Subscribe now This Week’s Sermon Last week, I preached on Matthew 5:17–20, where Jesus insists that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. I recently wrote about the full requirements of the law in a post about the true nature of legalism: Two Pathways | Jacob Gerber Beware the Leaven of the Pharisees In every age, the church must be vigilant to avoid legalism. We must never be like the Pharisees, who “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matt. 23:24). God tells us that ..read more

Note: These are the lecture notes for the seventh class of an 8-week series that I am teaching at Harvest Community Church, called “What Does it Mean to be Presbyterian?” Links to the other class lecture notes may be found at the end of this post. Subscribe now The title of this class captures what most people think when they first learn about Sabbatarianism, Psalms-singing, and a rejection of images of Christ, three distinctive areas of Presbyterian piety: That’s quirky! These distinctives raise a lot of questions, and, even with people who have been Christians for a long time, they struggle ..read more

Note: These are the lecture notes for the sixth class of an 8-week series that I am teaching at Harvest Community Church, called “What Does it Mean to be Presbyterian?” Links to the other class lecture notes may be found at the end of this post. Subscribe now All Christians treasure worship. Worship is where we respond to the high and holy summons that are included throughout the Bible. For example: “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” (Ps. 100:1–2). While the Scriptures command us to do all things to the glory of ..read more

Subscribe now This Week’s Sermon I’m really enjoying preaching through the Sermon on the Mount! Last week, I preached about Jesus’ teaching that his disciples should serve as salt and light in the world. In a very difficult week of ministry, I clung to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:11–16. Here is the introduction from the sermon notes: In the Beatitudes, Jesus offers some of the most beautiful teaching in the entire Bible about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus does not want us to misunderstand what he is teaching, though. While he stated all of the beatitudes as timeless principles, he does not wa ..read more

Subscribe now This Week’s Sermon This past Sunday, I had the privilege of preaching twice, in the morning and then again for our evening service. In the morning, I preached on the Beatitudes of Jesus, from Matthew 5:1–10. I have never preached on the Beatitudes before, but I was fascinated by their structure, where the first four deal with our relationship to God (namely, a relationship of repentance), and the last four deal with our relationship to others (namely, in the way that we resemble God in our dealings with others). Here is the introduction from the sermon notes: In the Sermon on th ..read more

My denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), has given increasing attention to the public reading of Scripture. I have written an article on the subject, but see also a different perspective from Rev. Christopher Hutchinson here, along with a reply to Rev. Hutchinson’s article from Rev. Matthew Adams here. In the midst of this debate, I came across an interesting passage from Hughes Oliphant Old on how the Puritans handled the public reading of Scripture: The Puritans became more and more critical of “dumb reading,” of the simple reading of a Gospel or Epistle from the lectionar ..read more

In every age, the church must be vigilant to avoid legalism. We must never be like the Pharisees, who “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matt. 23:24). God tells us that his commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3), but to add to God’s commandments would indeed be burdensome.  The danger of legalism is one that all true ministers of the gospel of Christ must take with the utmost seriousness. Nevertheless, do we really understand what Christ was condemning when he warned us to “Wat ..read more

My newest article, “The Paradoxical Pastoral Piety of the Lord’s Prayer,” went live on the Gospel Reformation Network: Pastoral ministry is a true paradox. Pastors must be tough enough to “wage the good warfare” while also remaining gentle enough to resemble “a nursing mother taking care of her children” (1 Tim. 1:18; 1 Thess. 2:7). Our call is to fight off the fierce wolves who would not spare the flock, and also to seek out the lost, bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak (Acts 20:29; Ezek. 34:16). We must act like men and be strong, but not break the bruised reed or quench the smolde ..read more

This Week’s Sermon Two weeks ago, I preached on Matthew 6:1–18, “Your Father Sees in Secret.” While Jesus talks about the false piety of religious leaders who practiced their righteousness before others in order to be seen (Matt. 6:1), I found it interesting to see that the same kinds of things still happen in our secularistic society. Here is the introduction from the sermon notes: Unlike Jesus’ day, we no longer live in a world where alms-giving, public prayer, and fasting gain Christians wide social approval. Indeed, the modern world despises Christians and any outward display of our faith ..read more

This Week’s Sermon This week, my sermon was “Love Your Enemies,” from Matthew 5:43–48. This was a challenging text, since the final verse, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), summarizes all of Jesus’ teaching on the Law (Matt. 5:17–48). Here is the introduction to the sermon notes: In Jesus’ final section in his exposition on the law, our Lord touches on perhaps the most difficult demand of the law: to love our enemies. No longer are we talking about our relationships with those closest to us—our brothers, our sisters, our spouses, and our friends ..read more