Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

In times like ours, there is a lot to worry about, is there not? If we are not worried about the coronavirus killing us dead, we are worried about panicked overreactions to the coronavirus killing our businesses dead. And so we like to think that our situation is somehow unique. We live in the modern age, and so our worry or anxiety is somehow justified. But it isn’t.Across many historical studies, before the modern era about a quarter of all children did not survive their first year. Another quarter of them did not make it past puberty. And from around 1500 to 1800, general life expectancy was somewhere between 30 and 40 years old. So tell us some more about your great troubles, Methuselah. You might not make it to a thousand?

A mid-week sermon from Pastor Toby Sumpter.

This psalm is the first in a series of fifteen psalms, called from ancient times psalms of ascent, or psalms of degree. What this means is frankly lost to us, but there have been reasonable speculations. John Calvin thought it had to do with the musical pitch of the psalm. A medieval rabbi said that the temple had fifteen steps, one psalm per step. I favor the view that argues that these are pilgrim psalms. When Israelites went to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple, they were going up (Ex. 34:24; 1 Kings 12:27).

A mid-week sermon from Dr Ben Merkle.

The church is the “worshiping assembly,” and her mission is to call the nations to worship God. But worship is not only our goal; it is also one of the chief means for achieving that goal. Worship is not a retreat from the church's work of conquest. Worship is a fundamental “strategy” of the church militant.During this time of the coronavirus scare, we are being told that our worship services are somehow “non-essential.” In actual fact, it is the most essential activity of our lives. As we assemble before God now, we want to be pleading with Him to rise up and vindicate His name. Without Him, we are all of us nothing.

Unless God humbles him, man won’t be humbled. Mankind has a hyperextended elbow from patting himself on the back. We look upon all the undeserved blessings which God has bestowed—our health, our financial stability, our routine, our safety, our full cupboards—and assume He owed them to us. Scripture is full of illustrative warnings against assuming the blessing of God as automatic (cf. Jdg. 7:2). If it is something God owes us then it is no longer grace. But if it is a gift, then the only thing to do is to humbly receive it all as grace upon grace.

Consistent Christian are not anarchists or scofflaws. We are gathered together today in this particular way precisely because we are not scofflaws. Every Christian who reads his Bible knows and understands that we are supposed to submit to the authorities that God has placed over us. What every Christian does not know, however, is that there are various understandings of how we are to do this. So yes, this is what we are to do. But how are we to do it? Are there different approaches to this assigned task?

There is a long tradition in the Christian Church in which ministers of the gospel delivered sermons that were directed to kings and governors and judges. Moses preached to Pharaoh. Jeremiah was called by God to preach to nations and kingdoms. Paul preached to a number of Roman Governors. John Calvin dedicated his Institutes of the Christian Religion to the King France. And you can read whole collections of sermons from early American preachers full of messages to the governors of the colonies. So, Mayor Lambert, Counsellors Bettge, Kelly, Laflin, Sullivan, Taruscio, and Zabala, this message is respectfully for you. The Bible is clear that Christians owe magistrates honor and obedience in the Lord. And the Bible is equally clear that we are to pray for all who are in authority, and this is with the goal that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.

In the Garden of Eden, when God shaped the first man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), the Almighty was simply playing the part of a sculptor. He shaped Adam from the dust of the ground, but until the second half of the verse, this Adam was simply dust rearranged. After the semblance of a man had been fashioned out of dust, God breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life,” and it was then that man became a living soul. The dust was still there, but something else was not present. The image of God was now present.But that image was soon to be marred. Despite the warning of God that if he ate the forbidden fruit he would “surely die,” our first father disobeyed, and in the curse was dragged back down to the dust of the ground. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19).

n the Garden of Eden, when God shaped the first man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), the Almighty was simply playing the part of a sculptor. He shaped Adam from the dust of the ground, but until the second half of the verse, this Adam was simply dust rearranged. After the semblance of a man had been fashioned out of dust, God breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life,” and it was then that man became a living soul. The dust was still there, but something else was now present. The image of God was now present.