Hymns for Every Congregation

A pastor friend of mine contacted me this week and asked if I had written an article on my “top twenty” hymns. The reason he asked me for this is that he pastors a church that has not been using much in the way of traditional hymnody for a number of years, and they are now trying to introduce more hymns into their congregational singing. He wanted a good list of hymns for them to use as they try to reincorporate hymns into the diet of their Sunday worship services. Well, as it turns out, I haven’t ever written an article on my “top…

Faith Alone

Romans 3:27-31 (2) Faith Alone If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Romans, chapter 3. We’re going to be looking again at that same section that we’ve been pondering for the last couple of weeks beginning in verse 27. Romans 3:27-31. As we do so, we’re going to concentrate especially on Paul’s statement in verse 28 and two parts of that statement. This sermon is sort of a spill over from what was supposed to be a three-point sermon. So you’re going to get two points today. I’m going to be looking at two questions. Two simple questions. What’s so important about being justified by faith alone? Isn’t it a little nit picky to just insist that it’s got to be by faith alone? Paul, aren’t you being a little unreasonable? Martin Luther, aren’t you…

The Test of Acknowledgement of Christ’s Humanity

The Test of Acknowledgement of Jesus as the Messiah come in the flesh 1 John 4:1-6 If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1 John chapter 4. As we've been looking through this book, we have seen John do three things repeatedly. First of all, in the first chapter of the book especially, John was concerned to make sure that we as Christians understood the relationship of sin and holiness in the Christian life. On the one hand, John wanted us to know that as believers we would still struggle with sin; but on the other hand, John wanted to make sure that we strove for holiness in the Christian life, that we were seeking to be conformed into the image of God, that we were realistic about the sin that we still faced and had, and at the same time, were striving to be…

The Family Alter

Deuteronomy 6:4-9The Family AltarDr. Duncan Our subject today is family worship. It is a vital subject and I want to try and look at the whole issue of family religion with you for a moment, so that we can put family worship in context. Many Puritan sermons used to spend 40-60% of the message in application, and that's going to be the case today, although I won't do what one Puritan did, and put 68 points of application in the message. You can imagine the relief of the congregation when…

A Quick First Glance at the Trinity Psalter Hymnal…

Congratulations to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and United Reformed Churches (URCNA) and Great Commission Publications on the new Trinity Psalter Hymnal (2018). I have only had my copy for a couple of weeks or so, but I want to offer a few…

The God Who Forgives

Our God is a forgiving God. From the beginning of the Scriptures to the end, God is praised as a God of pardon. Moses can exclaim that the God of Israel “keeps lovingkindness for thousands” and “forgives iniquity, transgression and…

Sunday Song: If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee

This is one of my very favorite hymns. I love its true and moving words. It is a glorious and realistic and emphatically Christian and spiritual meditation on God’s providence. This one is worth memorizing. “It was composed in 1641 with the…

Let My Soul Live and Praise You

Well tonight makes, I think, about twenty-four weeks in Psalm 119. Even though there are only twenty-two sections you’ll remember that one Lord’s Day Evening we read through the entire psalm in one sitting, something that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anywhere else but here at First Presbyterian Church. And then we did sort of a one message overview of the entire psalm and then for the last number of weeks, over a period of time, we’ve been working through section by section. And…

Congregational Worship at First Presbyterian Church

One of our desires, as we put the services together, is to make connections between various parts of the service – even connections that we don’t draw attention to in the service itself. We want every service to be packed with unexpected blessings and spiritual links that surprise, encourage and help the attentive worshiper. So, sometimes you may notice that the Call to Worship picks up on a phrase from the morning Scripture reading, or an idea from the morning sermon text, or is connected…

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