Come Sojourn with Us
This is where you will find sermons and updates for our church. Our mission is to preach expository sermons focusing on the gospel of Christ. We are a church that is tied to the reformed tradition and seeks to submit to the scriptures so we walk in the Lord’s wisdom rather than our own.
We would love to have you join us on our Christian sojourn if you are in the Belgrade, MT area. If you are not in area then join us by listening to our bi weekly free sermon podcast.
Stay informed by following us on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or through our RSS feed. We would love for you to join us for worship every Sunday at 10 am and 6 pm. If you cannot join us in person then tune into our YouTube livestream.
The apostle Paul is one who could be very confident in his fleshly works. Paul himself says that he was blameless by the standard of the law. Why would the Apostle Paul need Christ if he is blameless? Why is Paul's life as a pharisee important for us to know? What does it teach us about being set free in Christ?
Please enjoy this message from Mr. Caleb Janson who filled our pulpit while Pastor Paul had a week off.
Mr. Caleb Janson exhorts us to live humble lives out of gratitude as we have been redeemed in Christ.
The Reformation really hangs on how one defines grace. Salvation by grace alone is wonderful, but what do we do when Paul exhorts us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling? How do we encounter such a God that causes us to be fearful and to tremble? How is it that we are saved by grace, but yet we have to work out our salvation? Do we rely on the Lord for our justification, but then really work hard to make sure that we conform to our justification? Or does Paul mean something else by this exhortation that shows we are just taking this verse out of context?
I bet that if you were to survey the average person on the street they would tell you to question leadership and authority. I would suspect that this answer would be consistent among conservatives as well as liberals. We would probably not be that surprised by this considering that we have witnessed leaders deceive and abuse their authority. So, why would we as Christians want to trust leaders in the church? We know leaders in the church have fallen into sin so why trust leadership? How does the apostle Paul set the tone for Christian leadership? How does setting such a tone for leadership reorient someone’s idea or notion of service?
We welcome Mr. Michael Spotts to our pulpit.
So, Paul wraps up this letter to the Philippian church. What is the final desire that Paul has for them? What is the thing that Paul wants this church to know if they never meet each other again? What is the ultimate comfort that we take from this letter? Does Paul want them to know that he is thankful for them giving him an offering or is Paul calling their attention beyond his ministry and their offering to him?
It is wonderful that Christians want to grow in grace and grow in conformity to the Lord. We should all desire to grow in the Lord. One of the things that is interesting is that Paul knows two things, but he knows these things because he has learned. How does this learning testify to the growing pains of conforming to the Lord? What is the benefit of enduring these pains?
When we face challenges in life it is easy to complain about challenges. I doubt that the first thing we think in our minds is that we just rejoice in the midst trials. On the one hand rejoice in trials might just make a mockery of the common curse of this age. On the other hand it might just dismiss the seriousness and the struggle of the trial. So, how can Paul command us to rejoice in the midst of trials? How can we rejoice always without being superficial regarding life’s challenges?
When we think about ethic we turn to passages in scripture that tend to be more ethical. What if we thought of Philippians as being a book that has many rich gospel truths that lead up to the reconciliation of two sisters? How do the ethics of the resurrection impact our daily life? How does the ethic of the cross impact our life as we go through this age?
Satan knew that the thought of being a slave is something that is just horrible. The hope that Satan presents to Adam and Eve is that they will not have to submit to the Lord, but they can be their own boss without any enslavement to the Lord. This leads to Adam and Eve to both see that the forbidden tree was pleasing to the eye. Will man ever overcome his desire to usurp God? Why would we want to be servants of the Lord?
Adam knew the consequence for rebelling against God would be horrible. This is why Adam and Eve hid in the garden after they sinned against the Lord. It must have been overwhelming for Adam to receive a new garment from God and to realize that Adam would still be in fellowship with the Lord. How does this same joy inform Paul, the Philippian church, and even us today?
When Joseph’s father dies his brothers are concerned about what will happen to them. They sold their brother Joseph into slavery, lied about their actions, and are a cause for Joseph’s hard days in Egypt. So, now that Joseph rises to power what will he do without their father to stand in the way? Why would Joseph let them get away with such horrible actions? Or does Joseph see something that Paul sees while Paul waits for his appeal to Caesar?
If you found yourself in prison for the sake of the gospel you would hope that the church and fellow Christians would encourage you. What if they did not encourage you, but rather made your life in prison more challenging? How would you cope? This is what happens to Paul, and so how does he cope with men slandering him while he is in jail for His Lord as Christ’s slave?
Paul knows that the reality of his appeal could be death. As a Christian there can be a freedom in death because we go to be with the Lord, and the challenges of this life are finished. How can Paul speak about the positives of death, but still be one who desires to live for Christ?
Sometimes we can read the New Testament letters and think that they are only for the immediate church. Other times we can read the letters and not have any sympathy for the original context always asking what this might mean for me. Why would it matter that Paul was in prison when he writes his letter to the Philippians? How does Paul being in prison make it easier for us to hear Paul exhort us to live as Christian sojourners?
When we think about our current Christian context we might think that we are not in as beneficial of a time as the first century church. They were able to receive direct letters from the apostles, but we have to deal with the hand me downs that are ours today. Is it really fair to think that our letters are just hand me downs? How is Paul’s exhortation for the Philippians church to make his joy complete just as forceful and personal today?
(Sorry, but the file got corrupted and the full sermon was not recorded)
The Lord is one who has every right to demand that we live as a servant people counting one another as better than ourselves. We should do this because we are the Lord’s people. However, if we are honest, the motivation of just saying, “Well, God demands it,” does not always motivate us to conform to the Lord. Is there another reason we should want to live as slave people for the Lord? If there is another reason then what is that reason?
The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:32 let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. This is something strange because Paul seems to be encouraging the church a glutinous philosophy that we just live for today and today we live to the fullest. So, why would Paul say such a thing? The reason is that if Christ is not raised from the dead then it means that this life is all we have. So, how do we know that there is more to this life than just eating and drinking? How do we know that our suffering will all be worthwile?
We are a bible believing church in the Belgrade, MT. We are a Reformed Protestant church who desire to build one another up in love as we sojourn under the sun.
