As we embark on this new thing called Hot Springs Reformed Church, I wanted to answer some obvious questions, which is what we started doing last week. Last week we talked about why we are doing this. Without rehashing all the details, we said it was so that we could worship according to our conscience, serve freely in the church without being held back by doctrinal disagreements, train our children in what we believe, and preserve the peace and unity of Christ’s church. God used the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas to actually advance His kingdom — where they had started with one missionary team, they ended up with two on account of their divinely orchestrated disagreement. Both still had work that God had for them, and both continued to serve and maintain a respectful relationship with one another going forward.
Next week we are going to talk about where we are going and what the vision is for Hot Springs Reformed Church.
This week we are going to discuss what are some of the key differences in doctrine and practice — what are some of the distinguishing marks of Hot Springs Reformed Church. Last week I gave a sneak peek of what those items would be. The items I mentioned were: the primacy of the church and her worship, sexed piety, a right understanding of the church and Israel, and Christ victorious. This will be our framework for today.
Now I had this list in mind for a long time, along with some other things. And then I started working through Ephesians in preparation for preaching through it in a couple of weeks, and I realized that just about every item I had thought of as particular to our project here is also something Paul addresses in Ephesians. It is not just these four — there is a whole list of other things that I think are somewhat unique to us that also get addressed there. The scope of Ephesians is actually quite broad. But today we are going to use passages from Ephesians to introduce these four distinguishing marks and talk briefly about each one.
Before we dive in, I want to clarify one thing. When we talk about the distinguishing marks of Hot Springs Reformed Church, we are not saying these are necessarily the most important teachings of the church. We are saying these are the things that set us apart — that make us somewhat different from other churches – even good churches – that we have been part of previously.
By way of example using another topic found in Ephesians — Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” Most of us could probably quote that from memory. It is one of the most important verses theologically in all of Ephesians, possibly in all of Scripture. But thankfully, there are many churches in this town that preach Ephesians 2:8–9 and preach it correctly. So that is not really a distinguishing mark for us, because other churches agree with us on it — and we are grateful for that.
There are other verses, though — such as Ephesians 1:3, where Paul addresses the doctrine of election and the doctrines of grace — that, while very important, do not rise to the same level as salvation by grace through faith. And the doctrine of election would be something where we differ with many churches in Hot Springs (though not all of them).
Another way to put it: you have all seen the truck I drive, and if I asked you to describe it, you would describe it as having six doors. That is the distinguishing mark. But it would be foolish to say the six doors is what is most important about the truck. The four wheels are far more important — they are what make it a truck. The six doors just make it unique – they are the thing that distinguishes it from other trucks.
One more thing worth noting as we go through these: they are all, to one degree or another, battle lines in the church today. We do not get to pick the hot issues of our day. As you will sense going through this list, these are things very much in dispute in our culture and unfortunately often in our churches.
1. The Primacy of the Church and Her Worship
We live in a time and place where many who claim the name of Christ — perhaps genuinely — dismiss His visible church as an afterthought. They will acknowledge the importance of the church in some general sense, but to them the church is just an invisible collection of individual Christians out there doing their own thing, not necessarily being part of any visible gathering.
Paul addresses this indirectly in the very first verse of Ephesians: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus.” Most of the New Testament epistles — and epistles simply means letters — are written to churches. A few are directed to individuals, like Titus and Timothy, but most are written to churches. So when people say the New Testament doesn’t teach that you need to be part of a church, the entire literary structure of the New Testament actually indicates otherwise. Paul did not make a hundred copies and mail them to individual Christians in Ephesus. He wrote the letter to the church which was to be read to the church.
We see the same in Philippians — “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who were in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons” — where the reference to church leadership makes clear this was written to the church collectively, not to individuals. Colossians is similar: “to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse.”
The word “church” itself appears nine times in Ephesians — and that does not count other references to the church as the body of Christ or to “the saints in Christ Jesus”, etc. As we have discussed before, the word church is the Greek word ekklesia, meaning a gathering. That word itself precludes anything less than a physical gathering of the saints.
Ephesians 4:11–13 reinforces the same principle:
“And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Our gifts, whatever they are, are to be used to minister to the body — not sequestered for our own personal use, but for the edifying of the body of Christ. This is reinforced throughout the rest of the New Testament as well. Hebrews 10:24–25:
“And let us consider one another to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching.”
Or in Acts 2:42: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” The NIV renders that last verse as “they devoted themselves” to these things — I think that is a good translation.
Part of a properly functioning church is her worship, and that brings in a couple of additional distinguishing marks. Psalm singing is one — Ephesians 5:19 speaks to this, though we have discussed it previously, so I’m not going to dwell on it again today. Another unique aspect of our worship is found in Ephesians 6:1: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” How does that verse apply to worship? This letter was written to be read aloud to the gathered church. Paul does not say, “Fathers, tell your children to obey their parents.” He directs the instruction to the children themselves — implying the children were present when the letter was read. We hold firmly that children ought to worship with the body of Christ. There should be one gathering, not many separate little gatherings in separate rooms. We are speaking specifically about the corporate worship gathering, not Sunday school or other learning opportunities.
By way of application: make the gathering of the saints a priority. Start with Sunday worship. Include your children. Sing the Psalms. We recognize there are legitimate exceptions — considerations of health, emergency services workers, and the like. Yes, there are biblical exceptions. But, generally, what we are doing here is not optional for the Christian
2. Sexed Piety
We live in an egalitarian world where everything has been flattened and men and women are viewed as essentially interchangeable. Paul addresses this as well in Ephesians 5:22–26:
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”
There are exactly zero instructions in these verses given to both spouses identically. The instructions Paul gives are different for each. Undoubtedly there are things that apply to all of us — we are all called to love one another — but rather than simply saying “love each other,” Paul gives unique instructions to each person based upon their sex. That is what we mean by sexed piety: your created sex affects what God demands of you, because we were created differently, and therefore we have different duties to God based upon that created order.
We also believe this applies across spheres, not just the family. The verses in Ephesians primarily deal with family dynamics, but because sexed piety is part of the created order, it carries over to all parts of life.
In the family: husbands are to lead and provide; wives are to submit to their own husbands — not necessarily to all men, but to their own husbands — and to be a helper and keeper of the home, as Titus 2 describes. This does not mean a man cannot change a diaper or that a woman cannot be involved in the family business. We are not trying to lay down a rigid Pharisaical code specifying exactly which tasks belong to which sex. But there are general principles and categories where men and women ought to be properly serving God.
(People are very concerned about AI stealing all our jobs. If that concern is genuine, I have a simple suggestion: send half the workforce home, and there will be plenty of jobs for the men who remain.)
In the church: Titus 1:5–6 says, “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city, as I have commanded you, if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife.” Paul is not even arguing for male church leadership — he simply assumes it.
In society: there are not many explicit verses on this because it was simply assumed throughout most of human history. When there are biblical exceptions — Deborah, for example — they seem in context to be exceptions that prove the rule rather than exceptions that establish a new norm. Deborah leads because the men had abdicated. She is not held up as a model for women to aspire to, but as an indictment of the men who had failed. Romans 13 instructs us that civil government is to bear the sword and avenge evil. Knowing that women are not suited to wielding the sword, it follows that they would not be suited to the office of civil ruler. Many of the problems we see today in law enforcement and the judiciary traces back directly to this confusion.
None of this is arbitrary. These are not capricious commands — they are commands given for our good, because they align with how God designed us. Rather than fighting against it, if we lean into what we have been created to do best, we will all serve God better.
3. A Right Understanding of the Church and Israel
There is mass confusion in the church about the relationship between Israel and the church, and the downstream problems from this misunderstanding can be massive. I am not primarily concerned here with eschatology, though it certainly connects to that. I am more concerned with our basic understanding of the continuity between the Old and New Testaments. Ephesians 2:16–18:
“And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.”
I would argue that there is one people of God from Adam until the consummation of all things — always and only one people of God. Ephesians 4:4–6 makes this even clearer: “There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” One body, one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God — and two peoples of God? No! All through chapters 2 and 3, Paul is talking about the bringing together of Jews and Gentiles into one household of God.
Ephesians 4:17 is also instructive. In the King James it reads: “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind.” Other translations render it: “walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind.” The significance is this: Paul is no longer using “Gentiles” to distinguish between Jews and Gentiles. He is using the word simply to refer to the unregenerate — because by this point in the letter, he has already established that all of God’s people have been made one. In Paul’s mind, there are simply God’s people and those who are not God’s people.
Psalm singing, mentioned in Ephesians 5:19, is actually another unexpected proof of this. For example, we frequently sing Psalm 83, which speaks about Israel throughout and includes lines like, “Come, let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” As New Testament Gentile Christians being instructed to sing psalms that are all about Israel — it seems an odd thing to do if we are not Israel.
We need to reclaim the Old Testament as Scripture for us. We are not merely New Testament Christians. We believe all of Scripture. When Paul tells Timothy that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” the scriptures he is referring to are the Old Testament — that is what Timothy had. When Acts says the Bereans searched the scriptures to see if these things were so, that was the Old Testament they were searching. When Jesus on the road to Emmaus told His disciples they should have known Him by knowing the scriptures, there was no New Testament yet. All of Scripture is for us, and we would do well to restore it to its rightful place rather than relegate it to some past dispensation.
4. Christ Victorious
As with the last point, this connects to eschatology — but it is more than that. Set aside your end-times framework for a moment and focus on what we believe is happening right now.
I want to suggest to you that Jesus is reigning now. He will continue to reign until He has put all enemies under His feet, and the last enemy to be conquered will be death. Ephesians 1:19–22:
“And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”
Verse 20 says God the Father set Christ at His own right hand in the heavenly places. Verse 22 says He has put all things under His feet. This is a direct quotation from Psalm 110:1: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.” Psalm 110:1 is by far the most quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament — directly cited or strongly alluded to over twenty times. Jesus Christ has been reigning at the right hand of God the Father since His resurrection and ascension nearly two thousand years ago, and He will continue reigning until He makes all enemies His footstool.
1 Corinthians 15:25 adds one important detail: the last enemy to be destroyed is death. This is one of the reasons His reign cannot be simply pushed off into the future — His reign happens before He conquers death. It cannot be purely a heavenly reign after the consummation of all things, because that would be after death has already been destroyed.
So I ask you: what kind of king is your Jesus? Is He weak? Is He nonchalant? Is He lazy? I hope we would all say “No.” And if “No” — and if He is indeed ruling now — then we must accept the inevitable conclusion that the expansion of His kingdom is in fact inevitable. Psalm 2:7–12:
“I will declare the decree. The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.”
King Jesus does not sit back and merely pretend to rule the earth for two thousand years without making any progress toward subduing His enemies. I think it would be appropriate to say that His rule is efficacious — just as we speak of His call being efficacious. If He is ruling, there ought to be some evidence of that rule. Psalm 72:7–14 describes His advancing dominion:
“In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring him presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall be their blood in his sight.”
This is not describing a state of perfection after his final coming — we know this because we still see the poor, we still see oppressors, there are still vestiges of violence and deceit. But the dominion of Christ is advancing.
And Revelation 11:15: “Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. And He shall reign forever and ever.” I would submit to you that this is about Jesus’ reign now, not merely in some future time.
By way of application: Go out in confidence. Take dominion, as we are told to do in Genesis, knowing that your King is winning. Rather than hunkering down waiting for the apocalypse, build things. Start churches. Get married. Own productive capital. Start a business. Have children. Teach others. Run for office if you are a man. Do productive things.
There is a place for prudence too — a prudent man sees the evil and hides himself, and there are times to keep your powder dry and survive to fight another day. That is not always wrong. But at a macro scale, we need to be doing things, not hiding in the woods. The defeatist attitude prevalent among many Christians — just biding our time, waiting for God to helicopter us out — is a counterproductive lie that has castrated the church and renders her impotent to actually advance Christ’s dominion in the world.
Your King is winning. Act like it.
Sermon by Jeremy Isaac at Hot Springs Reformed Church: May 17, 2026
(Editor’s note: This transcript may have been lightly edited for clarity and/or condensed for internet attention spans.)