Here’s the link to download the manuscript if you are interested:
Tag Archives: persecution
Healthy Pastors Conference
Pastors, assistant pastors, elders, and even aspiring to be pastors are invited to our first Healthy Pastors Conference. There’s a story that we will share at the conference that gets at what we are trying to do with this gathering. I will share that story later but I hope our story will be that story too.
If we want healthy churches then one of the pieces needed to accomplish that or maintain that is having healthy pastors.We want to fan the flame within them through preaching and singing and fellowship with other pastors.
Consider buying a ticket for your pastor and providing for his travel and stay here in Nashville. Here’s the link to sign up.
https://hbatn.org/new-products/healthy-pastor-conference-ticket
The Lord’s Day Sermon Manuscript for January 12, 2025
Here’s the link to download the manuscript if you are interested:
The Lord’s Day Sermon Manuscript for May 26, 2024
Here’s the link to download the manuscript if you are interested:
Daily Exhortation
Be careful how you suffer. The reality is suffering will come to all people in some form or fashion throughout our lives. In part because we live in a fallen world and we are fallen people. God created this world and it functions a particular way and when we do not follow his way or someone else doesn’t follow his way then suffering occurs.
In 1 Peter 4, some of that suffering that happens to Christians is a test for us. Fiery trials are meant to reveal where we are and if we are in fact trusting the Lord. Indeed, each test either matures our faith or reveals a lack of faith.
How we understand suffering in our lives matters. Peter describes it as sharing in the sufferings of Christ in 4:13. He goes on to encourage us to rejoice in them because if you are rejoicing in your sufferings now you will rejoice with exultation when Christ returns. Peter even calls those who suffer for the name of Christ blessed. Why? Because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on us.
However, we can suffer wrongly. There are consequences for evil even in this world…even for troublesome meddlers. But if we suffer as a Christian, we are not to be ashamed. If we suffer due to consequences of sin then we ought to be ashamed. May our suffering be for the name and may it glorify the Lord.
How do you do this? Is there a “How to” YouTube video to learn this? Well here’s how it ends:
1 Peter 4:19 Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.
Trust the Lord and do what it right according to him. Let us pray for each other to know God’s ways and trust and gladly obey him.
Daily Encouragement
The faith of the thief on the cross was sufficient to save him. It seems clear there was evidence of faith by his words and actions until he died. It was necessary for him to endure to the end of life as it is for all who believe. That length was short for him yet his reward will be far less.
With that said, those who believe and continue to live are in need of endurance too. Hebrews 12 makes that point very clear as it flows from multiple examples of those who did. The promises of God are conditional and only for those who have faith.
Part of the way we endure is through the discipline of the Lord. If the Lord does not discipline us then we are not a legitimate child of God. This is one of the ways he keeps us believing. There will be a mixture of those who “believe” that are illegitimate children. We can only know that by the fruit of our lives.
Additionally, we ought to lay aside every sin and weight that so easily entangles us. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. There are sins and things that are not necessarily sin that will hinder the race. Let us gladly put them aside knowing what awaits on that glorious day!
Daily Encouragement
This passage might not seem encouraging but their choices as pilgrims of this strange land point us to something much, much better to come.
Hebrews 11:35-38
Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
To refuse release is not to say what they were going through wasn’t severely painful. Their release may have demanded some sort of denial of the faith by which they were approved before the Lord. Whatever the case, they saw beyond the suffering of this world to the promise of a better resurrection—a better life. To give up the faith would have been to forfeit the greater for the lesser.
What these people endured in this brief life, show us their faith and the extreme value they had in Christ. The witness they are to us should stir our hearts to press on in faith as Hebrews 12 concludes.
Your life may show others your faith and your value of Christ as you refuse to deny the One who suffered in your place and long for the better resurrection. Jesus is worth it. And that which is coming to us will not only be void of suffering, it will never come to an end.
Sufferings
To Earlston, Younger
“I remain still a prisoner of hope, and do think it service to the Lord to wait on still with submission, till the Lord’s morning sky break, and his summer day dawn. For I am persuaded, it is a piece of the chief errand of our life, that God sent us for some years down to this earth, among devils and men, the fire-brands of the devil, and temptations, that we might suffer for a time here amongst our enemies…but seeing a piece of suffering is carved to every one of us, less or more, as Infinite Wisdom hath thought good, our part is to harden and habituate our soft and thin-skinned nature to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, wo (sorrowful) hearts as those that are looked upon by God, angels, men and devils.”
S.R.
Letters of Samuel Rutherford (1637)
Sermon Manuscript for Lord’s Day 7/10/2022
Here is the link to download the manuscript if you are interested:
Helpful Resource
Here is the link to watch the video:
The J-Curve will help you process the suffering of life and see it’s purposes. Click the link to watch.
The Word Is Not Imprisoned 