The Blog

CHBC Connect for October 11, 2024

What We Value, What We Love, and What We Do:

When something or someone is highly valued you find yourself loving it or them, and you also find yourself doing things to project and protect that which you highly value and love. It might be as a teenager when you get your first car. The time invested in waiting, perhaps paying for all or most of it, as well as its needed repairs, develops a love for that vehicle. You find yourself cleaning it, waxing it, and wanting to drive it around so your friends can see it.

In relationships if you begin to devalue the other person in your relationship, you will begin to feel at best numb towards them, and at worst find a growing disdain for them. Your actions will follow these newfound emotions, and you will, as they say in our culture today, cancel them.

What you value, you love, and it affects what you do. At CHBC we want you to value Christ, the Bible, and God’s glory. We call these non-negotiable features of the people of God, our Piers. Thinking about all the hurricanes and the floods our southern US states are experiencing right now, we have a good grasp of the importance of stable foundations, or piers. You will not stand against the tides of Biblical deception in our world without deep rooted committed to the piers of the Lordship of Christ over His church, the centrality of the Scripture in the life of every believer, and the glory of God as the ultimate purpose of every life.

Once you have these settled convictions in your soul, you will find a growing love of these truths. You will desire to see the Bible influence the teaching and function of the Church. You will become passionate for the mission of Christ to make disciples of all nations. You will love the breadth of Christ’s love for every person, regardless of their age, education, or background. Your life and ministry will be guided by these ever-deepening loves. We call these convictions of the soul our Pillars. You will love a church that is Biblically-modeled, Mission-minded, and Multi-cultural.

What you value, you love, and what you love, you act upon. With the proper convictions in place and your passions focused God-ward, you will purpose to equip believers, exalt Christ, and extend the gospel. You can be involved in the ministries of the church for awhile simply because it is what we are doing: discipling, worshiping, and evangelizing. But without settled convictions and deep passions, eventually you will find yourself going through the motions, and wondering if any of it really matters.

Church, work on what you value. If you value anything above God, destroy those idols. Make Christ, His Word, and His glory the most cherished thing in your life. Then regardless of personal circumstances you will hold the right convictions and pursue the right things. This is why every Sunday as the church gathers the whole focus is not on people, their needs, and their daily lives, but on God, His Word, and His Glory.

By His Grace and For His Glory,

Pastor Mark

CHBC Connect for October 4, 2024

The Purpose, the Mission, and The Vision of CHBC:

Capitol Hill Baptist Church has a clearly defined purpose – the glory of God. We do not decide what the purpose of our existence is. This rolls through the Bible like a never-ending thunder. Hear it from Isaiah 43:6-7,

“I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
And to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring My sons from afar
And My daughters from the ends of the earth,
Everyone who is called by My name,
And whom I have created for My glory,
Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”

Every person is created for God’s glory. The church is His work in our world where His glory is to be explicitly on display as those He redeemed to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph. 1:6), proclaim His excellencies from the Bible to equip believers to extend the gospel so that others see His glory and worship Him.

That purpose sets the trajectory of the mission of every church. The local church is a combination outpost and hospital in its context. A people who had been beaten and broken by a world system in the hands of the deceiver, the Devil, have been rescued by the good news of God’s redeeming love. Those redeemed and empowered believers then become warriors advancing the Kingdom of God’s grace against the gates of Hades which will not prevail (Matt.16:18).

Because of the clarity of this mission the church of Jesus Christ must take seriously the work of equipping every believer in the truth of the Scripture, and in the knowledge of God’s Spirit-empowered work. The church must value in its personal and public life the high exaltation of Jesus Christ, her Lord, her Savior, her Bridegroom, her Living Bread, her hope, and her coming King. The church must love the world that God has created so much that she will not stop spreading the gospel as far and wide as her reach will allow until He returns to rule and reign with all who have claimed Him as Lord.

Does the pursuing of the purpose sound idyllic? Afterall most of our day is taken up with diapers, disease, driving, and duties.

Well, the vision of the church, or what I like to call our vision of a preferred future is this: Every member of CHBC is developing into a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ who is living by the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:36-40) and fulfilling the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20).

As we live our lives, we are doing so with a Godward focus. Loving Him with our whole being and using every opportunity to make disciples. Discipling those babies we diaper, preaching hope to those as they suffer, having intentional conversations on every drive, and using the daily duties of our lives as a platform to show and speak of the grace God has given us.

Living out the preferred vision is not extricating ourselves out of the world but interjecting ourselves into the world as the hands and feet of Jesus. FYI, the enemy hates this and will throw every distraction and every temptation our way as we pursue the purpose, mission, and vision of God. Make no mistake. He does not care if you diaper babies, fight hard against the diseases of this world, drive yourself and your children to jobs and sports and all over the place, or if you approach the duties of your life with passion and joy. He only cares that you do those things for the purpose of making Christ known. So, if you purpose in your heart to do everything for God’s glory then expect the enemy to work against you at every turn. 

Your brothers and sisters are at war with you. They are being attacked and tempted even now to make those daily things nothing more than tasks to get done, rather than gospel activities. Read your Bible and pray for one another right now. Then show up on Sunday to celebrate the victories, share the wounds of the week, and encourage one another to go again into their world who so desperately needs them to walk as Jesus among them, whether those in the world know they need Him or want Him.

By His Grace and For His Glory,

Pastor Mark