Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

Free Grace Media

Of Princeton, New Jersey

 

AuthorClay Curtis
TitleWeekly Bulletin 11-27-2016
Bible TextEphesians 3:16-19
Date26-Nov-2016
Article Type Bulletin
PDF Format pdf
Word Format doc
Audio HI-FI Listen: Four Great Needs (32 kbps)  /  [go to notes]
Audio CD Quality Listen: Four Great Needs (128 kbps)  /  [go to notes]
 

November 27, 2016

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

 

Services Broadcast Live @ www.FreeGraceMedia.com/live

 

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NURSERY

We have a nursery equipped with a digital flat screen television broadcasting all services live, for children four and under.  

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All articles by the pastor unless otherwise noted.

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SUNDAY’S READING IN PROVERBS

Proverbs 1: 20: Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: 21: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, 22: How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 23: Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. 24: Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25: But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27: When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28: Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: 29: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: 30: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. 31: Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. 32: For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. 33: But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

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"Christ's war is to be preferred to the devil's peace." Robert Murray McCheyne

 

"Religion" has become man's chief defense against the true gospel.” Rolph Barnard

 

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Last week when I spoke with Brother Cody Groover’s wife, Winna, she glorified God, thankful for the gift God had given to her and to the saints there by giving them Brother Cody. Among many things, one thing she said that particularly stood out to me was concerning the saints to whom Brother Cody ministered. I pray God will make us each remember this, too. She said, “As much as Cody loved the saints God gave him to serve, the Lord loves them more. He will provide for his people.”

 

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A Tribute to a Faithful Man

Missionary Cody Groover

1959-2016

 

When I first met Bro. Cody Groover he was just a teenager. I remember well when the Lord was pleased to save him, and when the Lord called him to the work to which he devoted his life, leaving a good job, selling his goods, and moving his wife and young children to Merida, Mexico. When I got word this morning (November 17, 2016) that the Lord had suddenly called him home, I was shocked, and immediately thought, “a great man is fallen this day in Israel” (2 Samuel 3:38); and he will be missed. And I thought of my friend as Paul did of his friend, Tychicus. — Bro. Cody Groover was truly “a beloved brother, and a faithful minister, and fellowservant in the Lord” (Colossians 4:7).

 

Beloved Brother. Cody is, to me and to many around the world, “a beloved brother.” It has been more than forty years since the Lord made Cody, his parents, and his brother and sisters a part of my life. What a blessed part of my life they have been! Laboring together, laughing together, and weeping together, we rejoiced in one another’s joys and bore one another’s burdens. I was often in his home and with his family, and he was often in my home and with my family. In all those years, a cross word never passed between us, or even sense of discomfort or regret.

 

Faithful Minister. Bro. Groover was “a faithful minister” to God’s elect, and “a faithful minister of the Lord.” He was Christ’s servant, and servant to his people. He was used of God to minister to pastors and churches in Mexico, primarily in the Yucatan and in Chiapas. Raised in Merida, the son of Missionary Walter Groover and his wife, Betty, Cody and his family returned to serve with his parents 22 years ago. Since then, the Lord has used him to raise up new gospel churches. He also took on the responsibilities of overseeing The Preachers’ School in Merida.

     On my annual visits with the Groovers and the churches in the Yucatan, I always spent a day at The Preachers’ School. Every visit with men in the school, some I have known for forty years and others just beginning to preach, gave me great joy. The preachers have been well taught, have a clear understanding of Holy Scripture, and demonstrate great love and esteem for Bros. Walter and Cody Groover, expressing great gratitude to our God for sending them to Mexico to bring the gospel of God’s free and sovereign grace in Christ to them.

 

Fellowservant in the Lord. Bro. Cody Groover was truly a “fellowservant in the Lord.” He was both greatly humbled by and greatly rejoiced in the work the Lord God trusted to his hands. In all the years I knew him, since his first conversion, Cody Groover was a man of exemplary faithfulness and commitment. His doctrine has not altered in all those years so much as a hair’s breadth, but has only become stronger and clearer; and his commitment to the cause of Christ and his joy in the work the Lord trusted to his hands only increased year by year. He was truly “a beloved brother, and a faithful minister, and a fellowservant in the Lord.” As I said, he will be greatly missed.                                                              Pastor Don Fortner

                                                       

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FOUR GREAT NEEDS

Ephesians 3: 16  That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17: That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18: May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19: And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

 

Here are four specific things the apostle Paul asked God to give to the believers at Ephesus.  This is what we truly need.

 

STRENGTH BY HIS SPIRIT God creates the inner man in the perfect righteousness and holiness of Christ by his Spirit. (Eph 4: 24) But we begin as a baby. God is all fullness so he gives according to his riches. (Eph 1: 7, 18; 2: 7; 3:8; Php 4: 19)  In the inner man God grows us in grace and knowledge of Christ through the preaching of the gospel. Our faith, love, hope, joy, and affections for Christ are made stronger by God’s Spirit, along with all spiritual senses in the inner man. (1 Pet 2: 2; Eph 4:15; 2 Thess 1:3: 2 Pet 3:18; Col 1: 10-11)

 

CHRIST INDWELLING This quickening work is by Christ dwelling in the inner man. But our desire is that Christ dwell in our hearts so as to ravish us with his love. Do you remember when Christ’s first ravished your heart?  When you first beheld Christ bearing away your sin so that there is no record of them anymore before God? When he robed us in his perfect righteousness our heart burned within us as he communed with us in the way. Paul’s prayer is that we might have that intimate communion with Christ more fully so that our hearts will be turned from this world to Christ seated at God’s right hand where our life is hidden in him. (Col 3: 3-4; Php 3:10)

 

ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE Paul asked that God might root and ground his people in Christ’s love for us.  (Col 2: 6-7) Like a tree is established by its roots running deep in the soil, Christ roots us in his love. Likewise, Christ is our Foundation who makes us to be grounded in him so that we are like the man who built his house upon a rock. (Is 28: 16; Lu 6: 47-49) He roots and grounds us by making us to comprehend and lay hold of the greatness of God’s love in Christ more and more. The breadth of Christ’s love covers every elect child of God with his righteousness. The length stretches from eternity to eternity over all time. The depth reaches to the uttermost pit of our depravity saving the least of the least. The height is to heaven taking in the whole family in heaven and in earth.

 

FILLED WITH ALL FULNESS  Paul asks God to fill his people with all the fullness of God.  Think of the massive sun. A tiny dewdrop cannot contain all the fullness of the sun. But it is filled with all the fullness of sun to the full extent of its limited capacity. The result is that though the dew drop has no ability to produce light, being filled with the fullness of the sun, it shines. That is why Paul asks God fill his people! “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”