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Confession and Prayer

June 26, 2025 No Comments

“For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” (Psalm 25:11)

We usually do not like admitting that we are wrong. In most situations, we tend to cast ourselves in the best possible light. We may even stretch the truth to make ourselves look better.

Yet, when we come to God in prayer those tendencies must go out the window. Our guilt before God is great. There is no sugarcoating it. We pray as guilty sinners in need of God’s grace.

Therefore, confession should occupy a regular place in our prayers, both personally in our daily prayers and corporately as a church. When we pray alone and when we pray together, we should confess our sins to the Lord.

In Psalm 25:6–11, David provides us with powerful words of confession that should inform and shape our own prayers. We learn several key principles about confession from his words.

First, confession appeals to the mercy of God. In Psalm 25:6–7, David cries out for God to remember his mercy, not David’s sins. He recalls how God’s faithful love and mercy have been from of old. God’s revealed character is the basis for David’s prayer.

God is good and upright, and, therefore, he instructs sinners and leads the humble (25:8–9). The holiness of God does not merely crush sinners. God in his holiness heals humble sinners who confess their sins. He leads them to the proper path.

Thus, confession is not based on mere wishful thinking about what we hope God might do for us. Confession is rooted in God’s faithful, holy, merciful character that has been manifest to his people from ancient times. It flows out of who we know God to be, just as he revealed himself to Moses as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” (Ex 34:6–7a).

For us as Christians, our confession appeals to the mercy of God revealed in Jesus. When God sent his Son into the world, he remembered mercy. He was keeping his promise to remember the sins of his people no more (Jer 31:34). We can confess our sins and know that God is faithful and righteous to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, because Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins (1 John 1:9, 2:2).

At the same time, confession never downplays our guilt before God. While confession focuses on the merciful character of God, we should not think that this reduces the significance of our guilt or that our sin doesn’t matter. We seek God’s forgiveness because we know he is merciful and our guilt is great.

Our guilt before God is far-ranging, varied, and deep. It taints more than we realize, shows up in more ways than we care to admit, and is found in the deepest caverns of our hearts. We are guilty before God in the ways we’ve failed to obey him. Every day, we fail to love him with all our heart, soul, and might. We may not do wrong to our neighbors, but we also do not always love them as we ought.

We look at God’s Law, and we see our guilt. Idols arise in our hearts. We speak a half-truth to a coworker. Lust fills our heart. We take God’s name on our lips, while living in a way that dishonors him. Pride taints our actions and attitudes. We seek revenge, and we covet what is not ours.

If we take time to truly examine our hearts, it won’t take long for us to join David’s prayer: pardon my guilt, for it is great. Thus, if confession doesn’t form a regular part of our prayers, it may mean that we don’t really know our own hearts.

A British pastor named Thomas Brooks once encouraged believers to “make it your business to study Christ, his Word, your own hearts, Satan’s plots, and eternity—more than ever.”[1] We are often encouraged to study Christ and his Word, but what about our own hearts? Do we know what is going on within us? When we take time to study our hearts, one of our first impulses will be to seek the God of mercy, for our guilt is great.

Confession appeals to the mercy of God as it feels the weight of our guilt before him.

Confession also seeks the glory of God, not merely escape from feeling our guilt. David appeals to the glory of God’s name when he confesses his sin. He cries out to God: pardon my guilt for your name’s sake! He seeks the glory of God, not merely an escape from guilt. David’s prayer of confession is a deeply God-centered prayer.

When we confess our sins, we can base our request on the glory of God. We can pray: Forgive our sins for the glory of your name! We desire for God to be glorified in the forgiveness of our sins. Our chief end in seeking God’s forgiveness is that he would be praised and seen as glorious.

We seek God’s forgiveness so that God would get all the honor and praise in the revelation of his righteous, merciful character. We want people to see and praise God’s mercy.

Confession is not merely an escape mechanism to avoid feelings of guilt. It is not a self-centered aspect of prayer. When we confess our sins, we should express a desire for God to be praised. He is glorified in forgiving sinners because he shows that though our guilt is great, his grace is greater. He gets all the honor and praise.

So next time you go to pray, bring your sin before the Lord. Seek his mercy. Don’t gloss over your guilt. Confess your sins for the glory of the God.

[1]Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 13.

God-Centered Prayers

June 19, 2025 No Comments

When we talk about prayer, our discussions usually center around who or what we’re praying for. We listen to prayer requests at church on Sunday. We tell a struggling or hurting friend that we are praying for them. We send “thoughts and prayers” when we hear about a tragedy. We even have a praying hands emoji to reply to a message or comment on a post.

None of these things are wrong. But sometimes we fall into the trap of giving little thought to the true center of all our prayers. We gloss over who we are praying to so we can get more quickly to what we’re praying for. Our prayers lose their proper center and become out-of-orbit prayers.

All our prayers should be God-centered prayers. They should orbit around him. All our adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication are directed to the King of the universe, the Lord of Creation, our Father in heaven. Prayer is drawing near to him through Jesus and calling out our praises, our pleas for forgiveness, our desires for his glory, our yearning for his kingdom, our requests for his provision, and our thankfulness for his goodness.

This is how Jesus taught us to pray. When we consider the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, we see a radically God-centered prayer. It is a prayer directed to the Father that reveals a desire for his glory, his kingdom, and his will and that declares our dependence on him.

Here are five specific observations about God-centered prayers rooted in Jesus’s model prayer:

First, when we pray, we should pause and remember who we are praying to: our Father in heaven. We do not come to a distant, unknown deity. We do not send up thoughts and prayers hoping they reach some benevolent force of the universe. We draw near to our heavenly Father. We come to God as our transcendent Authority. We come to God as our loving Provider. We come to God as our mighty Protector. We pray as those who know the Father through faith in the Son.

Second, the heart-beat of our prayers should be the glory of God’s name. This model prayer begins with praise and a desire that God’s name would be honored as holy in all things. All our praying should reflect a heart of worship. Our prayers are God-centered when we seek the glory of God as the chief purpose of all things.

We pray for a friend who is suffering, and we pray that God would be praised because of his work in their life. We seek God’s blessing for the ministries of our church for the sake of God’s Name, that more people would come to see him as worthy of all their devotion. God-centered prayers seek the glory of God in all things.

Third, our prayers should reveal a yearning for God’s kingdom to come. We do not pray that God would build our little kingdoms, but his kingdom. God’s kingdom is his rule over his people. It advances and spreads as more and more people trust in Jesus and bow to him as King. One day, the King will return. Do our prayers reveal a longing for that day? God-centered prayers seek God’s kingdom first.

Fourth, Jesus also taught us to pray “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven“. When Jesus mentions God’s will in Matthew 6:10, he is not talking about God’s sovereign will or plan for the world. No one can thwart or stop that will (Psalm 115:3). Jesus is talking about God’s will for how we should live. In heaven, the angels live in perfect obedience to the will of God. We should desire to see the same kind of submission to God’s will on earth, starting in our own lives.

Prayer is not about bending God to our will. It’s about conforming our hearts and lives to his revealed will in Scripture. God-centered prayers reveal a longing for deeper obedience and submission to God. They resound with a desire for righteousness and holiness in our lives and in the world.

Finally, Jesus teaches us to pray for our physical and spiritual needs. We should ask God to provide for the needs of our body. It is good and right to ask God to provide our daily bread. We also ask God to supply the forgiveness we need, protection from temptation, and deliverance from the schemes of the evil one.

God is glorified when we humbly bring our physical and spiritual needs into his presence. This honors God because it shows a recognition of our complete dependence on God. Kevin DeYoung puts it this way in his book on the Lord’s Prayer:

“If there is one thing we can be certain God wants to teach us, surely it is to convince us once again that we are frail, life is fragile, and we depend upon God for everything.”[1]

God-centered prayers are God-dependent prayers. We bring our needs to God, whatever they are, because we understand our utter reliance on our Father.

From time-to-time, all of us need to recenter our prayers. We may find that our prayers are a little out of orbit. They sometimes orbit around our kingdom of sand rather than the King and his Kingdom.

The Lord’s Prayer helps knock our prayers back into orbit. We remember that worship is not just something we do when we sing. It involves our prayers as well. All our praying is an act of worship where we praise our King, seek his forgiveness, plead for his provision, and give thanks for his grace.

All our prayers should be God-centered prayers.

[1]Kevin DeYoung, The Lord’s Prayer: Learning from Jesus on What, Why, and How to Pray, 49.

A Hero Missionary of Our State: The Ministry of Henry S. Mellon

June 12, 2025 1 Comment

The story of Pastor Henry S. Mellon is a story of a farmer turned church planter. It is a story that has been nearly forgotten over the 150 years since he entered his labors as a pioneer pastor. There are currently many gaps in his story and few sources from his own hand. But we do know that at the end of his ministry, an 1897 report in the Michigan Baptist Convention minutes honored this retired pastor as a hero missionary of our state. By the time of that report, ministry and time had taken their toll. Poor health had driven him from ministry, but not before he had helped start at least four churches in the state.

Henry Samuel Mellon was born on September 4, 1832 in New York to Peter Mellon and Reconcile “Chloa” Crane. His father died when he was young, and his mother soon remarried, after which the family moved to Michigan.

In Jackson, Michigan, Henry met Melissa Crane, and they were married in the late 1850s. They would have three children: Willard (1859), Julia Irene (1868), and Ernest (1875). In 1860, Henry was working in a commercial nursery, but we know little about the Mellon family during this decade of the Civil War and its aftermath.

Ministry in Bridgeton

By 1870, the family had moved to the Muskegon area where Henry was farming. Up to this point, we know nothing about Henry’s faith, church involvement, or ministry training. But starting in 1872, a Rev. H. S. Mellon shows up in the Michigan Baptist Convention (MBC) minutes. In 1871, Henry planted a Baptist church in Bridgeton Township in Newaygo. According to a report in the MBC proceedings, the church in Bridgeton consisted of nine members in 1872.

Michigan was still a younger state at this time and had many undeveloped, frontier areas. Baptists numbered around 20,000 in Michigan in 1872, and while 293 Baptist churches had been organized, only 131 had settled pastors. Henry carried out his ministry as a missionary pastor sponsored by the Michigan Baptist Convention and the Women’s Michigan Baptist Home Mission Society. In 1873, he was given $10 for his library by the MBC out of the book fund for pastors. In addition to his pastoral work, Henry also served as the postmaster for Bridgeton, which had a population of 70 people.

Work as a missionary pastor was demanding. While working as postmaster and pastoring the Bridgeton congregation, Henry also often preached at least five times at different places on Sunday. He also had a hand in prayer meetings, monthly covenant meetings (where members of the church would gather to reaffirm their commitment to the Lord and each other), and Sunday schools.

For the year 1876-77, Henry reported that he preached 325 sermons, attended 100 prayer and Bible meetings, made 400 visits, travelled 3,200 miles, saw 20 conversions, baptized 9 people, and brought 10 into membership at his church. He ministered at six or seven separate congregations that year as well. The people he served were typically poor settlers in the Michigan frontier. He recounted once preaching at a schoolhouse in Newaygo County. Several teenage boys between twelve and fourteen years old told him then that they had never heard a sermon before. Sunday to them was just a day with more hunting and fishing.

In 1880, tragedy struck the Mellon family. Diphtheria spread around the village, and four-year-old Ernest came down with the infection and died on March 15, 1880. His death was reported in the proceeding of the Michigan Baptist Convention, which stated, “Bro. Mellon has been burdened in his work by sickness in his family and among the people. Diphtheria removed his youngest child and many others around.”

But the work at Bridgeton continued. During the August 17, 1881 meeting of the White River Baptist Association, Henry preached “on the necessity of going out into the highway and hedges and compelling the people to come in.” He was also scheduled to preach the sermon at the next association meeting the following year.

In that same convention report, Henry stated: “No especial outpouring of the spirit this year, but the same steady zeal and firmness is manifest among his members.” The report went on to describe how the church members, now numbering 72, were determined to build a church building for the congregation. Eight hundred dollars had been pledged, but being too poor to buy all the lumber, they went into the woods, cut down trees, and prepared lumber for the building themselves. Henry helped with the building as he could during the week.

Church Planting in Northern Michigan

For several years, calls for help in the Grand Traverse region of the state had come to the attention of the Michigan Baptist Convention. With the Bridgeton congregation fully settled, Henry Mellon did his part to answer these calls. He made his way north to the village of Eastport. With a population of about 200 people, Eastport was a thriving little town in Northern Michigan. What specifically led the Mellons to Eastport is unknown, but according to the MBC proceedings, Henry helped organize the Eastport Baptist Church in 1884. According to church records, the congregation began with ten members. The Home Missions Society allotted Henry $58.34 that year in support of his ministry.

By 1886, 36 members were worshiping at the First Baptist Church of Eastport. Two were baptized that year, four were welcomed as members by presenting a letter from a previous church, and five were accepted into membership by relating their conversion experience. That same year, on March 24, 1886, Henry married John Pearl and Alice Hadcock. John Pearl owned the General Store the church met in, and Alice was one of the charter members in 1884. In 1887, Henry joined fellow missionary pastor Rev. T Howland of Kalkaska at a meeting of the Women’s Michigan Baptist Home Mission Society. According to the report, they “gave interesting accounts of their fields of labor and the pressing need of money. Our society was grateful to hear announced the fact that the money asked for would be forthcoming.”

In 1888, Henry set out again to help organize more churches in the state. This time, he went east to the Alpena area. While there, he helped organize Plainfield Baptist Church in Hale, MI on October 6, 1889 with 12 members. This church is now Hale Baptist Church. There are also indications that he helped plant Curtisville Baptist Church in South Branch, which is in the same area (although the only date found for this is 1880, which seems an unlikely date given the timeline of his ministry).

By 1892, Henry had completed his work in Alpena and travelled back to Eastport to serve as pastor again. Minutes from a church meeting in 1894 read: “The First Baptist Church of Eastport met for regular covenant meeting at the Parsonage, Saturday July 14, 1894, at 2 o’clock pm with the Pastor as the chair.” Seventeen members and one visitor attended this meeting, and they raised a collection for State Missions of $1.07. The 1894 report from the Michigan Baptist Convention lists 43 members at Eastport during this time.

His Final Years

Sickness and poor health eventually drove Henry to step down from his missionary and pastoral labors in 1895. He returned to Bridgeton in October that year. One of his deacons, R. R. Wilkinson was called and ordained by the church in Eastport and became the next pastor. Soon after, a revival occurred in Eastport where 50 people were baptized and the membership rose from 46 to 98. A Baptist church in Central Lake seems to have been organized out of this revival. It was this report in the 1897 Michigan Baptist Convention proceedings that described Rev. Henry Mellon as “that hero missionary of our state.” After detailing the Eastport revival, the report went on to declare: “So one sows and another reaps.”

Little else is known about Henry Mellon’s life following his return to Bridgeton. His health continued to decline, and he died on January 21, 1905, at the age of 72. During his ministry, he displayed a true missionary heart and courageous dedication. He travelled thousands of miles each year for the sake of the gospel and participated extensively in the Baptist associations of Michigan.

Henry Mellon served as a faithful church planter and pioneer pastor for over 25 years. Yet, his name will not be found in any church history textbooks (though he was mentioned in one sentence in the Centennial History 1836-1936 of the Michigan Baptist Convention). There are no biographies celebrating his ministry. Yet, his legacy was not in his name, but in the souls he served and churches he helped organize. We thank the Lord for many faithful pastors and missionaries from our past like him who labored unknown by men, but known by their God, and now have entered their rest.

A Note on Sources: Most of the information cited about the ministry of Rev. Henry Mellon comes from the Minutes of the Michigan Baptist Convention Proceedings, accessed digitally from the University of Michigan archives in the HathiTrust Digital Library Collection. Not every year is available online, including the minutes from the 1884 and 1889-93 convention meetings. Finding print copies of these minutes might reveal more about Rev. Mellon’s life and ministry. Information about Henry’s early life and several other details come from census records and Michigan vital records accessed online. The photograph of Henry and Melissa is from Eastport Baptist’s historical records. Information about his involvement in organizing Hale Baptist Church was found on their website.

Praying for the Unreached

June 7, 2025 No Comments

There are three billon (3,000,000,000) people in the world who have never been exposed to the good news of Jesus. Entire ethnic groups have no church or Christian presence. In India alone, there are 1.3 billion people who are considered unreached.

Paul once declared “I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, ‘Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.’” (Romans 15:20–21)

As a church, we pray that those who have never been told about Jesus would see and hear and understand the truth about Jesus. We pray that the Lord would raise up and send out workers into his harvest among the unreached (Matt 9:37). We pray that God would use us to send and support workers in this harvest.

This Sunday, June 8, is the International Day for the Unreached. Below are some prayer points to pray Sunday and every day for those who have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ. We look forward to the day when these words will become reality:

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9–10)

Prayer Points for the Unreached

Pray that God’s name would be glorified in people from every nation and tribe worshiping him forever.
Pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out more workers into his harvest among the unreached.
Pray that more resources would be allotted toward reaching unreached ethnic groups.
Pray for mission organizations that God would give them wisdom in guiding missionaries to hard places to reach those with no access to the gospel.
Pray for our church, that God would raise up resources and even workers from among us for reaching the unreached.
Pray specifically for the unreached peoples of the world, a third of humanity, three billion people, who have no access to the gospel. May God do a great work to bring them to a knowledge of himself through his Son.

*Image credit: https://athirdofus.com/