Madison Reformed Church

Praise is when we direct our attention to someone or something and express our admiration. When we direct our praise to God, it’s worship . Psalm 150 gives us a picture of the perfect end—the end of all things, a glorious worship-filled creation in which death, sin, and hell have been conquered. The life of the Christian is a process of grabbing hold of these promise and responding with wholeheart...

Psalm 147 is written for exiles, including Christian exiles, to those who are not home yet. The message of Psalm 147 is similar to what angels told the shepherds on the first Christmas:  glory to God and peace on earth. As we look at this psalm on this Christmas Eve, come with eyes ready to see that the power and might of God has been displayed in a way that you can actually grasp it—not through o...

The angels who proclaimed the Messiah's birth also "long to look into" this good news.

Psalm 139 is the psalm of a person who is willing to admit that God is inescapable. It teaches us three ways that this is so: in his knowledge, in his presence, and in his judgment. These things are good news for those who have received his grace. But they are terrifying news for those who haven’t. In this sermon, we see how these aspects of the inescapable God applied to David originally, to Jesu...

Gen. 50:15–21  Dan. 9:16–19  Matt. 18:21–35;  Eph. 4:30–32  Sin is when we build up moral debt before God. God has commanded righteousness, and we have not lived up to it, and so we owe it to him. To forgive a debt is to release a person from that obligation. When we ask God to forgive us our debts, we’re asking him to release us from the obligation of paying him back. And when we pray about forgi...

Deut. 8:1–5  Ps. 62  Mark 6:34–43  Jas. 1:9–18  The 4th request in the Lord's Prayer is, “Give us, this day, our daily bread.” Why does Christ include this very down-to-earth petition in his model prayer? (1) To teach us what we really need; (2) To teach us that He’s the provider; (3) to teach us to trust Him completely.

At the heart of Psalm 105 is God’s covenant with his people, a covenant of grace that stretches to our own day. The same promises belong to us in the new covenant. The only difference is that these promises have reached their fulfillment in Christ. Now Israel’s history as the people of God is our history.  As they were commanded to remember God’s faithfulness in previous times, this psalm calls us...

Exod. 4:10–17 Ps. 143 John 14:25–31 Rom. 12:1–8 The Lord’s Prayer is both a prayer in itself and also a model prayer. Through it, Jesus teaches us how to offer up to God everything we need for body and soul. In the prayer’s middle section, there are six appeals to God that we call “petitions.” Today, we turn to the second and third petitions: “Thy kingdom come” and “thy will be done on earth as it...

Moses' psalm reminds us of the frailty of life and the certainty of death. But it also serves to give us Christ, whose death and the promise of his return presses us to live a life of productivity for his glory. Even in our toil, he is our dwelling place.

Num. 14:11–19  Jer. 23:23–24  Matt. 6:25–34  Acts 17:22–29  In this message, we begin looking at the parts of the Lord’s Prayer, the address and the first petition. A petition is simply an appeal to God, for him to do something in particular. In giving us these six petitions, Jesus teaches us to direct our minds toward God when we pray. Today we’re going to explore this by learning that we (1) Add...

The Church in our part of the world is in a crisis, and Psalm 80 is an intense, desperate prayer for just such times. It not only speaks about the Church today, but it also gives words for us to speak to God. At the core of Psalm 80 is the call to patient repentance—that we would patient while God disciplines his children, and turn to him in repentance as he turns to us in grace.

Thanksgiving Eve 2023. In Psalm 69:30,  Jesus is the one offering a song of thanksgiving to God. In this meditation giving thanks, we learn the purpose of Christ's giving of thanks, the perfection of it, and our program for learning to give thanks as well. 

Exod. 2:23–25 2 Chron. 7:11–18 Lk. 11:5–13 1 Jn 5:13–15 We begin looking at Lord’s Prayer—a prayer that is both simple and sublime, easy and profound. And, important to note, we place this prayer in the Gratitude section of the catechism. Q&A 116 answers, “…prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us.” How do we pray effectively? We’ll answer that in three simple p...

Psalm 73 is a psalm from a believer who is doubting God. He confesses some things about God to be true, but his experience says something different. In the end, he's comforted by this truth, that distance from God is death, but nearness to God is safety and a life of praise. This nearness to God is through the Lord Jesus Christ alone. In this Psalm we get a glimpse of how Christ was ruthlessl...

The 10th commandment, "You shall not covet," is the perfect conclusion to the Commandments because it encompasses all of them, and brings us back to the first. In other words, we’ll see tonight that coveting is a kind of idolatry. It is when we desire something to the degree that it outranks God, and our minds and hearts are drawn to it. And in this way, it leads us to break all the othe...

Psalm 68 is a song about God’s great procession with the Israelites—out of Egypt, and up to Mt. Zion. It is also an Old Testament picture of what Christ would do later in his ascension to heaven. He has gone there to prepare a place for us. In this sermon, we learn what Christ has done and what he's doing while he's there.

Exod. 23:1–9 Ps. 101 Matt. 26:57–68 Eph. 4:11–16 The 9th commandment is, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," or in positive form, "love the truth." Truth is also a matter of what you see, how you see it, and how you speak about it. This message explores these matters by learning (1) How the 9th commandment instructs us to love the truth; (2) How truth is connec...

The Church is a heavenly community, but  Christians alive today still live here in this cursed world. What are we to do when this world is turned upside down? “We will not be afraid.” This psalm teaches us that Christ has poured out his Holy Spirit to protect his Church, and because of this, we are to have courage in the face of our enemies.

The phrase “safe space” is overused and abused in our day, but at its core, it is a true need that all people have: a place of safety. And God has provided it for those who trust in him. Psalm 32 teaches us that God is our "hiding place" (v. 7) and shows us that God’s forgiving love makes him our place of safety, not only at the beginning of our walk with Christ, but all the way through.

A service of Scripture readings & Psalm-singing to commemorate the Lord's faithfulness to his church during the Protestant Reformation. Readings inspired by the 5  solas  of the Reformation and a meditation on Scripture as our only infallible rule of faith.

A meditation on sola Scriptura "according to Scripture alone," the doctrine that Scripture is our only infallible rule of faith. Given during our 2023 Reformation Sunday Lessons & Psalms service.

Deut. 25:13–15 Mic. 6:9–16 Matt. 5:43–6:4 2 Cor. 8:1–15 The 8th commandment is “You shall not steal.” From the earliest books of the Bible, we find the simple concept of property. This is when something belongs to someone. In Scripture, God is the ultimate owner of all things. Psalm 24 opens by saying, “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it .”  The task of every Christian is to respond to s...

Since war broke out between Israel and Hamas a couple weeks ago, the idea of religious wars is back on our minds. Is there such a thing as holy war. Indeed there is. But not in the way that we tend to think of it. Psalm 3 teaches us that God’s Anointed King—Jesus Christ—has risen in victory over his enemies, and through him we are armed to fight and win our spiritual battles. Not against flesh and...

Guest preacher Matt Bear (Good Shepherd OPC in Cincinnati) opened God's word to the end of Luke's Gospel, where Jesus blesses his people and ascends into heaven.

Gen. 2:18–25 Hos. 2:16–20 Matt. 5:27–30  1 Cor. 6:15–7:11  In this message on the 7th Commandment, Rev. Zac Wyse ( Westside Reformed Church ) explains God's good design for sexuality, and we we are to exercise and enjoy that design even in a fallen world.