SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH

2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

 

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

 

JANUARY 28, 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: #127- ‘Man of Sorrows’)

e adore the Lord the Lamb

And rejoice in His dear name;

He has shed His precious blood,

To redeem our souls unto God.

Once we lay immersed in sin;

Every part and power unclean;

Enemies to all that’s good,

We despised the Savior’s blood.

But the Lord, by grace divine,

Brought us to abhor the crime;

And, to make His wonders known,

Gave us faith in Christ, His Son.

Thus redeemed and saved by blood,

We esteem the ways of God,

And would gladly Him obey,

In His own appointed way.

‘Tis from love to Christ, our Head,

We His footsteps wish to tread;

And when we His unction feel,

We with pleasure do His will.

 

GLORYING ONLY IN THE CROSS

“God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,”                                                       Galatians 6:14

 cannot, and, God helping me, I will not, while the Lord gives me strength to open my poor mouth, but speak well of love in God and the Holy Spirit, for it was He that laid hold of me in my mad career of sin, put a cry into my heart to cry unto God, and stopped me from going about to establish a righteousness of my own.  His invisible hand kept me from being my own murderer.  He revealed in my heart pardoning blood and IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS; and some scores of times, when the enemy has come into my poor soul with such a tremendous flood of awful blasphemies against the Holy Trinity, especially against the Holy Spirit, that I have been sunk so low that at times I could see no more hope that God would ever appear in love and mercy for me than He would appear for devils, He has, bless His dear Name, lifted up again a glorious standard, and brought me up again out the horrible pit, and set my feet again upon the Rock of ages.          

JOHN WARBURTON

ARE YOU SAVED?

ften, someone will speak of having been ‘saved’ at a particular time and place, referring to some profession they have made, resulting in a personal sense of deliverance.  The question is, ‘What does the Bible mean by the word ‘saved’?  Here are three uses of the word in the Bible:

1. SAVED FROM THE PENALTY OF SIN- The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished salvation, by His life and death, on behalf of those that God the Father chose in eternity and gave to Him as their Substitute and Representative, Eph. 1:4-7.  So complete was the work of the Lord Jesus for His people that because of it, God looks on Redeemed sinners as fully forgiven and justified before Him- Col. 1:14.

2. SAVED FROM THE POWER OF SIN - Those whom Jesus Christ saved from the penalty of sin, by His death, He does in time save (deliver) from the power (authority) of sin.  The Holy Spirit delivers them from the blindness and deadness of heart, and opens their eyes to see and believe on Christ who redeemed, justified, and sanctified them, John 5:24.

3. SAVED FROM THE PRESENCE OF SIN- Those who believe on Christ, through the work of the Spirit, shall yet be saved from the presence of sin in glory, as the ultimate effect of His work on the cross, Rev. 20:6. 

In all aspects it is Jesus Christ who does ALL of the saving!           KEN WIMER

 

ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL?

“For I am not ASHAMED of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”(Rom1:16)

s believers, we should never be ashamed of this glorious message God has committed to us to proclaim to lost sinners.  The reason we shouldn’t be ashamed of it is because it is the ONLY MEANS God will use to call His elect children to rest in Christ as the “Lord their Righteousness.” Paul calls it the “power” (in the Greek the word is dunamis, from which we get the word dynamite) of God UNTO salvation. The reason it is so powerful is because of what it reveals-“For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.”(Vs.17). In the preaching of the Gospel, God’s servants declare the ONLY RIGHTEOUSNESS God accepted to justify sinners exclusively by His death. That Righteousness was worked out by the perfect life and obedient death at Calvary of God’s appointed servant, the Lord Jesus Christ-“He (Christ) shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.”(Isa.53:11)  If we don’t preach out this Righteousness as the sinners ONLY HOPE of salvation every time we speak for God, we should be ashamed of it because we haven’t proclaimed the Gospel. God help us to proclaim the clear, simple message of Christ and Him crucified every time God gives us the opportunity.

RICHARD WARMACK, Ruston, LA

 

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A PURPOSE

A

ll the many events foretold of the coming of the Messiah, of His sufferings and death, His resurrection and glorification, of His redemption of His people and their certain salvation, as well as the rise and fall of empires, the coming of antichrist, and the persecution of the saints- all of these must be founded upon certainties.  These certainties are made so by the determinate counsel of God.  The determinate counsel of God is made certain by God’s eternal decree that set them in motion in the “beginning of the creation of God,” (Psalm 2:7).  Without this, there can be no foreknowledge of any future event.

            God’s eternal and determinate counsel is expressed by God’s eternal purpose.  By it being so inclusive of all things, then it is often expressed in somewhat segmented sub-purposes. All through the Bible, God speaks of this and that as being His purpose.  We are aware that He does not sit around changing His mind, planning new things, forgetting former purposes, etc.  He is of one mind.  He is unchangeable.  He cannot learn something new.  He cannot, in reality, forget something that He has known.  Therefore, any expression of His purpose, or purposes, expresses some aspect of His determinate counsel formed before He created the world.  Why is this so?  It is so because “every purpose is established by counsel,” Proverbs 20:18.  Not only is this so, but in an orderly manner God’s purpose for any specific thing or event has a set time to transpire.  “To EVERYTHING there is a season, and a TIME TO EVERY PURPOSE under the heaven, Ecclesiastes 3:1, 17, and 8:6.

STANLEY PHILLIPS, Quitman, MS