selected passages
October 12, 2025
preached by Pastor Ryan Bouton
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Time of Reflection Quotations

Core Value #2: Christ Mandates Our Message

We value Christ-centered preaching and teaching. At CRC we believe that Christ mandates our message. We are committed to expository teaching and preaching of the whole Word of God, as it is properly understood through the person and work of Christ. This involves both teaching historic Christian doctrine, as well as admonishing people to obey God as He has revealed Himself in Christ. We believe that a true church is not just where the true word of God is preached, but also where the word of God is obeyed.

Furthermore, we maintain that the whole Bible is about the gospel. The Bible begins with Christ creating the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1 & John 1) and ends with Christ restoring the heavens and the earth (Revelation 21-22). The event that ties these two together is also Christ, His birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection. All Scripture is either a revelation of what God requires of His creatures (i.e., Law) or what God has done to meet those requirements in Christ (i.e., gospel). Therefore, we believe that no passage of Scripture has been truly understood until Christ is seen as the subject matter, whether in promise or fulfillment.

~ “CRC Core Values” by Pastor Don Willeman

“Effective and faithful pastoral ministry in each succeeding era must remain intimately connected with its essential core—the divinely given presence of Christ Jesus and the truth of his word by which alone we live. The challenge for pastors in every generation is to link the person and work of Jesus to every shifting era by means of his unchanging word—not to contextualize the message, but to textualize people into the text of Scripture, you could say.”

~ The Care of Souls by Harold L. Senkbeil, Lutheran pastor and professor at Concordia Theological Seminary

“But what kind of Spirit did our Savior promise to send? One who should not speak of himself, but suggest and instill the truths which he himself had delivered through the Word. Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.”

~The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin (1509-1564), French-Swiss reformer and theologian

“When people give up the search for truth, people turn to propaganda. And propaganda relies on emotional power.”

~ Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) French philosopher and sociologist

“…we are not entitled to such license, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet…”

~ Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-c. 394), influential Christian leader, based in ancient Cappadocia

“[Christ] is everywhere, but he does not wish that you grope for him everywhere. Grope rather where the Word is, and there you will lay hold of him in the right way.”

~ Martin Luther (1483-1546), German reformer

Sermon Passage

selected passages (ESV)

Hebrews 1

¹ Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Luke 24

²⁵ And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” ²⁷ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

⁴⁴ Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, ⁴⁶ and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, ⁴⁷ and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

John 1

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Galatians 1

¹¹ For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. ¹² For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 6

²⁰ O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” ²¹ for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.

James 1

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴ For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.