A Site for the Teaching Ministry of Nick Batzig
It is the common lot of those God has called into gospel ministry to become discouraged on account of the challenges and trials that come from serving as a pastor. I can almost always sense when a brother is weighed down by the pressures, demands, and discouragements that come with serving as a pastor of a congregation, because I have known them throughout my own pastoral service. The apostle Paul intimated the challenges that pastors face in the church when he added to the external opposition he experienced from the unbelieving world the care that he had for the church. He wrote, "apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches" (2 Cor. 11:28). So what are ministers to do when they feel overwhelmed by the discouragements of ministry?...
We are meant to know that Jesus had to remain silent when he was judged so that we might have our mouths shut before the just tribunal of God. Then, having heard the sentence exacted against the spotless lamb of God, believers might open their mouths in praise to God for all the ways that He has removed their transgressions and the righteous condemnation that stood against us for Christ's sake. The silence of condemnation belonged to Jesus that praise for justification might be ours. ...
Sadly, many professing believers approach the gifts of the Spirit by overvaluing the idea of the miraculous spiritual gifts (e.g., tongues, prophecy, healing) and undervalue the common spiritual gifts (e.g., salvation and sanctifying fruit). Holding faulty views of the miraculous spiritual gifts is usually due to a failure to grasp the redemptive-historical purpose of the gifts. When we come to understand the biblical teaching about the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and the ordinary gifts of the Spirit, we will better value the greater and continuing gifts in the life of the church today....
When each of the Old Covenant signs (i.e., the rainbow, Sabbath, circumcision, and the Passover) are viewed in light of the fulfillment of all that they typified, we come to understand a great deal about the work of Christ...
As we enter a new year with new personal goals and desires, the Lord wants His people to commit to Christian living among the members of the body. We must resist the urge to look to practices and programs in the local church to live out the Christian life or do the work of ministry for us. Our God has given us the enormous privilege and responsibility of diligently living out, daily, our Christian lives in Christ. Let’s commit ourselves to the practice of seeking to live the organic Christian life in the context of the local church to which we belong. ...
The reason why Mary sang a song of humility is because she was focusing on what God was doing to provide the Savior she needed. Mary had been waiting on God to fulfill the promises that He had made throughout the Old Testament era. Mary doesn't speak of herself or her privileges because Mary was focused on her need for redemption. ...
We rightly wonder of the coming of the eternal Son of God into the world in true human form while wrongly neglecting to wonder at the accompanying role of the Spirit of God in the ministry of the Redeemer....
In many of life’s circumstances, we struggle to understand how we will come to attain the promises of God, forgetting that their fulfillment is entirely based on the person and work of Christ. Jesus has secured an everlasting joy, an inheritance of hope for His people through His death and resurrection. Though we do not now see all that he has for us, we wait for him with patience. We are to be a people who trust in and wait for Christ in faith....
While recent developments concerning the state of Israel have given us reason to revisit this subject--it would do us good to be settled in our minds about the fact that all who are united to Jesus by faith have been made children of Abraham and heirs of God (Gal. 3:29). Believers are the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem (Phil. 3:20). This is the only Jerusalem that ultimately matters. As John Newton put it, "Solid joys and lasting treasures, none but Zion's children know."...
As we reflect on the preaching ministry of Calvin, and the way in which the Lord used it to fuel Reformation across Europe, we should remember that the Reformation was primarily fueled by a return to the faithful expository preaching of God's word. We honor the Reformers best not by living in the annals of church history to simply marvel at all that the Lord accomplished t...
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Remembering what we once were when we were dead in sins and what God did to mercifully draw us to Himself through the saving work of Christ is vital if we are to make advancement in our spiritual growth in grace. The Christian life is often fueled most of all not by learning new things (although there are always more important truths for us to learn in God's word) but by r...
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Secularism is a religion. Make no mistake about it. Though many seek to advance it as a neutralizing alternative to a religiously structured society, it is, in its own right, a religion. A secular worldview is not content until it has permeated every fabric of society–civics, ethics, media, and education. Just as the Christian worldview is meant to permeate all human act...
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When we begin to understand the important relationship between the law of God and the gospel, we will guard against allowing any perversions of it in our presentation of the biblical teaching about justification and sanctification. We will carefully note the contexts in which these two means of revelation are contrasted in Scripture; and, we will recognize that while the l...
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While God calls us to be zealous for the purity of His worship, we must be equally zealous to resist the temptation to think that the circumstantial ways in which we administer the elements of worship ought to be binding on every other local congregation. We should be exceedingly slow to call something evil that God has not called evil. We should, instead, seek to discern ...
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If we were simply to thank God for each other and pray constantly for the spiritual blessings of God to be manifested in one another's lives what a difference it would make for the church's sustenance, vitality, and continuance. What a glorious thing it would be for believers to commit to turning from praise to prayer for one another and for a greater outpouring of the spi...
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The lawless soul is ever in danger of being led into path of unrighteousness on account of the multitude of lawless voices and sights online. The self-righteous soul is in danger of a far more subtle form of rebellion, namely, responding in sinful anger to sin in others that we do not personally commit out of a faux sense of moral superiority in the face of lawless....
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The 20th Century will be likely be remembered as the Century of ecclesiastical ecumenism. The 21st Century is shaping up to follow suitnot simply because of a widespread desire for co-belligerency, but on account of a doctrinal reductionism that seeks to dilute Christianity down to the most basic creedal statements of the early church. One of the driving forces behind the ...
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With the overturning of Row v. Wade, I have noticed numerous professing Christians posting things like, "Now the church needs to start caring for all of life for those who get pregnant," or "The church needs to do more than simply denounce the practice of abortion." I would contend that this, albeit it a well-meaning statement, misses the mark of the God-ordained ministry ...
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This past year, I have been preaching a sermon series through the gospel of John. One of the things that I have been struck with is the way in which Jesus interacts with various disciples having differing spiritual temperaments and personalities. Not all the disciples are in the same place or have the same fervor. Some are more timid. Others are more outwardly zealous. Sti...
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