SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH

2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

JANUARY 14, 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: #236- ‘Amazing Grace’)

God’s mercy is for ever sure;

Eternal is His name;

As long as life and speech endure,

My tongue this truth proclaim.

I basely sinned against His love,

And yet my God was good;

His favor nothing could remove,

For I was bought with blood.

That precious blood has paid all sin,

And fully cleared from guilt;

It makes the foulest sinner clean,

For ‘twas for sinners spilt.

He raised me from the lowest state,

When my just due was hell,

I broke His law, and, worse than that,

Disdained His Son as well.

My soul, thou hast, let come what will,

True righteousness in Him,

Let thy poor soul rest in Him still,

Who put away thy sin!

 

CHRIST IS ALL- IN LIFE AND DEATH

ome years ago I went down the banks of the Severn to visit a poor girl dying of tuberculosis in a small cottage of two rooms on the river’s bank.  I found this river in flood, with the result that when I reached the cottage, I found it surrounded by water, through which I waded, and when I opened the door, I found the kitchen knee-deep in water.  The girl I knew was dying alone upstairs, to which a thin wooden staircase gave access.  She had no servant, but a poor woman came in each morning for an hour and ‘did for her.’                  Here, I felt, was a case that called for all my powers of cheer; and as I slowly mounted the bare wooden stairs I wondered how best I could comfort the sufferer.  I needn’t have troubled, for as my head appeared in the bedroom I looked toward the bed, and there lay the sufferer, eagerly looking at me, her rare visitor.  With deep earnest eyes, and with a heavenly smile, she said, without the slightest greeting or preface, ‘HE is the chiefest among ten thousand, the Altogether Lovely.’  I found myself in the presence of one of God’s holy priests, offering up her morning sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:15).  It was I that was cheered, not her.  She was not in that swamped cottage, but seated far away with her Lord in the heavenlies, and so she sang her song in the night, Job 35:10.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          SELECTED

THE LORD MY RIGHTEOUSNESS AND STRENGTH

“In the Lord have I righteousness and strength,” Isaiah 45:24

here was a time when in deadly ignorance, I endeavored to work out a righteousness, well pleasing to God, all the while claiming that salvation was by His grace alone.  I justified such foolish thinking by declaring that the death of Christ dealt with sins past, but with the Spirit’s help, I had to deal with my present sins myself, and attempt to overcome them by what I had believed were ‘means of grace.’

            Thankfully, since it pleased God to begin a true and good work of grace in me, I am taught that there is NOTHING in me that can be counted for righteousness, for “in me, (that is in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing,” Romans 7:18.  Having been redeemed and justified by Christ’s precious blood, and continually taught of the Spirit, we say with the apostle Paul, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

            The glorious, joyful truth in which all of the Lord’s people rejoice, when taught of the Spirit of God is that although poor, destitute and having no righteousness of their own, they find a righteousness and strength in Him and His finished work already accomplished for them.  What we are, sinners by nature and practice, our Lord became by imputation, the debt and guilt of our sin being charged to Him.  What He is in His nature, and by His righteous obedience in life and death, has become wholly ours by imputation, His righteous obedience being charged to our spiritual account upon completion of His work at Calvary.  We must continue to confess that in us, we have NO ability, NO strength, and NO righteousness, but in the Lord Jesus, we have a sure, immutable standing in righteousness, power, and strength.

            Our triumph against every accusation of the enemy is, ‘In the Lord Jesus I have righteousness.’  Our victory over sin, Satan, and the world is, ‘In the Lord Jesus I have strength.’  There is much in this flesh to condemn us- our nature, so corrupt and sinful; our lives and practice as nothing but unrighteousness; the just accusations of Satan, and the just condemnation of the Law.  Yet, glorious truth!  We have, in the beloved Son of God the very righteousness of God, already to our account, by which we have been made accepted in Him, Ephesians 1:6.

            In every distressing sense of our own weakness and sin, it is Christ who strengthens us not to look to the flesh, but to Him who already finished the work of righteousness, in which we stand, and none can condemn!  Romans 8:34.                                         KEN WIMER

THE GOSPEL IN ISAIAH