First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge

Our call is to mutual submission, to yielding the privilege of self-determination to the other. This will make for maximum joy in a marriage. But it’s not just about us. Not even mainly about us. It’s so that we who are blessed to have a mate can show the world what sacrificial, redeeming love truly looks like. Our marriages were meant more for holiness than happiness. They are meant for witness t...

You were made for so much more than this darkness in which you languish. Come on, get up. Let’s get out of here. I defeated the death that killed me. I also defeated the death that defeats you, deflates you and destroys you. All the deadly habits that entomb you. All the deathly patterns that sabotage your relationships. All the guilt that enchains you. All the hell into which someone put you. All...

A thousand times a day we see images offering themselves for our eyes to consume. Look at me, want me. Dozens of times a day, we are invited to partake of denigrating others. Paul gives such an ennobling, empowering word to the Ephesians. You are beloved children. Christ gave himself up for you. You are now light in the Lord. You are a son, a daughter of the king. You don’t need to consume others....

What are you willing to wait for? It’s been said that you tell what you really care about by what you spend your money on, but I would argue that it’s even more telling to know what you’re willing to wait for. So many of us, myself included, are more than happy to wait for worldly things and then expect immediate answers when the Lord places us in a season of uncertainty. There’s a reason why it’s...

What power is there that can ever bring sanity and healing to such a terrible world? Go to Bethlehem, and crouch in wonder at the crib of an innocent babe, and you will find that all the titanic might within the heart and mind of fallen man will be tamed, and he too will become a little child. #christmas #watchmen #firstpresbyterianbr #sermon

In Christ Jesus is life, and that life is the light of all. His light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. So, we join our hearts as our choir sings the ancient words, “Break forth, O beauteous, heavenly Light, to herald our salvation!”

It’s essential that we understand two things. One, our distinctiveness. Two, our mission. All of humanity lives plagued with darkness. We cannot see clearly who God is. We grope and stumble and sometimes do terrible things in the dark. But God has ever been calling his people out of darkness and into his marvelous light (I Peter 2:8). That makes us different. There is light where the people of God...

The way things are is not how they have always been. There was light before the sun. The way things are is not how they always will be. There will be light after the sun. And so right now comes the liberating truth. The LORD is your everlasting light. He longs to give you spiritual light so you can see, in your heart of hearts, his everlasting love and know him as your loving God. #everlasting #se...

When we allow our anger to simmer in our hearts for more than just a moment, it begins to seep into our very souls. We drink the poison and the bitterness it creates is sin. The Lord wants us to know that if we do this, even if the anger seems justified in the moment, we give an opportunity to the devil. We need to trust the judge of the earth to do rightly. Pray the Psalms and give your frustrati...

In your thoughts. Be renewed. Refresh your thoughts by recalling who Jesus is and who you are in Jesus. Gather in honest, joyful community with other believers. Remind each other of the story. Lift up your hearts and voices. Renew your commitment. Renew your mind according to the truth, for the truth is in Jesus. #renewyourmind #injesus #commitment #sermon #worship #ephesians4 #firstpresbyterianbr

The church gathered re-adjusts us to the reality of God week by week. When we learn of our share in the work of ministry, we begin to view not just church life but all of life through this lens. Everything that matters requires that we serve the work that makes the vision come to be. This can be keeping house, raising a family, living a profession, landscaping, accounting, teaching, leading, clean...

The church is the model to the world of how people from all different backgrounds, ethnicities, and even political ideas can share the one cup of salvation, and break bread together as members of the one body of Jesus. It’s why on the Sunday we celebrate the Scottish roots of our faith, we rejoice that there are Presbyterians all over the world, including millions in South Korea, millions in Afric...

Paul repeatedly uses the word “mystery” to describe what we have received in Christ’s riches. These are riches that weren’t made clear to previous generations, but are revealed now – that Jews and Gentiles are not just junior and senior partners to each other, they are ‘fellow heirs’, completely equal and organically united in the Body of Christ. Our names, and the names of people from many tribes...

Natural enemies don’t just start getting along unless something even deeper than human relations has changed in them. We’re talking about the healing of the fundamental breach between humanity and God. This reconciliation occurred in the person of of Jesus. There, God and humanity met in one person. God coming over to man’s side. Jesus lived out the faithfulness to his Father he had eternally as t...

There’s no escaping toil. We all have stuff we gotta do. For many, just getting upright, dressed and out of the house is big work. The routine of requirements can feel burdensome. But then we realize that nearly everything we do can be a beautiful work for God. Anything that is good, wholesome, or life affirming, from bathing to writing software, from pulling weeds to driving carpool to running a...

We were dead. God made us alive with Christ. Why? Because the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are, by nature, rich with mercy. Overflowing with kindness. As a guy said this week, God’s currency is mercy. He acted in grace towards us. Because of an irreducible quality of his very existence as the Triune God. The great love with which he loved us. There’s nothing greater than that. Nothing behind that....

Paul holds up the Ephesian Christians before God. He remembers their faith and their love. He gives thanks. He asks God to be at work in their lives. He prays for the eyes of their hearts to be open to all they have in Christ. He intercedes with Jesus to give these young believers awareness of the power at work in them. For once they see, they will exult in the Lord Jesus who reigns over heaven an...

Paul says that when you heard and believed, you “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” Let the Spirit do his work. He convicts us. He tugs at us. He urges us to believe the gospel and surrender our lives to Jesus anew. It is a simple release that costs everything to which we cling, which al...

We can clearly see that God has called us to unity. He is more concerned about the unity of the Spirit than he is about the unity of our races or even the unity of our politics. There is a unity that the spirit is capable of producing that will bring us together, if we will allow him. We are different and it's NOT a mistake nor is it a curse, it's by God's design. Our job is to embrace the differe...

Because Christ makes himself present to us, we must be immersed in His presence. And in turn follow his example of incarnational ministry. Jesus demonstrates that physical presence matters. His is an incarnational ministry and so should ours be. What good would it be to ship money, water, food packets, and Bibles if there’s no one on the ground to physically deliver them? To hold hands, hug and co...

Whenever someone asks if I believe in predestination or freewill, my answer is always “Yes!” One supports the other. And if this seems hard to understand, my counsel is very simple. This is a word that can be spoken to every person in the entire world. The message of the gospel: Believe in Jesus and discover your chosenness. And if you do believe in Jesus, rejoice that the Father has shown you tha...

The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has already blessed you in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. He has already called you to himself in grace. He has already sent you to love and witness in his name. You already live from your heavenly home in Christ even though you’re stationed here on Earth. #apostle #ephesus #called #graceandpeace #sent #binitarianism #sermon #worshi...

These days, a powerful idea gets marketed to us from all sides. It’s the dream that I can hold my whole life in my hands and get everything arranged according to my truest self. I can live my dreams. I can express my truest self, and everyone will recognize it and give me space and I will be fulfilled in myself. I don’t need God or anyone if I can just grasp myself, and then be myself. I can do it...

It is the ethos of modern Christianity to not meet together regularly. Modern Christianity is something to which you attach your name, but not something to which you give yourself. Be committed to the habit, the culture, the ethos of a church that gathers together and is in it together. Meeting together for mutual encouragement, as simple as it sounds, is a radical, counter-cultural practice in ou...