SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH

2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

 

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

 

February 27, 2005

 

 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORSHIP

 

SUNDAY

 

 

WEDNESDAY

6:30 PM- Mid-week Service

Nursery care available for all services for ages 4 and younger.

 

CONTACT INFORMATION

Ken Wimer, Pastor- ( (318) 687-4943

PO Box 5028, Shreveport, LA 71135

E-MAIL: pastor@shrevegrace.org

WEB SITE: http://www.shrevegrace.org Updated weekly with audio messages now available on-line.

 

CALL TO WORSHIP 

(Tune: ‘O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing’  #46)  Based on Psalm 102

Words by Isaac Watts, 1719

 

H  EAR me, O God, nor hide Thy face,
But answer, lest I die;
Hast Thou not built a throne of grace,
To hear when sinners cry?

 

My days are wasted like the smoke,

Dissolving in the air;

My strength is dried, my heart is broke,

And sinking in despair.

 

Sense can afford those no real joy

The souls that feel Thy frown;

Lord, ‘twas Thy hand advanced me high,

Thy hand hath cast me down.

 

But thou for ever art the same,

O my eternal God!

Ages to come shall know Thy name,

And spread Thy works abroad.

 

Thou wilt arise and show Thy face;

Nor will my Lord delay

Beyond th’appointed hour of grace,

That long expected day.

 

A GOOD SHELTER FOR AFFLICTED SOULS

CHRIST does save those afflicted and distressed souls that come to Him.  By His own free act, He has made Himself the surety of such, He has voluntarily put Himself in their stead; and if justice has any thing against them, He has undertaken to answer for them.  By His own act, He has engaged to be responsible for them; so that if they have exposed themselves to God’s wrath, and to the stroke of justice, it is not their concern, but His, how to answer or satisfy for what thy have done.  Let there be never so much wrath that they have deserved, they are as safe as if they never had deserved any; because He has undertaken to stand for them, let it be more or less.  If they are in Christ Jesus, the storm does of course light on Him and not on them; as when we are under a good shelter, the storm that would otherwise come upon our heads, lights upon the shelter. 

COPIED

 

OUR OLD MAN CRUCIFIED WITH HIM

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”                           Ro 6:6

The old man is none other than our representative head, the first Adam, whose condemnation was removed in the death of our second head, Christ, the Last Adam, or the new man, Ephesians 4:24.  To deliver his people from under the fallen head, the old man, from the body of sin, from the whole condemnation of the first man, Christ took their place by the exchange of places, called the reconciliation, 2 Corinthians. 5:18. God did not merely pardon sin; He condemned it in the death of the Substitute, thereby reconciling every one of His elect to Himself by that one act of obedience unto death, Romans 5:19.  The pardon is not of sin, but the sinner whose sin was fully and completely condemned by the death of the Lord Jesus. The old man being judged, the body of sin is destroyed, and in the eye of God’s righteous judgment none for whom Christ died could ever again be perceived outside of that crucifixion, outside of that condemnation of Christ in their place.  In the sight of God, it was the crucifixion of every one of His elect, as the apostle declared, ‘I am crucified with Christ,’ Galatians 2:20. Delivered by substitution, taken out of the old man Adam as our representative head, from under the law of sin and death, the saints stand justified by grace (Titus 3:7), under the headship of the Lord Jesus as Savior and Substitute before God-“For he that is dead (having died with Christ by substitution) is freed (justified) from sin,” Romans 6:7.  

KEN WIMER

 

A PRECIOUS CORNER STONE- Isaiah 28:16

THE Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners, is described here as the foundation stone of God’s salvation in three ways: ‘tried,’ ‘precious,’ and ‘sure.’  He was proven and tested as a man in His life and ministry on earth.  He was tempted in every way as we, yet without sin.  He accomplished what He came to do- the shedding of His precious blood for the remission of sins.  He was tested and proven in ALL things, in His life, but especially at the cross. His death was an absolute necessity for the salvation of all that the Father gave Him.  The Scripture says that if you belong to Him, and through the revelation of Himself, He has drawn you to Himself; He cannot be but PRECIOUS to you, even as He is precious to God His Father.  Is He precious to you?  I Peter 2:4 “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.”  

I Peter 2:6 “Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall no be confounded.”  I Peter 2:7 “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious.”

JIM PENNYWELL, Shreveport, LA

 

COMPLETE IN THEE

WHEN a sinner is enabled by God’s Spirit to ponder all that God has done for him through Christ’s perfect work on the cross, it drives him to his knees in thankfulness.  A wonderful old hymn, “Complete in Thee,” expresses these thoughts well.  The author states succinctly:

               

Complete in Thee, no work of mine,

May take dear Lord the place of Thine.

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,

And I am now complete in Thee.

 

Chorus

Yea justified, O blessed thought,

And sanctified salvation wrought.

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me

And glorified I too shall be.

 

So complete and satisfactory was the obedience unto death of our Lord Jesus that in that one single act, God the Father, once for all pardoned, justified, and sanctified every one of His elect.  The term ‘justified’ is a forensic term, the declaration a judge would make when a defendant is declared to be full righteous, not because he himself is righteous, but because Christ’s righteousness is imputed to him, “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 KEN WIMER

 

A TRUE FRIEND

Reader, you have friends dear to you as life.  To advance their interests you count all labors light.  Remember, he is a foe who befriends not the soul.  To befriend the soul is to point it to Christ.

HENRY LAW, 1854