SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH
2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118 

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE 

APRIL 29, 2007

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORSHIP

 SUNDAY

 

 WEDNESDAY

7:00 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: #10-‘O God Our Help in Ages Past’)

hrist bears the name of all His saints,
Deep on His heart engraved;
Attentive to the state and wants
Of all His love has saved.

In Him a holiness complete
Light, and perfection shine;
And wisdom, grace, and glory meet;
A Savior all divine.

The blood, which, as a priest, He bears
For sinners, is His own
The incense of His prayers and tears
Perfumes the holy throne.

In Him my weary soul has rest,
Though I am weak and vile;
I read my name upon His breast,
And see the Father smile.

GOD’S GOSPEL MINISTRY 

he greater part of men are never called, qualified, and commissioned to preach the gospel.  There never was such a condition where the servants of Christ ‘always and everywhere’ were preaching the gospel of Christ!  Even the apostle Paul “assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not, “(Acts 16:7). He was directed into Macedonia!

                Men that are called of God do not go ‘everywhere.’  They go wherever God in His sovereign providence cast their lot.  They have no further accountability than to preach as they are directed of God.  Furthermore, they are accountable to preach the Gospel wherever God directs them, and “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel of God!”  Invariably, as one studies the early history of the church in the Acts of the Apostles, it was most usually persecution which instrumentally drove them abroad, where they went ‘preaching the Word.’                  Traveling merchants, and itinerate ministers covered Europe long before 1792.  In all the Book of Acts, there is no mention of any current methods:  mission societies, evangelistic committees, members telling their ministers where they can or cannot go, to whom they are to preach, or not to preach, or what they are to preach.  In other words, God’s ministers are HIS!  And they are answerable in all the above matters only TO HIM.  

STANLEY PHILLIPS, Quitman, MS

BELIEVING AND SALVATION

“And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house,” Acts 16:31.

here are many who quote this verse as a proof text to support their notion that believing is a condition for being saved.  It is taught as a condition and a promise, the condition being ‘believing,’ and the promise being ‘thou shalt be saved,’ if only you believe.

                While this may sound palatable to natural logic, nothing could be further from the truth.  Nowhere in Scripture is salvation conditioned on anything done in us, by us, or through us, Titus 3:5.  ‘Salvation is of the Lord,’ Jonah 2:9.  The command to believe on Christ is not a condition, but just that- A COMMAND!  The salvation that is in the Lord Jesus, and worked out by Him by His perfect obedience unto death, is revealed to the heart of those He redeemed causing them to believe, Romans 1:16, 17.

                Notice in the context, it wasn’t Paul and Silas asking the Philippian jailer if he wanted to know what to do to be saved.  It was the jailer asking the question, and that out of a heart already regenerated by the Spirit of God which caused him to cry out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’  If the Spirit of God has already opened your heart, as in the case of Lydia (Acts 16:14), HE makes you, the sinner, attentive unto the Gospel, and causes you to believe on Christ alone as your wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:30. He makes the salvation effectual, NOT you.

                There are many today who have made professions of faith based on this Scripture, whose hearts the Lord has never opened, and are still ignorant of the one true righteousness of God imputed in Christ by His shed blood.  Rather than them being brought by the Spirit to cry out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ it has been rather the preacher, or ‘evangelistic worker,’ asking the question ‘Wouldn’t you like to know how you can be saved?’  It is a very subtle error, but nonetheless dangerous and deadly because it leaves the man, woman, or child thinking that they have done something to make their salvation effectual.

                Christ said in John 6:44- ‘No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.’  God makes His command to believe effectual in the hearts of His elect ones, causing them to come to Christ and be persuaded of their redemption and justification by His Son’s shed blood and righteousness imputed alone.  Notice also in the verse following in Acts 16:32 that Paul did not simply say, ‘Believe.’  ‘He spake unto him and his household the word of the Lord,’ teaching them those things that pertain to Christ’s honor and glory and salvation fully accomplished by His death for them.  It is just such a persuasion that the Spirit gives to those Christ redeemed, causing them to believe, in response to the command to believe, resting in the finished work of Christ alone.                                                                                   KEN WIMER

NOTHING IN US

here is nothing in us, or done by us, that we can plead before the Lord for His blessing.  As we, in the matter of our justification before God, renouncing everything but the person, blood, and righteousness of Christ, so, in our approaches to the Majesty of heaven, we must renounce everything but the name, the blood, and righteousness of Jesus, who for our comfort said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.”  When we come before God, and look to ourselves, we tremble, and wonder the Lord does not cut us down, as cucumbers of the ground.  But when by living faith we are enabled to look to Christ, we feel something of that humble boldness Paul speaks of:  “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh (Hebrews 10:19,20).  This new and living way which is Christ and Him crucified is the only ground upon which we can plead the promises of God, and look to Him for His blessing; and Christ and Him crucified is the only ground upon which a just and holy God can meet and bless such guilty sinners as we are; for in Christ, “mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”                                         JOHN KERSHAW, 1834