Silver City Church

Meekness gets confused with weakness more than almost any other virtue in Scripture. We picture the pushover, the quiet kid who never speaks up, the man with no backbone. But Jesus calls Himself meek, and He’s also the one who turned over tables in the temple. So what is meekness, really? In this message, we work through the third beatitude and recover meekness as self-mastery, not self-erasure, the ability to govern one’s own passions so that boldness and zeal get aimed at the right things. We look at two opposite ditches on either side of meekness: grabbing, like Eve reaching for the fruit or Napoleon conquering half of Europe out of fear of being forgotten, and apathy, like Adam standing silent while sin unfolded in front of him. And we ask what it means to inherit the earth, an inheritance never earned, only ever given through a death, the death of the King who was gentle and lowly in heart. In this message: Why meekness is not weakness, stoicism, or self-abasement Thomas Watson and Matthew Henry on meekness as self-command Jesus as the perfect embodiment of meekness Two ditches: Eve’s grasping and Adam’s passivity What it means to inherit, not seize, the earth Napoleon’s reported deathbed reflection on the kingdom of Christ Scripture referenced: Matthew 5:3-10, Matthew 11:29, Matthew 23, Matthew 6:4, John 11:35, John 2:15, Mark 14:36, Isaiah 53:7, Isaiah 61:7, Isaiah 66, Psalm 2:4, Genesis 1:28, Genesis 3:1-10, Romans 4, Romans 8:32, Galatians 5:22-23, Ephesians 1:11,14, Titus 3:7, 1 Peter 1:4, 1 Peter 2:23, Revelation 21:27 Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We’d love to have you join us. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly sermons, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life. 📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/matthew-5-5 ⛪ Visit us: silvercityky.com #Beatitudes #SermonOnTheMount #ReformedTheology #ExpositoryPreaching #BibleTeaching #Sermon #GospelOfGrace

If believers aren’t saved by keeping the law, why does Scripture spend so much time on it, and why does the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119, read like a love song to it? This week we finish Westminster Confession Chapter 19 by working through the law’s three uses. We look at the law as a mirror, exposing sin and driving us to Christ; as a restraint, curbing wickedness both in believers and in civil society; and as a guide, the use the Reformed tradition considers principal, showing redeemed people how to live in grateful response to the Father who saved them. Along the way we compare how Lutheran and Roman Catholic traditions handle these same uses differently, and talk through why “saved unto the law” is not the same thing as “saved by the law,” and why a heart with the law written on it comes to delight in it rather than resent it. Scripture referenced: Matthew 5:17, James 2:10, Psalm 119, Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 36, Isaiah 49 Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. Subscribe for weekly teaching, verse-by-verse Bible study, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life.

We live in the most comfortable, indulgent society in history, and we are still this sad. We numb it with antidepressants, food, doom-scrolling, anything but looking it in the face. Jesus' second beatitude cuts straight through that instinct: blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. In this message, Pastor Zach Hill looks at mourning over sin as the natural extension of poverty of spirit, the grief that leads to real repentance rather than mere regret. Using Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov, Huxley's Brave New World, and the contrast Paul draws in 2 Corinthians 7 between godly and worldly grief, we walk through three kinds of mourning, two counterfeits and one true, and ask which one actually describes your relationship to your own sin. This isn't a call to wallow. It's a call to stop numbing what only the cross can heal. In this message: Our culture's refusal to sit with sadness, and what it has in common with Brave New World Mourning as repentance, not mere sorrow Contrition vs. attrition Three snapshots: despairing mourning, natural (hypocritical) mourning, and gracious mourning 2 Corinthians 7:10-13 on godly grief that leads to salvation without regret Application: you don't have to numb your sin, and you don't have to pay for it Scripture referenced: Matthew 5:3-10, Genesis 37:34, 2 Samuel 18:33, Ecclesiastes 7:2, Zechariah 12:10, Acts 2:37, Acts 9:31, Isaiah 53:3, 5, Psalm 119:71, 136, Psalm 126:5-6, John 16:20, John 20:11-18, 2 Corinthians 7:10-13 Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We'd love to have you join us. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly sermons, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life. 📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/matthew-5-4 ⛪ Visit us: silvercityky.com #Beatitudes #SermonOnTheMount #ReformedTheology #ExpositoryPreaching #BibleTeaching #Sermon #GospelOfGrace #Repentance

Is the Old Testament law just done away with, or is there more going on when Scripture calls something "abrogated"? This week we open Westminster Confession Chapter 19 and work through how God's people, saved by grace, are meant to rightly understand and use God's law. We trace the law back before Sinai to the garden itself, where Adam was given a covenant of works with life promised for obedience, and walk through the three categories Scripture gives us: moral law (binding on everyone, everywhere, always, summarized in the Ten Commandments and in loving God and neighbor), ceremonial law (fulfilled, not discarded, in Christ), and civil law (specific to Israel as a nation-state, yet still carrying lasting principle). That lasting principle is what the Confession calls "general equity," and we spend the second half of class putting it into practice, working through Old Testament commands that sound strange on the surface, a parapet on a roof, leaving the edges of a field for the poor, not muzzling an ox, not boiling a kid in its mother's milk, and asking what unchanging principle each one still teaches us today. Scripture referenced: Genesis 2:16-17, Matthew 22:37-40, Hebrews 10:1, Deuteronomy 4:6, Deuteronomy 22:8, Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:6, Deuteronomy 22:10, Romans 2, Psalm 119 Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. Subscribe for weekly teaching, verse-by-verse Bible study, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life.

The kingdoms of this world tell you blessedness comes from what you have. Jesus starts His most famous sermon by saying the opposite: blessedness begins with destitution. Not "blessed are the wealthy" or "blessed are the accomplished," but "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." In this message, Pastor Zach begins walking through the Beatitudes by reading all eight primary statements together and noticing the inclusio that frames them, the kingdom of heaven bookending verses 3 and 10. Then we sit in the first one. We look at what poverty of spirit actually is and isn't, how pride shows up loudly at the party and just as often quietly behind a locked door, and why Jesus insists that the empty are the only ones with room enough for His kingdom. Using Thomas Watson, C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, and the Pharisee and tax collector of Luke 18, we ask a simple but searching question: are you full of yourself, or are you finally empty enough to be filled? In this message: The inclusio structure of the eight Beatitudes Why Jesus starts with poverty of spirit, not action or morality Loud pride vs. quiet, isolated pride The Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce and the ghost who won't let go of his own righteousness Application: true vs. false poverty of spirit Scripture referenced: Matthew 5:3-10, Isaiah 61:1, Proverbs 18:1, 12, Luke 18:9-14, Matthew 12:43-45, Matthew 25:14-30, Zechariah 4:6, Romans 14:17, Hebrews 12:28, Philippians 2:1-11 Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We'd love to have you join us. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly sermons, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life. 📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/matthew-5-3 ⛪ Visit us: silvercityky.com #Beatitudes #SermonOnTheMount #PoorInSpirit #ReformedTheology #ExpositoryPreaching #BibleTeaching #Sermon #GospelOfGrace