According to the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, most ‘Christians’ in the United States don’t believe the Holy Spirit is a real Person.

Of the 69% of Americans who call themselves Christians, a majority (58%) “contend that the Holy Spirit is not a real, living being but is merely a symbol of God’s power, presence, or purity.”

For those who are self-identified, born-again Christians (about 35% of the population), “62% contend that the Holy Spirit is not a real, living being but is merely a symbol of God’s power, presence, or purity.”

However, Jesus told us very clearly that the power to live as His disciple comes from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Sadly, in most churches today, there is an absence of preaching and teaching on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, which is why the majority of Christians are struggling in their spiritual lives, and the majority of churches are so weak.

With a broken heart, I quote from A.W. Tozer.
“I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the church, the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the ‘program.’ This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the public service which now passes for worship among us. The church that can’t worship must be entertained. And men who can’t lead a church to worship must provide the entertainment.”
“Our mistake is that we want God to send revival on our terms. We want to get the power of God into our hands, to call it to us that it may work for us in promoting and furthering our kind of Christianity. We want to be in charge, guiding the chariot through the religious sky in the direction we want it to go, shouting “Glory to God,” but modestly accepting a share of the glory for ourselves in a nice inoffensive sort of way. We are calling on God to send fire on our altars, completely ignoring the fact that they are OUR altars and not God’s.”
“If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.” “The tragedy and woe of the hour is that we neglect the most important One who could possibly be in our midst–the Holy Spirit of God. Then, in order to make up for His absence, we have to do something to keep up our own spirits.”
This Sunday, we continue our sermon series on the Church as the Pillar and Ground of Truth. The title of this sermon is “The Person of the Holy Spirit”

In Colossians 2:9, the Apostle Paul said it this way: “For in Him (Jesus Christ) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily!” Therefore, the deity of Christ is not just an essential doctrine of the Christian Faith, it is the primary doctrine of the Christian Faith, and to compromise His absolute deity in any way, is to render the gospel of its power to save.

This week, we will continue our sermon series on the Church as the Pillar and Ground of Truth. The title of this sermon is “Displaying the Deity of Jesus Christ.”

While the majority of Americans believe Jesus was a real man who walked on the earth 2000 years ago and should be respected as a great religious leader, only 56% believe He was, in fact, God. While it may not surprise us to hear those statistics regarding the general population, what should drive us to our knees is that almost a third of those who claim to be evangelical Christians reject the deity of Jesus Christ. How can that be?

Charles H. Spurgeon said, “Depend upon it, my hearer, you never will go to heaven unless you are prepared to worship Jesus Christ as God.” The fact is, we can’t accept Christ as our Savior unless He is also our Lord. Submitting ourselves unto Christ as our Master is the only way we can be delivered from the mastery of Satan’s schemes.

This week, we will continue our sermon series on the Church as the Pillar and Ground of Truth. The title of this sermon is “The Deity of Jesus Christ.”

Without question, Moses was granted a vision of God that would arrest anyone’s attention, not only in the burning bush that would not burn but also in his conversation with God. However, as a shepherd who had already spent many days and nights in the middle of nature, the irrefutable evidence of God was all around him, but there was no indication that he saw it.

God is revealing Himself to us in the same way He revealed Himself to Moses. That is, through existence itself. In other words, where does life come from? Who made the flowers and the trees? Who made the difference between birds and butterflies? Who hung the sun, moon, and stars in the sky? While God’s natural revelation of Himself is inadequate for our eternal salvation, it should be sufficient to tell us that He is there and He is not silent.

Sooner or later every person will come face to face with God. God allows us to walk through this world for our “threescore and ten.” If we fail to recognize God’s activity in this world through what He has made, including mankind, and through the sacrifice of His only Son for our sins, we will undoubtedly meet Him at the end of our journey.

The title of this sermon is “The Pillar and Ground of Truth – What God is Like”

God didn’t start the human part of His creation with a mother and a baby, so the family would be first, nor with a man and a hammer, so man’s work would become first.  God began with a man and a woman, and He united them together in the roles of “husband” and “wife.”
   God ordained the marriage relationship to be the most important of all human relationships. Therefore, it is to be used according to His purpose, which is to bring Him glory, by reflecting His character and His power and His purpose to the world.
The title of this sermon is “Developing a Biblical Worldview: God’s Design for Man and Marriage.”

The best-selling book of all time is still the Christian Bible. It is impossible to know exactly how many copies have been printed in the roughly 1500 years since its contents were standardized, but research conducted by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 2021 suggests the total number is between 5 and 7 billion copies. I just counted more than 20 Bibles on my bookshelf!
In John 15:7-8, Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so, you will be My disciples.” Our response to the Word of God is our response to the God of the Word – i.e., the level of our spiritual maturity is not how many Bibles we have, or by how much of the Bible we read, but rather by our obedience to the Bible as the absolute Word of God – truth, with no mixture of error in its content or intent.
The title of this sermon is “The Word: Man’s Response to God.”

The term “Sola Scripture” means the Bible is totally sufficient to provide us with every truth we need to know God, how to receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, and live our lives as His witnesses in this world. While the Bible is an ancient book, written in the language of men, since the writing of every word of it was guided by the Holy Spirit Who is alive within us, the Bible is just as powerful and applicable today as it was in the days it was first written. The Bible is the eternal Word of God.
The title of this sermon is “The Word: God’s Revelation of Himself to Man.”

According to the latest State of Theology survey, the number of people in today’s evangelical churches who do not believe in the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith is disturbing. Without a “plumbline;” a standard of truth to measure what we are reading, hearing, and seeing, today’s untrained pastors are improvising theology with little regard for the orthodox Christian Faith. As a result, more false doctrines are being taught in the churches, and therefore, fewer “believers” with a biblical worldview, and therefore, no positive change in our culture.

Today, the church’s greatest challenge is to remain doctrinally sound while the Laodicean-type churches drift into apostasy. Contrary to contemporary thought, Christians are not free to modify the fundamentals of the Christian Faith to fit in with the latest cultural trends. That’s what Paul meant when he said he had “kept the faith,” – he didn’t adapt it to make it more acceptable to his hearers. 

The title of this sermon is “The Primary Pillars of the Church.”

As most of us know very well, even mature Christians can become diverted from their spiritual growth by the distractions as well as the attractions of the sins of the world. Churches and denominations can fall for the same lie and lose sight of their original and specific mission, which is why today’s churches are so weak.
The primary mission of the Church is to firmly establish the foundation of our faith on the divinely inspired, infallible and inerrant word of God, and uphold that truth against every lie Satan raises up against it and against the onslaught of evil he uses to try to destroy it. The primary message of the Church is to affirm the Person and work of Jesus Christ to obtain our eternal salvation, and that defines the term, “The Pillar and Ground of Truth.”
   In explaining this to Timothy, the Apostle Paul included an early church hymn extolling the work of Jesus Christ, for since Christ is the heart and soul of the message of the truth, Christ is the core of what we should teach and preach. The title of this sermon is “The magnificent Message of the Church!”