BAD RELIGION AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT GOD - The New Testament doesn’t give a detailed check list of how many times Christians must attend church. I’m still willing to stand here and tell you flat out that most Christians will do far better spiritually with more church rather than less. I’m still willing to tell you that, precisely because God won’t send a plague of frogs or locusts on your house when you stay home, we are easily duped into thinking He just doesn’t really care what we do with the Lord’s Day. But it matters, people. It matters more than all the other days put together. I don’t mean God doesn’t care about Monday through Saturday. I mean how you love and follow Him on those days is more tied to what you do with Sunday than you can ever imagine.

SAVOURING THE GLORY OF JESUS THIS SUMMER - Joy is reserved for those who pay the immediate price of obedience. It’s always been that way. Don’t be one of those Christians who lives his whole life without discovering it. So don’t just babble about following Jesus until you have taken into account what it will cost to follow Him. And then, once you’ve started, don’t let any self-determined commitments usurp your Master’s call.

BAD RELIGION AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT GOD - Let’s all decide to relish our holy commitment to being people of the Word - people who not only read our Bibles, but know what they’re doing when they have to think about what they’re reading and applying what they’re reading to how they will serve and follow and worship our Lord in the church today. Worship is tied to the Bible, not to temperament. God still speaks as to how He is to be worshiped.

SAVOURING THE GLORY OF JESUS THIS SUMMER - Jesus responds to steps of faith. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." That means He still loves to be asked and still responds to human faith and submission. His authority is a gracious authority. Bring that understanding - that faith - into every altar time, every prayer group, every home study. Keep bringing people to Jesus on your knees. There’s more power there - and more willingness - than you may think.

BAD RELIGION AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT GOD - If this is a day of missions and evangelism, then for the church, it is also a day for sacrificial loving and sending. I must love those in Newmarket enough to tell them about coming judgement and hope through Jesus Christ. Let there be no confusion on this point. I can show people the love of Christ without words. But I cannot reach them with the gospel without words. For the gospel it is necessary. Use words! And I must sacrifice to send missionaries to those I can never reach personally with the gospel. The days of darkness and ignorance are over. And that defines the meaning of these days for the church. If we fail now, we grieve the heart of God. And the blood of the lost is on our hands.

EXPOSITORY LISTENING - Fill your mind with the greatness of Christ and His promise. Starve out the crud and emptiness of the mindless media of this age. Let gratitude and love for Christ direct your listening. Yes, you can give sin dominion over you if you choose. But why choose that? Give your full attention, with all the things we’ve covered these past twenty weeks, to listening with faith to the Word of God.

BAD RELIGION AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT GOD - The real reason for God’s delay in judging sin is much more tender and much more profound than we think: 2 Peter 3:9 - “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” We still need to remember Mount Sinai. We should never live there. But we should regularly look there. Look at Mount Sinai and behold your sin in the presence of a holy God. Then come to Mount Zion, look at the millions of angels and justified saints glorifying God through Christ Jesus, and ravish your heart all over again in the amazing grace we’ve received through the blood of the Cross.

EXPOSITORY LISTENING - Imputed righteousness cleans the slate of my sin and guilt. Whatever my past was, it can no longer separate me from the presence of a holy God. God justly dealt with my genuine guilt in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross: 2 Corinthians 5:21 - “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” What a blessed exchange! We should continually rejoice in this marvellous grace. But that grace must do something deeper than make me thankful. When God saved me, He did more than just change my record. He changed my heart.

EXPOSITORY LISTENING - God calls all of us to forsake any attempt at pleasing Him apart from faith in Jesus Christ. There is a zero tolerance on God’s part to anything that minimizes the central place given to Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord. Free grace from faith in Christ and His imputed righteousness plants a seed of humble gratitude that grows in its desire to please and glorify God with our daily decisions. This whole process doesn’t happen over night, but the direction is consistently settled.

BAD RELIGION AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT GOD - Jesus died to effect an actual change in a broken relationship between a holy God and sinful people. God’s wrath against sin didn’t just evaporate in the New Testament. It was spent. God remains consistently loving and consistently holy at the very same time. This is the divine genius of Biblical redemption.