Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

As we look at the state of the culture around us, we sometimes feel like we are locked in the graduate school of sin, in what appears to be some kind of demented calculus course. Believers look at this in dismay, thinking that we somehow need to come up with some sort of super-wise, uber-godly biblical answer to all of it. We want to come up with our own righteous calculus course, one where the answer key is most tidy, and entirely correct. But this is an optical illusion—what we actually need to do is take all our so-called urbane sophisticates back to kindergarten, and teach them all to draw a straight line between the carrot and the bunny. And before that can ever happen, we must come back to mere gospel. It must be a gospel with blood in it, and sap, and salt.

Midweek message on 1 Corinthians 9:24–27.

James 4:1–6You should recall that at our previous joint worship service earlier this summer, the emphasis was on two kinds of unity. The first is a unity that we are given by grace, and are called to preserve (Eph. 4:1–3), and the second is a unity that we are called to establish or build (Eph. 4:11–13). We preserve the existing unity by dealing with sin properly—resisting temptation, seeking forgiveness, and extending forgiveness. The second kind of unity is the maturity that the Holy Spirit is in the process of bestowing on us as He grows us up into the perfect man.In the message today, we need to drill down into some of the issues surrounding that first kind of unity. And that means we have to talk about sin. But I want to focus on a particular kind of sin, the kind that consistently thinks of itself as always somehow in the right. You know, sins that are common in church. This kind of sin actually causes a lot of havoc in conservative churches—far more havoc than selling cocaine does, or running a brothel, or robbing banks.

Dr. Ben Merkle delivers our midweek message on Proverbs 6:12–15."A worthless person, a wicked man,    goes about with crooked speech,13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet,    points with his finger,14 with perverted heart devises evil,    continually sowing discord;15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;    in a moment he will be broken beyond healing" (Prov. 6:12-15).

Pastor Doug preaches our midweek message on Romans 13.

Matthew 18:23–35Certain people have the uncanny ability to drive you crazy. It’s tempting to box them out of our lives, so we won’t have to deal with their antics. Forgiving someone again & again is an unappealing course of action as it means they’ve offended you again & again. However, there’s someone you’re very good at forgiving & treating with great delicacy even though they’re a good-for-nuthin’ scoundrel. That someone? Yourself!

Pastor Kirk Brower (Bridge Bible Fellowship) delivered our midweek message on Mark 8:22–26.Join the #SamePageSummer Bible Reading Challenge: https://biblereading.christkirk.com.For more resources, please visit our website: https://www.christkirk.com.

Eph. 4:1–3, 11–13As the church of God grows and increases in the world, there will be problems that are associated with that increase. You cannot have growth in this fallen world without having the associated growing pains.

Titus 2:11–15If you were to pick a word to describe the current state of affairs, what would it be? Disorder? Chaos? Fear? Confusion? A big mess? What about the current state of your own soul? Could you describe yourself as peaceful, full of joy, at ease in your conscience? Or is your inner man a hairball of guilt, shame, disordered desires, and fear of judgment? It is clear that all around us and within us things are all out of order. The nub of the matter is: how do we get things back into order?

We ascend into the heavenlies in our worship and meet with our God there (Heb. 12:22). But this heavenly worship is not something that has fearfully run away from the enemy on earth. Rather, as the book of Revelation shows in great detail, the worship of the saints in heaven accomplishes God’s judgments on earth. The twenty-four elders worship God in heaven (Rev. 4:10), and the seven seals are opened in heaven (Rev. 5:5). But this does not leave the earth untouched or unaffected.If you want to fight the culture war, you have to fight from the high ground. The only high ground we can successfully fight from is the high ground of Heaven, where our Lord Jesus is seated at God’s right hand.