Dear Hyde Park Baptist Church Family,

We have recently taken 5 months working through our Savior’s Sermon on the Mount together. Last Sunday we heard five representatives from our church give testimony of how this sermon series has impacted their lives. I cannot help but think that our five brothers and sisters are simply a representation of our wider body.

As I thought about what each of them had to say, I realized how much you do really think through the teaching that is placed before you each Sunday. Many of you have indicated different aspects of the Sermon on the Mount that have touched your heart and challenged you to change for the glory of God.

As I have contemplated this in the past few days, I have done so with a joyful heart of gratitude to God for his kindness to us. It is not easy to hear some of the hard-hitting statements in Jesus’ sermon. Each of us have had to look at our own hearts before the holiness of our perfect Lord. Each of us have had to evaluate our lives against his unattainable standard. Each of us have had to come to grips with the fact that our only answer from this sermon is that we need a Savior. Well, we have one. Isn’t our Savior so magnificent beyond words?

Some of you have changed your attitudes in certain areas. Some of you have changed your behaviors. Some of you have simply changed your thinking, and some of you have taken certain heart issues more seriously. I hope all of us have found areas for repentance and renewed faith. All in all, your feedback from the testimonies of our brothers and sisters has given me so much more confidence that God’s Word is not bouncing but penetrating. So, this is the response of a grateful pastor.

My gratitude, and the gratitude of my fellow elders, is because in obedience you have allowed the word of God to penetrate your hearts through the renewal of your minds. Thank you for hearing and heeding the Word of God. I know you don’t need my gratitude. You didn’t listen and respond for my sake but because of the glory of our Savior and Lord. That in itself does make me thankful and I can’t help but express it.

In one of our last sermons we heard some corresponding verses from James 1:25, “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.” Please let us never abandon this promise in our church family. Let’s never only hear the Word of God but let’s both hear and obey it. Let us seek to please Christ by actually applying his beautiful revelation to our lives in true repentance and living faith. Let’s live together as doers who are blessed. Let’s make our desire as a body to honor our Lord. As we listen to our brother Robert preach this Sunday, let’s do it together yet again.