Trinity Southern Baptist Church

The Sovereign God is the King of Glory and we better be prepared to let Him have total control.

1. God holds the rights of ownership; the earth, everything and everyone in it all belong to God.
2. God knows the hearts and minds of everyone, you cannot deceive God, He knows if your hands and heart are full of sin.
3. The Lord is mighty in battle.

My prayer for you is that you will love, trust and worship the One, True, Living God and exult in His salvation.

Pastor Jim

As we study the book of Acts, we see what happens when a hard-hearted, self-reliant sinner hears the Gospel of grace; Anger. When the leaders of Israel heard the Gospel, they were “cut to the heart”, but conviction of their sin did not produce repentance, but wrath. The true Gospel of Christ always produces results; repentance or rage. No person can hear “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, “the wages of sin is death”, “while we were enemies of God”, “we are rebels”, “we are objects of the wrath of God” and our only hope is the resurrected Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ and be indifferent. We do not try to please man and say that God is trying to make good men better, for that is not the Gospel. The Gospel is “God saves sinners” the truth is that God makes dead, sinful men to have life and to be holy. I pray that if this does anger you, that you will repent of your sins and confess the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that God raised Him from the dead.

Pastor Jimmy

Many people make the mistake of saying that the pastor is the minister of the Church. In one sense this is no mistake, for the pastor is is the minister of the Word of God and of prayer (Acts 6). But we also see in the book of Acts that the whole body is given the work of the ministry. The members of a local church are given the responsibilities to care for one another and bear one another’s burdens. This caring flows from the great commandment of ‘Loving the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, mind and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves.” When we do this we will magnify the incredible worth of God in our lives.

Pastor Jim

VII. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming. (Italics added for emphasis).

When a person affirms the Baptist Faith and Message, are they affirming ‘closed communion’. I believe that this statement “The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church…”, is an affirmation of ‘closed communion’. The definite article before church closes the doors to a specific and localized church and the word members refers to those who have placed themselves in the authority of a specific local body. Many people want us to allow whosoever to take the Lord’s Supper, but in doing so they have to place an asterisk in the Baptist Faith and Message.

The apostles were faithful to take the Word of God to all that would listen (and even those that would not listen) regardless of the consequences. The truth of the matter is that every person needs to hear the Gospel, whether they want to hear the Gospel or not. We live in a convenient, soft Christianity. At the first sign of discomfort of the hearers of the Gospel, we think that they are about to get angry and instead of losing a future opportunity with them I had better shut-up. I do not believe that this is the way that Peter, John and the other apostles handled conflict. They preached and taught until they were kicked out. They understood the stakes of people not loving and glorifying God as objects of His grace. The only way that someone could be an object of redemption is for them to hear the Word of God, repent of their sins and confess the Lord Jesus Christ. We must continue to take the Word of God to those who say that they do not want it and if it means that we suffer for it, praise God, the world is not worthy of our lives.

Pastor Jim

We must have purity in the local church if we want to see God glorified.  We need to examine our motives for service and giving to the church, if we give out of the heart of Ananias and Sapphira we will be judged by God. Ananias and Sapphira gave in order to make a name for themselves, saying we sold our land and gave all that we had to the church. What is the big deal, they sold their land and gave a portion to the church, the church should be happy with their money. The fact of the matter, the motives of our heart is extremely important. We can contrast Ananias and Sapphira with Barnabas, Barnabas gave in order to encourage the church and God blessed his ministry, as we go through Acts we see God working through him. What is the motive of your heart in serving God, is to to be praised or that the church would be built up? The more pure the church is the more power that our churches will have.

Pastor Jim

We have recently started adding audio sermons. Please be patient with us as we are trying to get the quality of the audio improved. We pray that this will be of value to you.

God bless,

Pastor Jimmy

I would like for you to join us starting June 8, 2008 as we look at the book of Acts. More than anything, the book of Acts shows the power of the Gospel in a fallen world. If you want to see God move through you in great and mighty ways, you must be faithful to the preached Word of God.

God, in His Sovereign wisdom, did not just create perfected adults. With the exeption of Adam and Eve, God has formed people through the process of birth, transforming the baby from infant to toddler to child to adult through the growth process. But, God did not just put it in motion that babies would be born then dropped of to raise themselves (some people will do this). God made it so that babies would grow and learn in the loving confines of a home with a mother and a father to train them to be what God intends them to be. That is the teaching of Paul in Colossians 3:20-21, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”  May we raise up a new generation of adults that obey their heavenly Father, through God giving us grace and mercy as parents to train our children for the glory of God.

Pastor Jim