Author Archives: Pastor Tommy

On Monday we took a look at the first key in moving from Thanksgiving to Thanks-Living; that first key is to Live Thankfully.  The second key we will examine today is to Live Worshipfully.  Once the cross becomes central in our lives, worship becomes our way of living.  We live doxologically before the face of God.  We live grace-filled, gospel-saturated, God-centered lives in everything.  We worship Jesus—not only on Sunday, but every day, everywhere, and in every way.  We sing His praises in the boardroom . . . living room . . . family room . . . bedroom . . . school room . . . lunchroom . . . even the locker room! 

For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.  By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission flowing from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you.  Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

(2 Corinthians 9:12-15)                                                                                                                                       

The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon wrote, “The Lord always deserves to be praised for what He is in Himself, for His works of creation and providence, for His goodness towards His creatures, and especially for the transcendent act of redemption, and all the marvelous blessing flowing from it.  It is always beneficial to praise the Lord; it cheers the day and brightens the night; it lightens toil and softens sorrow.”

A right response to the grace we have been given is to live worshipfully, singing the praises of the One who poured out His precious blood to redeem us from all unrighteousness and to make us His very own possession.  The blood has made us all priests, and wherever we go there is ministry to do in His name.  There is no menial labor in the Kingdom of God, because our labor is for the praise and glory of the Master.  The only menial job in the world is the one where Jesus cannot be found.  Everywhere you go Jesus goes with you, so every place is consecrated for the service of our Savior.

So . . . when it comes to living worshipfully, how have you been doing?  Have you been living like the psalmist who said, “Be thankful to Him, and bless His name” (Psalm 100:4)? 

As you are preparing for your Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow with family and friends, pause for a moment tonight and remember the One who loved you enough to die hanging on a crossbeam.  He took your sins—every last one of them, past, present, and future—and nailed them to that dirty tree so that now there is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus.  This gift truly is inexpressible, so when words won’t do, let us live lives that shout to the world that Jesus is ours and we are His!

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

We have finally arrived at Thanksgiving week, and many of us we are preparing to spend some quality time with family and friends over the Thanksgiving weekend.  With all that is going on in our far too busy lives, it is easy to miss the most important aspect of this week—and that is the One to whom we are to direct our thanks.  So today and Wednesday we will look at two keys in moving from Thanksgiving to Thanks-Living that can help us keep the Main Thing the main thing, not only this week but throughout the entire year.

Live Thankfully

O give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; make known His doings among the peoples.  (1 Chronicles 16:8)

I will give to the Lord the thanks due to His rightness and justice, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.  (Psalm 7:17)

Giving thanks to the Father, Who has qualified and made us fit to share the portion which is the inheritance of the saints (God’s holy people) in the Light.

(Colossians 1:12)

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

          (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

The Gospel frees us to live thankfully.  Do you know why?  Because it frees us from the prison of self-absorption.  Self absorbed people do not live thankfully because they are simply too self-absorbed!  They sit on the throne of their lives and live for the accomplishment of their goals; their dreams; their desires; their atrophied agenda.

But this is not for you!  The grace of the Gospel reorients our lives around the Savior rather than the self.  We see Jesus as the meaning of life and the purpose for living.  To be succinct, we live cross-shaped lives.  As much as it is within our power, we love God and love people.  Whatever success we are seeking, we seek it in the service of others, rather than at their expense.  And along the way, we thank God for any and every measure of selflessness.  This is a life that is poured out for the good of others.  To live thankfully is to live generously.   

What do you have that you have not been given?  If everything we have is a gift from the hand of God (see John 3:27), how can we live in any other way than generously?  “Freely you received,” Jesus said, “freely give” (Matthew 10:8).  The more we have, the more we are in debt to the One who has given it to us and the more we should be driven to meet the physical needs of others.

It is a mistake to think the Gospel meets only the spiritual needs of the lost.  It does this, to be sure, but it also meets physical needs as well.  If it did not, how would we explain the two loaves and five fish that fed thousands instead of Jesus sending them away hungry?  How would we explain the miracles of Jesus in making the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the sick well, and the dead alive?  When we get the Gospel deep down into the marrow of our bones, we live lives marked by generosity, remembering that God loves a cheerful giver. And our hilarious good cheer is an expression of our heartfelt gratitude for His grace:

For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.  (2 Corinthians 9:12)

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Let me quickly provide the scriptural context for this title:

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  (Luke 12:32)

What a comfort to hear the voice of our Lord saying, “Fear not, little flock” as we face the countless BIG challenges of the day.  We face BIG challenges in our families.  We face BIG challenges in our finances.  We face BIG challenges in our future.  We face BIG challenges in our fitness.  We face BIG challenges in our faith.  Yet, as members of His little flock, we can face every challenge without fear.  Why?  Because we never face our fears alone, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

You see, we don’t have to look to anything smaller than God to face the waves of challenge that crash over us each day.  Why would we turn to the wisdom of the world when we have the Wisdom of eternity available to us—the Spirit of Jesus Christ?  How often we run to the wrong things, go to the wrong places, and turn to the wrong people when Jesus is standing at the ready to safely bring us through whatever challenges we are facing.  We look for safety in things that are not safe.  We look for security in places that are not secure.  We look for stability in people that are not stable. 

As members of His little flock, what we need to do in times of trouble is to remember.  We need to remember whose we are and what He has promised to do.  We need to remember the God who purchased us with His precious blood and the grace we have been given in Him.  And for those who might not realize it, this was the instruction to God’s little flock every bit as much in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament. 

When in time to come your son asks you, “What does this mean?”  You shall say to him, “By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.”  (Exodus 13:14)

We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

(Psalm 78:4)

Remembering what God has done and what He has promised to do is the key that unlocks the prison door of fear.  His Word is true, His kingdom everlasting, and His “little flock” untouchable!  There is no power in the universe that can derail the plans and the purposes of our King.  He won the final battle on Golgotha’s Hill, putting our enemy, the devil, to complete defeat.  To be sure, we still battle along the way to our inheritance, but we battle against a defanged lion who cannot do one single thing to us that God does not allow him to do.  And all that Satan is allowed to do is done for one of two reasons: God’s glory and our good.

So today, as you venture into the life God has set before you, do not fear—regardless of the challenges that are set before you. Wherever you go, He has already gone before you . . . and He continues to go with you.  As members of His kingdom our focus should be on His kingdom and not our own.  When we do we expand the reach of our cares and concerns beyond the borders of our own little kingdom to the outer edges of His, we begin loving those He loves, serving those He served, and accepting those He accepted. 

Hallelujah, what a Savior!  Hallelujah, what a salvation!  Hallelujah, what a gift to be a member of His little flock in the Lords kingdom.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Do you think that sacrificial living is reserved only for those great saints we read about in the Bible and the annals of history?  Not true!  Everyone lives a sacrificial life.  The question that must be asked and answered is this: For what are we sacrificing?

Each day is made up of countless personal sacrifices, from getting up early to staying up late and pouring ourselves out all day long.  We sacrifice for whatever has captured and taken control of our heart.  And remember, as I have said before: what rules the heart shapes the life. 

• We sacrifice on the job.
• We sacrifice for our families.
• We sacrifice to build our retirement.
• We sacrifice to buy that special outfit.
• We sacrifice to be able to fit into it.
• We sacrifice to go on that dream vacation.
• We sacrifice to get an education.

So . . . what are you sacrificing for right now?  What is the shape of your life?  Each of us could create a lengthy list of the things we willingly sacrifice for.  So the issue is not whether we are willing to sacrifice, but rather, for what are we willing to sacrifice?

Our first priority in living a sacrificial life should be found in our desire to sacrifice for the One who willingly sacrificed Himself for us. 

The soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him.  And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand.  And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”  And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head.  And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and let him away to crucify him.

(Matthew 27:27-31)

The sacrifice of our Savior was as radical as it was scandalous.  There was no worse way to die than to be nailed to a cross; we get our English word excruciating from the Latin word for crucify.  Under Roman government, crucifixion was reserved for the vilest of criminals—and never for Roman citizens, who by law could not be executed by crucifixion.  As Jesus hung on the cross, beaten, bleeding, and gasping for each agonized breath, the soldiers laughed, the spectators jeered, and His disciples hid.  Christ’s sacrifice on Golgotha’s Hill—which is the singular punctuation point in all of history—serves to inform, inspire, and ignite every sacrifice we make as His followers. 

Jesus has called every Christian to live a cross-shaped life.  When we do, we are no longer controlled by those things that were never designed by God to control us.  We fix our eyes on things above rather than earthly things (Colossians 3:2).  We live for the advancement of His kingdom rather than our kingdom.  We lay our lives down for our Savior, pursuing His purposes—rather than for ourselves, pursuing our passions.

When we sacrifice for the Savior, we live lives that echo in eternity . . . lives that will receive the ultimate acclamation: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Today’s message highlights two gifts beyond measure . . . two gifts which are a source of unimaginable comfort to all those who belong to the King of ages.

The Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory.

(Psalm 84:11)

As the sun gives light and a shield protection, the Lord will give grace and glory.  First, God gives His children grace.  This grace raises the dead sinner to life, pardons all his sins, and brings him into the family of faith.  This is the grace of justification—God the Father regards you just as if you had never sinned and just as if you had always and only done what is right!

But there is more . . . so much more!

God not only gives grace, He also gives glory.  Do you see the incredible promise in this truth?  Glory can only be realized on the other side of the grave.  So when God gives us His grace, He continues giving grace until we are finally and fully received into our heavenly estate.

Charles Spurgeon wrote:

The little conjunction and in this verse is a diamond rivet binding the present with the future: grace and glory always go together.  God has married them, and none can divorce them.  The Lord will never deny a soul glory to whom He has freely given to live upon His grace; indeed, glory is nothing more than grace in its Sabbath dress, grace in full bloom, grace like autumn fruit, mellow and perfected.

The promise inherent in God’s grace is the final state of glory.  God always finishes what He begins and what He began in you He will one day finish.  With Paul, we can be “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it” (Philippians 1:6 NKJV).  And that completed state is to be glorified.

Do you see the incredible power in this promise?  The fact that God began His work in you is the guarantee that He will finish it.  Your glorified state is not in your hands and will not be achieved in your strength.  Glory is the gift you have been promised by God, and nothing will get in the way of Omnipotence completing what it started . . . and that includes you! 

Regardless of what you are struggling with today, there is a day coming when all your struggles will end:

• Every foe vanquished.
• Every storm stilled.
• Every fire doused.
• Every obstacle overcome.
• Every sickness cured.
• Every problem solved.
• Every Jordan crossed.

God is not finished with you yet.  And if He chooses to bless you through sunshine or rain . . . clouds or clear skies . . . pain or pleasure, you are being perfected for that great day of perfection. 

To know that God never gives grace without glory is to know that a day is coming when there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more sin, and no more death.  What once was will no longer be, as the saints glorified by His grace will reign with Him forevermore!

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Have you ever considered it to be a great blessing to be the bearer of another’s burdens?  If you never have, please read on.

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

(Galatians 6:2)

No ambiguity in this Scripture; every child of God is called to help others carry their burdens—and in so doing, to fulfill the law of Christ.  One of the blessings given us in this call is the fact that we are given countless opportunities to obey it!  Do you know why?  It’s because everyone is carrying a burden—and that includes you and me.  Everyone we meet is in the middle of their story, and most of them are laden with fresh burdens they need help in shouldering.

• The burden of loneliness
• The burden of loss
• The burden of fractured families
• The burden of wayward children
• The burden of sickness and disease
• The burden of being betrayed
• The burden of being out of work
• The burden of working too much
• The burden of not enough money
• The burden of too much money
• The burden of painful providences

These burdens, and so many more, are the common life experience for every one of us.  Peter cautioned us, “Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12).  While life on this side of glory will be filled with burdens, God never designed us to attempt to carry them alone.

My beloved pastor Tullian likes to remind us that God did not save us only from our sin; he also saved us from our solitude. We were saved by God to community—the community of faith, where we are to lay down our lives for each other.  The more we are oriented toward others (rather than toward self), the more easy it is to come alongside someone and share their struggle.  One of the great blessings of bearing the burdens of others is the way it shifts our focus away from ourselves.  And that is always a good thing.     

But the greatest blessing of bearing others’ burdens is found in the way we become more like our Savior.  Jesus bore the burden of the demands of the law because we could not do it.  Jesus bore the burden of the demands of God’s judgment because we could not do it.  Jesus bore all of our burdens and continues to bear them.  His words of burden-bearing are a constant source of comfort to us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

This precious promise is not only fulfilled when we are weary and burdened with our own burdens, but also when we are exhausted from bearing the burdens of others.  Burdens bring our limits to the surface, and our limits magnify the limitless power of our God, who gives us what we need to do what he commands.  We are never more like our Lord than when we are carrying the burdens of others.

So . . . who in your life right now needs help in shouldering a burden?  What’s holding you back from carrying it?  God never calls us to do something without equipping us to get it done, and that includes carrying burdens.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

For all those who have spent any time at “rock bottom,” I promise you today’s message will be a source of great comfort and encouragement for you. 

The eternal God is you dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.  And he thrust out the enemy before you and said, Destroy. (Deuteronomy 33:27)

If the eternal God is your dwelling place, then when you find yourself at rock bottom know this: you are still standing on the Rock—and His name is Jesus Christ.  No matter how far you fall, His everlasting arms will be there to cradle you.  You cannot fall so far that He is not still underneath you.  The Savior is your support, regardless of the circumstances in which you find yourself. 

• Are you under the weight of financial misfortune?  He is underneath you still.
• Are you under the weight of trouble at the office?  He is underneath you still.
• Are you under the weight of sickness and disease?  He is underneath you still.
• Are you under the weight of difficulties in your marriage?  He is underneath you still.
• Are you under the weight of rebellious children?  He is underneath you still.
• Are you under the weight of the snares of sin?  He is underneath you still.

His arms never grow tired or weary, but continually provide strength and support.  When you find yourself as low as you can possibly go, you are eternally sustained in His everlasting arms. 

The blessing of rock bottom is to know that you are still standing on the Rock.  When you feel you are at your lowest, He is lower still, holding you up with His everlasting arms.  He provides comfort and strength for every battle you face.  When the flesh takes you low, He is lower still.  When the devil takes you under, He is underneath.  When the world takes you down, He is down under!

What a promise for the child of God, that there is no sinking past our Savior! “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). 

There is safety even in the grave, if you are an adopted child of God.  The grave cannot hold you, because His everlasting arms are underneath the grave, doing two things at once: preventing us from going further down and propelling us into the presence of our Lord. 

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!   

The Bible tells us that the human heart is the “control-center” of life: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).  In other words, what rules your heart shapes your life!

What is ruling your heart and shaping your life these days? 

For some, empty emotions—such as doubt, fear, or anxiety—have taken hold of their hearts and are shaping their lives.  For others, vain pursuits—such as power, prestige, or prosperity—have taken hold of their hearts and are shaping their lives.  Still others find that the applause of man or the affection of another have taken hold of their hearts and ultimately are shaping their lives.  To be sure, the possibilities are as limitless as the depths of our sinful, self-absorbed, and self-centered hearts.

But this is not for you!  Colossians 3:15 gives us the key to penetrating a sinful heart that is ruled by anything smaller than Jesus: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”  This peace finds its power in one overwhelming Gospel truth: this peace is His peace!

The peace of Jesus is not found in silver and gold . . . not in power and prestige . . . nor in honor and high society.  When Jesus walked this earth on His way to Golgotha’s hill, His estate was one of abject humiliation, for He had no earthly estate to give to His disciples.  He frankly admitted, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). 

It was the peace of Christ that overcame the temptations of the devil, the betrayal of Judas, the desertion of His disciples, the false accusations of the religious leaders, the denials of Peter, and the taunting of the crowds as He hung on the cross.  This is the peace that we have been given through faith in the Prince of Peace. 

You see, the peace that is to rule our hearts and ultimately shape our lives will never found in the stuff of life.  It will only be found in our Savior.  He warns us all, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19, 21).

It is only the peace of Christ that is unaffected by the circumstances of life.  Storms cannot disrupt it.  Trials will not disturb it.  Challenges do not dislocate it.  This is the peace that passes all human understanding, and it will guard your heart (Philippians 4:7).  Our natural, sinful nature would rather try to find our peace in something tangible.  But our new nature is empowered by the same peace that propelled the Prince of Peace.  And this is the peace that is to rule our hearts and shape our lives. 

This peace empowers us to care about more than the cares and concerns of our own lives.  This peace allows us to lay our lives down and lift others up.  This peace frees us to come out of hiding—to emerge from behind every flimsy fig leaf, knowing that God has accepted us in His beloved Son.  A heart that is ruled by the peace of Christ is shaped like the cross: loving God (vertical) and reaching out in love to others (horizontal).

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Are you focused more on yourself . . . or your Savior?  What would those closest to you say about you?  If we watched a video of how you spent this past week, what would we conclude about your focus?  One of the best ways to answer this question is to take an inventory of your thinking during those times when you have nothing much to think about.  I know that sounds contradictory, but it really isn’t.  When you have nothing pressing to think about, where does your mind wander off to? 

By nature we all think far too much about ourselves and far too little about our Savior.  We think about our goals, our desires, our ambitions, our wants, our preferences, our position, our power, our prestige, and our place at the table.  Self-rule is the order of the day as we seek to further our agenda and our kingdom instead of His agenda and His kingdom. 

The cure for slaying this stronghold is found only in the Gospel.  The Gospel is the story of One who was so other-oriented that He willingly set aside all the glory of the King of kings and laid His life down for others.  His life is the model for all those who are children of the Master. 

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  (Philippians 2:1-11)

The Gospel tells us that service is the key that unlocks the stronghold of self-focus.  When we are focused on others and looking to their interests, we have no time to focus on ourselves.  Putting others first enables us to go to the back of the line and forego the chief seats.  This is what Jesus has done for us.  Is it not right that we do the same for others?

When we in humility count others more significant than ourselves, we are not thinking less of ourselves; we are simply thinking of ourselves less.  By the power of the Gospel we fulfill the two greatest commandments: loving God and others.  And when we fail—which we do daily—we run to Jesus for the complete cleansing of perfect and pervasive forgiveness that His blood provides.  Daily reminders of our forgiveness in Christ free us to focus more on Him and the countless Gospel benefits we have been given.  And one of the most precious of these benefits is the privilege of serving Him and others!   

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN! 

Throughout Scripture we find “Rock” used as a metaphor for God.  Primarily it conveys His immutability—His inability to change in His essential nature and character.

The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.  A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.  (Deuteronomy 32:4)

Presbyterian minister and Bible commentator Matthew Henry rightly observed, “God is the rock, for he is in himself unchangeable, immovable, and he is to all that seek him and run to him an impenetrable shelter, and to all who trust in him an everlasting foundation.”  To know that God cannot change should be a source of great comfort to you today.  When everything around us is changing at incredible speeds, God is the same today as He was yesterday and will be forevermore (Hebrews 13:8). 

Rocks and stones are quality building materials because of their solid, unbreakable strength.  They serve as one of the best foundations upon which to build.  God our Rock serves as the absolute ultimate foundation upon which to build, in both life and death. 

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.  (Matthew 7:24-27) 

To be sure, the stability of a rock speaks to the faithfulness of our God.  In a world marked by deceit and inconstancy, we have a God who is unwavering, unshakeable, and eternally faithful to the promises He has made. 

He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.  (2 Peter 1:4)

Jesus as our Rock . . . simply rocks!  He rocks by being for us.  He rocks by being with us.  He rocks by being in us.  He rocks because He is the Rock of Ages.  Our Rock laid His life down for us that we might live.  And when Jesus said it was finished, He meant what He said.  He uttered His victory shout from the cross, and the earth shook! There is nothing we can add to the finished work of our Rock.

He has done it all, and all we need do is remember and rest in this Gospel-saturated truth: “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).  Make no mistake, our Rock rocks!!!!!!!!!

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!