Dear Friends,Last week I had the privilege of attending Together for the Gospel (T4G) in Louisville, KY. T4G is a a biennial conference for thousands of pastors and church leaders who, for all their differences, are committed to standing together for the main thing – the gospel of Jesus Christ. Predominantly, those gathered at this conference are Reformed in their theology and believe in the inerrancy of Holy Scripture. It was a refreshing time and an encouraging time. I wanted to share with you some of my take-aways from the conference.First, the Gospel is growing, the Church is growing, God is moving!!! It would be so easy to read the news every day, view the garbage on social media and believe that the Church is dead and the Gospel is dying. Brothers and sisters that is simply not true! Yes, our culture is a mess. Yes, the (a)moral revolution is advancing. Yes, there is a liberal "Christianity" out there that makes me sad. BUT, the news, social media, and any other principalities out there are now reporting the true reformation and, dare I say, revival that is going on within the church. Now more than ever the Church has to play the Church or die. In order to play the Church, the Church has to be committed to its roots and that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ taught and proclaimed in the Word of God. My friends I witnessed, with ten thousand other leaders in Christ's church, a robust, infectious and growing yearn for the Gospel. God is moving in His Church. There are more churches in our world that love God, love the Gospel and love the Word than we can imagine. What I witnessed, what I heard was a not a water-downed Gospel. It was the true Gospel, once delivered to the saints (Jude 3).Second, the Reformation is not over! It would easy to believe that 500 years ago was an event that took place in a vacuum. It would be easy to believe that the Reformation was simply a small group of Europeans that happened to have access to the printing press started a reformation in the Church by accident. But that is simply not true. The Reformation was started to reform the Church. The Reformation was an act of God to bring the pure Gospel and the Holy Word of God back into the life of the Church. That work is not over! Semper Reforma has been and must continue to be our motto - Always Reforming! At the conference we were encouraged by the speakers to take this message to heart. One of the ways that we continue the Reformation is by striving to be constantly and consistently more biblical. The way we will do that at Cornerstone is by ensuring that our worship is ordered by the Bible. By this we will sing the Bible, read the Bible, pray the Bible, preach the Bible. Here is one of cool videos of faithful men of the past preaching about the Reformation.Third, singing hymns with ten thousand other followers of Christ was incredible! Mark Dever, pastor at Capital Hill Baptist Church and one of the founders of T4G stated, "Part of my hopes for the T4G conference is that pastors re-learn how "little" is needed for profound God-honoring singing." What he meant by this was at a conference of ten thousand folks, there were not hundreds of instruments, fog machines and the like. There was simply one man, on a piano and ten thousand voices of the saints. It was incredible! Yet, not as incredible as Revelations 5:11-12 - O, how I long to be in that worship service.Here is a video I took of one of the songs. The smart phone does not do it justice. One new hymn (new to me) that we sang at the conference was He Will Hold Me Fast. It was incredible. We will be learning it at Cornerstone!Fourth, I'm a huge book nerd and T4G has the books! The organizers of the conference did a fantastic job of having resources available from all the major book publishers. And they gave the pastors many free books! A few books that I wanted to highlight that you might consider picking up:
- We Cannot Be Silent by Albert Mohler
- Thoughts for Young Men by J.C. Ryle
- Faith Alone by R.C. Sproul
If you are interested in hearing some of the sermons and lectures from the conference, please visit t4g.org. Some of my favorites were Mark Dever, John Piper and Kevin DeYoung.Your friend and pastor,
Wilson
Prepare for Worship
April 24, 2016
- This Sunday we arrive in Ephesians 2 and continue to discover the Sovereign Grace of God. We will be in Ephesians 2:1-10 and begin a series of three sermons on this passage as we see it as a benchmark passage of the Christian faith.
- In preparation for the sermon: "No man will ever have a true conception of .... redemption if he is not clear about the biblical doctrine of sin."- Martin Lloyd-Jones
- A hymn for the week: All I Have Is Christ
- Click here for this week's bulletin.
- We are podcasting! Catch up on sermons on iTunes.
- We are LIVE STREAMING! Click here.
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