Lenexa Baptist Church

In 1990 Pastor Steve Dighton and his family loaded up their belongings and made the journey from Piedmont, OK to Lenexa, KS to serve as the first Senior Pastor of the newly constituted Lenexa Baptist Church. Over the next 26 years, Pastor Steve would lead a small congregation of less than 100 people meeting in local schools, to a congregation of over 3,000 with multiple campuses. His ministry is marked by parked compassionate pastoral care, humble service, and biblical preaching. Prayerfully, these qualities continue define the ministry of Lenexa Baptist. Much of what we know here at Lenexa Baptist, we owe to the bold faith and sacrificial service of Pastor Steve. This weekend Pastor Steve will lead us in the study of God’s Word from Psalm 90. I pray that you will make every effort to join us for worship this weekend. Your attendance is a way of expressing gratitude to Pastor Steve for his faithful service to the Lord. Let’s pack every room and every service as we come with great anticipation to hear from the Lord through one of His faithful shepherds in the study of God’s Word.

— Pastor Chad McDonald

A Church for all generations. Weekly Sermons from Lenexa Baptist Church.

A Church for all generations. Weekly Sermons from Lenexa Baptist Church.

A Church for all generations. Weekly Sermons from Lenexa Baptist Church.

Paul breaks forth in glorious worship as he comes to the end of this section where he examines and works through God’s dealings with Israel. He concludes his summary of the redemptive purposes of God among both Jews and Gentiles. Then, he worships. It is a picture of how deep God’s salvation had penetrated his soul.

Prior to Christ, we picture Paul as a very constrained, narrow and unemotional man. Post-Christ, we find a man who has been stretched emotionally and breaks forth in joyful adoration and worship at the wonder and glory of God. This is the purpose of Bible study. The purpose of Bible study is not merely moral. The purpose of Bible study is not to simply to make you better. The purpose of Bible study is to bring you to a place of worship. You are meant to study and read so that you might truly know the God of all creation—the One who made you, who loves you, who saved you and who is coming again to reign. When you see Him as He is, your only response is to fall on your face in awe and cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty! Who is like the Lord our God?” True theology and Bible study should be followed by purity and morality but also by adoration and glory. As we have come to see in Romans again and again, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

I pray you will join us this weekend as we study one of the most profound and wonderful passages in all of Romans. My prayer is that all of us, both believer and non-believer, would see and taste the glory of God and the joy and peace and grace that can only be found in Him.

So much of our evangelism training today centers around the skill or the art of initiating a gospel conversation with someone. How do I navigate the daily activities and conversations of life in such a way that open a door of opportunity for the gospel? This is so important, because it reminds us that our primary mission as we go into the world is to glorify God and to point others to Christ. As we live and interact with others in this world, we pray that we would see the opportunities that God gives us and the open doors that He provides for gospel conversations.

Wouldn’t it be great, however, if the people around us were initiating gospel conversations with us, rather than us seeking to initiate conversations with them? What if our lives and the joy we have in Christ and the joy we find in fellowship with other believers were so unique and so extraordinary that those around began to experience a kind of jealousy towards us? What if the people around us, as they witnessed our lives, began to have a longing for eternal privileges that have come to us as a free gift in Christ? That is exactly Paul’s prayer for the Gentile believers in Rome. That their lives and fellowship and joy of salvation would create a kind of jealousy for spiritual things among the non-believing Jews. But this idea is predicated upon a foundational truth that we give them something spiritually in our lives that is worth being jealous of.

I pray that you will join us this weekend as we continue to walk through Romans. Make plans now to join us in one of our many worship service opportunities both on Saturday and Sunday that we may experience the riches of God’s kindness in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

— Pastor Chad McDonald

Man has a natural inclination to believe (if they believe in God) that God is gracious on the basis of something in them. This is our native disposition, even if converted and born again: that God is gracious to me because of something in me. At that point, however, we deny the graciousness of God. We begin to make contracts with God. If I do (fill in the blank), then God will be more gracious to me. And God is not gracious to others because of something in them. Paul says (this is my paraphrase), “That is not grace!” And he uncovers for us what I believe to be the most humbling and most wonderful of all truths in Scripture. That the only way of salvation is by grace. There is no other way. No other way in the Old Testament or the New Testament.

I pray you will join us this weekend. In Romans 11 Paul continues to address God’s purposes with the nation of Israel, but as he does, he will draw out principles that are relevant to all of us. Make plans today to be part of one of our weekend services as we worship the God who “abounds in riches for all who will call upon Him.”

— Pastor Chad McDonald

A bishop who served at Princeton Seminary during the 19th century was preparing to send 500 missionaries into an African country where they would risk their lives for the cause of Christ. The Bishop was asked, “Why would you send these young people to this place?” The response of the bishop was clear and simple. “Unless they go, the gospel will not go there. Unless the messengers are sent the gospel will not be heard and unless the gospel is heard they will not call upon the Lord to be saved.”

This is the normal means by which the gospel comes to us. The Gospel is God’s. It comes from God. God sends His messengers to preach the gospel. People hear the gospel; they believe the gospel and call upon the Lord to be saved. This is how the gospel comes to us, and we have no reason to believe that God is going to do it some other way. This is the reason for Paul’s urgency in Romans. Paul is clear: those outside of Christ stand in the wrath of God under the judgment of God, and apart from the gospel we have no hope that they can ever be saved. That is why it is so urgent for us to take the gospel to our neighbors, our co-workers, the person we meet in line at the store, and even to the ends of the earth. We have no foundation to believe that they can be saved any other way.

I pray that you will join us this weekend as we revisit Paul’s evangelistic zeal and passion to take the gospel to those who have not heard, for the glory of Christ. Come with prayerful and expectant hearts that the gospel will go forth even this weekend, and, having heard, someone would call upon Christ for salvation.

— Pastor Chad McDonald

Have you ever shared the gospel with someone you loved and cared about and no matter how much you prayed and shared, they just wouldn’t accept Christ? It’s heartbreaking to see someone like this reject God, attempting to earn salvation when the salvation of Christ is extended before them as a gift of grace through faith. That was Paul’s heart for the Jewish people. Paul knew the gospel. Paul knew the Old Testament, and he was absolutely heartbroken for His people to find the same freedom that he found in Christ. More than this, to find the same righteousness that he had found, not through the Law of Moses but through faith in Jesus. Paul would not give up. He continued to pray and share, hoping in the power of the Spirit and the Word of God to open blind eyes. I pray you will make plans to join us this weekend as Paul gives us an example of an evangelistic heart while demonstrating the dramatic difference between a salvation based on works and salvation through faith in Christ. Invite a friend today. Join us this weekend as we worship King Jesus in song and the study of His Word.

— Pastor Chad McDonald

At the heart of Romans 9 is Paul’s evangelistic zeal for his kinsmen according to the flesh, Israel. Israel had been given so much privilege. They were given the wonderful privileges of the Law, the promises, the glory, the covenants and temple service. How could they miss the One to whom all these privileges pointed, Jesus Christ? This was not merely some theoretical or theological issue for Paul. It was real and personal. His heart was breaking and the main question that had to be answered was, “Has the Word of God failed?” God promised to save, and Israel, by and large was not being saved. More than this, while Israel was not being saved, Gentiles were trusting in Christ by the droves.

What Paul so beautifully does in his response is hold together both the sovereignty of God in pursuing His saving purposes and the responsibility of man. Why is Israel not responding to the Gospel? Paul’s answer points both to God and to Israel. And the same is true in our lives.

My prayer this week is that someone, through our study of Romans 9, would come to faith in Christ. That somehow by God’s great grace and mercy through our study of this passage that shows God to be so sovereign and man so small, someone might begin to sense God stirring in their heart. God would, even in this passage, birth within someone a desire to know Christ and His salvation by faith. I pray that you will join us this weekend, and I pray that you would join with me in asking God to move and save lost sinners through our worship of Him in song and in His Word. To God be the glory!

— Pastor Chad McDonald