SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH

2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118 

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE 

APRIL 8, 2007 

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: ‘Doxology’) 

he love of Christ is rich and free;

Fixed on His own eternally;

Nor earth, nor hell, can it remove;

Long as He lives, His own He’ll love.

His loving heart engaged to be

Their everlasting Surety;

‘Twas love that took their cause in hand,

And love maintains it to the end.

Love cannot from its post withdraw;

Nor death, nor hell, nor sin, nor law,

Can turn the Surety’s heart away;

He’ll love His own to endless day.

Love has redeemed His sheep with blood;

And love will bring them safe to God;

Love calls them all from death to life;

And love will finish all their strife.

He loves through every changing scene,

Nor aught can him from Zion wean;

Not all the wanderings of her heart

Can make His love from her depart.

At death, beyond the grave, He’ll love;

In endless bliss, His own shall prove

The blazing glory of that love

Which never could from them remove

 

HOW PURE, HOW RICH, HOW EFFICACIOUS 

 awoke this morning under a deep sense of my sinfulness—but was favored afterwards with a realization of the precious blood of the glorious Lamb of God. How pure, how rich, how efficacious!

Every drop is worth more than all the world has in it—the blood of the everlasting covenant, which blotted my sin out of God’s book, and from my conscience also!                                                                                                                    RUTH BRYAN

WALKING IN THE LIGHT

“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,” 1 John 1:7

hat is it to walk in the light?  It certainly cannot mean a walk of sinless purity and perfection, even with our best behavior, because the same text speaks of the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing us from all sin.  What would be the need of cleansing if we could even for a moment have a sinless thought.

            Here is clearly a scripture that requires an understanding of the context to interpret the text.  Since the verse begins with the conjunction ‘but,’ we need to go back to the previous verses to understand the contrast.  The apostle John writes of the fellowship that God’s redeemed, justified, and called out elect children enjoy in perfect harmony with His every attribute as God, IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, v. 3.  To walk in the light, is to walk in perfect harmony and fellowship with God as HOLY, because that’s what He is as the light, and no darkness is in HIM, v. 5. 

            If we say that we have fellowship (perfect agreement and harmony) in all of God’s attributes as just, holy, and sinless, and yet walk in darkness, or in willful ignorance, attempting to love God and serve Him through self-will and self-righteousness, we lie (dead works are a refuge of lies-Isaiah 28:17), and do not the truth, v. 6 (are not submitted to the one true righteousness of God established, accepted, and imputed in Christ upon completion of His obedience unto death-Romans 10:3).

            In connection with this, we then see the context of v. 7 beginning with ‘but.’  If we walk in the light (Christ’s righteousness imputed at Calvary and revealed to the heart in time by the Spirit of God in the Gospel), we have fellowship (oneness, harmony, and agreement) with one another (the Lord’s elect, redeemed, and justified saints), and the blood of Jesus Christ (shed and applied to our spiritual account at Calvary) continues to cleanse us from all sin, because it was shed once for all, and God has effectively put it away.  In His death, we enjoy the benefits of that legal state of perfect fellowship with God, and by His Spirit, we experience that perfect fellowship with God, Christ having already put away our sin.  We don’t pretend not to have sin, like all religious hypocrites, nor do we hide it, but we own it, and confess it continually, resting in Christ alone and His finished work and righteousness imputed at Calvary as our only hope.          KEN WIMER

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESURRECTION 

he Apostle Paul declared the significance of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in I Corinthians 15:13-14: “But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.(I Cor.15:13,14)  Paul  also wrote: “Who was delivered for (because of) our offences, and was raised again for (because of) our justification.”(Rom.4:25)  Paul wasn’t telling us that Christ’s resurrection obtained our justification. He clearly taught in the first part of this verse that Christ’s perfect life of obedience to God’s law and justice and His death as the substitute of all of God’s elect OBTAINED their justification-“He was delivered for our offences.”  His resurrection is proof positive that every person for whom Christ lived and died were justified, i.e., declared legally righteous, at Calvary. If Christ didn’t actually obtain the salvation of all those God the Father gave to Him in the everlasting covenant of Grace, God the Father would have never raised Him from the dead. Justified sinners don’t just think of this glorious truth twice a year, i.e., Christmas and Easter, but they live with an ever present awareness that all their salvation rests SOLELY on Christ and His perfect work ALONE.      RICHARD WARMACK, Ruston, LA 

“I will go in the strength of the LORD GOD:  I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only.”  Psalm 71:16