March 10, 2013
SOVEREIGN GRACE BAPTIST
CHURCH
LOCATION
Rocky Hill Firehouse, 2nd
Floor
150 Washington Street
Rocky Hill, New Jersey, 08553
Clay Curtis, pastor
Telephone: 615-513-4464
Schedule of Services
Sunday 10: 15 AM Bible Class
Sunday 11:00 AM Morning Service
Thursday 7: 30 PM Midweek Service
Order of service, announcements, nursery
schedule, etc., are in attachment. All
articles in the bulletin are by the pastor unless otherwise noted.
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NO LICENTIOUSNESS
Ephesians
4:17-32
Grace does not cause or promote licentiousness, but true godliness (vv. 17-24).
The gospel of the grace of God and the grace of God experienced in the soul
teaches believing men and women to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
present evil world for the glory of Christ. We are totally free from the law;
but believers are not lawless. Saved sinners seek to glorify God in all things.
If your religion promotes, permits, or allows room for lasciviousness, greed, and
deceitful lusts, your religion is not the religion of grace. Grace teaches
people to bridle their passions and their tongues (vv. 25-29). And grace causes
saved sinners to fear the thought of grieving the Holy Spirit (v. 30). In a
word, grace makes people gracious. “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger,
and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be
ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you” (vv. 4:31-32). Don Fortner
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ENEMIES RECONCILED, FRIENDS SAVED
Romans 5: 6-10
Trust and confidence that our
salvation is secure is because of what Christ has done for us by his death and what
Christ continues to do for us by his life.
Those who have been quickened, called and converted to faith in Christ
by the Spirit of God are given this assurance in the passage before us.
Remember
What We Were
We were without strength, ungodly, sinners. (Eph 2: 12) While we were dead in our sins we were the
“un” of everything God is: God is holy, we were unholy; God is just, we were
unjust; God is righteous, we were unrighteous.
By our first birth, we were what God hates and we hated God. (Col 1:
21.) Someone might object, “I’ve never been that way”. You may think not because you see yourself as
moral. But your heart has deceived you. You may think you have never been God’s
enemy, because though you are not for Christ, you are not outwardly rebellious
against the truth. But according to the
words of Christ, neutrality in this warfare is enmity. (Mt 12:30) Not to be on Christ's side is to be against
Christ; not to be separate from God's enemies is to be God's enemy; not to love
him is to hate him; not to be his, is to be Satan's. (Rom 8: 7) No sinner can be a friend of God until we
learn, in some degree, that by nature and practice we are “enemies of God by
wicked works.”
What
He Did For Us While We Were Enemies
When we were yet sinners, Christ died for his elect. God proved that his love
toward those he everlastingly loved is beyond change of any kind. The
love of God in Christ for each individual beloved child passes knowledge. (Eph. 3:18-19) Not
even our deplorable condition could alter the love of God for us. It was because before we sinned in Adam, God
loved us and put us in Christ who promised to lay down his life and bring us to
God. God does not love his children
because Christ died for us or because we believe on him. It was because God loved us that he gave us
to his Son. And God “commendeth” his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God’s
love for us in Christ is the envy of devils.
The angels stand in amazement at it.
Do you brethren? (Jer 31: 3) Every
elect child is accepted by what God the Father has done for us in Christ, while
as yet we were enemies (Eph 1: 6; Ro 3:25; Eph 2:13; Heb 9:12.)
What
He Shall Do For Us Now That We Are Friends
“Much more, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through
him, for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of
his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” If God
justified and reconciled us to himself by the death of his Son when we were
ungodly enemies, now that we are his friends we shall be saved by our risen
Redeemer. By his life, Christ sends the gospel to us. He sends the Holy Spirit
to make us alive, plant the truth in our hearts and give us faith to believe on
Christ. Therefore, we believe we shall be saved from wrath through him. (Rom 8:
1, 15-17) By Christ’s life, he saves us from
our infirmities. (Rom 8: 26-27) Our living Head works all things together in
heaven and earth for our good because he is the Firstborn Son among many
brethren to whom God the Father has entrusted the well-being of his whole
house. (Rom 8: 28-31) By his life, he
shall save us by giving us all things, spiritual and temporal, that is needful
for our salvation. (Rom 8: 32) It is by
his life that no one shall be able to charge his elect. (Rom 8: 33-34) By his life, he shall save us from anything that
would separate us from him. (Rom 8: 34-39; Heb 4:14,15; 7:25; Rom 5: 2-3)
Conclusion of the Matter
You who are born of God are complete and accepted by God because of Christ’s
death. You shall be saved because of
Christ’s life. Fear only God. If Christ accomplished our reconciliation
when we were his enemies, being now his friends, Christ will save us by his
life. Our living Redeemer will complete
what he has begun in us because we are his friends. Because he lives, we shall
live also. (Jn 14: 19)
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Luke 10:16 He that heareth you heareth me; and he that
despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent
me.