We resume our Romans series for the New Year:

Why Put Christ First? (Rm 5.6)

A continuing look at William Tyndale’s Prologue to Romans:

Tyndale on Romans (2)

Our monthly communion message out of Leviticus

An Acceptable Sacrifice (Lev 22.17-34)

See our new Sermons Page for this Sunday’s Sermon Summaries.

The conclusion of our Christmas Series, The Word made Flesh:

The Word Received

Our first look at Tyndale’s Prologue to Romans:

Tyndale on Romans (1)

A message on Christian Living by our pastor’s son, Duncan Johnson:

The effects of the truth on Christians

We updated Our Sermons page on our church web-site. We are using a new look plug-in for handling our sermon files.

We are still tweaking the setup a bit, but we think it will be a big improvement to our old system. It will definitely be easier to use from our end. The plug-in picks out sermon title, speaker, and other metadata items automatically. Just a few clicks to upload and we are done.

From the web-user’s point of view, the new plug-in will allow filtering by date, speaker, series, Bible book, or any combination you like. We do have a new feed for any who might be interested.

Any other church leaders who like the look of the plug-in can find it for their own use here.

For any interested in my outlines, I have uploaded my notes on the Psalms to date here.

I have been posting our Sunday service summaries here since we started this blog. We haven’t been recording our Wednesday studies, but some have inquired about our notes (we are going through the Psalms). Also, we had a few who were unable to attend this last week, so we decided to record last night’s study.

I thought I would post the summary for this Wednesday in case anyone is interested. I may publish the notes to our previous studies in the Psalms later, but for now we will put them up going forward. I am not sure if I will put the weekly summary up on oxgoad, but if you would like to follow our church RSS feed, you can find it at gbcvic.org.

The Psalms have been an especially blessed study for us. I am not offering my normal preaching style for these studies, it is more of a question answer session. We are trying to help our people learn how to read the Psalms for themselves. So I ask questions about key details I want our folks to see so they can get the flow of the psalm and a bit of the emotional impact of the poetry.

Here is this week’s installment:

O God, do not remain quiet [Psalms]

Ps 83

Psalm 83 is the last of the psalms of Asaph, probably written by members of the Asaph choir. The psalm calls on God to thoroughly rout the enemies surrounding His people. The prayer looks far beyond the original circumstances to the final miraculous victory God will provide for Israel when he overthrows all enemies, ushers in the kingdoms and causes the nations to seek Him.

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Access Into This Grace [Romans]

Rm 5.2

Besides peace with God (Rm 5.1), the blessings of justification include the blessings of permanent access to permanent standing in the presence of God and the hope of eternal presence in perfect communion with the glorious God who made us. This is something worth boasting about!

The Inheritance of Sin (2) [Basic Theology]

We continue our lesson on inherited sin with a look at the penalty for it, the transmission of it, the remedy for it, and some attacks against the doctrine. The teaching of the Bible is that man inherited his sin nature from his father, Adam, that he is thus totally depraved, corrupt in every part of his being, and in desperate need of righteousness he cannot produce or obtain by his own efforts.

Keeping Constant against Error [1 Timothy]

1 Tim 1.1-7

In this message, we look at ground we have already covered in 1 Timothy. We emphasize a major theme of the book, calling pastors and leaders to a vigilant ministry against error and foolish teaching that might crop up in the church. The opening paragraphs are an echo of Paul’s farewell message to Ephesus, Ac 20.28-31. His urgency to Timothy is an urgency every member of the church needs to receive and share: put a stop to error and false teaching creeping into the church.

I Saw the Lord [Guest Speakers]

Tom Nieman

Isa 6

Our speaker for Thanksgiving Day (Monday, Oct 11) is pastor Tom Nieman, retired pastor of Galilee Baptist Church in Kent, WA. He preached two messages for us this morning as well.

Pastor Nieman’s first message comes to us from Isaiah 6, a passage in which we find Isaiah’s motivation for enduring in the ministry in the midst of a people whose hearts were far from God. Isaiah’s day was not unlike our day. Our motivation needs to come from the same kind of vision of God that Isaiah had. Our God is over all, evil shall not triumph in this world.

The Glory of the Son [Guest Speakers]

Tom Nieman

Jn 17

Pastor Nieman’s second message presents our Lord, having just washed his disciples feet, kneeling at His Father’s feet, praying for the restoration of his glory and the positioning of His disciples in Him – glorified by our position and exalted together in Him by His love. We are finding Pastor Nieman to be ‘the preacher of glory’, a theme that clearly has stirred his heart.

The Pastor’s Goal [1 Timothy]

1 Tim 1.5

Paul’s first instruction to the pastor is to command men not to teach false doctrine or foolish doctrine. If a pastor faithfully fulfills this instruction, he is often seen as negative, unloving, unpastoral. Yet it is this very command that has as its goal the production of mature Christian love out of the direct fruits of correcting error – a pure heart, a good conscience and unfeigned faith.

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Tomorrow promises to be a great day at our church – we expect several visitors. Pray that the service may go well and the Lord will work in hearts!

We’ll post tomorrow’s message sometime late in the day.

So Abraham Believed … So What? [Romans]

Rm 4

Our message today summarizes the arguments of Romans 4. We have been in this chapter almost 4 whole months, analyzing the argument in detail. But we don’t want to give the impression that Christianity is just a matter of having the right doctrine. Right doctrine is the foundation of right living. Abraham’s faith was the foundation for his spiritual life, just as our faith is for our lives as well.

Christ’s Teaching Concerning Sin (5) [Basic Theology]

We conclude our summary of Christ’s teaching concerning sin with this lesson. In it we see some of the consequences of sin, teaching concerning the forgiveness of sin, and a section called ‘the eschatology of sin’.

Perfect in Conduct and Person [Leviticus, Communion]

Lev 21

Our chapter this month provides some more specific rules concerning priestly qualification and conduct. The regulations imply the weakness of the Aaronic priesthood and call for the coming perfect priesthood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

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We had an incident of vandalism at our church on Friday evening. Someone stole an excavator a contractor was parking on our property (temporarily). He used it to destroy our storage shed and dig huge holes in our back yard. Then he destroyed the fence between our property and the neighbouring school, finally halting when he broke part of the hydraulics by tangling himself up in some aluminum soccer goals. We are thankful that no serious damage occurred to our main building. The incident certainly illustrates the needy hearts that surround us every day.

In church, I had the joy of talking to a young lady who seems to have been born again recently. She was raised in a Catholic home, but the Lord has opened her eyes to the truth of the gospel and she has accepted the Lord as her only Saviour.

We also were visited by a man who has turned his back on the bike gangs and wants to follow the Lord. What a blessing to see him opening up to a couple of our men. He is taking steps to learn how to follow the Lord. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve him in teaching the Scriptures and extending the right hand of fellowship.

A great day in the Lord’s house, I’d say, in spite of the challenges the vandalism presents.

God’s Gospel [Romans]

Rm 4.25

The focus of this message is on what God did to Christ in order to accomplish our justification. The words of our text present a dramatic picture. God delivered over the Son [same word as ‘betrayed’ when used of Judas] because of our offenses [a word describing sin as a fall beside the road – but not just a little stumble, a collapse off the cliff]. God, in essence, threw his Son off the cliff because man threw God off the cliff long ago. And God raised his son because of our justification – to show that he was satisfied with the sacrifice and to enable the Son to intercede on our behalf.

What a God! What a Saviour!

Christ’s Teaching Concerning Sin (4) [Basic Theology]

In this lesson we conclude looking at some categories of sin and some sources of sin as taught by our Lord. The Lord’s teaching concerning sin is comprehensive and certainly mirrors all the apostle’s taught. The teaching of the apostle’s is not inferior and no less inspired since they were chosen by God to be God’s mouthpiece in the world after the Lord departed. But the knowledge that the Lord himself teaches in concert with the apostles bolsters our confidence in the entire Biblical theology of sin.

25 Surprising Marriages and Will Medicine Stop the Pain? [Book Reviews]

Another pastor mentioned to our pastor that he used one evening service a month for book reviews, in order to help his people find disciple-building material for themselves. Taking that suggestion to heart, this is our first attempt.

25 Surprising Marriages is a book that looks at 25 well-known Christians and their marriages. The focus is on the biography of the men and women as a couple. The benefit of this book is seen in its cumulative effect rather than in any one biographical sketch found in the book. Well worth reading and making some mental notes concerning what it took for these men and women to succeed (if they did) and then to make comparisons with one’s own marriage.

Will Medicine Stop the Pain? is a book that deals with problems in the inner man like depression, anxiety, brain disorders and cognitive problems resulting from head injury and the like. The book emphasizes that man is a two part being. We need to be sure that we are thinking right in our hearts. We need to be cautious about the use of psychiatric medicine because it can only deal with the emotional symptoms and can’t deal with the root spiritual causes of emotional pain.

Read the reviews in manuscript form.

Also published on oxgoad here and here.