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Don't Judge Me Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | Lead Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Date: October 25, 2026 Sermon Title: Don’t Judge Me Passage:‍ ‍Matthew 7:1-5 Preacher: Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest - Lead Pastor Sermon Summary: Pastor Eric explores Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 7:1–12, explaining the difference between judgmentalism, which comes from pride and condemnation, and discernment, which begins with self-examination and seeks to help others through love, humility, and grace. He challenges us to examine our own hearts before correcting others, avoid assuming their motives, and treat people with the same mercy and compassion that God extends to us. Sermon Transcript: Good morning. So if you haven't been around here for a while, you may not know that everybody is tired of this series that we're in and we're slowly winding it down, actually. We're coming to the end of something that we've been in for a very long time, which is Actually, I hope you're not tired. I think this is some of the most important stuff I've probably ever preached on, which is that Jesus teaches us how to live a life and that he offers us two ways in life. And that the one way is the broad way. It's the easy way. It's like our human nature and we're just naturally bent toward going down that broad path. And we have to reorient our hearts and we have to intentionally walk this other path. And it is narrow, right? It is difficult to do sometimes. And the whole judging thing that we're going to talk about today is case in point. I think the broad way is to be judgmental and it's to live out of this place of judgment. The harder path in life is the one where we offer grace and where we look to the best of others, and we try to live the life as Jesus teaches us to live it. So this is what we're doing today. Before we get into it, I do want to pray over the word and the message and over you. So let's bow our heads. Father in heaven, we have gathered today to be in your presence. We have gathered, maybe for many reasons, Some of us out of habit or obligation, but some of us because we're desperate. We're desperate for something from you, something transcendent breaking into the ordinariness of our lives. My prayer this morning is whatever the reasons are that has gathered these today in your sanctuary, Lord, that you do break through. that you show them that you are at work in the world at large, but specifically in their lives today, right now, as these words are being spoken. And so, Lord, speak. We are listening. Amen. So every now and again, I come across these nuggets that really jazz me up because I had never seen it before. I didn't know they existed. And so this week is one of these where I found out that there is this, well, there's essentially these Jewish writings called the Talmud, okay, that could start in about the 1st century AD. I know, I got nerdy quick. First century AD, right? And then they get written for a while, and it's essentially the rabbis. These are the Pharisees, mind you. We have the Pharisees literature. I don't know if you know that. And they write down, the rabbis from the Pharisees, they start writing down their reflections on scripture. And one of these collections is called the Talmud. And I found one that many believe dates back to the 1st or 2nd century AD. So like about the time of Jesus and right after. And I'm going to read to you what it says. It's going to sound very similar to what Jesus says, but maybe with a few twists, okay? So it goes like this. It is taught in a barata that Rabbi Tarfan says the following. I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation who can receive correction. So the rabbi says, I would be surprised if there's anyone who can receive correction. Why? Because if the one correcting says to him, remove the splinter from your eyes, that is, rid yourself of a minor infraction. The other says back to him, remove the beam between your eyes, which is to say you have committed far more severe sins. So this is the first rabbi. This is, again, first, second century AD. same exact imagery. There's like a speck, and then there's a beam in the eyes of these people, the splinter in the beam. But it goes on, and then it says, Rabbi Eleazer, Ben Azariah, says, I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation who knows how to rebuke correctly without embarrassing the person he is rebuking. Here's what we got. In this very ancient Jewish piece of literature, by the way, Jesus, our Jewish rabbi who we are all following, is in this same way. They are using the same ideas and the same metaphor of the beam and the speck, but they are using it slightly differently. And they're using it a little like my title is, which is Don't judge me. That's the first one. If somebody comes and says, hey, you've got something in your eye, your immediate response is, you've got a beam in your eye, right? And you can see the defenses going up there. So this is 1 problem. The person can't receive correction. But then the other problem is what gets named next, which is that somebody can't correct another person without completely embarrassing them. In a way, this is actually what Jesus is doing, only he's then expanding upon it. And so this sermon and this passage, it is about how to correct others well. And it is also about how to receive correction well. But it is more than that, because Jesus being Jesus the prophet is often provocative. And he says things that are bold and it seems black and white until you kind of dig down a few layers and you realize, well, did he mean what he said? And so he starts off and he says, don't judge, right? Very simply, don't judge. Just don't do it. But then you have to ask yourself, you got to peel back the layers. Well, does he really mean don't judge in any scenario? And what exactly is that like? Let's go ahead and read the passage again. I'm actually going to read a little bit longer. I hope you have your scripture in front of you. I want to keep reading because there are a few things right after this passage. that tie together the passage that we're in. I will focus primarily on one through 5 for the sake of the sermon, but the rest of it is pertinent. So here again, Matthew chapter 7, we are at this point nearing the end of the Sermon on the Mount, if you know your Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus says the following, Judge not that you not be judged, for with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but do not notice the log in your own? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. He goes on and he says, don't give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. I need you to keep the pigs and the dogs in your head. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, we'll give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a serpent. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, well, how much more will your good heavenly Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? And then the passage, and maybe all of the Sermon on the Mount gets tied up in one final verse, verse 12. Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Jesus begins the passage by

Don't Worry, Be Happy Dr. Eric J. Gilchrist, Pastor | October 18, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Date: October 18, 2026 Sermon Title: Don’t Worry, Be Happy Passage: Luke 12:22–34 Preacher: Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest - Lead Pastor Transcript Summary: Jesus teaches that worry and anxiety can keep us from experiencing the abundant life God offers. We are called to surrender the illusion of control, trust in our Heavenly Father’s care, and seek His kingdom above all else. Transcript We have been on a journey together for quite some time, on a very long journey, sometimes on the narrow road, sometimes on the wide road. The goal, of course, is to be on the narrow one, but many of us find our way over to that wide road from time to time. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's the way Jesus teaches us to live a life. And there are ways to live a life that lead to abundance and to happiness and to joy in this life and into the next. And then there are ways to live a life that leads to death and to destruction in this life and the next. This morning we're talking about worry and anxiety. And nobody needs to tell you, not even Jesus, that a life of worry and anxiety is a road to death and destruction. It steals the joy from you. And as much as don't worry, be happy is a cavalier way of saying, just deal with your life's problems, I don't think this is what Jesus is calling us to exactly. But he is encouraging us not to be anxious and not to worry. And he's reminding us that there is a better way, and it is a narrow way, and it's actually a hard way, some of us more than others. But this morning I want to talk about how to do that and what it looks like. And so I hope you will pay attention to see the ways in which Jesus is calling us into the fullness of life. As I was getting ready for this morning, there is a man that I came across. I didn't know him, and I'm going to guess you don't either. His name is Paul Kingsnorth. He was a longtime environmentalist and a self-described pagan. But that was many years ago. He has since become an Orthodox Christian. And in 2021, he wrote a beautiful essay for a magazine called First Things. And it's called The Cross and the Machine, in which he tells of his own conversion. And in the essay, he has this quote that's on the screen up here. He says, as we see the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, of choosing power over humility, over choosing separation over communion, the stakes become clearer each day. The choices between surrender and rebellion, the choices between sacrifice and conquest, each of these by the way could be its own Broad way, narrow way, sermon, surrender, rebellion, sacrifice, conquest, death of the self, or triumph of the will. And the options he gives us are between the cross and what he calls the machine. We have always been offered the same choice, he says. The gate is straight and the way is narrow, and maybe we will always fail to walk it. But is there any other road that leads home? The answer, of course, is no, there is not. And what he calls the machine here is another way of talking about the broad way, the fallenness of the world, the fallenness of you and of me. The machine is another name for what we call the flesh, what we call our ego. It's societal sin. It's our sin nature living deep down in. It's a churning of everything wrong with the world as it is. And as he says, and as Jesus will tell us, the only other option is the cross. That we must die to ourself and we must live to Christ because that is the only way home. For most of this year, we've been talking about transformation, and we've been talking about the narrow road that leads to abundant life, the wide road that leads to death. And one of the deep ironies of our Christian faith is that the road that leads to life is a road that has to have a cross on it. Meanwhile, the road that leads to death is the road that is you avoiding everything that might get you to the cross. It is only in relinquishing your life that you find it, but by trying to salvage it, you lose it. I believe it was Jesus who said this first. Let us pray together. Heavenly Father, as we come to study your word, As we open our hearts and our minds to what you have to teach us today, Lord, we bring to you our worry. We each have it. Every last one of us has something right now that we can name immediately that we are in fact worried about, our anxiety. And Lord, you teach us to cast our cares upon you. And so we come this morning trying to do just that. Help us have faith. Help us have the kind of faith that brings to you everything. In Christ's name we pray, amen. If this sermon is one thing, it's a sermon on dependence. It's a sermon on learning how to depend on God for just about anything and everything. But it's also a sermon about the illusions that you and I carry, Namely, the illusion that we're actually in control of our own life. And I think Jesus is trying to tell you, are not in control of your own life. And this is one of these things that must be pinned to the cross. Because it's also a sermon about the cross. The cross as the only way home. And so there are things in your life that need to die and that need to go away so that true life and abundance can in fact be born and reborn within you. Which is all to say this is a sermon about faith. It's a sermon about walking the life of faith. It's a sermon about trusting God with every last piece of who you are. And when we worry or we have anxiety, It means that there are these pieces of us that we are still trying to hold on to or that we think we can if we just grip hard enough. And my hope today is that by the end of this sermon, you have released something, even just a little bit. But as I started or in the prayer, I said, we each carry anxiety in this room with us here and right now. And I believe that. And I'm going to guess that you each can immediately think of something. So I want you to stop thinking of that thing for a second. And I want you to zip back in time. Go back a few years and try to find something that you were anxious about for a time and that is no longer causing you any anxiety. Take that trip with me. I'll give you one that I thought of. When Ezra was very little, and in fact, all of our kids were very little, We used to put them in a sleep sack every night. The sleep sack, if you don't have one, is one of these head to toe sacks so that you then zip it up and there's room for the arms to do this, but the legs don't come out. And then you lay your baby into the crib and it kind of keeps them comforted and warm, this kind of thing. And I had this thought that I think Ezra is going to get to college and we'll still be zipping him up at night every night and laying him in the crib and having to tend to every last need of his and the worry that comes with being a parent of a young child. And there's all these concerns, right, that are wrapped up in the sleep sack. And then he actually went to college and as far as I know, he's doing just fine. doesn't call as much as I'd like him to. No, he's doing quite well. He doesn't need me to tuck him in at night. He's off with friends and taking very much care of himself and whatever anxieties I had 18 years ago are long gone, right? But they were still real. It's just with a kind of a broader view of your life and of what's coming. some of what you're carrying this morning will inevitably be gone, maybe by tomorrow, maybe by next week, maybe it'll take five years, maybe 25 years. But the anxieties will change, won't they? And something new will take its place. And so the question that I'm kind of asking you this morning is, what is it and where will it be in five years? And But the real deep question, the one that's like way underneath, is do yo

FULLNESS: The Fullness of Christ in Me Rev. Dr. .Ken Pruitt, Guest Pastor | October 12, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript FULLNESS: The Fullness of Christ in Me Dr. Rev. Ken Pruitt - Guest Pastor Sunday, October 11, 2026 And all God's people said, I am so honored to be with you, South Run Baptist Church. Thank you for your commitment to Jesus, the love you show me and my family each time I'm here. And praise team, musicians, vocalists, thank you so much for how you're bringing honor to Jesus. In this time of worship, my dear friend Eric, man, I love you. I praise God for you. And thank you for entrusting the preaching of the word to to that which God, I believe, desires to do in this moment. I'm honored to be with you, and I invite you to join me where the scripture takes us today to Colossians chapter 1. I'll be reading from chapter 1, verses 18 through 20. Colossians chapter 1, verses 18 through 20. And he, Christ, is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy. For God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. Did you hear that, church? God in Christ has a desire to reconcile all things to himself. Can you say all things with me? All things. In the Greek that means all things. He's desired to reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Father in heaven, I thank you for the reading of your word. Thank you for the hearts that are receiving. and for your spirit who will instruct us. Father, I certainly desire that the words of man not be understood or any attempt of interpretation of your scripture. But Father, may your Holy Spirit quicken our hearts to hear your word. And we commit this moment to you in Jesus' name. And together we said, amen. Again, so honored to be with you. If you were to look at the screen of my cell phone, you would see a lot of apps. but you'd also see a lot of unused apps. And I'll tell you why. It's this simple phrase, add-ons. A lot of my apps no longer function because I refuse to pay for add-ons. You know what I'm talking about. The app looks promising until it tells you it is not. And I placed this 360 app on my phone recently because we all enjoy keeping up with ourselves and our household. And I wanted to advance a little bit, Eric, so I hit a button. I pushed the button and the app said, oh, no, you don't. You need an add-on. And so the app started pushing my buttons. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. spirit of refusing add-ons is remarkably similar to why Paul wrote this letter to the church of Colossae in 62 AD. This congregation was very young. They'd been founded not by Paul, but by one of the young men he had discipled, Epaphras. Paul writes to the church because something dangerous was afoot. There was in their century a problem with add-ons. Although the church in Colossae, the recipient of the letter of Colossians, had placed their trust in Jesus and was following the Christ and was committed to His words, there were voices from without speaking within the church, encouraging that there must be something added to the gospel. Paul said, oh no you don't. And the Holy Spirit raised him up to write this letter that is transferable as a part of God's holy inspired word into our lives today. These voices encourage the church at Colossae to add to their faith in Jesus philosophy, spiritual experiences, even the rites and rituals of the Hebraic tradition. And Paul writes to refute this, to remind them that in Jesus you have all you need. God's salvation for you stands perfect and complete exclusively, not in part, but exclusively in Jesus. And yet these voices continue to say something must be added. This is why in the second chapter of Colossians, you'll hear Paul say, see to it that no one take you captive with hollow philosophies. See to it, Paul would write, that no one deceive you with hollow philosophies that will bring in man's truth in an attempt to combine with the gospel to present something that is most assuredly not the gospel. This happens today, does it not? If we spend just a moment in some form of a media platform, we will see that there are truths that attempt to delude and to mix in with the Christian faith. This is happening in the 1st century. This was a young congregation, so Paul was quite concerned that some might buy into this early development of what is now known as Gnosticism, meaning that there are special revelations that can only come from God, not through Jesus, because matter is evil. Only spiritual things are holy. And so the incarnate God in Christ was dismissed, and many other heresies came out of this moment in history. Paul wrote to them about the fullness of Jesus. In fact, you and I can understand Paul's heart behind this letter by looking at something he prayed in chapter 1, verse 9. In that verse, Paul wrote and literally prayed, we continue to ask God to fill you with a knowledge of His will. What is that knowledge of the will of God that would keep you and me from being pulled into deceptive voices of vain philosophies and other teachings that are against the gospel. What is this full knowledge of the will of God? This is a bit more transcendent. In fact, it is way more transcendent than how you and I might think of knowing the will of God. We at times will seek God's will for where we will attend college or what career may be ours or who we will marry. Those are the big life episodes wherein we will sometimes say, God, I want to know your will. That's not at all the categories from which Paul says, oh, I pray, church of Colossae, that you will be filled with the knowledge of God's will. Here the idea of God's will is much more transcendent. And to better understand this, it's always important to allow the whole of the scripture to be our commentary for one specific scripture. And there is a partnering verse here that will help you and me to understand why of all the things Paul could have prayed for this church that was being hit by heresies, why Paul would pray, oh, that you would have full knowledge of the will of God. What is that will of God referenced here? Well, a partnering passage in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 9 and 10, Paul writes that the mystery of God's will, he has the word mystery there, the mystery of God's will has been revealed, and then Paul names it, that all things will be brought under one head, Jesus Christ. So when Paul prays for the Colossian church that they would be full of the knowledge of God's will, He's praying that they would have a deep, a full, a complete understanding of all that God has accomplished for them through Jesus. Paul writes, I pray that you'll be filled with understanding what God has done for you in Christ. Now immediately, you and I, especially those of us who've been in church since the day we were able to take our first breath, will quickly say, well, Ken, I know the gospel. I've heard the gospel. I could reiterate the gospel. So why would I need to know more, have the full knowledge of a gospel that I've already heard all my life? Well, your question, if that would be your question, makes the apostle Paul's point. And it makes the teaching of the Holy Spirit's point here very clear. Paul is not saying that you would have a recognition of the gospel so that you can recite it. Paul is not saying that you have some cerebral understanding of the gospel. Paul writes that you would have a full knowledge and experience that you would truly know the fullness and the essence of Jesus. Here lies more than simply an idea or a truth that we hear about and try t

FULLNESS: Knowing Christ Deeply, Living Christ Daily. Part 1 Rev. Dr. Ken Pruitt - Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript FULLNESS: Knowing Christ Deeply, Living Christ Daily, Part 1 Rev. Dr. Ken Pruitt, Guess Pastor . . . statement. No, the gospel is not another dying myth. It's not just another story. It's the story from where all other stories find their meaning. That statement encapsuled the conversion experience of this young man. And on that evening He asked Jesus to become his Lord and his Savior. And the impact of this young man is still felt today. His name is, of course, C.S. Lewis. And his friend who encouraged him is certainly none other than J.R.R. Tolkien. I love this story of Lewis's conversion. And later in his life, Lewis wrote a summary of that night. I'd like to share this summary with you. Lewis said, I now believe in the Christian faith, not only because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything. Lewis testified that Jesus Christ had filled his life. He had become full of the meaning and message of the gospel. This reminds us of a phrase that Pastor Paul Tripp used once, being compartmentalized in our faith. Lewis decided no longer to compartmentalize, but to see Jesus Christ as Lord of all and to see His fullness alive in all of our existence. So I ask you today to consider our response to Jesus. Many of us come to this place of worship from different locales and maybe even different spiritual postures. We come to this place with different experiences. But there's one question that would drive us all together. How are we responding at this very moment in our daily lives to Jesus? Do we tend to compartmentalize? Pastor Paul Tripp said that at times we treat our Christian faith like drawers. in our house we have different drawers. We have drawers for socks and we have drawers for towels and drawers for utensils. And sometimes in our faith maybe it feels as if we have different drawers and that Jesus and the truth of the gospel has just but one drawer to occupy in our life. Lewis would say note, it is vital that we receive the fullness of Christ in our lives and then walk in that fullness. Well, that's the message of the whole of Scripture of the New Testament and of this small letter that we know as Colossians, written by the Apostle Paul, that 1st century pastor and church planter who ministered indelibly in the lives of many brand new churches in the 1st century, particularly in Asia Minor, and Colossae being one of these congregations to whom Paul wrote a letter around 62 AD. And the purpose of his letter was to remind them, Jesus is all you need. He's sufficient. And Paul began through this letter expounding upon this idea of the fullness of Christ. I'd like to walk into this letter with you for just a moment to experience the first of two messages I'll share with you. And in this part one of knowing Christ deeply and living Christ daily. Can we focus for a moment on the fullness of Christ in us? And then we'll focus on the fullness of Christ next week in the church. As we open up the book of Colossians, I'd like to remind you of the theme of Colossians that we find in the opening two verses. In Colossians chapter 1, verse 1 and 2, before we move into the verses that were read for us, we notice a greeting that Paul shared that sets the tone for the remainder of the letter. Paul wrote in Colossians chapter 1, verse 1 and 2, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, he identified himself, by the will of God and Timothy our brother, to God's holy people. And Paul presented two identifications here built upon the fullness of Christ. Paul said, I'm apostle of Jesus by the will of God. And then he addressed the church as being the holy people of God. I don't know if you've ever seen yourself as holy, but if you were among the Colossian congregation, you would be addressed aptly, even as you should be today, as a holy people. You may say, and Pastor Ken, that's far from what I would think of myself. Well, Paul addressed the entire church. transferable even to you and to me today that you're a holy people. But Paul also identified himself in that same light by saying, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. Why are these two identifiers so important for understanding this entire letter and for understanding the fullness of Christ in us and in the church? When Paul said, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ, he added, by the will of God, Anytime Paul uses the phrase will of God, he's referencing not just God having a will for our lives per se for a career or some type of broader guidance. Paul uses the phrase will of God to reference what God is up to in our lives by giving us Jesus. to redeem us and save us and set us in a right relationship with God Almighty. That becomes for the message of the gospel, the will of God. So Paul writes, I'm an apostle by the will of God. He didn't mean that by the sake of his career or calling, but because of what God had done in his life through Jesus. So I stand here today to say I'm a messenger of God by the will of God. I'm leading a seminary by the will of God. I'm a father and a husband by the will of God. But not because these are choices only that have filtered into my life, but this is because of what God has done to redeem and to fulfill his purposes through a relationship with Jesus. Paul then identified the Colossian church as being the saints. You holy people, the saints of God, meaning set apart. You are set apart because of what Jesus has accomplished in you. And so when Paul gave this greeting, he was off and running in this amazing small letter to remind the church that all that we are, all that we do is built upon the fullness of Jesus at work in our lives. Then Paul does something unique. He offers a prayer that we see in chapter 1, verse 9 and 10. Paul said, I pray and ask that God would fill you What did he ask God to fill the church with? Listen to this, the knowledge of the will of God. Paul writes, I pray that you'll understand not just that God's will is real for those of us who preach and lead and plant churches, but God's will is real for you in Christ Jesus. God is doing something in you, which is why Paul prayed in chapter 1, verse 9 and 10, that you would have the fullness of the knowledge of the will of God. Over in chapter 2, I add this because this is vital for this word fullness. Paul gave some exhortation in chapter 2, verse 9 and 10, when he said, oh, I pray that in Christ you are brought to fullness. That the fullness of Christ made known in bodily form, meaning that God sent Christ to us, He lived, died, and rose again, and ascended, and he's ruling and reigning on high. Paul writes, I pray that the fullness of Christ becomes your fullness. This word fullness, although out Colossians from the Greek term pleroma, actually indicates to be complete. So what Paul is saying in all these verses is not too different from what C.S. Lewis said of his conversion. Jesus has filled my life. All that I am and all that I think and do and the lens through which I look at everything is Jesus. This was Paul's message and this was his exhortation to the Colossian church to walk in the fullness of Christ, to know him deeply and to follow him daily. Paul then continues writing and he comes to an abrupt halt at verse 15 and this is where we pause for an application today. In verse 15, it's as if Paul stopped for a moment. Paul is likely writing from a Roman prison, so he's likely dictating to what you and I would call an emanuensis, a secretary. We know this to be reality because at the end of the letter, Paul says, I took the pen and wrote this closing myself. But here Paul seems to pause, he may have put up his hand to the one that was writing down what he was speaking to this church he'd never visited, but his d

Your Faith Has Saved You Dr. Eric J. Gilchrist, Pastor { September 27, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Your Faith Has Saved You Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor I hope you'll stick around as we pack together for the community that is around us. As I was watching that video, it strikes me that what we're doing downstairs in just a few minutes is a wonderful extension of what I want to say today, which is that, maybe in brief, that Jesus cares about our bodies as much as he cares about our souls. He cares about this world as we see it and experience it, as he does about wherever we end up in the next life. And too often, Christianity, and I am guilty of this myself, we focus so much on what's to come that we fail to see that the here and now is actually where heaven and hell begin. And so unless we can take care of the bodies in front of us, our own included, I do wonder how we are prepared to enter into the next life. Let's pray and we'll jump into what I'm trying to say here. Heavenly Father, we come this morning expecting you to be present and speaking, to be active in the world that is around us and the world that is inside each of us. Lord, our minds can race, our hearts can thump, anxiety can get the best of us. Thinking about what tomorrow might bring can get us all wrapped up around the axle. But Lord, today, in this second, we ask that you set those aside, that you breathe your breath of peace into us and that you speak to us the truth that you have for us this morning. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen. The sermon takes place in three parts. I've tried to give you the three parts on the bulletin at the bottom of your, at the bullets, at the bottom of the bulletin. Part one is kind of stating to you the problem that often exists. And then part two is maybe showing you the path forward and where I see a solution to this problem. And then three, as often is who cares, is the question that I'll pose. Like, what does it mean for us today? The question at hand is, what do Jesus miracles have to do with the crucifixion and the resurrection? I don't know if you've ever thought about this question, but Jesus spends his whole life doing all kinds of things. He lives in earthly existence, just like you and I do. And then he has at least three years of a ministry where he's going about doing what? He's healing people of their diseases. He's casting out demons. In today's story, he he power came out of him to heal the bleeding woman. There was a girl who had died and he raised from the dead again. But then he goes to the cross and he forgives us of our sins. And I don't know if you feel this way, but sometimes it feels like those two things are worlds apart. And what is his healing of all the bodies in the first part of his life have anything to do with what he does on the cross? Have you asked this question? Have you wondered this? Has this ever come into your mind at some point that these two things feel a little unrelated? I heard a speaker a number of years ago. His name is NT Wright and there's a quotation from him at the bottom of the bulletin. He's a famous biblical scholar. And he was talking at a conference that I was at. And he named this ever so clearly. He said that too often in American Christianity, we split these two things up. And truth be told, we actually mostly just focus on the cross and maybe the resurrection, though mostly the cross and the forgiveness of sins. And then the hope that we have at some future point in heaven someday. But then we don't always know what to do with those miracles that he did. And they just kind of become a sign that, well, maybe maybe Jesus is just like proving he really is God. And so he's done all the signs to prove that he's God. And therefore, the cross is real. I suggest to you actually that's maybe an anemic or small view of what Jesus is doing in his earthly ministry. And he's showing us a much, much better way. But the problem doesn't seep in recently. It's actually an older problem. It actually if you were to read the Apostles Creed, right, it goes like this. It says, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And I believe in Jesus Christ. And then what does it say about Jesus? It says he's God's son. He's our Lord. He's conceived by the Holy Spirit. And he's born of the Virgin Mary. And then it skips over all the life of Jesus. And it says he suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified, dead and buried. Right. And so even the Apostles Creed jumps from his birth, which seems really important, and then the suffering and death, which is obviously very important, doesn't really give us some theology or an understanding of why it all mattered at all. I think there's help on the way, though. So the first place I turn you to is Matthew, Chapter eight, verses 16 to 17. We read the following. That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word. And then he cures all the sick. And this was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah. He took our infirmities and bore our diseases. Here, Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 53 for which is often called the suffering servant passage. If you've been with us on a good Friday, there's a good chance you've heard this passage multiple times. It's a famous one. And it's a really important one, because in Isaiah, we get this foreshadowing of the kind of Savior we should expect. It's the kind of Savior who dies that we might live, who suffers. But very specifically here, he bears our infirmities and our weaknesses or diseases. I know we often just immediately kind of translate that into he bears our sins, and he does. Like this is mission critical. Like I'm not trying to lower this. I'm trying to explain to you that salvation might be a little bigger than we've thought it is. And so Isaiah tells us and Matthew echoes that there's something about Jesus bearing the infirmities and the diseases of us. And this is part of what he's doing on the cross. The quote from NT Wright goes like this. Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of God's new project. Not to snatch people away from the earth into heaven, but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. The project that God has embarked on from the day Adam and Eve were ushered out of the Garden of Eden is not to one day create this place off in the sky somewhere that we all fly up to by and by. It's to redeem and restore the creation that is, which is to say that your lives matter here and now in deep and profound ways. Your bodies matter here and now. The trauma that sits in your mind, it matters. And God is desirous to heal it all. But we also know that we live in a fallen world. It's become almost cliche to say we are living in a fallen world, but it is true. And so the difficulty of living in this life is a real one. And while I would wish to you that all of our infirmities can be whisked away today, before you leave, just come on up and I'll pray over you. And you'll walk out a healed person. I can't make that promise to you today, but I do hope to show you some other things. Part two of the sermon is about the many faces of salvation that we find in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke's Gospel, he uses four times the same phrase, and it says, Your faith has blanked you. Now, the most obvious translation is to just simply say your faith has saved you. This is what the Greek says every one of these times. Sozo is the Greek word. Your faith has saved you. And if you've been around the church at all, and if you've read Paul's letters, and if you've just simply had conversations with Christians, you know that faith and salvation, they go hand in hand, don't they? Faith, salvation. But in a few of the translations of these words, we actually don't get salvati

The Long Journey from the Head to the Heart Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor | September 13, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The Long Journey from the Head to the Heart Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor . . . are few. And so for this last season of Church Life, we've been talking about these two different paths, right? There's this one way to live a life in which you find yourself down roads of destruction that you should never have walked down. And then there are ways of living a life that lead to real life. And Jesus warns us, he says, the way to life is not easy, It's narrow. It's probably going to cause you some difficulty at times. This isn't to say it's the easy road at all. If anything, the other Rd. is the easy one. But it is a road that leads to life. And so I've been talking about different ways that this gets played out and different topics. This sermon is A little bit like if you've ever watched a television show where you're watching these characters unfold over a span of time, and then the storyteller goes back in time, right? And the storyteller starts to tell you about the roots of the character. I remember the first time I maybe encountered this completely was the show Lost. They tell you about the various characters, Jack and Kate and a guy named John Locke. And then you're like 3, four, five seasons into it. And then you're finding out about John Locke as a little kid or something and like what happened to his life. Or if you've read good books, maybe, I'm blanking on this, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, right? He does this well. He gives you not just like the world therein, but he builds the world out. This sermon's a little like that, where we've been focused on what Jesus offers these two ways in Matthew 7. But truth be told, Jesus is not making this up whole cloth. He's actually pointing to the passage that Dave just read for us back from Deuteronomy chapter 30. And it's worth knowing this because there's actually a whole history of this that's sitting in your Bible that predates anything that Jesus says or does. And it's worth knowing what's really happening in these scriptures. And so today my hope is to kind of walk you through a few of them to show you what Jesus is pulling on and then to show you that Jesus' intent is to actually fill all of that out and to make a way where before there had not been a way. Let's begin with prayer. God our Heavenly Father, we thank you. for sending your Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for our sins, to cleanse us from our iniquity, that we might have new life. We thank you for raising him from the dead, that he might defeat death once and for all, and offer true life, eternal life for all of us. And Lord, we thank you for sending your Holy Spirit. And we ask right now, here and now, that you send your spirit into this place, that Lord, you speak through my words to the hearts of those listening, that they might know what you are trying to tell them this morning. We pray this in Christ's holy name, amen. So if I were to ask you what is Jesus' famous sermon, you would probably say, the Sermon on the Mount. Is there another one? It's kind of the only one that I am aware of that maybe gets a title, like the sermon something or other, right? If you were to go home today and want to read the Sermon on the Mount, you would go to Matthew chapter 5 through 7. It's long. It's 3 whole chapters long, right? And in Matthew 5 through 7, If I were to ask a follow-up question, like what's the text Jesus is preaching his sermon from, what would you say to that? No, nothing? Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Because here's the truth, right? I would say it this way. He's preaching from the whole of the law. And he's teaching us how to read the whole of the law, which is to say the first five books of the Bible, Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. This is where you find the Torah. Another word for law, by the way, frankly, a translation I would prefer is instruction. These are instructions on how to live a life. both communally, for Israel as a whole, like how Israel as a whole is supposed to live a life, and then for the Israelite himself or herself, or for you, yourself, like how you're to live a life. These are the instructions. And so Jesus is kind of flipping through the instruction manual, and he's then preaching through this sermon of chapter 5 and then 6 and then 7, and he gets to the end of seven, and then he delivers the line that I just read earlier about the two different ways. perhaps not surprisingly, he's doing precisely what Moses did. You see, Moses delivers the law, and he gives us things, the memorable ones like the Ten Commandments, right? And then he gives all these other little laws, and if this happens, well then do that, and if this happens, well then do that, and you shouldn't do this over here, and you should definitely do this over here, and then he gets to the end of it all. In Deuteronomy 30, is kind of the capstone of it. And then he says, he's kind of looking back on all the commandments. And in brief, he says, look, I've laid before you two options. The one option leads to life and the other option leads to death, which is precisely what Jesus does, right? He says, I've preached my sermon, my most famous one, the Sermon on the Mount, and I get to the end of it all and I'm offering you two things. There's the one way that leads to life, and there's the one way that leads to death. So let's take a look at Deuteronomy 30. We'll start in verse 15, though. Deuteronomy 30, starting in verse 15, and we'll see what Moses says. Because this again is filling out this backstory that predates what Jesus is doing a few thousand years later. And so in verse 15, he says, see, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. And if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today. And then he explains like how to obey these commandments. There's 3 parts to it. So if you obey these commandments by one, loving the Lord your God, two, by walking in His ways, and three, by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His rules, well then you shall live and multiply. It's interesting to me, and I think it should be to you, that what Moses gives us here is, here's how to obey the commands. And he doesn't get around to actually telling you to obey the commands until.3. He starts with, you obey the commands by, right here, loving in your heart, loving the right thing, namely the Lord your God. And then the next part is you move from loving to doing the thing, to like walking in his ways. And then finally third, When you're doing that, you are finally keeping the commandments and the statutes and the rules and the instructions and all the things that Moses just laid out in the first five books of your Bible. And if you do those, well, that leads to life. This sounds a lot like what Jesus says, doesn't it? Like you should do these things. And Jesus knows, and frankly, Moses knows, and I'm gonna guess you all know too, that actually doing the thing is a whole lot harder than it seems. It's a whole lot harder. We'll finish up the passage here starting in verse 17. If your hearts turn away, and you will not hear, but you're drawn away to worship the other gods and you serve them, well, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you're going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. I have set before you again two options, life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring, your kids and their kids and their kids. they might live, loving the Lord your God, and here they are again, by the way, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding f

A Sermon on Forgiveness Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor | September 6, 2026 Download Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript A Sermon on Forgiveness Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor Good morning everybody. A couple of things before we get started. I know Clint already said it, but I am personally so pleased to have Erin Ovenshire as our new admin. She has been wonderful to work with already, and I look forward to good things there. I just wanted to make sure everybody knew and to welcome her in this role. Second, though, so one of my new favorite things these last few weeks has been the number of children in our worship service. I don't know if you feel this way too, but I definitely do. And I also want those parents to feel very comfortable having their children in the worship service. This is something that at South Run Baptist Church, we prize. We hold this as very important. I don't say this enough, so this is part of what I'm doing right now, which is we have intentionality behind having the kids in here. There are many churches you could attend where you ship the kids off and they're gonna be somewhere else for the whole time that you're here. And by kids, I mean like even up through like junior high or something. We've learned, but studies say Having your kids in here, like seeing what the adults do, watching your parents worship, this is very, very important for their spiritual development. And so this is why we want the children in here. With that said, we also want you to feel comfortable taking your kid out if you need to. And so if at any point you need to, we have a room downstairs. I think it's the Birch room, whatever the middle room is down there. where the TV's on with me on it, and you can participate in the service down there if that's what you need at any point. So feel free to utilize that. All right, let's get started here. Please bow your heads in prayer. God, our Father in heaven, your name is holy, and we seek your holy name this morning. God, I ask that you speak your words through your humble servant this morning, that those who are in attendance and those who are listening, whether online or at some future point, will hear you. They will hear you speaking to them loud and clear. Lord, this morning you know what we're talking about. We are talking about forgiveness. And Lord, we are the recipients of your boundless forgiveness. And so we begin with thanks, but we also now open our ears to what you wish to say to us. In Christ's name we pray, amen. We're talking about forgiveness, but we're also kind of the macro level. We're talking about the two ways. There's the narrow way and there's the wide way, and the wide way leads to destruction. And Jesus is trying to get us to walk down that narrow Rd. right? Which is to say it's a harder Rd. to walk and it requires some intention behind it. And it means that we have to pay attention to what we are doing and should not be. And some of those things we're not doing, but we should be. And so this morning, we have a wonderful test case in forgiveness. Forgiveness. This is certainly something that we've all been on both sides of the coin for. We've needed to forgive somebody, but we've also needed to be forgiven by somebody. But I wanna begin with a question that I asked our deacon ordinands on this last Wednesday. We had a deacon ordination meeting, council, where we brought in the two gentlemen who were being tried and tested, and it was grueling, and we really put it to them. They did pass, so next week we will be voting on our deacons, which will now include Brian Sands and Dan Ovanshire. We're very happy to have them on that slate, and you'll get to vote on them along with two others next week. But the question I asked was, what is the gospel, right? What is the gospel? Somewhat simple question. And I would hope that each of you, if you've been around the church for a while and if you confess Christ as Lord, you would have some kind of answer to this. What is the gospel? So I want to offer to you kind of a version in brief of how I think about this. It starts at the beginning of the creation, which is to say that in the beginning, God created all things good. In fact, he finishes it all and says, this is very good. But we know it doesn't stay there for too long. And there's the fall, Genesis 3 happens, and Genesis 4, they're kicked out of the garden. And then we're living in this world. And if you look around, you see what? You would currently see three hurricanes are sitting in the Pacific Ocean. Something is broken with the world itself, literally. There's a flood in Nepal that led to over 1000 deaths. There's all kinds of illnesses that are just waiting to infect each and every one of us. But it doesn't stop with the brokenness in the world, does it? then kind of seeps into us, you and me, or maybe there's other people, right? the sin sickness that covers humanity. And we are all people who do things that we shouldn't do and we don't do the things that we should do. And then when we're really honest, we look inside and we realize that it's sitting in here. And if you think back through your past, you realize, you know what, there are things that I regret There are things that I need forgiveness for, and I'm reaching out to a God that I need forgiveness from. And so then the gospel is God looking down and saying, I'm going to do something about the state of the world. And to do something, well, he sends Jesus, the Son of God, into the world, And Jesus dies on a cross, as we say, every single second Sunday of the month when we take communion, for the forgiveness of your sins, to make things right again. And then he is raised on the third day, defeating death and offering eternal hope into the future. This is what's happening. And so then the macro story says that what God is doing is he's taking the very good thing that had been broken and he's putting it back to rights again. This is good news. And it's the hope that we all hold on to. At the very center of all of it is a God who loves us so much that he keeps coming after us offering forgiveness when we don't deserve it. Offering forgiveness when we don't deserve it. Which then gets to what Paul says to us about forgiveness at large. He says, for example, actually, sorry, slide one, I had this on here. So what is the gospel? It's the good news that God has chosen forgiveness and mercy instead of punishment. He has chosen reconciliation instead of walking away, and he has chosen restoration instead of pushing us out. And here's what Paul, the move Paul makes in Ephesians 4.32. He says, forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. And so this morning, as we're talking about the need to forgive one another, we should be reminded that the gospel story is the frame to it all. And as Paul says, God forgave you. And how did he do this? In Christ, in the story that I just told you, on the cross, through his death and through his resurrection, you have been forgiven. And so we too are to what? We're to take that same model and we are to apply it, everybody around us. forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. Now the goal of forgiveness with both God and man is restoration. If the story of scripture from front to back is a story of restoration, well then that's what we're doing in our relationships when we forgive as well. We're seeking to restore. to make all things new. Now I should say very clearly that this does not mean consequences don't matter. They matter deeply. And so if you are seeking forgiveness from somebody, you must be ready to acknowledge that there is going to be a fallout to whatever it is that you have done in this life. And so consequences matter. There's a famous theologian from the mid-1900s named Bonhoeffer, and h

Lust Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor | August 30, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Dr. Eric J Glchrest, Pastor It's good to be with you this morning. I come bringing an exciting sermon to you. I'm glad you're here today. If you are new to South Run Baptist Church, I first want to say welcome. We are so pleased that you have chosen to join us this morning. I believe you're here for a reason. I do believe that God has brought you to this place at this time because he has something for you. I believe this of all of us gathered together here. But you should know you've come on a unique Sunday because we've been working through, well, actually, I was thinking about this. We're kind of like a set of Russian nesting dolls this year. So the broad theme is transformation. We've been kind of working on that all year long. And then we've been on this two ways journey where there's these two ways that Jesus offers us abundant life, but he says it's the narrow way, right? And so it requires some adeptness at traversing that narrow way. And then he talks about the broad way, which leads to destruction. And on the broad way, it appears that this is in many ways the easy way. This is the path of least resistance. And so we've been, the nesting doll has been on that path of least resistance. And to do that, we've been talking about the seven deadly sins, right? And so here we are, we're at the 7th of seven. And so if you've come for the first time this morning, you've come on a Sunday in which we are talking about lust. Before we get there, this is a test for those of you who have been with us the whole journey to see if you can name the other six. And if you can't, well, then we're going to start it all over again and we'll do it together. So say them with me and I'll parrot them back to you. What would one of them be? Enri. Gluttony, wrath and sloth, greed, I think we said anger, and vanity, somebody said. I think we got them. Those are the six, leaving us today's message on lust. Part of what we've been trying to do with all of them is also tie together how our technologies the phones in our pockets, the computers that we all sit behind every day, they shape us and they form us and they misshape us and they malform us into beings we were never intended to be. And so my hope through this whole time together actually has been to demonstrate to you that the object in your pocket is not value neutral, that it is having an effect on you in one way or another. And I can really think of no better example than this morning's topic. And so we will talk about some sensitive issues. I've tried to do so in a fashion that is sensitive to all of the various ears this morning, but do know that this is what we're talking about. Let's begin with prayer. God our Father in heaven, you look down at your children and you want what is good for us. You want what is best. You want us to live lives filled with life and abundance and all that is good. And God, yet sometimes we choose the lesser way and we find ourselves going down paths we were never intended to go down, being shaped into people we were never intended to be. And this morning, Lord, speak to us. Speak to our hearts. Speak to our marriages and our families, that we might live lives according to your word, but according to the grain of the universe that you have created, the good universe, the one we intend to live in, the kingdom of God. I pray this in Christ's holy name, amen. You should have gotten a handout when you came in, at least the adults in the room. Yeah, I'll take it, just to wave it around. At some point in the sermon, we will get to this. And this may end up being the most practical sermon I could possibly give to you where there's an actual handout that you can take home with you to give you some resources for how to walk this way well. The Bible has a lot to say about sex. If you've ever read the Bible in full cover to cover, you might be surprised about what you find there. And now that I think about it, I should probably use this as a pitch when I try to get you to read the Bible more often because sex sells and it's filled with it. even has a whole book devoted to it. Did you know this? It's called the Song of Solomon. who himself had 1000 wives and concubines and apparently knew something about the matter. If you think it's a prudish book or that its authors would clutch their pearls at the smallest innuendo, well, you've simply not read close enough. But if you're new to the Bible reading thing and you thought this way, you would be forgiven. Because often this is how we Christians approach the topic, sheepishly in whispers And I confess it's how I often approach this topic, especially from the pulpit. I get nervous and frankly a little weird about it, which is why I'm writing this sermon out rather than trying to go off script. It'll keep me from blushing, hopefully. If the Bible is okay with this topic, then we probably should be too. So I'm going to speak frankly about the matter while recognizing that our congregation has members of all ages listening right now. Parents, you shouldn't feel on edge for what is about to happen, but know that it might spark some interesting conversations around the lunch table that I think you're ready for. And in fact, I encourage these conversations. It's a hope that I have for all of us to be a little more open and in dialogue with one another about this matter. But that said, if at any point you feel the need to take a bathroom break with your child, please go right ahead. I won't be offended. In the beginning, God created the Garden of Eden. And he said to that first couple, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And I know of only one way to be fruitful and to multiply. There's also the matter of Genesis 2, 24, in which God tells the first couple while they're still enjoying the safety of the garden, that when the two are joined together, they become one flesh. Two bodies united into one body. Sounds like a description of the topic we're talking about today. which means to me that God creates it as part of the good creation. It is something that is beautiful, is certainly enjoyable, and I would even say it is spiritual. Two becoming one is a mystery. But don't take my word. It's what Paul says in Ephesians 5 when he compares marriage to our union with Christ. And he also raises the two becoming one mystery as a warning to the Corinthian people in 1 Corinthians 6, who are uniting themselves with temple prostitutes. And Jesus raises the two becoming one mystery as a way to affirm marriage and to limit divorce. Which is all to say, that Genesis and Jesus and Paul, they talk about two becoming one flesh as something to happen within the marriage covenant. The covenant binds two people together by law and by custom, and it requires that the two people remain together in sickness and in health and richer and poorer till death do us part. And why? because it is only this kind of union that makes it safe to practice the deep magic we call sex. There are two ways to preach a sermon about sin, one that I would call an Old Testament sermon and the other a New Testament sermon. The difference is subtle but important. The Old Testament sermon relies on the law. It tells you where the boundaries are. are external to you. For example, an Old Testament sermon tells you the rules to keep and then you simply keep them. Don't murder, don't steal, don't lie, don't break the Sabbath and so on. An Old Testament sermon on adultery would stick to the basics. Don't have sex outside of marriage and you're good to go. But A New Testament sermon, the kind that Jesus would give, drives us deeper to the heart of the matter. which is always a matter of the heart. Jesus is helping us fulfill the Old Testament pr

Sloth Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor | August 23, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Transcript Pastor Eric J. Gilchrest Good morning. It's great to be back with you. I've missed you. I wasn't here on Sunday, last Sunday that is. I was dropping Ezra off at college, which was an incredibly emotional, powerful experience. And then I had been out of town on sabbatical for a time, but I'm promising you I'm here for a while. Does anyone else hear that? It's the sound of... Oh, it is. Yeah. It's the 250th. There's like flyovers happening. I was going to say, I never hear, you know, anything quite like that. Yeah, we'll let the airplanes kind of die down a second. They'll be done in a moment, hopefully, unless it keeps going for a time. Yeah, just turn me up. Thank you. All right. Where were we? Where we were for the last month is we are talking about the way, which is the name for the earliest Christians. They were called the way. They were the ones who followed Jesus appropriately. And then we were also talking about the fact that there are these two ways that Jesus talks about. One way that leads to destruction. And this is the path that We've been talking about the seven deadly sins for. It is the path we're talking about today. It is the path in which we lead lesser lives, and we lead lives that are not intended to be led by God. Today we're talking about sloth, and this is, as it says, following the wrong way home. There's a lot of city stuff in the picture if you're looking at this, and there's a lot of hubbub and there's a lot of movement, and you might be thinking that's not very slothful. But actually, it kind of is. If you were in the Sunday morning Bible study, what we learned is that there are two faces to sloth, actually. The one that is the slow creature from Zootopia, who's amiable and enjoyable to be with, but is is so slow that it's infuriating, right? And they don't do much. But the other face of sloth actually is the person who's so busy and is distracting himself or herself with all these other things in life, and they're not attending to the one thing that they should be attending to. Our lives are actually filled with these sorts of slothful moments where we distract ourselves quite easily and we escape into our devices and we lead lives that are in constant distraction and not attending to the one thing that we should be doing. So Jesus talks about this road that leads to destruction. And this morning we're going to talk about sloth in that way. But he does talk about a road that leads to fullness of life, abundant life. And all year I've been trying to get you to realize there is abundant life waiting for each and every one of you. And this is in fact what God wants for you. Jesus wants this for you. It's the promise. It's frankly the great promise of Christianity. It's what Jesus teaches us, and he shows us the way. He walks the path before we ever do. And so when I got captivated earlier in this year by what I take to be a very simple idea, and the longer I sit with it, the more powerful it gets. And the idea is very simple, that Jesus lived a life showing us how to live a life. And if we just simply model ourselves after the life of Jesus, if we do the things Jesus does, if we speak like he speaks, if we walk like he walks, if we do what he does, then we too can have abundant life. So this morning, before we jump into sloth and we talk about what this means and what it doesn't mean, let us begin with prayer. Heavenly Father, We come this morning and we lift our hearts to you. We slow down in an appropriate way as you call us to every 7th day taking a Sabbath, a rest from the busy work of life, but not to be lazy, but to fall back in love with you, to be open to what you have to say to us and how you're directing our lives and where you're trying to move us to, the ways in which you are trying to grow us and the ways in which you have kingdom plans for each and every one of us. May we attend to you this morning. In Christ's name we pray, amen. I want to begin with an analogy from marriage. If you are not married, hopefully you can grasp what is happening here. This analogy takes place on the 2nd anniversary of a marriage when a couple is past the honeymoon phase and the 2nd anniversary happens and the husband forgets that it's the anniversary. And the wife is now deeply frustrated with her new husband and lashes out and says, how could you forget? James down the street, he took his wife to the Bahamas. You didn't even remember that it was our anniversary. You are a terrible husband. How dare you? And she storms off to the other side of the room. The husband, feeling very defensive and stonewalling, He just kind of turns in on himself and he walks to the other side of the room and he says, doesn't she know? I work so hard for this family, 80 hours a week. I am just, the pressure is so great. And so what? I forget one day, right? And he begins to get defensive. And so the couple is on each side of the room and And they both know that they love each other, right? This is why they married. They both know that they love each other. But the love requires sacrifice. And it requires the both of them to do the one thing that in this moment they're not sure they really want to do, which is to walk back to the center of the room and figure some things out. And to try to understand the other person and where they're coming from. And so what do they do? Hopefully they do what you don't do. They actually stay on the other sides of the room and they nurse their grievances and they choose sloth over love. And they choose to not reconcile. Instead, of choosing to die to self and to choose to try to work it out and love one another. If you've been married, then you know that building a relationship is not easy. What it really requires of this couple is to not exactly just figure it out in that moment. It actually requires figuring it out over a lifetime what the other person needs and what makes them happy and what makes them tick and what you need and where you need to stand up for your own self. And relationships require work and they require growth and they require you to talk about it and to do some hard things and to dig in together. Maybe on occasion going to a counselor or somebody who can help you grow together. And so a good relationship It doesn't just come together in that moment and all is well. It requires day in, day out, doing the hard thing. But if you don't want to do the hard thing, we call this sloth. Sloth is the willful rejection of growing into the person that God wants you to be. It is the willful rejection of growing into the person that God wants you to be. The marriage is just an analogy. It's an earthly analogy that should then be understood in terms of the spiritual realm, that God desires a relationship with you. And this God wants something from you, and he wants you to grow. And he wants you to be a bigger person, as we talked about again in Sunday school. He wants you to be magnanimous, which is to say big sold. But it's going to require work. And it's going to require some pain, maybe some late nights, some early mornings. Sometimes it requires eating some crow and saying, I'm sorry, and man, I really messed up. And coming to God and saying, please forgive me. It requires doing some soul searching. And it requires understanding what is it that God has called me into this life for? Why am I on this planet at all? And how can I serve the kingdom of God? Sloth is one of these sins that requires us to think about what sin is. Most of the time, someone might tell you, well, it means don't kill anybody. Check, not done that. Don't commit adultery, check, right? Don't steal, right? Okay, And you can think of all these things that you're not supp

The Body of Christ Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor | August 9, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The Body of Christ Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor  . . . thank you, Matthias. It was nice to meet you both. But James, I will miss you. And I am so glad you have spent 10 weeks with us this summer and 10 weeks last summer. And South Bend Baptist will always have a home for you here. Renee, you literally have a home here. And we are so glad that you have been with us these 10 weeks as well. Let's begin with prayer and then we'll get into the sermon. God, thank you for these two young lives, Renee and James, who have offered us 10 weeks of their time and of their talents, the gifts that you have given them. And we thank you for the ministry that they have offered to our kids and our youth, and to the church at large. And so for them, we ask for a blessing over their lives, their future, that you continue to work in them and grow in them, that you plant your spirit deep down in, Lord. And we pray all of this in Christ's name, amen. It's good to be back. Where were we? So I will say I listened to Jim's messages and I thought they were wonderfully profound and kind of this perfect segue into where we've been and what we're doing. Jim, if you were here last week and the weeks prior was talking about, well, you tell me, what was he talking about? The deadly virtues, which is this nice symbiosis of what we were doing before and now are heading back into, which is there's a virtuous life and there's a life of vice. And sometimes, and Jim showed us the way here, these two things weave together and what is a virtue for many becomes a vice if you're not careful. Today we are on a the good path, which is to say the things that we should be doing in this life and Jesus teaching us how to live a life. And being Communion Sunday, I thought it would be a wonderful time to reflect on the practice that we have every month where we gather together and we break the bread and we share the cup. and what is happening in this moment. And so before I left for my sabbatical, I was in the series on the two ways. And the first way is this way that leads to life, and it's abundant life in the here and now, and it's eternal life in the life to come. And then there's a way that leads to destruction. And it's the ways of living that Scripture warns us about, that Jesus warns us about, that leads to death in the here and now, and it can erode your soul, and it can shrink your life down to just about nothing if you're not careful. And the premise of all of this is that I believe, and you should believe, that Jesus is trying to teach us how to live a life. It's a simple idea. It's been around for quite some time. But sometimes I think the church gets so focused on the life to come and maybe how do we punch the ticket for the next life that we often neglect? Like what is Jesus teaching us about the here and now? The premise for me is actually simple, is that life in the here and now is not all that different from life in the life to come. And that if Jesus is teaching us about eternal life in the same breath, he's teaching us about this life, because life is life. And the author of life, Jesus, the Father, they are teaching us what it means to live the life that they designed. They are the author of life, and they're showing us the good way. And if we walk that good way, well, then we have life abundant. And if we don't, then we have destruction. And Jesus does warn us that the way to life is narrow, which is to say it requires intention. It requires a purpose. It's going to bob and weave. And then the life that leads to destruction is wide and it's really easy to kind of get caught up in and to find yourself just moseying down the path of least resistance. If I could put the series into one sentence, it goes like this. If you want to be tutored on living a life by the one through whom all life was created, the one who has the user's manual to life, the author of it all, then you should follow Jesus' words and actions. Or as we said it in the 90s, WWJD. I can already hear one pushback to the whole premise though. And it's probably coming from the back row, the back row Baptists back there. And they would probably say something like, Eric, there are some things that are just Jesus. They're like his domain, and then we're not really called into doing that. And I want to say yes. this is an important critique, or it is an important line that we need to draw, that there are some things that Jesus does and that we are not called into doing, that we can't do. And as the table sits before me, it reminds me of what some of those things are. Jesus saves us from our sins. This is something we cannot do. Jesus makes the new covenant in his blood. The new covenant is not in our blood, and we cannot follow him on that road. It is Jesus who welcomes the world with his arms wide open, and we cannot do that. And so when we come to the table and we break the bread and we say, this is Christ's body, it is broken for you, and this is Christ's blood and is shed for the forgiveness of your sins, we can't do those things. But the longer I have sat with all of this, and the longer we've been walking down these roads together about the good way and the bad way and the narrow way and the wide way, it does occur to me that some of that line might need blurring. There is a line, and I don't believe at all we should cross it. There are those things that are fully Jesus. But I think sometimes we mistake what are fully Jesus and we just simply push that off to him completely and then we don't participate at all. And we need to. Because Jesus himself says things like Matthew 16, 24, pick up your cross and follow me. Or Luke 9, 23 to 24. He said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. For ever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. And it seems Paul got the memo too. He invites us to have a relationship with the cross That is not all that different from Jesus. It's different enough and there needs to be that line. But we too are invited into the cross. And so in Galatians 2.20, Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And so yes, there are some things only Jesus can do. like dying for the sins of the world. But then he turns around and he invites us to mirror even some of that. And I think it goes one layer deeper still. But I first want to tell you a story. As I confessed earlier, I went to another church last week. That church too had a communion service They only do communion 4 * a year, and so the pastor, I guess, takes a moment every quarter to explain what it is that their communion service does. My daughter informed me that I'm a better preacher than he is, and she's an unbiased observer, so I take her at her word. But there was something he said that stuck with me. And it's funny because I actually don't remember much at all of what he said, which gives me grace for you. But he simply said this, is the body of Christ broken for you. I've said it 1000 times. I've said it multiple times today already. He said, this is the body of Christ broken for you. And something in his telling or rendering of that or statement or maybe it was just the Holy Spirit himself came into me and said, the body of Christ, the body of Christ, well, this is the body of Christ too. And Paul will talk about the body of Christ, not just as Christ's body, but as us, the church. And is there a way in which us, the body, should be broken for the world? And the answer I've come to is yes. that we too, our wounds, our hurts and our pains, specifically the ones that he has healed, those are meant for the heali

The Deadly Virtue of Certainty Jim Weaver | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The ‘Deadly Virtue’ of Certainty Jim Weaver, Guest Pastor Well thanks to Pedro and Matthias for that great lesson for all of us. And the fourth Sunday with you is here. How it has come quickly for me. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you in these four Sundays and I certainly appreciate your welcome and your hospitality. We've been talking in these four Sundays about what I've called some deadly virtues. These are genuine qualities, attitudes, virtues of the Christian life. But they can get twisted, distorted, and they can become deadly. This morning we're going to talk about the deadly virtue of certainty. I heard this story at a Baptist meeting. It's not a true story like those I told last week, but it does make a good point. There was this couple out west that had a cat. Actually, the wife had the cat. Every time the husband would sit down on the sofa and stand up, he'd have cat hair all over him. When he'd go to the kitchen to open up a can of soup, he'd always find evidence on that can opener that it had been used to open a can of cat food. Somehow it was assumed that he would be the one to empty the litter box. Well, one day his wife was gone for several hours and the husband gathered up his wife's cat And he drove down to the river and he used up all nine lives of that cat all at once. Later that afternoon, the wife returned home and after a while she began to miss the cat. She started to look for it. didn't take her long to become frantic because of course she couldn't find the cat. And she broke down and she cried for hours. And this went on late into the night. And the husband tried to comfort her. Now dear, you don't worry about it. We'll keep looking for the cat. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Tomorrow at work, I'm going to offer a $5,000 reward to anyone who can help us find this cat. the wife thought she had the most kind, compassionate, wonderful husband there was in all the world and he just smiled this smile of self-satisfaction. The next day, the husband did what he said he was going to do. When he got to work, he said to the fella at the desk next to him, My wife just lost her cat. I'm going to give a $5,000 reward to anyone who can locate this cat. The fellow said, $5,000 for a cat? Suppose somebody finds your wife's cat. Aren't you taking a big risk? And the husband said, well, I guess I am. But when you know what you know, you can take some risk in life. When you know what you know, you can take some risk in life. When you know what you know. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. When you know what you know. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. When you know what you know, God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When you know what you know, why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen. When you know what you know, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is passed away, behold, the new has come. When you know what the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever. When you know what you know, you can take some risk in life. What we're talking about is assurance, conviction, certainty. We know what we know, and so we can live our lives with confidence and courage. We can take some risk in life because of the certainty of what we know. And actually, to be more precise about it, it's not just knowing what we know, it's knowing who we know. God who has come to us in Jesus Christ. This certainty, this assurance, this conviction that we have about God is not the certainty of visible scientific proof. You may have studied the classic philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Maybe you have reflected on some of the evidence about the empty tomb and the boldness of the first disciples in the formation of the church that supports the credibility of belief in the resurrection of Jesus. All of this is helpful. All of this shows that belief in God is reasonable, that belief in the resurrection of Jesus is believable. But all of this is not the proof of facts that can't be disputed. Not everybody will be convinced. A woman asked Bertram Russell, who was perhaps the best known atheist in the 20th century, what he would do if he found out that he had been wrong and he discovered himself standing there at the gate of heaven. Russell's eyes lit up and he said, Why I should say, 'God, you gave us insufficient evidence.' The certainty of the evidence that we have is the certainty of a different sort. It's no less valid than the evidence of the certainty of proof that the world relies on. But the certainty that we have is the certainty of faith. The writer of Hebrews says, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Some versions use the language of certainty in their translation. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Some of God's promises are out there in the future, but we're sure that these promises will become reality because of faith. We can't see God with our physical eyes in the way that we can see each other here, but we're convinced that God is real because of faith. We see with the eyes of faith. In the physical world we can't see the wind with our eyes, but with our physical eyes we can see the evidence of the wind and flags that are waving and trees that are blown over. In the same way, we can't see God visibly, but through eyes of faith, we can see the evidence of God at work in the world, especially in changed lives, including our own lives. We're sure about God because we have encountered God in Jesus and we've come into a relationship with God that gives us real life. This is what faith does. Faith gives us the assurance, the conviction, the certainty on which we base our lives. Faith gives us the confidence, the courage, the risk-taking freedom to live our lives in the kind of world we live in. Our certainty is the certainty of faith. Then the words of Paul, We keep on walking. We keep on living by faith and not by visible sight. But perhaps we need to say a word about doubt. In case anyone is thinking, my faith is not so certain. Maybe if we're honest, we can be like that father of the boy who had an unclean spirit, who cried out to Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief. There may be doubts and questions and anxieties that come. And if this is us, we're in good company. The Bible is full of people who wondered about God and God's purposes. Abraham wasn't sure God was going to keep the promise that God had made to him, that he would be the father of many descendants. Moses thought God had made a mistake in calling him to lead the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. Jeremiah struggled with the way that it looked like the wicked people were winning while the righteous people were suffering. Job couldn't understand where God was in the tragedy of his life. John the Baptist wondered and wanted to know whether Jesus really was the Messiah or should he look for somebody else. And even Jesus called out on the cross in the humanity of his nature as fully God and fully man, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As finite people who live in a world where not everything makes

The Deadly Virtue of Religious Devotion Jim Weavor | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The ‘Deadly Virtue’ of Religious Devotion Jim Weaver, Guest Pastor thanks again this morning to Pedro and to Matthias today. You all do a great job and to the worship team thanks for preparing our hearts for experiencing God's presence today. In these Sundays together we've been talking about what I've called some deadly virtues. These are genuine Christian virtues, qualities, values that are important for us as we follow Jesus. But it's possible for them to become twisted and distorted and confused and misguided and they end up being destructive or deadly to our spiritual life, to our relationship with God. This morning we're going to talk about the deadly virtue of religious devotion. I served with churches for about 40 years before I retired from full-time pastoral ministry. In 4 decades in churches, you will encounter some interesting people and see some curious things. Here are some happenings I remember from different churches. And lest you think I'm indulging in some ministerial exaggeration, you can't make all of this up. There was a Bible study class of older adults who wanted the church to convert a space near their classroom into a restroom. The building and grounds committee investigated the project and They determined that the cost was just too great to justify constructing A restroom with other financial priorities the church had at that time. Not to be denied, this Bible study class, most of the members of it, began to designate their offerings for the construction of the restroom. This went on for several years. I became pastor of this church when the monies that this class had donated, contributed, was getting closer to the amount of money that was actually needed to construct a restroom. Most of the members of the church were long past ready for this issue to just go away. And at this church there was a procedure that was an effort to control the practice of designated giving. If a designated gift was given to the church, it actually had to be accepted by the church in a business meeting before the money could be used for the purpose that it had been given. the Building and Grounds Committee decided to take some money that had been left to the church from the estate of a man who had recently died and add this money to the funds that had been accumulated by the designated gifts of this class. And accept these designated gifts in a business meeting and then the restroom be constructed. At the business meeting where we were approving all of this motion, somebody made the suggestion that a plaque be put on the door of the restroom in order to acknowledge the gift from the man's estate. His name was Ralph. Now the members of the Sunday school class weren't real happy with this suggestion because they had given the bulk of the money and they wanted credit where credit was due. And if there was going to be a plaque on that door, then that plaque needed to have their classes named too. There was some discussion back and forth. And then somebody stood up and said, Ralph was a good guy. I liked Ralph. And I don't want to have to think of Ralph every time I go to the John. The discussion ended, the restroom was built, and there was no plaque anywhere near that door. On another occasion, an anonymous donor gave a small organ to the church to be used in the choir room for choir rehearsals. This organ was to replace an old organ that had just worn out. At the business meeting where we were voting to accept this organ, a woman who was a part of the family that had donated the old organ raised an objection That old organ was a memorial gift and there was a plaque on the organ that identified it as a memorial gift. And she pleaded that she didn't want the memory of her family member to just be discarded. Well, for a moment things were at an impasse. And then a wise retired minister in our congregation made the motion that the memorial status of that old organ be transferred to the new organ. And we accept the gift of the new organ. That woman was satisfied that this would still honor the memory of her family member. And so the new organ was accepted. And the plaque was moved from the old organ to the new organ. and the choir had a new organ to sing by. There was a businessman who was a member of the church, but he had a reputation in the town as being something of a dishonest scoundrel. When he died, he left a large sum of money to the church with instructions in his will that a fund be set up to provide financial resources for educational programs within the church and for scholarships for students who are going to seminary. This had happened long before I or many other members of the church had become connected with that church. But everybody knew about this man because of that fund in his name. And I don't know, but some old timers would tell you that this fund was this man's attempt to ensure his way into heaven. One man every year, once a year, would come and ask what equipment or resource the church especially needed. And then he'd make a big gift so that this item, whatever it was, could be purchased. When that item would show up at the church, it soon would be common knowledge who had actually bought this item. What most people didn't know was this man didn't contribute at all to the church's general budget or provide any kind of financial support for the church throughout the year. This one big gift that got a lot of attention was it for this man. One year it was political primary season and it was the Sunday before election day. In the part of the state that we lived in, there just wasn't any place for you to campaign on a Sunday morning because everybody knew that it was church time. A man who was running to be the nominee for a lieutenant governor came to our worship service that morning. He made his way down to the center of the sanctuary and sat in a place where he'd be the most visible. His county campaign chairman, who was a member of our church, wanted this man introduced and recognized in the service. an introduction and a recognition that he didn't get. The man told his campaign chairman after the service that he had just wasted his time being there that morning. If you're wondering, this man finished way, way down in the pack in the primary. There was a man who started to attend our church along with his family. In a conversation I had with this man and his family about our church, he mentioned the names of a couple of men and wanted to know if they were members of our church, which they were. One was a manager with the electric company and one was a manager with a natural gas company. As it turned out, this man wanted a job with a utility company. And he had started to attend our church in the hopes of getting to know these men. Well, this guy didn't get a job with a utility company. And we no longer saw him or his family at our church. There was a woman who had a song that she always liked to sing at Christmas time as a solo in worship. One year she wasn't asked to sing the song. The Minister of Music selected somebody else to sing the solo. And she quit the choir. But the song was sung and the rest of the people celebrated Christmas. You know, all of these stories have something in common besides being true. They raise the issue of why we do the religious things we do and who we do them for. It's the issue of motive and audience. This issue has been around as long as people have been doing religious things. Jesus deals with this issue when He tells us, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When Jesus talks about practicing our righte

The Deadly Virtue of Discernment Jim Weavor | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The ‘Deadly Virtue’ of Discernment Jim Weavor, Guest Pastor Thanks to Renee and James. You all make a good comedy team there. And thanks to the worship team who's led us to this point. It's good to be with you again today. If you're not familiar, I'm not the person that's usually here. I'm Jim Weaver and Pastor Eric is on sabbatical leave this month. After today, his sabbatical leave will be half over. I'm sure it's just flying by for him. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to share with you in these four Sundays while Eric is gone. Last Sunday, said we would be spending this month talking about something that we might call deadly virtues. These are real Christian virtues. They're vital for the Christian life. But they can get misguided, distorted, twisted, and they can become destructive of that abundant life that Jesus wants us to have, that life to the fullest. This morning we're going to talk about the deadly virtue of discernment. Now I'm going to venture to say that there is something that we have all done this morning besides come to church. We've had opinions about things. If you live in a household with somebody else, you probably had an opinion about what sort of mood they've been in today. If you have read some news or listened to some news in the media, you've likely had an opinion about what's going on in the world or what somebody has done. If somebody drifted into your lane or cut you off as you were in your vehicle coming to church today, you had an opinion about their ability to drive. If you were in Bible study this morning, you probably had an opinion about how helpful you found the discussion to be. If you've seen some children in the building this morning, You may have thought they sure are cute. Or it could have been, I sure am glad they're going home with somebody else. Maybe you had an opinion about the music in the service. And I imagine you're getting ready to have an opinion about the sermon. Somebody once said that opinions are like noses. Everybody has one. And I don't think we would try to dispute the truth of this observation about life. But because of the way that we are wired in creation, we do have the capacity to think and to distinguish one thing for another. It's just built into us to have thoughts about the way things are or the way things need to be. But the mental powers and faculties that we have go beyond just this natural inclination to form opinions. What is most important is that God has given us the capacity of moral discernment. God has given us the ability to make moral judgments. We can put things into the categories of good and evil. We can distinguish right and wrong and choose between them. And this is just part of our human nature, the way that God has made us in His image. The other creatures in God's world of creation just don't have this ability to make moral judgments. If you've got a pet dog, you can put out a bowl of food for them. And then they can decide whether they're going to eat what's in that dish or whether they're not going to eat it. And if they don't like the food that you've put into that dish, they don't say to themselves, I sure have a lousy master. I wish I lived in the house across the street. Instead, they eat what's in that dish or they come running gladly when you offer them something else. But we human folks are unique. God has made us so we can think and reason and evaluate things. God has made us so we can distinguish things. God has made us so we can make value judgments about what people are doing, including ourselves. Moral discernment, making value judgments is essential for us as a follower of Jesus. Now somehow the rumor has circulated that Christians aren't the judge in any way. And I suppose this rumor goes back to what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Do not judge or you too will be judged. But just think about it. If God gave us that power of moral discernment, then Jesus couldn't mean that we're never to use our ability to judge that God has planted within us. And there's even more evidence that Jesus doesn't mean don't judge, period. Notice some other things that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. He tells us, do not give dogs what is sacred. Or in other words, don't give what is holy to unholy people. And then as Jesus is beginning to bring the Sermon on the Mount to its conclusion, he says, watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. It's impossible to identify what is unholy. and to tell the wolves from the sheep and to pick the good fruit from the bad fruit unless we're making moral judgments about people. When Jesus says, Do not judge, He's not telling us to be value neutral and to suppress this capacity of moral discernment that we have. We are to be able to put things into categories of right and wrong. We're not to ignore good and evil. God wants us to know His truth and to live by His truth. But there are different ways of judging. There is Jesus' way of judging, and there is a way of judging that really doesn't connect at all with the way of Jesus. And this is the way of judging, the way of making moral judgments that Jesus has in mind when He says don't judge. The Christian needs moral discernment. And moral discernment is a Christian virtue. It's a genuine virtue. It's an indispensable virtue that we neglect at the peril of our lives and of the world too. But this virtue of moral discernment can become a deadly virtue. It becomes destructive when it crosses over the line from the way of Jesus to something that's self-centered and severe. It becomes destructive when it's fueled by a negative and critical spirit that's far detached from God's spirit. It becomes destructive when it demonizes and it condemns. Now there are a lot of words we can use to describe this moral discernment when it crosses the line into a non-Jesus way. There are the words judgmental and hypercritical and fault-finding and self-righteous. And there's the big word censorious. This is a fancy word that comes from a Latin word that means to give an opinion or to assess. In the time of the Roman Empire, censors were officials who were appointed to register the citizens and their property and to supervise the moral conduct of people. The censor felt that he was a cut above everybody else. He felt like he was in a class by himself. And this is the attitude of somebody who has fallen into that deadly virtue of making judgments in a non-Jesus way. They feel like they are morally superior. They enjoy looking for the faults and the failings in somebody else. They think the worst about somebody else's motives and they're quick to form their critical judgments. They're condescending in their negative, and they're always against something, whether they have anything positive to offer or not. They'll demonize someone they don't agree with. And they'll regard them as their enemies to be attacked and to be eliminated at any cost. They'll just wash their hands of certain people and dismiss them as beyond hope and not worth the time. They'll render on certain people that verdict of condemned, people that don't measure up to their standards. And they'll go beyond thinking and saying, you did a bad thing to you are a bad thing, and just write somebody off. This attitude is deadly destructive. And it's even more deadly if it's done in the name of God and we suppose that God thinks exactly the same thing about somebody else that we think about them. This attitude of moral discernment in a non-Jesus way is deadly destructive because it does something to us. It distorts our view of ourselves. If we start looking in

The Deadly Virtue of Childlikeness James Weaver | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The ‘Deadly Virtue’ of Childlikeness Jim Weaver, Guest Pastor . . . was a minister can gain a renewed vision, become re-energized besides physically resting during that time. And as a minister comes back to the church, the whole church benefits from the fact that the minister has had that sabbatical. And besides all of that, while the pastor is away, you may play, but you also have the opportunity to develop and grow and exercise ministry skills. So a sabbatical really is mutually beneficial. And I commend you for providing this time for Eric and his family. As I understand, you have been talking in these months about what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus said there is a broad gate, a broad way, and there's a narrow gate, a narrow way. The broad way is the way that many people follow, and it's a way that leads to destruction. It's a way of an empty life. It's a way of life detached from God. But there's the narrow way, the way of Jesus, the way that leads to the life that Jesus gives us. Life to the fullest, real life, abundant life, life lived with an eternal quality now and forever. It's a life that makes a difference. I think in some of these recent weeks, you have been looking at the classical listing of seven deadly sins. In these Sundays that I have with you, these four Sundays, we're perhaps going to be doing a variation on that and talk about some deadly virtues. I ran across this term some years ago in a work by a Christian author. For our purposes, a deadly virtue is a genuine Christian virtue, an authentic Christian value, real Christian qualities, characteristics, and traits that can get twisted and distorted and misguided and they become deadly. They become deadly to our spiritual life. They take us away from that life of abundance that Jesus has come to give us. This morning we're going to talk about the deadly virtue of childlikeness. I once read a story about a minister named Bruce McIver who wrote a book in his retirement about some of his experiences as a pastor. One Sunday he preached a sermon on the text that tells us to love God with all of our heart and all of our soul and all of our mind and all of our strength. And he focused on the call to love God with our minds. He talked about our responsibility to use those mental abilities that God has given to us and the need for us to think seriously about our faith. after the service, a concerned young mother was waiting out in the foyer to talk to McIver. And leaning up against her was her five-year-old son, Andrew, who was obviously tired and worn out. And the mother said, Pastor, I hope that my child didn't disturb you today while you were preaching. MacIver said, no, not at all. I wasn't aware of any kind of disruption. The mother replied, well, good. I guess you couldn't see us very well since we were sitting near the back of the sanctuary. Well, that piqued MacIver's curiosity. And he asked, well, what is it that happened? The mother began to explain, well, Andrew got very fidgety. He just wouldn't sit still. And I tried to concentrate on your message and do what you were asking us to do, that is to think. But while I was trying to think, Andrew somehow got off the pew and he started to crawl around under it. Well, MacIver tried to reassure her, oh, don't worry about that. Children often get restless in a worship service. But the woman had this slight smile and she said, but Pastor, Andrew wasn't restless. And what was he doing? MacIver wondered. And the woman said, well, I asked Andrew the very same thing. And what did he say? MacIver wanted to know. And the mother continued, well, Pastor, you know how in the sermon you were talking about worshiping God with our minds. And you said you don't come into a worship service and sit down on a seat cushion and unscrew your head and place it under a pew. Well, when I asked Andrew what he was doing there crawling around on the floor, he said, I'm looking for the heads. You know, children take us at our word. They believe what we say. Children have a huge capacity for trust. And one main reason that children have this capacity for trust is that they instinctively know that they must depend on somebody else for their lives. The Bible tells us that we human folks are the crown of God's creation. We have the powers of mind and body and soul and emotion that no other part of created life possesses. But for all of this, we human folks are maybe the most unfinished of all of God's creations. When we're born, We can't raise our heads. We can't roll over. We can't sit up. We can't walk. We can't find food for ourselves. And it takes human infants longer to develop all these capabilities than any of the other creatures of God's good handiwork. Newborn children are totally dependent. If a child is going to survive, A child has got to rely on somebody else for food and clothing and protection and care. A child must depend on somebody else to live. And it's this absolute dependence of little children and their capacity to unconditionally trust somebody else with their lives for everything. that make little children the perfect illustration for describing the way that somebody comes into the kingdom of God. Jesus said, Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Only people who recognize their absolute dependence on God for life, both now and in eternity, can enter the Kingdom of God. Only people who trust God unconditionally with their lives for everything can become a part of the Kingdom of God. I think we can all get this point that Jesus is making about little children and the Kingdom. But in Jesus' own day, this illustration about children was even more powerful. In the Greek and Roman worlds, children weren't idolized. Children weren't looked upon always with a warm and fuzzy sentiment and feeling. Children weren't always considered to be the apples of our eye or our most important resources or our future or anything else like that. Children were often held in low esteem with no legal rights, no social status. Children were often regarded as the least important members of a society. Where to grow older meant that you had more honor. One of the reasons why Jesus' disciples tried to keep some little children from gathering around him one day was that the disciples did not want Jesus to waste his time with such unimportant members of society as these little children. But Jesus had plainer vision than anyone else. And Jesus rebuked his disciples and Jesus hugged these little children close to him and Jesus blessed them. And then Jesus said that the kingdom of God is only for people who know that they're like one of these small, helpless, powerless, dependent children. The Kingdom of God is only for people who know that they don't have any right to it. The Kingdom of God is only for people who know that they can't deserve it or earn it or buy it or manipulate it or achieve it. The Kingdom of God is only for people who receive the Kingdom of God because they know that it comes to them as a gift. and they receive the gift with joy. The Kingdom of God is like a relationship with God for people who are like a little child. The Kingdom of God is for people who are childlike in their trust in God. The Kingdom of God is for people who are childlike in their complete dependence on God. The Kingdom of God is for people who receive the Kingdom in joy. They're childlike in their readiness to receive this gift from God. Have you ever watched a child tear off the wrapping paper off of a package to get to the gift? That's genuine excitement. That's real joy. And this is the way for people to receive the kingdom of God with the sheer delig

Holy Rhythms Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | July 5, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We’d love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Holy Rhythms Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor Morning. It's great to be with you. So if you've been with us a while, you know what we're doing here, which is we're talking about the ways in which Jesus teaches us to live a life. But if you're new, then what we're also talking about is there's like a good way to live a life. And Jesus says this is the way that leads to abundant life in this life, eternal life in the next. And then there are ways in which we can live a life that leads to death, and death in this life and into the next. And so we are alternating back and forth between these two paths, and this morning we are on the good path, the good way, the way that teaches us how to live the good life. This series for me has actually been eye-opening. I think sometimes We take Jesus' teaching to be something otherworldly, as if it's maybe just like spiritual things you do at some part in your life and getting the connection into the real world. It doesn't always happen. My hope and goal through all of this is to find real ways in which Jesus right here and right now is teaching you and trying to convince you to submit to the kinds of ways in which he lived and do the things that he taught because this is how to live a life and this is the way that leads to abundant life. Before we get started, let us begin with prayer. Heavenly Father, we come this morning and we are so grateful to be in your house. We give you thanks for South Rum Baptist Church and for the many decades of ministry that has been done here. Lord, we thank you for this nation, 250 years. What a gift you have given to us who have the privilege to live in it. And what a gift you have given to the world that when we are doing what is right, Lord, we have been a power for tremendous good. Lord, we ask for your presence here in this house today, but also in the United States of America. Lord, as we wrestle through some really hard times, we ask, Lord, though, that you prevail, that your will be done, and that we participate in that will. In Christ's holy name we pray, amen. So this morning we read from Mark chapter 6, and in Mark 6, Jesus is telling his disciples, head on out into the wilderness, get to the lonely place, to the desert place, to the desolate place, and take some time away. Just to read the scripture again, it was Mark chapter 6, 30 and 31. The apostles, they had returned to Jesus and they told him all that they had done and all that they taught. They were very busy and hard at work. And then he said to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place or a lonely place or a place where you can get alone and rest for a while. For many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat. And here Jesus is teaching us something deeply important about the rhythms of life. That there are times, really important times, where we should be hard at work and we should be teaching and we should be going to our places of employment or to school, and we should really be pushing ourselves as much as we can. And then there are times where we need to pull away and where we need to rest. As I was preparing for the sermon, I tried to find a good example of this in the sports world. And I came across the story of a little known basketball player named Steph Curry. And he did not always start well. His career in the NBA was off to a pretty rocky start. And he kept having these ankle injuries. And it wasn't clear that he was actually going to become the superstar that he became. And he was plagued by a twisted ankle after twisted ankle, was constantly sidelined. And then he began to do a little bit of research into how his body works and began to realize, there are ways in which I need to take care of myself if I'm going to be extra healthy and if I'm going to be a better teammate to this team that is counting on me. At this point, he was not the player. He was just one of the players on the team. And then through a couple years of more or less rehab, What he did was revitalize his own body so that he was as strong as possible. But how he did this was not through just push, push, push, pain, pain, pain. He did it by resting and knowing when to stop and recovering and eating right and knowing when to push and knowing when to pull back. I think there is a real lesson here for the soul, because there are times in life, there are actually many times in life where we should be pushing ourselves, maybe to the limit, maybe beyond what we think the limits are of our own very selves. But then if that is not countered with or that is not met with a pullback that allows you to rest and to recuperate, well then we find there's things like burnout and there are ways in which you break down. Nature is filled with examples of this, and so is our scriptures. Every night, you being human requires you to do what? To sleep. If you were to push yourself every day, day in, day out, I'm just not going to sleep. Sleep is for the week. You'll have eternity to sleep, like now is the time to. And I would just say to you, no, your body is trying to tell you that there are proper rhythms of life, a daily rhythm. And then the week, right? The week tells us, in fact, the scriptures even command us, and they say, well, you're supposed to work for six days, but then on that 7th day, you're supposed to do what? Recuperate and rest. and be with the Lord. And so there's this rhythm that is inherent in a week, or there should be anyway. And what God is doing there, he's not like forcing you to do something. The Sabbath is made for you, not you for the Sabbath. This is what Jesus teaches, right? The Sabbath is for you. It is for your benefit. And just like the athlete or the trainer who goes to the gym and is pumping weights and pushing himself to the limit, in order to actually grow, that athlete has to stop. Because believe it or not, it's not actually the lifting of weights that causes you to get strong. That's like one part of it. But when you are doing the lifting, it's actually tearing down your muscles. It's putting little tears in the fibers of your muscles. And then unless you stop, unless you slow down and you recuperate as necessary, all that training that you're doing actually might lead to injury and not to something that leads to muscle development. I think our lives are much the same, including our spiritual lives. that we are intended to push hard. And some of you need that message this morning. I should just stop and say, every time I preach a message, I'm always worried like the wrong person's gonna hear the wrong thing here. And somebody's gonna say, oh no, pastor told me I get to be lazy. And just kind of, that is not the message this morning. It is a both and. In fact, there's six days for the one and there's one day for the other, right? But the one day for the other in our workaday world where we go, go, go, go, go, that's the thing that often gets lost. And so we need to learn to slow down and like the athlete who pushes and then allows the body to recuperate and then pushes and allows the body to recuperate. So also your life is this way. But it's not just the days where you sleep, and it's not just the weeks where you take a day of Sabbath, right? It's what? It's the year. The year is filled with holy days. Now we call that a holiday, right? And that is where this word comes from. But they are intentionally there as well. Days like yesterday, July 4th, we did what? As a nation, we stopped. and we enjoyed and we rested. And if we had a grill, I would have used it. But it broke. It rusted out. If someone has one for me, call me up. But no, we rested as a nation and we celebrated, right? And our lives are to be this too. And so there are these rhy