Momence Orthodox Presbyterian Church

Information may not be reliable

Home

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, our risen and soon-coming King! We welcome you to our website, and, even more, we hope that we will be able to welcome you some day soon to one of our worship services. Life in the midst of Christs church is all about living and dying under the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.
Therefore we want to use this prominent place on our website to urge you to consider this: God calls you to live and die under his mercy. Listen to Isaiah 55:6-7:

Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

The LORD commands us to seek him. Yes, the eternal, triune, living God, the God who created us out of the dust of the ground, the God against whom we have sinned greatly, the God who struck Egypt with terrible plagues, the God who will be the judge of all at the last day, the God who overrules all of the plans of man, the God whose glory and grace shine forth in Jesus Christ -- this God, this very same God, says: Seek me, call upon me, turn to me. By instinct, we seek comfort, seek peace, importance, happiness, food, friendship, and other kinds of satisfaction. But do you seek God? Do you pray? Do you fight sin? Do you attend a church where you hear Gods Word faithfully proclaimed?
The LORD commands us to seek him urgently. He says while. God has been remarkably patient with the human race, but there will be a day when second chances for seeking God come to an end. Seeking God is the one thing that we must never put off. Give God no rest until he has smiled upon your soul. The LORD promises that if we seek him, we will find him. He says to seek him while he may be found and while he is near. We tell ourselves: God is far away. But God says: I am near. We tell ourselves: Many have sought, and the way is uncertain. But God says: Seek me with all your heart, and you will find. (Jeremiah 29:13) Even a stingy, hardhearted person will sometimes give us what we want if we pester him long enough. But God is not stingy or hardhearted! He wants us to cry out to him.
It is the wicked and the unrighteous who are invited to seek the LORD. God says seek me to those who have been walking in a wicked way. We might immediately think of rapists and despotic rulers and shameless swindlers. And it is true God does command these people to seek him. But if we think that these are the only kinds of sins that are offensive to God, we do not yet know who God is! Because God says seek me to those whose thoughts are unrighteous. He says seek me to those who envy their neighbors easy life and to those who seethe with bitterness. Another kind of unrighteous thinker whom God commands to seek him is the one who trusts his own instincts, opinions and feelings rather than trusting God. (Proverbs 3:5) As much as we have offended God with both actions and thoughts, he still says: seek me, call upon me, turn to me.
The LORD identifies what we must part with in seeking him: our sin. He says, Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. The main difficulty that we experience in seeking God is not that we dont have enough time to pray, or that the Bible isnt clear enough, or that we dont have enough friends to encourage us to seek God, but the main difficulty is that we love our sins and, truth be told, dont want to part with them. So if God seems far away, we shouldnt begin by accusing God of hiding himself. Instead, we should begin by saying, O God, would you help me to see how I have sinned against you, help me to hate the sins you show me, and help me to forsake the sins that you help me hate?
The LORD commands us to seek him so that he may have mercy and abundantly pardon. Gods abundant pardon means that he will forgive many sins; forgive great sins; forgive known sins; forgive unknown sins; and forgive sins against enemies, friends, and God himself. It means that the person upon whom God has had mercy is as clean in his sight as Adam was the moment God gave him life. God takes what is common, despised, and dirty and makes it pure and lovely in his sight.

What good news this is! You may say: This seems to be too good. How can God let sinners go free? Isaiah 55:6-7 says that God will have mercy on sinners who seek God, but it doesnt say how he can do that! Several passages of Scripture directly explain how God can have mercy on sinners and still be a righteous God. For instance: Isaiah 52:13 53:12; Romans 3:21 26; and Galatians 3:1 14. Consider Galatians 3:10 - 14:

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith, rather The one who does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for usfor it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a treeso that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

There are some people who rely on works of the law, or, literally are of the works of the law. These people hope that their law-keeping will be the basis on which God could accept them. But these people are actually under the curse of the law upon which they rely, because the law demands continual and perfect obedience to all its commands. Do you think you are a pretty good person? If you do, you have not yet realized how much Gods law demands from you, and how severe its penalties are. Go and meditate on the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5 7).
Christ suffered the curse of the law. Deuteronomy 21:23 tells us that anyone who dies by being hanged on a tree is under Gods curse. This is the way Jesus died. He was hanged on a tree a wooden cross. Therefore we know that he suffered Gods curse. If, by knowing Gods law, you come to the trembling realization, I deserve all the curses of this law, only then are you ready to begin to understand what Jesus Christ bore and suffered on the cross!
Christ did not suffer the curse of the law because he deserved that curse. Rather than incurring or deserving a curse, he was made a curse. And when he was made a curse, he was taking some elses place. He was made a curse for us, that is, for the Galatian Christians to whom Paul wrote, and for all others who will simply trust in Jesus Christ. We could legitimately translate the Greek words of verse 13 as made a curse on our behalf or made a curse instead of us.
So how can a person like you be connected to Christs curse-bearing work? The way that we obtain blessing from God instead of a curse is through faith. Faith is simply looking to Christ and resting in him. The only safe way to come into Gods presence is to come as a helpless soul, clinging to Jesus Christ. Cling to Christ like an earthquake victim clings to the one who rescues him from the rubble. Cling to Christ like a desert wanderer clings to his one canteen full of water. Scripture says: By faith. By trusting Christ the crucified! Scripture says: Shall live. Shall live now and forever under the favor and mercy of God!

Hearing the call of a God who commands us to seek him and who promises mercy in Jesus Christ to those who seek him is such an awesome reality that it is impossible for any who truly hear it with a humble and contrite heart to be unchanged by it. In fact, a transformed life is one great part of the blessing that God gives through Jesus Christ the curse-bearer. Did you notice how Paul indicates in Galatians 3:14 that a large part of the blessing that comes to those who trust in Christ is receiving the promised Spirit through faith? So what exactly does it mean to receive the Spirit? Paul answers this question later in his letter to the Galatians (5:16-26):

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

So, those who trust in Christ are immediately brought into a conflict between the flesh and the Spirit! And the context in which to strive to walk according to the Spirit is in Christs church, where we live and worship with one another. Therefore we invite you to come and join us as we look together as a church to the Lord Jesus Christ.