Madison Reformed Church

The "Get to Know MRC" gatherings are  Wednesdays meet-ups in March 2024 for people interested in the church, but who want to know more before getting into membership classes. WEEK 2: Covenant theology reveals Scripture's big story. Key doctrines like predestination, justification, sanctification The Christian life is ordinary Spirit-filled living

Gen. 21:22–34  Ps. 105:1–11  Luke 1:67–75  Eph. 2:11–16  Covenants were  deeply ingrained in the life of God’s people, and when God did something new in the history of salvation, he tied it to a covenant. So our reading of Scripture and our understanding of God’s love stands to grow deeper when we begin to understand the biblical covenants. In this first sermon in a series on Covenant Theology, we...

Adam was God's first priest on the earth, and Eden was his sanctuary, where the first man was to "work and keep" the garden and keep away from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The reward for his work? Eternal happiness with God. In this message on Genesis 2:4–17, we learn that Christ—the Last Adam—has won this inheritance for us, and that all our striving must be in light of ...

Matt Bear, pastoral intern at Good Shepherd Orthodox Presbyterian Church , opens God's word to the great passage Romans 8:1–4 to drive home the good news that those who are in Christ Jesus are no longer condemned.

Matt Bear, pastoral intern at Good Shepherd Orthodox Presbyterian Church , speaks on the amazing reality of the worship of God. With the help of Westminster Confession of Faith 21.6, Matt shows us how Hebrews 12 gives us a glimpse of the heavenly nature of our assembly.

Exod. 33:12–17  Psalm 106:19–23  John 14:8–14  1 Pet. 3:13–18  When someone steps in to settle a disagreement we call that “mediating.” That’s an idea we find in the Bible. The Bible speaks about mediators as being a “go-between," especially through prayer or sacrifice on behalf of others. In other words, a mediator is a bridge-builder—connecting things that otherwise have a wide gap in betwe...

 Anything that we hold as important gets our attention, time, and planning.  It’s the same for God himself. The six days of creation are important, of course. But in an another sense, they’re just the planning stage. The grand finale is the seventh day. In this sermon, we learn that since God entered into his rest, it is our destiny to find rest in him as well. The full experience of that rest won...

Lev. 1:1–9 Job 1:1–5 John 11:45–53 Heb. 10:1–10 Lord's Day 5 of the Catechism speaks about the problem of sin and punishment in financial terms. Our sins and guilt are spoken of as a debt . In this message, we learn that the human race has always had the impulse to pay this debt back to God; that God put in place temporary solutions to paying it back; but that Christ is the true solution to p...

Genesis 1:26–27 is the account of man being made in the image of God. This is the teaching that assures us that we are made to be like our Creator, the King. In fact, Psalm 8 speak of this image when it says, “[God,] you have made [mankind] a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor.” The image of God is humanity’s imitation of God’s kingship. And today we’re going to see...

Gen. 19:23–29  Isa. 66:15–24  Matt. 11:20–24  Rev. 21:5–8  The late J. I. Packer wrote 50 years ago, “The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter." If that was 50 years ago, the situation has only gotten worse.  Given that  the Bible speaks about God’s...

Today we celebrated two new members joining Madison Reformed Church, and to mark the occasion, we opened to Acts 20 and Paul's speech to the Ephesian elders. This priceless speech gives Christians great insight into how we ought to practice life in the local church, and teaches us that since God has purchased every church by the blood of his dear son, it every Christian's privilege and r...

Deut. 10:12–17 Jer. 3:24–4:4 John 16:4–11 Rom. 2:25–28 Question 8 asks, “But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil?” The answer is “Yes… unless we are born again by the Spirit of God.” This teaching is called the doctrine of regeneration, or being born again. The Bible makes it clear that this new birth is absolutely necessary, and Scripture shows...

In Scripture, the sages had a role to play in the royal court of kings, including the king of Israel. They were to be trusted advisors, helping the king become a man of true wisdom. In this way, sages were supposed to take their cue from God himself. Creation demonstrates this for us powerfully.  Proverbs 3:19 says, “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth..." In this sermon, we take this inspir...

Deut. 6:4–9  2 Sam. 12:1–15  John 7:14–24  Rom. 3:9–20              Early on the catechism teaches us that we must know “how great my sin and misery are.” In this message, we learn how God uses his law to alert us to the fact our sin endangers us, and how we are to flee only to Christ to escape sin's misery. 

When God freed the Israelites, they had been in Egypt for 430 years. It was time to unlearn the ways of that world and to remember the ways of Abraham, and of Abraham's God. To begin this process, Moses told them the story of God creating the heavens in the earth. In this message on the days of creation, we learn that God is the King, and that he has endowed people—even former slaves—with job...

Lev. 26:9–13 Job 23:1–17 Luke 4:31–44 Rom. 14:7–12 The 1st question of the catechism teaches us that true spiritual comfort is found in belonging . That’s a remarkable way to begin. It’s the kind of thing that is relevant in any age because everyone longs to belong. No one can sustain a healthy life without being a part of something, without being tied to someone. We all long to belong. And withou...

NEW SERIES in GENESIS: The Bible is God’s gracious way of giving us a behind-the-scenes look at him and his plan. Genesis is the first book we open to get a glimpse, and we must deal with the God who makes his appearance at the very start. There is no one like Him. And since there is no one like Him, the further “behind the scenes" we look, the more we realize that we'll never come to th...

In this message, Matt Walkenhorst (pastoral intern at Westside Reformed Church ) opens God's Word to the Gospel of Mark to give us a glimpse of Christ's lordship over creation. He asks, if creation hears Christ's word and obeys, shouldn't we? (The first minute or two of this sermon audio was cut off).

Num. 14:1–12  Dan. 9:20–23  Matt. 26:36–46  1 Cor. 10:6–13  The old Presbyterian minister Matthew Henry was right to say about the Lord's Prayer that “the expressions [are] remarkably concise and yet vastly comprehensive…” This prayer has taught us how to bring all the needs of both body and soul to the Lord. And in this message, we learn the meaning of the 6th petition, the conclusion, and t...

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.