We all know that “practice makes perfect.”  But how many of us know what makes perfect practice?  Too often practice can turn into simply goofing around, or improvising with our favorite piece, or focusing only on what we already do well.  But perfect practice involves focusing on the fundamentals, endless repetition to improve motor memory, drilling on the things we do poorly, and slowing everything down, all the while keeping tempo by counting. 

Perfect practice involves immense intentionality, commitment, and hard work to shape a goal into a way of life.  This is true for specific talents or skills, as well as for habits or lifestyles. Development in any of these areas requires practice.  And this is no less true for our spiritual lives.  While our sanctification is a work of God’s grace that provides a continual supply of strength from the Holy Spirit, it is a work that involves the diligent use of the outward and ordinary means of grace on the part of the believer. 

The young churches in Asia Minor had been disturbed by false teachers and antichrists who introduced a false gospel that claims peace with God while living worldly lives.  And so, the Apostle John writes to them to point back to the person and work of Christ, to the sanctifying, transformative work of the gospel in their lives, and their love for one another as indicators for authentic faith and fellowship.

John notes, however, that abiding in Christ involves to practicing righteousness while carefully guarding against practicing sin.  While John acknowledges that sin, repentance, and confession are part of the Christian life, he also points out that one who makes a habit of practicing sin is not born again.  In no uncertain terms John encourages assurance through the practice of righteousness while guarding against practicing sin, as he writes.

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. – 1 John 3:7-10

John is not advocating sinless perfection as the basis of Christian assurance, but he is pointing out that the believer is marked by practicing righteousness and not sin as a way of life.  The one who claims to be a believer but has little concern over their sin shows little regard for the one who came to take away sin and to destroy the works of the devil.  The true believer delights in the works of Christ and cherishes them.  John reminds believers  that “whoever practices righteousness is righteous as He is righteous.”

Join us this week as we examine 1 John 3:4-11 and consider the difference between practicing righteousness and practicing lawlessness.   We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

A pundit once noted, “as long as there is farming, there is legalized gambling.”  Farming demands an irrepressible hope.  Pests, weeds, rain when you don’t want it and drought when you do are all part of farm life.  And while “nothing runs like a Deere” sometimes the Deere stops running at all.  The adversities of farm life are well known and incalculable, yet the farmer maintains hope that at the end of the season the Lord will provide a crop. 

Likewise, the Christian should live out his assurance by plowing in hope.  No matter what struggles, adversities, doubts, or sin beset us, our assurance and our perseverance is rooted not in our own spiritual strength, but in God’s promise that if we “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, … he who promised is faithful.  For indeed, “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Paul commands us in 1 Corinthians 9:10 that “plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.”  Are you plowing in hope?

Before the days of GPS, in order to plow a straight row, a farmer found a mark at the end of the field and maintained aim toward that mark.   The Christian must do the same, plowing in hope toward the “day of Jesus Christ.”  The Christian life is a life lived in expectation of the coming of our Savior. 

As a boy, growing up under the looming threat of nuclear war with every installment of the evening news, sermons about the return of Christ were all framed in fear.  Beasts and antichrists weighed heavily.  Judgement seats and open books brought fear.  Our youth choir sang songs like, “I wish we’d all been ready.”  And signs on the interstate warned truckers and travelers, “Prepare to meet thy God.”

But the Bible exhorts us to long for the return of Christ, the Resurrection and the New Heavens and the New Earth.  Titus 2 frames our Christian lives in the here and now with the there and then, referring to Christ’s coming as the “blessed hope.”

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.  Titus 2:11-14

Luke 21:28 reminds us that even when the worlds seems to be coming apart we are to “straighten up and raise [our] heads, because our redemption is drawing near.”  And the final words of Scripture teach us to long for this blessed hope and in response to Jesus’ promise, “Surely I am coming soon” to say, “Come Lord Jesus!”

Nothing strengthens our assurance of faith like holding fast to the hope of Jesus’ return.  And so, as the Apostle John writes to the churches of Asia Minor to refute the false teachers and antichrists, he exhorts his ‘little children’ to press their fingertips and noses to the glass of time and eagerly hope in the return of their Savior.

Years ago, the group NewSong pictured this poignantly in their song, Fingertips and Noses about a teacher teaching her young students about Jesus’ return.  That song ends with an important refrain.

Where will Jesus find us when He comes again?
Will we be like little children waiting just for Him?
With our fingertips and noses pressed to the windowpanes
Longing eyes, expectant hearts for Him to come again.

Where will Jesus find us when He comes again?   With longing eyes, expectant hearts for Him to come again?   Some of the Bible’s most enigmatic and distressing passages are framed by instructions to believers to watch, wait and live expectantly, longing for Christ’s return.  Our mantra is to be maranatha or ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’   Is that your mantra?  Can you say with the Spirit and the Bride, ‘Come!’  Or is your cry, “not yet!”  

How eager are you for the return of Christ?  How convinced are you that the day of His return will be the very best day, not a day of disaster?   Will the climax of your life be the “blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us?”   

Join us as we examine 1 John 2:28-3:3 and consider the blessed hope that animates our assurance of faith.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

God’s name is more than just what we call Him. The names of God in Scripture reflect who He is and what He does.  The Biblical names of God reveal His attributes and teach us how we are to praise Him and what we are to expect of Him.  Our confession reminds us that His name is any way in which He makes Himself known to us.  Join us as Rev. Bill Holiman leads us to examine Deuteronomy 32:1-14 and Revelation 15 and consider the different expressions of God’s name.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

The recipe is simple.  Start with a soft lyrical acoustic intro.  Dash in a hard three-chord progression stirred with vocals both sung and screamed.  Season with ambiguous occult allusions. And for the main ingredient drop in an obtuse reference to beast from Revelation 13. Then as a garnish, include Vincent Price reading Revelation 13:18.

[T]his calls for wisdom; let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

And voila! You have a classic heavy metal ballad.

Men have always speculated with fascination with the identity of this beast, This beastly man will set up the abomination of desolation in the place where it ought not be, work to cause the world to worship the ancient Dragon, make war on the saints, and exercise great power politically, militarily and economically on a global scale.  Was it Nero? Hitler? Putin? Some current or future political figure?

Paul called this man-beast the “man of lawlessness.”  And John calls him the Antichrist. The scope of his reign of terror tempts saints to fear.  We want to know who he is and when he will appear.  We secretly hope, like Hezekiah, that we will be long gone before such dreadful events transpire for fear that we might be either deceived by this Antichrist or face his wrath.

But there is a greater danger for God’s people that lurks in immediate the present.  For the Apostle John reminds us that “the spirit of antichrist which you hear was coming … is in the world already.”  “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.  Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.”  Indeed “it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.”  

The church faces a great threat when it is so preoccupied with the future coming of The Antichrist that it fails to guard against present antichrists who bring division, deception, and deny the faith, theologically and practically.  Our ancient enemy, Satan, is subtle, appearing as an angel of light.  And his servants, the tares planted within Christ’s Church, appear as brothers and sisters all while creating division, deceiving through false teaching and denying the faith in their lives and conversations. 

This has been the case since the beginning.  And so, the beloved Apostle, John, writes to his little children in the faith not to be so distracted looking for the Antichrist that they are unaware of the “many antichrist” that have already come.  He writes to warn them of this present danger, instructing them to recognize these antichrists and to respond to their threat to the communion of the saints.

Join us as we examine John’s warning in 1 John 2:18-27 and consider how we can recognize antichrists and respond to the threat they bring to fellowship within the church.   We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

God’s name is more than just what we call Him. The names of God in Scripture reflect who He is and what He does.  The Biblical names of God reveal His attributes and teach us how we are to praise Him and what we are to expect of Him.  We are encouraged to hallow His name and not take it in vain.  Our confession reminds us that His name is any way in which He makes Himself known to us.  Join us as Rev. Bill Holiman leads us to examine Psalm 29 and Matthew 6:5-15 and consider the significance of God’s name.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.