2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

JULY 24, 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 –   ‘There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood’     #   222 )

Words based on Psalm 119:33-40

1. Teach me the way of your laws, Lord;

    I'll keep them to the end.

    Give insight to me, that I may

    Wholeheartedly obey.

    Lead me in your commandments' path,

    For in them I delight.

    Incline my heart unto your word,

    And not to my own gain.

2.  Let me not look at vanities;

    Give me life in your ways.

    Confirm to me your promise sure,

    For all those who fear you.

    Turn back the reproach which I dread;

    Your ordinances are good.

    Lo, for your precepts do I long;

    In justice give me life.

THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM- Heb. 12:2

he writer says, ‘who for the joy that was set before Him.’  What joy was set before Him?  One old writer said there was a three-fold joy that was set before Christ.  

1. His Father- He said, “I come to do the will of Him who sent me.”

2. The Salvation of His People- He called that His glory.   He said, ‘Glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” John 17: 5.  He said that ALL that the Father had given Him should come to Him.  “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”

3. His Own Exaltation- as God/Man seated at the right hand of the Father, now living forever making intercession for us, that He might have the preeminence in ALL things.  So that our song in eternity might be, ‘WORTHY IS THE LAMB that was SLAIN!

BILL PARKER, Ashland, KY

THE FINISHED WORK OF THE CROSS

 In Romans 5:1 we read, “Therefore being justified, by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ‘Therefore being justified,’ refers back to Romans 4:24 and the redemption and justification that Christ accomplished for His people AT THE CROSS.  There, God was propitiated [conciliated], once for all, toward those that Christ redeemed, Rom.3: 25. It is by faith that the redeemed sinner, through the work of the Spirit of grace, is reconciled in his own heart toward God through the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Spirit removes all enmity toward God in that redeemed sinner’s heart, making Him at peace with God, whose justice Christ satisfied by His death on the cross, Col. 1:20.  However, as far as God’s reconciliation with His elect, and the putting away of sin, and God absolving us of ALL guilt, justifying us before Him, THAT took place at the cross because “the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, He took out of the way, NAILING IT TO HIS CROSS, Col. 2:14.  All charges were satisfied in Christ’s death, not just dropped, or set aside. Therefore, forgiveness, redemption, and justification were fully accomplished at that time.

Faith does not complete Christ’s work.  Faith does not even appropriate it.  The word ‘appropriate’ means ‘to set aside by formal action for a specific use.’  By that definition it can be said that in eternity, God the Father, by formal decree appropriated salvation- set it apart and assigned it to a specific number of sinners, in His electing grace, Ephesians 1:4, 2 Thess. 2:13.  However, it was fully accomplished, that God might be just and justify, when Christ cried, “It is finished!” John 19:30.  Being accomplished, then, it is NOT in limbo until you believe, and then actualized by believing. No!  Faith is the spiritual eye to see and behold what Christ has accomplished, and to rest in Him who finished the work, seeing in His cross death that salvation was accomplished there, Romans 1:17.   It is by faith that all of Christ’s redeemed ones are brought to embrace and enjoy what He accomplished for them at the cross!

What of imputed righteousness?  To impute means ‘to credit a person.’  God’s justice was credited to the account of each of His elect AT THE CROSS! (2 Cor. 5:21) What about imparted righteousness?  To impart is ‘to grant to someone.’  When was God’s justice granted- when I believed or before?  I believed, because it was already granted, in the person of His Son and the work that He accomplished at Calvary.  Thank God it is so!                                                                   KEN WIMER

THE JOY OF A PURGED CONSCIENCE

“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:  how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Heb. 9:13, 14.

HAT a mercy it is to have a conscience in any measure purged from dead works to serve the living God; to feel any free access to his gracious Majesty, any happy liberty in walking before him, any deliverance from doubt and fear, any removal of those exercises which try the mind and often bring heavy burdens upon the soul!  Still, after all our wanderings, we must ever come to the same spot; after all our departings and backslidings, still again and again we must be brought to the same place to get the guilt removed, the mercy proclaimed, and the peace revealed.  For is not this the blessedness that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin?  Having obtained eternal redemption for us, his blood will never lose its efficacy, but will ever purge the conscience as long as the conscience of any burdened member of his mystical body remains to be purged, till he presents all his ransomed saints faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. 

J. C. PHILPOT