The kingdoms of this world tell you blessedness comes from what you have. Jesus starts His most famous sermon by saying the opposite: blessedness begins with destitution. Not "blessed are the wealthy" or "blessed are the accomplished," but "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

In this message, Pastor Zach begins walking through the Beatitudes by reading all eight primary statements together and noticing the inclusio that frames them, the kingdom of heaven bookending verses 3 and 10. Then we sit in the first one. We look at what poverty of spirit actually is and isn't, how pride shows up loudly at the party and just as often quietly behind a locked door, and why Jesus insists that the empty are the only ones with room enough for His kingdom. Using Thomas Watson, C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, and the Pharisee and tax collector of Luke 18, we ask a simple but searching question: are you full of yourself, or are you finally empty enough to be filled?

In this message:

• The inclusio structure of the eight Beatitudes
• Why Jesus starts with poverty of spirit, not action or morality
• Loud pride vs. quiet, isolated pride
• The Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14)
• C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce and the ghost who won't let go of his own righteousness
• Application: true vs. false poverty of spirit

Scripture referenced: Matthew 5:3-10, Isaiah 61:1, Proverbs 18:1, 12, Luke 18:9-14, Matthew 12:43-45, Matthew 25:14-30, Zechariah 4:6, Romans 14:17, Hebrews 12:28, Philippians 2:1-11

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We'd love to have you join us.

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📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/matthew-5-3

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This week we set aside our regular study of the Westminster Confession for something the Confession itself points us toward: a living example of the perseverance and assurance we've been studying together. A beloved member of our congregation, Patrick Kendall, shares his testimony of the Lord's kindness across seasons of deep struggle and restoration, from years of substance abuse and a painful fall after a decade of sobriety, to repentance, reconciliation with his family, and the steady, patient grace of God carrying him through it all.

Grounded in Psalm 32 and Psalm 34, this is a story about what it means to be forgiven and to know it, and how God uses ordinary means, His Word, the sacraments, and the body of the church, to hold a person fast even when their own strength runs out. This is a testimony of everything we have been studying in the Westminster thus dar.

Scripture referenced: Psalm 32, Psalm 34:1-9, Luke 15:17-24

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church.

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When Jesus stood up in the Nazareth synagogue and read from Isaiah 61, everyone expected a battle plan. They got a promise of Jubilee instead — freedom for captives, debts canceled, and a kingdom handed over before anyone had done a thing to deserve it.

This message opens a short series on the Beatitudes by going back to where Jesus' public ministry actually starts: not the Sermon on the Mount, but a scroll in a hometown synagogue. We trace how Isaiah 61 is the root that the Beatitudes grow out of, why "the year of the Lord's favor" is a direct echo of the Levitical law of Jubilee, and why every kingdom we know how to build hands us requirements before belonging, while Jesus' kingdom does the exact opposite. This sets the stage for the whole series ahead: the Beatitudes aren't a ladder to climb into the kingdom. They're a description of what someone already inside it starts to look like.

In this message:

• Why first-century Jews heard "kingdom of God" as a political promise, not a metaphor
• The covenant of works vs. the covenant of grace
• Isaiah 61 as the root of the Sermon on the Mount
• The Year of Jubilee and what it means for Jesus to proclaim it fulfilled
• Adoption, inheritance, and why the kingdom is given, not earned
• Setting up the Beatitudes series

Scripture referenced: Isaiah 61:1-11, Luke 4:16-22, Matthew 4:17, Matthew 5:3-4, Matthew 25:34, Luke 12:32, Luke 17:21

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We'd love to have you join us.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly sermons, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life.

📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/isaiah-61

⛪ Visit us: silvercityky.com

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Can you know you're saved without some dramatic sign from heaven? This week we finish Westminster Confession Chapter 18, working through two remaining questions: how is assurance actually attained in ordinary life, and what happens when it gets shaken?

We look at why assurance isn't part of the essence of faith itself — a true believer can wait long and wrestle through hard seasons without that meaning the faith underneath is fake — and why the Confession still calls assurance a duty, attainable through ordinary means of grace: the Word, the sacraments, prayer, and fellowship, not some extraordinary revelation. We also work through 1 John's series of tests for self-examination — doctrinal, moral, relational, and perseverance — as a practical tool for asking "do I actually know Christ," and talk honestly about doubt, dark nights of the soul, and why even faithful believers go through seasons where assurance dims without ever being destroyed.

Scripture referenced: 2 Peter 1:10, Romans 6:1-2, 1 John 3:19-20, 1 John 1:9, 1 John 5:13, Hebrews 12:28, Psalm 51

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church.

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At the city gate, an unnamed man had the right to redeem Ruth — and he refused. He wouldn't risk his own inheritance to save an outsider. So Scripture doesn't even preserve his name. Boaz does what the nearer redeemer would not: he willingly pays the price, takes Ruth as his wife, and perpetuates the name of a dead man who could do nothing for himself.

In this message, Brother Aaron Caldwell finishes the story of Ruth and Boaz at the city gates and watch redemption become public, costly, and complete. We see the gospel already at work in the story: a Moabite widow and a Canaanite harlot, both outsiders, both grafted into the very lineage of Christ, not because of their pedigree but because of a Redeemer who was both willing and able. And we sit with the final picture of the text: Boaz could preserve a dead man's name, but Christ raises the dead and gives them an eternal one.

In this message:

• The legal scene at the city gate and the unnamed redeemer's refusal
• Ruth, Rahab, and God's grace toward outsiders in the line of Christ
• Sovereignty and human responsibility: Boaz takes action
• The cost of redemption — willingness, not just ability
• Redemption made public: possession, belonging, and testimony
• Application: the Redeemer gives a name to the dead

Scripture referenced: Ruth 4:1-12, Matthew 16:18, James 2:26, 1 Corinthians 6:20, Ephesians 2:1-5

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We'd love to have you join us.

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📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/ruth-4-1-12

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Can you actually know you're saved? Or is that just arrogance? This week we open Westminster Confession Chapter 18 — the final chapter in the Confession's long treatment of redemption applied — and ask a question different from everything that's come before it: not "what is salvation," but "can you know you have it?"

We look at two very different kinds of confidence: presumption, the false hope of someone going through religious motions with no real fruit, and genuine assurance, the settled confidence of someone who truly believes in Christ, loves Him sincerely, and is pursuing a good conscience before Him. We also dig into why the Confession calls this assurance "infallible" — resting not on your performance or your mood, but on God's promises, the visible evidence of grace in your life, and the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit Himself.

Along the way, we talk honestly about the two postures many Christians live in: presumption on one side, and doubt-driven anxiety on the other, treating every failure as proof God must be furious. Neither honors what Scripture actually promises. Works are the fruit of assurance. They are never its root.

Scripture referenced: Job 8:13-14, Matthew 7:22-23, 1 John 5:13, 1 John 1:9, Romans 5:2, 5, Romans 8:16, Ephesians 1:13-14

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church.

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Ruth has done everything she can do. She's placed herself at Boaz's feet, trusting him with her future. But there's still a problem — another redeemer has a prior claim, and now she has to wait.

In this message by Brother Aaron Caldwell, we pick up right where Ruth 3 left off, at the threshing floor, and watch Boaz do something remarkable: he sends Ruth home with six measures of barley she did nothing to earn. Up to this point, every provision Ruth received came through labor. This is different. This is grace.

We trace how that gift is a picture of the gospel itself — that our confidence as Christians was never meant to rest on the strength of our own hands, but on the finished work of a Redeemer who will not rest until every promise is kept. And we sit with the hardest part of the text: the waiting. Ruth doesn't know how the story will end. But she knows who Boaz is. And sometimes, that's all faith has.

In this message:

• Recap: Ruth's journey from Moab to the threshing floor
• Boaz's provision without labor — grace pictured in six measures of barley
• Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.35 on sanctification
• Faithful obedience vs. resting in Christ's finished work
• The application: when God makes you wait, trust the wisdom of your Father
• God's sovereignty as a loving Father, not a distant governor
• 
  

Scripture referenced: Ruth 3:14-18, Ruth 2:7, Romans 8:32, Matthew 7:22-23, Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.35

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We'd love to have you join us.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly sermons, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life.

📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/ruth-3-14-18

⛪ Visit us: silvercityky.com

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Perseverance and Counterfeit Gods | WCF 17.2-17.3

Why haven't you walked away from Christ yet? That's the question driving this class on Westminster Confession 17.2-17.3 — and this week we get practical: how do we actually persevere, together, when life hands us reasons to quit?

Brother Bryson Amyx gives an insightful take on the practicality of perseverance by looking at four counterfeit "end goals" — comfort, approval, control, and power — that quietly compete for the place Christ alone should hold in our lives. Each one promises an easier road, but each one leaves perseverance feeling pointless the moment it's tested. Using Philippians 3, Hebrews 12, and Keller's work on counterfeit gods, we talk through what it looks like to recognize our own "counterfeit cupcakes," and why perseverance isn't white-knuckled effort but repeated faith and repentance, returning again and again to the gospel.

This is also a call to community: perseverance in Scripture isn't a solo project. It's covenantal, communal, sometimes walking hand in hand and sometimes dragging a brother out of despair. Come discover what it means to chase the right telos, together.

Scripture referenced: Matthew 13:44, Matthew 6:19-21, Hebrews 12:1-2, Philippians 3:7-15

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church.

Subscribe for weekly teaching, verse-by-verse Bible study, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life.

What do you do with the person in your church who talks a big theological game but never actually does anything? In this final message in our 2 Thessalonians series, we tackle one of the most avoided topics in modern Christianity: church discipline.

Paul commands the Thessalonian church to withdraw from "busybodies" — people who claim special spiritual insight while contributing nothing and disrupting everything. We unpack why the Greek word for "idle" is actually military language for a soldier breaking rank, why "if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" is rooted in creation itself (not capitalism), and why the modern church has largely lost the category of holy shame altogether.

This isn't a call to be harsh. It's a call to be a peacemaker instead of a peace-monger — someone who loves people enough to tell them the truth. Because a church that won't guard its own peace has nothing credible to offer a watching world that's dying for it.

In this message:

Introduction — Silver City and the Thessalonian church

The command to withdraw from the disorderly (v. 6)

Paul's own example: he worked so he wouldn't be a burden (vv. 7-9)

Busybodies, not busy: diagnosing spiritual gossip (v. 11)

Church discipline as peacemaking, not peace-mongering (vv. 14-15)

The benediction of peace — and why order isn't the enemy of love (v. 16)

Closing: it takes your hand — grace as the foundation for the work

Scripture referenced: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-18, 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, Genesis 3:19, Romans 5:1, Colossians 1:20, Romans 14:17

Silver City Church is a confessionally Reformed congregation devoted to the gospel of grace, the authority of Scripture, and the ordinary means God uses to build His church. We'd love to have you join us!

🔔 Subscribe for weekly sermons, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, and Reformed theology applied to everyday life.

📖 Study guide and reflection questions for this passage: https://www.silvercityky.com/blog/2-thessalonians-3-6-18

⛪ Visit us: www.silvercityky.com

📍Sunday School: 9:30am/ Worship 10:30am/ 115 Stone Trace Drive, Mt. Sterling, KY (Ramada Inn Conference Center)

#ChurchDiscipline #2Thessalonians #ReformedTheology #ExpositoryPreaching #BibleTeaching #Sermon #ChristianCommunity #WestminsterConfession #GospelOfGrace

Brother Bryson Amyx gives an insightful and encouraging study of the perseverance of the saints found in chapter 17 of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

08/23/2026

Pastor Zachary C. Hill

In this episode, Pastor Zach finishes out the WCF chapter convened with good works by examining what good works are not.

08/16/2026

Pastor Zachary C. Hill

Pastor Zach begins a part part teaching on what good works are and are not.

In this episode, Pastor Zach continues displaying how the dung-sin symbol is used by Jesus himself in a convicting way.

08/09/2026

Pastor Zachary C. Hill

Pastor Zach walks through the next chapter, on repentance unto life, showing how faith and repellence are intertwined.

In this episode, Pastor Zach introduces the New Testament usages of dung as a symbol for sin, from the very lips of Jesus himself. Is the same pattern that we saw in the OT consistent in the NT?

08/02/2026

Pastor Zachary C. Hill

Pastor Zach teaches on the glorious little chapter of the WCF "On Saving Faith."