Jason Nokes @JasonRNokes

Today, we were honored to celebrate U.S. Marine Corps Corporal (Ret.) J.T. Doody as he moves into his mortgage-free, specially adapted smart home built by the Gary Sinise Foundation. Following the attacks of September 11, J.T. answered the call to serve his country by joining the United States Marine Corps. While deployed to Iraq in 2007, he was critically wounded by enemy sniper fire during combat operations in Fallujah. Though he survived his injuries, an undetected bacterial infection later caused a series of devastating strokes that left him with severe brain injuries, quadriplegia, and cognitive blindness. Throughout every challenge, J.T. has been surrounded by the unwavering love and dedication of his mother, who has served as his full-time caregiver for more than 15 years. Together, they have faced an extraordinary journey with resilience, hope, and determination. This specially adapted smart home will provide greater accessibility, independence, and peace of mind for J.T. while helping support both him and his mother for years to come. “We embraced the Marine Corps motto, adapt and overcome," said J.T.'s mother, Christina. "And this home is built to the limit to adapt and overcome.” Welcome home, J.T., and thank you for your courageous service and sacrifice. Click here to sign J.T.’s digital Wall of Gratitude: bit.ly/DoodyWallofGra… A special thank you to the American people and our amazing partners, without whom this would not be possible: The Marcus Foundation, @HomeDepotFound, US LBM, and @VUFoundation We also want to thank the following partners for dedicating their time, energy, generosity, and resources to the construction of J.T.’s home: Sunbelt Rentals, Shubert Design Furniture, Amazon, DAV, Owens Corning, Huber Engineered Woods, McDermott Will & Schulte, Nucor, NICE, SSG Matthew A Pucino Memorial Foundation, Duke Cannon Supply Co., Cabinetworks Group, Installed Building Products, Scripps Family Impact Fund, JELD WEN, Kaishan, LP, Spec Ops, Alston & Bird, Natural Stone Institute, National Wood Flooring Association, Winston & Strawn, Cahill Homes, BEHR, Broan-NuTone, Daltile, Encore Wire, Ferguson, MAPEI, North American Moving Services, Nucor Rebar Fabrication, Rheem, Simple Green, and Texton

How God Draws Sinners to Christ. Listen to the latest podcast episode where @tomascol and @GundenGraham continuing discussing the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith - Chapter 10 on Effectual Calling. youtube.com/watch?v=S8K5nN…

"Repentance is not merely the start of the Christian life - it is the Christian life." -William Perkins.

Lord, rescue us from the idols we build with our own hands and then dare to call worship. Israel did not make the golden calf because they had no religion. They made it because they wanted a god they could see, control, carry, and shape according to their own desires. That is the terror of idolatry. It does not always reject worship. Sometimes it invents a worship that lets the heart stay in control. “He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf” (Exodus 32:4). We may not bow before a golden image, but the human heart is still skilled at making idols. Comfort can become a calf. Ministry can become a calf. Success, approval, money, family, theology, politics, reputation, and even religious activity can become something we trust, protect, and serve more than the living God. “Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). The danger is not only that idols are false. The danger is that they make us false. We become like what we worship. If we worship what is lifeless, blind, deaf, and powerless, our souls begin to lose spiritual sight, hearing, and tenderness. “Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them” (Psalm 115:8). So Lord, save us from respectable idols, religious idols, hidden idols, and beloved idols. Tear down whatever we have raised in Your place. Expose whatever has captured our trust. Break whatever we fear losing more than we fear grieving You. Christ alone is worthy of the heart’s worship. Anything else will enslave us while pretending to bless us.

Jeremiah 29:11 is the most quoted verse in American churches. It was written to Jewish captives in Babylon. Not to you at graduation. What verse did your church teach you wrong?

The truth that every man sins can either humble the soul or harden it. For the false professor, it becomes a comfortable excuse. He says, “No one is perfect,” not because he hates sin, but because he wants permission to keep it. He hides behind the weakness of all men so he does not have to face the rebellion of his own heart. “Indeed, there is no man who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46). But the true believer cannot use that truth so easily. He knows sin still remains in him, but he cannot make peace with it. What the hypocrite uses as a cushion, the child of God feels as a grief. “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body” (Romans 7:22-23). The Christian does not deny remaining sin, but neither does he defend it. He confesses it, mourns it, fights it, brings it to the cross, and asks the Lord for deeper holiness. “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). There is a world of difference between a man who falls into sin and grieves before God, and a man who lives in sin while using grace as a hiding place. One runs to Christ for cleansing. The other uses Christian language to avoid repentance. “My sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3). Yes, no man lives without sin. But that truth was never given to make us comfortable in corruption. It was given to strip away pride, drive us to Christ, and make us long for the day when sin will trouble us no more.

The more confused the world becomes, the clearer Scripture begins to sound. God was never being unreasonable when He told His people not to be shaped by the age around them. He knew that the world does not remain neutral. It teaches, pressures, rewards, mocks, seduces, and slowly trains the soul to call evil good and good evil. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The Christian is not called to keep pace with every cultural madness just to appear loving, modern, or acceptable. We are called to belong to Christ, think with Scripture, walk in holiness, and refuse the mold of a world that is passing away. “Do not love the world nor the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). The world will always call obedience narrow, holiness strange, conviction hateful, and compromise wisdom. But the child of God must remember that the approval of a dark age is not worth the loss of faithfulness before the Lord. “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). So yes, the stranger society becomes, the more merciful that command looks. God was not trying to keep His people from life. He was keeping them from being discipled by death. To be different from the world is not foolishness. It is sanity under the Lordship of Christ.

The Holy Spirit has NEVER and won’t EVER: · Anoint a female pastor · Lead anyone into adultery · Need money to unlock a blessing · Guarantee anyone health & wealth · Compel someone to speak gibberish · Do anything contrary to the Scriptures

When someone tells you that God has spoken to them, how should you respond? Watch as Sinclair Ferguson clarifies how the Lord speaks to His people.

At a Q&A, John MacArthur is asked about Christian nationalism. The kingdom of God is not of this world. Jesus said that. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would [fight].” His kingdom is not of this world. The kingdom of this world is a separate world; they’re not linked together. Let me say it another way: Nothing that happens in any nation, whether it’s a Communist nation, a Muslim nation, or a “quasi-Christian” nation, or an atheistic nation—nothing in that nation politically, socially has anything to do with the advancement of the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God is separate from that system. God, in His sovereignty, is building His church, “and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,” Jesus said. So the idea that you should link up some political effort, some political process, some social process, some gain of power or influence in a culture as part of the advance of Christianity is alien to Christianity. You never have our Lord approaching anything like that, nor the apostles, and particularly the apostle Paul. He sought to gain no favor with the Roman Empire whatsoever, or for that matter, with any other of the rulers that he ran into during his life. Now, that is not to say that we are indifferent to what happens in the nation. We’ve been talking about that the last couple of Sunday mornings. We have to be the people who uphold righteousness. When we come to vote, we want to vote for that which is the most righteous option. Obviously, we can’t vote in righteousness, but we have to vote in a way that reflects our commitment to the righteousness of God. So we couldn’t possibly elect somebody who was an abortionist, somebody who was LGBTQ or LGBTQ-affirming, or any other deviation from God’s righteous moral standard. So it gets harder, doesn’t it, nowadays, because even sometimes when politicians are more conservative and anti-abortion, they may be sinful and wicked in some other categories, and it’s very hard to find out who is really honest and who is simply dishonest and seeking power. But in the end, we do what we can with the understanding that the responsibility of the church is not to advance the kingdom of this world. That’s a faulty viewpoint. Christian nationalism is usually tied to what is called post-millennialism, and that is the view that the church, somehow, by influencing the culture, can bring in the kingdom of Christ. In other words, it’s the idea not that Christ returns and sets up His kingdom, but that the church establishes His kingdom and then hands it to Him. That is not what Scripture teaches. What Scripture teaches is what we’re learning from the book of Revelation. Things are going to get worse and worse and worse. And the end of human history is not the church triumphant, reigning in the world and taking over the structures of human kingdoms; that’s not what happens. At the end of human history, the believers are persecuted and murdered, and that’s the very opposite of what Christian nationalism would anticipate. So we believe the Bible teaches that things get worse and worse, headed toward the wrath of God, which we’re seeing in Revelation, and then our Lord returns, Himself, to establish His kingdom is clearly what we read in the book of Revelation. OK?

“Being born again is a sovereign, supernatural act of God, not a decision made by man.” -Voddie Baucham

“A profession of faith doesn't justify anybody. It's the possession of faith that justifies." -R.C. Sproul

This is exactly the kind of self righteous blindness Jesus rebuked. The gospel is not for respectable sinners only. It is for prostitutes, addicts, drunkards, idolaters, thieves, liars, religious hypocrites, and self righteous people who think their own past is cleaner than someone else’s. The woman at the well had a broken past, yet after meeting Christ she went and told others about Him. Rahab was a prostitute, yet Scripture honours her faith. There is a difference between celebrating sin and celebrating redemption. The church must have biblical qualifications for elders and teachers, but Scripture does not teach that redeemed sinners must spend the rest of their lives silent because proud people are uncomfortable with grace. So yes, let the redeemed speak of the mercy of Christ. If Jesus can save them, wash them, and give them a new life, then the shame belongs not to the one Christ cleansed, but to the one mocking the cleansing.

“We must look for every part of our salvation in Jesus Christ, and that not a drop of it can be found anywhere else." -John Calvin

The Holy Spirit produces these beautiful fruits in our lives: • Love for those who hate us • Peace in the middle of trials • Kindness to everyone we meet "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace" (Gal. 5:22).

R.C. Sproul answers the question, “how should churches react to members who sanction homosexual marriage?”

If you love Jesus you should love what Jesus loves, and that ultimately means you should be an official, active, and serving member of your local church (Eph. 5:25). Church membership should be normal for Christians. Lives lived in regular accountability demonstrate the gospel’s reality to the world, particularly through the mutual love that Jesus identified as the mark of his followers. This is both biblical and strengthens evangelistic witness. Weaker and newer Christians gain feeding and accountability through membership, and mature and seasoned believers demonstrate authentic Christian living. Hebrews calls believers to “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works,” explicitly warning against forsaking assembly “as the manner of some is” (Heb. 10:24–25). This suggests participation isn’t optional but essential to spiritual health. Church membership preserves biblical truth by establishing who bears responsibility for rooting out false teaching and protecting the gospel when leadership itself becomes compromised. Paul’s letter to the Galatians exemplifies this. I say this as a positional elder in my church — Paul appealed to the whole congregation rather than leadership alone to address doctrinal corruption. Think about it: how are you to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2), which positions mutual care as a central Christian obligation, if you’re not actively in a membership role? Thessalonians similarly exhorts believers to “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thess 5:11), framing encouragement as a reciprocal responsibility that requires presence and investment. Healthy membership equips believers to recognize heresy when taught or communicated and transforms them from passive consumers into active defenders of the faith. Acts depicts the early church persevering in apostolic teaching, communion, and gathering daily, with believers holding possessions in common (Acts 2:42–47), a portrait of intensive communal engagement rather than individual isolated devotion or nominal affiliation. Ultimately, practicing membership glorifies God as Christians gather to form his body, living under the life giving words of scripture, fellowshipping with one another sacrificially, and reflecting his character.

“Joel Osteen is a pagan religionist … he’s an agent for Satan.” -John MacArthur

We must stop trying to make the gospel appealing to people who love their sin. The cross is offensive to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to those who are being saved. Let's preach it faithfully.

“I sought neither preeminence, glory, nor riches; my honor was that Christ should reign.” -John Knox