vassal of the King

Yesterday I preached one of the hardest messages I think I’ve ever had to preach. As I was preaching, I was constantly tempted to lighten the message and not preach the bold truth. My fear of man was tempting. Yet, I believe God gave me grace to preach His Word faithfully and boldly as I talked about the danger of becoming too familiar with God. This is, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous places for people to be. And I believe that we are often too easy-going with God. My text was Leviticus 10:1-3: Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the LORD spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be ho

Thankfulness and Contentment this Thanksgiving I am reminded again this day of how good God has been to me and my family. I am so undeserving of His grace and yet He has superabundantly lavished it upon me. I am commanded to “give thanks to the LORD for He is good” and my response, this morning, is “His love endures forever!” We are commanded to be thankful for all things (cf. Phil 3:1; 4:6). Furthermore, we are to be “content” as well. Paul writes to Timothy saying: 1 Timothy 6:6-8 6 But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. 7 For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. 8 If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. I am reminded of this prayer from the Valley of Vision entitled “Contentment”: "Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love, know it, be constrained by i

Hey folks from CCC (and anyone else), Join us THANKSGIVING MORNING (Thurs, Nov 26th, 2009) for an all-out game of schoolyard football (no tackle for you old guys). Time: 9:00am Duration: till you die... Where: WVCA schoolyard behind CCC Purpose:to hang out and work up an appetite before we all eat like real football players. Excuse for not showing up: none. * Don't think you're too old or too large to play football, you can be a blocker or QB* RSVP to me by today so we know how many people are coming! Hope to see you there with your game-face on .

Last night we finished our study on the Fundamentals of the Faith for our Tuesday night Bible Study at Church. I have posted the entire syllabus online for you to download and read if you wish. It has been a profitable study delving into the Word of God and seeing some of the fundamental doctrines and beliefs of the Christian faith as revealed in God's Word . Download it here .

One of the blessings of being in a PhD program and being a pastor of a church is that my mind swims in new thoughts all the time. From the practical to the heady; from the counseling to the grammatical—and I love it! Here are just two thoughts I’ve mused the last few days. In a marriage relationship, what should the believing wife do if she is married to an unbelieving husband who is abusive, violent, and harsh—physically? Quite simply, what if someone’s (=the wife’s) life is even on the line? Consider with me the following thoughts. I understand the responsibility of the local government to step in and take action (Rom 13; 1 Pet 2). But aside from this, we must recognize why we often feel uncomfortable for the wife in this particular situation. Think about it, if the good of the body (i.e. protection, health) is the “highest good”, then we must bring back missionaries who are out on the mission field in dangerous places who wonder if they will wake up alive th

The Kirkland family - November 2009

Obedience—An Essential Mark in the Life of a Christian I argued last night that a true believer will evidence Godly fruit in his/her Christian life. If not, then the words of Jesus ring true that he will be cut off and thrown into hell (Matt 7:15-23). I specifically noted last night how hard it is to be saved and that there are scores of people who think they’re saved but are sorely deceived. I destroyed the (all-too-prevalent) ideology that one can be a “Christian” yet live a life no different than the world. To put it positively, if one does NOT live bearing good fruit then there is no way he/she is a believer. These are the stern words of Jesus in Matt 7:15-21. Call it bold. Call it hard. Call it exclusive. But according to Jesus, a good tree cannot produce bad fruit; and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Listen to the sermon here .

Tomorrow night I have the privilege of preaching the second to last sermon in our 13-part Fundamentals of the Faith course at Church. It's been a tremendous study for me and for everyone, I trust! Tomorrow, however, is our study on obedience and just how important this issue is in the life of the "Christian." We are wrestling with the issue of Lordship Salvation . Can a person be saved and have Jesus as Savior but not have Him as Lord ? To that question, I will answer a hearty and authoritative NO because that's how Jesus answered that question. We will be looking at Matthew 7:15-20 and a number of insights from the passage showing who false prophets are and what they are like. Here are my points: Matthew 7:15-20: Insights Gleaned from this passage: NonChristians look good on the outside but inside they are destructive (15a) (keyword: Hypocrites ) You will discern a true Christian by the way he lives his life (16, 20) ( keyword

Elder Board Meetings that Do Something: by Jim Elliff Elders’ meetings should not be an exercise in futility. Rather, to be effective for the church and interesting for the elders, some thought must be put into your time together. Some suggestions: 1. Plan for meeting together more often and for a longer period of time. We find meeting for at least four hours weekly is about right, 6-10 pm. Even then we find that we want more time. In fact, before one of our elders changed jobs, we would meet from 5-10 pm. The “once-a-month elders’ meeting” is the kiss of death for most elder teams. It usually means that the elders do not understand their responsibilities and are mere figure heads. Don’t die from pastoral atrophy. We like to make our meetings enjoyable. We start out by eating an inexpensive meal together, for instance. We might do this in a restaurant or at one of our homes by bringing in pizza. Sometimes we include our wives, so that they can enjoy visiting with each other

CCC Music Ministry Philosophy of Ministry Geoffrey Randall Kirkland | Associate Pastor | Christ Community Church Purpose: The CCC music ministry exists to glorify God by using the talents that God has sovereignly bestowed upon individuals in order to play skillfully, enhance the music, and aid the believers in corporately worshipping Jesus Christ in Spirit and in truth. Philosophy: The philosophy of the CCC music ministry is to provide, play, and impress upon the minds of true believers hymns and worship songs that are theologically accurate and musically profound songs that will lift the true believer to the very Holy of holies in worship of Jesus Christ . Distinctives: Our music ministry is founded and grounded upon the following distinctives : Christ-Centered Music— We will choose music which focuses on Jesus Christ—the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Christ-Exalting Music— We will choose music that lifts high Jesu

Note this quote from Charles Spurgeon on singing with joyful worship: “ When God fills us with joy we ought ever to pour it out at his feet in praise, and all the skill and talent we have should be laid under contribution to increase the divine revenue of glory !” —Charles Spurgeon, Treasury of David , 2 vols., 1/2:294

I’m preaching tonight on Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (yes, no lightweight subject) and tomorrow night on the solution for depression from Psalm 43. Excited. Prepared. And ready to unleash. Jeremiah 20:9 9 But if I say, "I will not remember Him Or speak anymore in His name," Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, And I cannot endure it.

Tonight at our Elder Board Meeting, we're presenting the upcoming Truth and Life conference at The Master's College with the theme: " The Church ." I trust it'll be a great conference and how great would be if all the Pastors and Elders from our church joined us for this marvelous event focusing on what God's Word has to say about the Church. Join us and sign up here .

Will Your Good Works Get You to Heaven?—Are You Sure ? Yesterday as I was coming home from seminary I met a young man who was mocking me as I was reading my Bible next to him on the bus. You never really know who you’ll meet or what they have to say on the LA metro. But anyway, I could tell he was mocking me and laughing at me as I was reading my Bible next to him. So finally he leaned over to me and said: “Are you a Mormon?” I answered: “No, I’m a Christian who believes the Bible to be true.” He laughed to himself again in a jeering sort of way. Then I said: “What about you? Are you a Christian?” He said: Well, I’m Catholic…so I’m both—Christian and Catholic.” I nodded. Then he said: “What do you do?” I told him: “I’m a pastor of a church down the road and we preach that the Bible is true that no one can work his way to heaven. But that the good news of the Bible is that Jesus Christ has earned everything that we could never earn and He died in our place if we belie