April 23, 2017
SOVEREIGN GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH
MEETING LOCATION
251 Green Lane
Ewing, NJ, 08368
Clay Curtis, pastor
Telephone: 615-513-4464
MAILING ADDRESS:
7 Birch Street
Pennington, NJ, 08538
Schedule of Services
Sunday 10: 15 AM Bible Class
Sunday 11:00 AM Morning Service
Thursday 7: 30 PM Midweek Service
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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.
All articles by the pastor unless otherwise noted.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE WEBSITE: watch videos of our full services—click here.
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SUNDAY’S READING IN PROVERBS
Proverbs 6: 1: My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, 2: Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. 3: Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. 4: Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. 5: Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
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AN OBSERVATION BY JOHN TRAPP
“They were both naked, and not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25)
Clothes are the ensigns of our sin and covers of our shame. To be proud of them is as great folly as for a beggar to be proud of his rags…As the prisoner, looking on his irons thinks on his theft, so we, looking on our garments should think on our sins.
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LET US LABOR TO REST
Pastor Tom Harding
“Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest” (Heb. 4:11).
Seems to be a contradiction in terms, labor to rest; but in reality it is not. Let us eagerly strive and earnestly pursue to count all our works as “dung and filthy rags” and to “cease from our own works,” cease from trusting ourselves, cease from going about to establish our own righteousness (Rom. 10:3-4) and to rest, relax and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, who accomplished all righteousness and all salvation for us (Rom. 8:32; Col. 2:9-10; Phil. 3:7-9).
This is impossible for any sinner to do apart from almighty grace! However, when the Lord is pleased to reveal Himself unto us, it is the delight of faith (Heb. 12:2), the joy of hope (2 Thes. 2:16) and the burning desire of love to come to Christ and rest in Him (1 John 4:19). He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Oh Lord, give us grace to rest in thee!
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HOLDING FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE
Pastor Henry Mahan
“This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck” (1 Timothy 1:18-19).
Paul exhorts Timothy to "war a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience." I understand the word faith here to be a general term meaning sound doctrine and the word conscience to deal with honesty and integrity. The chief things demanded of those who would preach, teach, or minister the gospel of Christ are these two:
1.) That he should hold firmly and boldly to the pure truth of the gospel of God’s grace and mercy in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We shall not - we must not - compromise the gospel of His glory. If righteousness comes by works, laws, or merit, then Christ died in vain. All of grace; all in Christ, is our message.
2.) That he shall minister this gospel with a good conscience, serving the Lord God with a sincere and perfect heart. We preach not ourselves but Christ; we seek not yours but you; we covet no man's possessions, praise, or approval. “I know how to be abased and how to abound" (Phil. 4:12). Where these are found, all of the others will follow in due time.
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BELIEVERS KEEP GOD’S LAW IN PERFECTION
Ezekiel 36: 27: And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
About five years ago, a man visited our congregation from one of the many reformed churches around us. For a few months, he repeatedly quoted this verse to me. He explained that this verse meant he had the ability to keep God’s law himself. But keeping God’s law is only done in perfection. Believers have an old man of sin which makes it impossible for us to keep God’s law in perfection.
The truth is that God makes his people keep his law in perfection by making us believe on Christ who established the law in perfection for his people; God makes us walk in his statutes by making us walk by faith in Christ.
When the self-righteous heard Paul declare this they accused him of making void the law. In Romans 3, after declaring the proper use of the law is to declare us guilty Paul declared that God set Christ forth to make his people righteous through faith in his blood. Then Paul concluded, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, [through faith in Christ] we establish the law.” (Rom 3: 31)
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ACCORDING TO MY RIGHTEOUSNESS
Psalm 18: 20: The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. 21: For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 22: For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me. 23: I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. 24: Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.
When a songwriter writes a song he picks up a pen with which to write. When God wrote the Psalms he picked up one of his choice servants with which to write. This is God using David to write Christ’s words. Like as we do not praise the pen but the man who wrote the song, we do not praise David but God who used David to write this song. This is Christ speaking about how the LORD Jehovah rewarded him for his righteous work in this earth.
The Lord Jesus is the righteous and holy one. He alone can say of himself, “The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me. I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.”
What does our Sin-bearer mean when he says in our text, “I kept myself from mine iniquity?” When he bore the sins of his people, he owned our sins as his own. (Ps 40: 12) Yet, Christ did not commit any iniquity; though he was made sin, he knew no sin; though he was tempted by Satan to the most enormous iniquities, he kept himself from the evil one; even when he bore our sins on the cross Christ never ceased looking to and trusting the Father to raise him when justice was satisfied. In perfection, Christ was obedient unto the death of the cross. This can only be said of Christ Jesus the Just one.
Christ is the only Righteousness in whom God will accept his people. God is only well-pleased with those who come to him through faith in his Son. But when God gives his child faith to cast all our care on him, God makes us know that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us because Christ has made us the righteousness of God in him. Christ’s righteousness is so truly ours that every true believer can say the very words of this passage about ourselves. Not because the believer worked this work himself in perfection but because through faith, Christ is my Righteousness. “Therefore, hath the LORD rewarded me according to my Righteousness”, according to Christ my Righteousness!