South Run Baptist Church

South Run Baptist Church
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Sermons from South Run Baptist Church, Springfield VA

  1. 2d ago

    The Long Journey from the Head to the Heart

    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 t

  2. Sep 6

    70 X 7: A Sermon on Forgiveness

    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 theo

  3. Aug 30

    Lust

    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.

  4. Aug 23

    Sloth

    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 c

  5. Aug 9

    The Body of Christ

    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

  6. Aug 2

    The Deadly Virtue of Certainty

    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 peop

  7. Jul 26

    The Deadly Virtue of Religious Devotion

    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

  8. Jul 19

    The Deadly Virtue of Discernment

    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

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