Integrity leads Christians to preserving the beauty of the gospel, said D.A. Horton during a Feb. 16 chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
“The reputation of Christ and the beauty of the gospel is far more glorious and worth fighting for than those momentary things that the enemy wants to leverage to disqualify those that God is leveraging for leadership within the body of Christ,” said Horton, church planting resident for The Summit Church, a multisite church based in Durham, North Carolina.
SBTS Photo by Emil Handke Writer and speaker D.A. Horton preaches a sermon on Psalm 51 at a Feb. 16 chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. |
Expositing Psalm 51, Horton’s message, “Reclaiming Integrity is Our Value,” focused on the importance of integrity leading to the confession of sin, the confrontation of sin, and Christians modeling compassion to the godless.
Horton and his family are preparing to relocate to Los Angeles to plant a church in partnership with Summit Network. He previously served as the national coordinator for Urban Student Missions at the North American Mission Board (NAMB); the executive director of ReachLife Ministries, the nonprofit ministry of Reach Records; and as an urban church planter, pastor, and lead teaching elder in Kansas City, Missouri.
Horton identified with the spiritual crisis in Psalm 51, when his 10-year-old daughter asked him about his sexual purity on the way to school one morning. Horton said he had to admit that while he was an unbeliever, he was sexually immoral. He used that example to remind there are consequences to a believer’s actions and that only Jesus has the ability to redeem fallen behavior.
“The gospel reminds me: I’m not the one that cleanses myself,” he said. “The gospel reminds me I’m the one that dirtied myself, but all of the reason I now express gratitude to my Savior who thoroughly washes me with that shed blood. He is the one who says we can be reused for his glory even through our momentary lapses, even through our sinfulness, even that period of tension with unconfessed sin that hardens our heart much like that cream of wheat.”
Horton reminds Christians that they have much in common with nonbelievers because they came from sin. Christians are the only ones who can show that forgiveness comes from God.
“Our world is in desperate need of Christians who will lead with integrity by confessing their sins to God, confronting their shame with the gospel in order to model compassion to the godless,” Horton said.
Audio and video of Horton’s message is available at sbts.edu/resources.