Pastor’s Corner is a weekly column from Pastor Wynter Sturtevant III of the Mariposa Reformed Baptist Church. The church is located in Mariposa, California at 4994 11th Street in the Seventh-day Adventist church building. Services are held at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday.
February 27, 2019 - Our lives are filled in finding groups. We seek in earnest a place of rest. The social media we consume helps us find more and more tribes to become members of. We find cliques and they find us. We change and so do the groups we belong to. We do this till the very end of our lives and then we join the biggest clique of all, the dead.
Historically, Christians have pointed to Christ who has bought his people to make them his own. We miserable band of wayward sheep have a great shepherd who will go out looking for all in his flock. We find are belonging in the risen Lord. Near the end of Titus chapter two, we read that Christ, “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession…”
So much misery has been self-afflicted by us not knowing that we belong to Christ. Brothers and sisters in the faith look upon the commandments of the Bible and feel a tremendous weight upon their shoulders. They want to belong, but they can’t hold to all the commandments.
But that is the point! We are never able to hold to the whole of the Law (look up Martin Luther as well as Law and Gospel distinction for more info). This is exactly why the Gospel is good news. We lost vagabonds look to Christ for comfort. We are not redeemed by how well we hold to the Law. It is not by our works but by faith alone in the work of Christ. We can find relief by remembering that our home is at the nail pierced feet of the Messiah. We cast our burdens, confess our sins, and find soothing comfort in the Gospel. We remember that through Christ we belong. Through Christ we are forgiven.
Wynter is an Elder at Mariposa Reformed Baptist Church. Find out more at www.mariposachurch.org or email him at wynter@mariposachurch.org.
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