SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH
2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118
CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE
OCTOBER 28-30, 2005
FALL BIBLE CONFERENCE
FRIDAY- 7:00 PM
Hymn: #37- ‘How Great Thou Art!’
Scripture Reading/Prayer:
Hymn: #355- ‘From Every Stormy Wind That Blows’
Message: Brother Bill Parker
Hymn: #118- ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’
SATURDAY- 10:00 AM
Hymn: #468- ‘I Will Sing the Wondrous Story’
Scripture Reading/Prayer:
Hymn: #125- ‘Jesus Paid It All’
Message: Brother Bill Parker
Hymn: #272- ‘The Solid Rock’
*Picnic following morning service
*Fish fry and fellowship at the Stranges- 6PM
SUNDAY BIBLE CLASS– 10:00 AM
Lesson taught by Bill Parker
SUNDAY WORSHIP– 10:00 AM
Scripture Reading/Prayer: Psalm 119:145-152 (David)
Call To Worship:
Scripture Reading/Prayer: 1 Kings 8 (Mike)
Hymn: #186- ‘The Church’s One Foundation’
Message: Brother Bill Parker
Hymn: #103- ‘One Day’
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 <http://www.shrevegrace.org/> Updated
weekly with audio messages now available on-line.
· NURSERY SCHEDULE: Friday- Elizabeth Strange; Saturday- Sandra McWherter;
Sunday- Pam Carter
· LOVE OFFERING: As is our custom with visiting preachers, we want to express
our love and appreciation through special gifts. Any amount that the Lord leads
you to give, please so designate for Brother Bill Parker and put it in the
offering box.
CALL TO WORSHIP
(Tune – ‘O for A Thousand Tongues to Sing # 46)
Words based on Psalm 119:145-152
145 With my whole heart I cried, Lord, hear;
I will thy word obey.
146 I cried to thee; save me, and I
will keep thy laws always.
147 I of the morning did prevent
the dawning, and did cry:
For all mine expectation
did on thy word rely.
148 Mine eyes did timorously prevent
the watches of the night,
That in thy word with careful mind
then meditate I might.
149 After thy loving-kindness hear
my voice, that calls on thee:
According to thy judgment, Lord,
revive and quicken me.
150 Who follow mischief they draw nigh;
they from thy law are far:
151 But thou art near, Lord; most firm truth
all thy commandments are.
152 As for thy testimonies all,
of old this have I tried,
That thou hast surely founded them
for ever to abide.
JUSTIFICATION BY C H R I S T ALONE is a fountain of life and comfort, declaring
that the whole work of man's salvation was accomplished by Jesus Christ upon the
cross, in that He took away and healed all His, from all sins, and presented
them to God holy without fault in His sight. SAMUEL RICHARDSON, 1647
RIGHTEOUSNESS IMPUTED OR IMPARTED-WHICH?
One of the greatest debates amongst those who claim to be "Christian," amongst
various denominations, is this -- Are we saved based on an imputed
righteousness, an imparted righteousness, or a combination of both? This issue
can be easily settled if we rely upon and bow to God's Word. First, what is
righteousness? Strictly speaking, when the Bible speaks in terms of the ground
of salvation, justification before God, and when it speaks of fitness and
entitlement to Heaven, righteousness refers to the perfect satisfaction to God's
holy law and inflexible justice worked out and provided by God in the obedience
and death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:16-17; 3:21-26; 10:4).
Righteousness, in this sense, refers to the entire merit of Christ's work on
behalf of God's elect, as their Mediator and Surety. God's Word tells us plainly
that sinners can only be saved, justified before God, and made fit and entitled
to all of Heaven based solely upon Christ's righteousness imputed to them
(Romans 5:18-21; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:7-10). Imputed means that the
merit of Christ's work of mediation is legally charged to their persons, to
their accounts, so that they are saved, justified, made fit and entitled to all
of salvation based on a righteousness they personally did not produce, the
righteousness of Christ, their Substitute and Surety. This is salvation by
grace!
The Bible knows no such term as imparted righteousness, however, when men refer
to this, most mean the work of the Holy Spirit in a sinner to give that sinner
spiritual life (a principle of life and godliness), faith, repentance, love,
humility, and all the graces of the Spirit. These wonderful graces of the Spirit
are imparted, infused and implanted, into the sinner by way of the heart (the
mind, the affections, and the will). These things are not the merit of a work
such as is the righteousness Christ produced. They are moral qualities of
character freely given to God's elect by virtue of their oneness with Christ and
as the fruit and result of His righteousness imputed to them (Romans 8:32).
Therefore, these blessed and necessary graces of the Spirit cannot form any part
of the ground of salvation, of justification before God, nor can they make us
fit or entitled to any part of Heaven. They are all necessary in salvation, but
not as the ground of salvation. They are all the fruit and effect of the work of
Christ which is the only ground of salvation.
BILL PARKER, 13th Street Baptist Church
JUSTIFICATION AND REGENERATION
Historically, there have been two views of the relationship between our being
justified (declared righteous) before God, and regeneration, being born again by
the Spirit of God.
1. Roman Catholicism and many like Free-will teachings hold that regeneration is
a necessary condition for justification. In other words, righteousness is
imputed and imparted by the Spirit of God subsequent to a sinner being made
alive by the Spirit of God.
2. Reformed and many Sovereign Grace groups teach that regeneration is the
IMMEDIATE consequence and fruit of justification. In other words, they teach
that just before God regenerates a sinner, He imputes the righteousness of
Christ and then gives life to the sinner to appropriate it.
Biblically, however, a careful study of the Scriptures will show that neither of
these views is correct, and a confusion of these vital doctrines has led to
great disorder of the distinction between Christ’s work for us, and Christ’s
work in us.
1. Justification and Redemption are simultaneous and are the IMMEDIATE result of
Christ’s death, and the full payment for sin in His obedience unto death- Romans
3:24-“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus:” Justification is here defined as a completed act whereby GOD
looks upon every one of the elect for whom Christ died as righteous in His eyes.
Notice that the means and instrument of His justifying them is the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. The hardest thing for any of us to believe is that God
could declare sinners just in His eyes who are still unregenerate, totally
depraved, dead in sin, who do not seek God, whose mouths are full of cursing and
bitterness, and who have no fear of God before their eyes. And yet the testimony
of God is that He justifies THE UNGODLY (Romans 4:5) and that “while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8). God does not arbitrarily declare
sinners righteous, but has done so by fully putting away their sin at the cross,
and immediately and simultaneously imputing (charging) to them His very
righteousness, 2 Corinthians 5:21.
2. Regeneration is the IMMEDIATE result of the work of the Spirit imparting LIFE
to those whom God has justified already by the death of the Lord Jesus. To
credit justification to the Spirit is to deny the finished work of Christ. The
Spirit gives the sinner life, light, and faith to believe in Christ, and rest
in, and submit to the righteousness of God established, accepted, and imputed by
God at the cross, Titus 3:5-7, Romans 1:17. It is not our believing that
appropriates God’s righteousness, but by faith we submit to Him who finished the
work, and made us righteous before God by His death, Romans 10:4. We believe
because we are no longer under condemnation, having already passed from death to
life- John 5:24 KEN WIMER