Brian Davis

Keith asked me to start off this morning by saying a few words of my testimony. A good storyteller knows that you build a story step-by-step, allowing the tension to build until you get to a big payoff at the end. Well, I'm not going to be a good storyteller this morning. I'm going to give away the beginning, middle, and end right up front. In 1 Peter, the apostle tells us to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. My hope is not in what I've done or even in the blessings I've experienced by God's grace, but it lies in what God has done in Christ and what God has promised in Christ. Let me repeat that. My hope is not in what I've done or even in the blessings I've experienced by God's grace, but it lies in what God has done in Christ and what God has promised in Christ. And if I say anything else today that distracts from the central message, please set that distraction aside. Usually, when there's an opportunity for testimonies, you hear one of two kinds, either the boring testimony or the exciting testimony. The boring testimony usually goes something like this. I was practically born in the church nursery. I was a good kid, but I knew I needed Jesus to be complete. And so things are now good. The exciting testimony goes along these lines. I was a rebel doing horrible things that even the world recognizes wrong. But thanks to Jesus, I don't do those things anymore. Either way, these testimonies can come across sounding like a spiritual resume about what the speaker has done. Again, I'm not going to be a good storyteller this morning. My testimony was of the boring kind. I was blessed to be raised in a good church going home by parents who'd been raised in good church going homes, although my Family's roots were in rural Alabama. We moved around a lot when I was a child and I got to experience a Southern Baptist Church in northern New Jersey that was a converted two-car garage and When I was converted at age 10, we were at a church on Long Island That was so small that it didn't have a baptistry. I had to go to a neighboring church in order to be baptized but even at age 10 I understood that I needed a savior, that even though I was a good kid and had been raised in a good family, that I was not good enough to earn the grace that God was offering me. Let's look at Ephesians, chapter two, where the apostle Paul spells this out for us. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God. But God being rich in mercy. because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. I knew that God is holy and man is sinful and that this leads to a separation because the holy and the sinful can't be together. But I also knew that God in his mercy sent his son who died upon the cross, taking the punishment for our sin and that those who respond in faith are saved to eternal communion with God. Now, most of the unbelievers who are here now this morning with us in church are not obvious sinners by the world standards. They're in church on a Sunday morning, for goodness sakes. But even if God blesses you with a godly family, even if God protects you from the worst of sinful behavior, that is not enough. As the Apostle Paul told us, you are dead in your sin and need the atoning work of Christ upon the cross to save you. You must die with him and be raised with him. As sometimes happens, I drifted away from fellowship with a local church during the time I was in college and away at graduate school. But God continued to be faithful and kept me in the word during this time as I continued to study and learn. And when we came to Charlottesville, Louise and I were blessed to join Jefferson Park in 1998, and we were immediately blessed by what God was doing here in this body. And in 2001, I entered church leadership and subsequently served three terms as a deacon. As I grew here as both a member and a leader, God was faithful to sanctify me on an ongoing basis, although the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross provided the salvation I need. God is faithful to continue to conform us to Christ and grow us in his wisdom and in his word day by day. Here at Jefferson Park, he's been faithful to do this in at least three ways. First, through the faithful preaching of the word. During my time here at Jefferson Park, God has been very faithful in good times and bad to make sure that the word was faithfully preached from this pulpit. Whether it was from a pastor, whether it was from a speaker when we didn't have a pastor, God has been faithful in keeping the men preaching and the people listening deep in the word. God has also been faithful through the sharpening of faithful brothers and sisters. That's exactly why God set up the local church so that brothers and sisters could stand alongside each other to encourage and rebuke as necessary to be there in good times and bad to be there to serve and be served and to help each other grow in faithfulness to the Lord. God has also been. faithful to chastise and discipline me during this period. Those of you who've been around church life long enough know that it can often be messy, even during the time of the New Testament, when the apostles were still there, able to give advice to the earliest Christians. We see in the letters of Paul and John and Peter that church life could be difficult. But God uses this to bless us, as he does in all things. The writer of Hebrews tells us in Chapter 12, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline. God has been a very faithful father to me, growing me, improving me through his discipline. Service is not always easy, but it is a calling to every Christian to respond to Christ's work on the cross with the service he has called us to. As Paul continues in Ephesians 2, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Whatever service that you are called to, it is a service that is only done. It's only provided through God's grace, through Christ's creation and the spirits enabling. Let us now turn to worshiping God.