who speaks to the water vapors as they rise (v. 7), who saw to it that Og king of Bashan was thrown down (v. 11), and who chastises His people (v. 14). This is all the same God, the one true God.BECOMING LIKE WHAT YOU WORSHIPIdolaters shape idols in their own image, and then those idols shape the worshipers into something even more misshapen. We become like what we worship. We see this principle here with regard to idolatry, but it is also the true driver of our sanctification.“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18).Not only is it true that we become like what we are worshiping, it is also that case that whatever it is we are becoming is a true indicator of where our heart worship is. If you have a man who comes to the public worship of the triune God, and every week he sings praises to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he reads Scripture, and he says amen, and he partakes of the bread and wine, but with every passing month he gets angrier at home, and more sullen, and more given to fits of rage, then you may depend upon it—he has a small carved idol hidden in a closet somewhere. Probably some kind of angry monkey god.

This world is riddled with grief. You either have great griefs which haunt you from behind, or unforeseen griefs yet to face, and likely both. Of course, there’s the grief that comes from your sin and its consequences, but I want to talk particularly about the grief that you face just by doing business in this fallen world.

Can you know for certain that you are saved? Can you know for certain that you have eternal life and that when you die, you will be with Christ forever? The Bible says that you can know. In fact, 1 John is one of places in the Bible full of the promises of assurance of salvation.

Sing like you are in the heavenly choirs: because you are. Sing loud. Sing exuberantly. Belt it out. Is there injustice in the land? Are there people plotting against God’s people? Then sing out.

Our covenantal relationship with God is a relationship that is tied completely around with blessing. The servants of the Lord are called and summoned to bless the Lord, and in return the Lord blesses us out of Zion. One of the characteristic notes of this psalm is that it is filled with blessing.

It's certainly possible to overload and crash, but where are all those warnings in Scripture?Listen to the full message, 'Go to the Ants' in the CRF series on this app.