Sunday Morning Message

Pastor Mike opened the fall series in Romans 1:18–25 by tracing how that text, especially verse 17, became Martin Luther’s breaking point and the rallying cry of the Reformation: salvation is by faith in Christ’s righteousness alone, not by works, indulgences, or church tradition. Paul then turns from the good news to the bad news. God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of those who suppress the truth. Wrath is not a defect in God but the necessary response of His holiness to rebellion; if He did not punish sin, He would not be just. Jesus drank that cup in the great exchange, becoming sin so that all who believe receive His righteousness, while the wrath of God remains on everyone who does not obey the Son. No one is without excuse. God’s eternal power and divine nature have been plain in creation since the world began, so general revelation leaves every person accountable even where a missionary has never gone. The message closed on sovereignty and grace: God is still pursuing sinners, fellowship is restored only in Christ, and those He has called are to be a voice for that gospel.

The Sanhedrin—Annas, Caiaphas, and the rest of the high-priestly family—put Peter and John in the center and demanded, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” After a night in jail for healing a lame man and preaching the resurrection, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, did not soften the answer: it was by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom they crucified and whom God raised from the dead, that the man stood before them well. He then quoted Psalm 118: the stone they, the builders, rejected has become the cornerstone. The climax is verse 12: there is salvation in no one else; there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. The council was astonished at the boldness of uneducated, ordinary men and recognized that they had been with Jesus.

That is the text Pastor Fred Weymouth of The Fix lives and preaches. Fred and Casey Weymouth once chased the next “fix” in addiction; Christ remade them and sent them to reach the lost and broken through a Virginia recovery ministry and church plant. Acts 4:5–13 is their message in a sentence: ordinary people who have been with Jesus can stand before any authority, name Christ without shame, and insist that He alone saves. The same Spirit who filled Peter fills those who belong to the only Name that heals, delivers, and makes the rejected stone the cornerstone.

Paul turns from greeting to thanksgiving: he thanks God through Jesus Christ for the Roman believers because their faith is proclaimed in all the world. He constantly remembers them in his prayers, asking that by God’s will he may at last succeed in coming to them—not as a celebrity apostle, but to impart some spiritual gift so they may be established, and that he and they may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. He is under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, to the wise and to the foolish, and so he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome as well. The heart of the letter is then stated: he is not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. In that gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” The passage therefore moves from gratitude and pastoral longing to the unashamed announcement that God’s saving power and His justifying righteousness come only through faith in Christ.

This week marks the opening of a new sermon series on the Book of Romans. Paul opens Romans by identifying himself as a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the good news promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. That gospel concerns God’s Son: according to the flesh He is the descendant of David; according to the Spirit of holiness He was declared the Son of God in power by His resurrection from the dead—Jesus Christ our Lord. Through Him Paul received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations for the sake of His name, including the believers in Rome who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, loved by God, and called to be saints. The greeting then bestows grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grounding the whole letter in Christ’s person, the Scriptures, the resurrection, and the church’s identity as a people set apart for obedient faith.

Pastor Mike closed the summer Psalms series with Psalm 26, David’s prayer of self-examination and integrity rather than a psalm tied to one crisis. David asks the Lord to vindicate and test his heart and mind because he has trusted without wavering; integrity, Spurgeon and J. C. Ryle remind us, is character carved on hearts, not a name only. That integrity is possible only in Christ (John Bunyan, 1 Kings 9’s testimony about David, John 14’s promise of the Spirit). David then guards his company—no sitting with falsehood or evildoers—because bad company ruins good morals; the preacher used the unguarded Mount Evans road and the children’s song “Be careful little eyes…” as pictures of needed guardrails while we remain in the world but not of it (John 17). Watchfulness turns to thanksgiving: proclaim God’s deeds aloud, give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5), love the place where His glory dwells—now the gathered church, since believers are the temple. The psalm ends on level ground at the foot of the cross; Jude’s doxology and Joshua 24 (“as for me and my house we will serve the Lord”) call the congregation to choose faithfulness, plug into the body, and walk as people of integrity wherever God has placed them. The sermon closed with an invitation to trust Christ, be baptized, join the partnership class, and use every gift inside the local church.

Pastor Mike taught Psalm 25 as David’s model prayer that trains believers how to pray in every season. The psalm opens with whole-souled trust—“To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul”—echoed in Jesus’ Gethsemane submission and Proverbs 3:5–6; God alone knows the way and lights the path. It then moves to humble delight: the Lord leads the humble, His steadfast love never fails, and C. S. Lewis and Richard Baxter remind us that true humility thinks of self less and finds God enough in both prosperity and adversity. Next comes a prayer of forgiveness: David asks God to remember mercy rather than the sins of his youth; Paul calls himself the foremost sinner, and 1 John 1:9 plus Jerry Bridges and H. A. Ironside’s story of an aged saint show that God fully forgets what He has forgiven. A prayer of the broken-hearted follows—David, Joseph in prison, and persecuted believers today all discover “the Lord was with him”—because our High Priest sympathizes and the weakest may lean on Christ (Richard Sibbes). The psalm closes with a cry for deliverance; like Paul’s unanswered request for the thorn, God may not remove the trial but supplies sufficient grace so that when we are weak, He is strong. The sermon ended with an invitation to trust Christ as Lord, walk in daily repentance, use every gift for His glory, and come to the Lord’s Table remembering the cost of that forgiveness.

On a baptism Sunday Pastor Mike used the Pittsburgh Pirates jersey as an illustration that wearing the uniform does not make someone a team member; baptism is the public, irreversible “jersey” that declares a believer belongs to Jesus. He walked through Acts 8: Philip, redirected by the Spirit, explained Isaiah 53 to the God-fearing Ethiopian eunuch, who immediately asked to be immersed. Baptism, the church’s statement of faith reminds us, is the immersion of an already-converted believer—an act of obedience that pictures death to sin, burial of the old life, and resurrection to walk in newness of life (Romans 6). It is the New-Covenant sign that follows faith, just as the rainbow, circumcision, and Passover pointed forward to Christ; it does not save, but it visibly unites the convert with Christ and with His local body. Four reasons were given for immersion: it physically portrays the gospel, reminds us of the finished work of the cross, marks the church off from the world, and engages us in obedient service. The sermon closed with a searching invitation: make certain Christ is Lord as well as Savior, live in daily repentance and church fellowship, and be ready like Philip to share the Word so others may also go on their way rejoicing.

Pastor Mike continued the summer Psalms series with messianic Psalm 24, presenting David’s song as a pointer to Jesus the ultimate King of Glory rather than to David himself. He opened with God’s creative power—the earth and its fullness belong to Him, illustrated by the vast, still-unexplored oceans and a universe containing more stars than grains of sand—then asked who may ascend the Lord’s holy hill. The answer is the one with clean hands and a pure heart, which only Christ supplies; holiness is therefore the believer’s calling (citing 1 Peter 1, J. C. Ryle’s eight reasons, Spurgeon, and 1 Thessalonians 4). Grace covers the seeker who, like Jacob or the woman who touched Jesus’ garment, pursues God; justification is by faith alone, and daily repentance keeps us ready. The psalm then turns to glory: the ark’s return to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6) prefigures Christ’s presence among His people, the gates must lift for the King of Glory—the Lord strong and mighty, Jesus, before whom every knee will bow (Philippians 2). The sermon closed by calling the church to lift high Jesus’ holy name, live distinctly, and give Him all glory.

Elder Bill Carter walked through Psalm 22 as both David’s raw lament amid persecution (likely by Saul or Absalom) and a detailed messianic prophecy written a thousand years before the cross. He showed how David’s cry of abandonment, mockery, isolation, physical agony, pierced hands and feet, and the dividing of garments are fulfilled in Jesus’ crucifixion (Matthew 27, John 19–20), yet God delivered David while allowing His Son to die as the sacrificial Lamb. The psalm then turns from lament to praise and worldwide proclamation, pointing to the gospel reaching every nation and generation (“He has done it”). The teacher applied it by urging trust in God’s timing even when prayers feel unanswered, reminding hearers that Jesus faced every suffering first, that Scripture needs no extra proof (“God said it. That settles it”), and that today is the day to place faith in Christ because we live in the last days.

This week's message comes from Elder Mike Holland. In 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, Paul describes himself as a skilled master builder who laid the only true foundation—Jesus Christ—and warns that everyone who builds upon it must take care how they build. On the Day of judgment each person’s work will be tested by fire; lasting materials will bring reward, while inferior work will be burned up, though the builder himself will still be saved.