OCTOBER 28, 2007
SUNDAY
Scripture Reading/Prayer: Psalm 70 (Mike)
Call to worship: ‘What Joyful News the Gospel Is’
Scripture Reading/Prayer: 2 Corinthians 11 (David)
Hymn: # 117- ‘He Was Wounded for Our Transgressions’
Message: THE GOOD SHEPHERD- John 10
Hymn: # 145- ‘Hail, Thou Once-Despised Jesus’
THE LORD’S TABLE
Closing Hymn: #228- ‘My Faith Has Found a Resting Place’
Everyone welcome to stay for dinner on the grounds
Wednesday
7:00 PM- Mid-week Service
Nursery care available for all services for ages 4 and younger.
Ken Wimer, Pastor- ( (318) 687-4943
E-MAIL: pastor@shrevegrace.org
WEB SITE: http://www.shrevegrace.org Updated weekly with audio messages now available on-line.
RADIO BROADCASTS: 9:00 AM (CST) Sunday on KWKH, 1130 AM, Shreveport, LA or live streaming at http://www.am1130thefan.com/pages/listen_live.html
CALL TO WORSHIP
(Tune: #249- ‘Just As I Am’)
|
W |
hat joyful news the Gospel is,
To guilty sinners in distress!
It speaks of mercy, rich and free,
For such polluted worms as we.
Jesus, my Shepherd, lived and died,
Rose, and now lives to intercede;
He bears my name upon His heart,
Nor will He ever with me part.
For me He bore the wrath of God;
For me He in the wine-press trod;
He magnified the law for me,
And I forever am set free.
He loved me ere the world began;
Nor did my Savior love alone;
The Spirit and the Father joined,
As one Jehovah, in one mind.
In endless love, the Holy Three
All blessings have obtained for me;
All good that’s worthy of my God,
For me in Jesus Christ is stored.
CHRIST OUR SABBATH
“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For HE that is entered into HIS rest, he also hath ceased from HIS own works, as God did from HIS.”
Hebrews 4:9, 10
|
B |
rethren, we, who by the power of God the Holy Spirit, have believed in Christ and repented of our own dead works, have entered into a true, spiritual, eternal Sabbath rest. Our rest is not one day of the week on which we cease to work physically. Our rest is a Person who by Himself finished the work for us and rested from that work. Our Sabbath rest is CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED! Christ on the cross finished the work He was sent to do in the redemption and justification of His people. God’s elect. He put away our sins and gave us His righteousness, and we rest in Him. When we by the Holy Spirit enter into our Sabbath rest, we enter into HIS rest. We rest in His redeeming grace and love for us. The call of the Gospel is a call, not to work for salvation , but to rest in Christ for all of salvation. All good works are by the power of God and motivated in us as fruit unto God that flows from our rest in Christ our Sabbath.
BILL PARKER-Ashland, KY
MAINTAINING GOOD WORKS
“This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works,” Titus 3:8
|
C |
ontext is so vital in understanding the scriptures. If you simply take and cut out the above verse, by itself, and put it under the microscope, you might come away with the idea that our salvation is somehow gained or maintained by what we do or don’t do. However, broaden the scope of verse to what comes before and after, and what you will find is that good works is not the faithful saying that preachers are to affirm constantly, but rather ‘this faithful saying,’ refers back to verse 7 ‘That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.’
We do not become heirs of eternal life by what we do, but by being justified by the grace of God, exclusively in, through, and by the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work at Calvary. This is the faithful saying that every true preacher of God affirms constantly. Jesus Christ did not come into the world to save the righteous (there are none-Romans 3:10). ‘This is a faithful saying and worthy of ALL acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save SINNERS,’ I Timothy 1:15. Sinners by definition are nothing but sin in their persons and works, and therefore, unable to do anything, contribute anything, or plead anything except that it brings them into condemnation- Romans 3:23. Therefore, there is the necessary work of the Lord Jesus Christ for their justification, as their Substitute. He did not come to attempt to save sinners, but He saved them-Matthew 1:21. He did not render them savable, on condition that they do something. HE SAVED THEM by His blood applied to their spiritual account for forgiveness, and His righteous obedience imputed to them for their righteousness, entirely accomplished once for all in His cross death- 2 Corinthians 5:21.
It is just such a message, when revealed in the heart of those whom the Spirit of God has regenerated, that causes them to believe God and be careful to maintain good works. Having been justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, sanctified by His blood and righteousness alone, and made alive by the Spirit of God, it causes us to live, move, and labor for His glory and honor in all things, and the advancement of His Gospel in a lost and ungodly world. The good works are not in order to earn our salvation, but rather are the fruit of that salvation that the Lord earned for His own- I Thessalonians 1:3. KEN WIMER
FREE AND VOLUNTARY
|
S |
uretyship imports that the obligation be free and voluntary, for the Law forces none to be a Surety, or to engage for others. My brethren, though God did choose Jesus Christ to be the Surety of this Covenant for us, yet Christ, as a most free and voluntary act on His part, undertook that office. For that Law we had broken, laid no obligation on him, nor was He under any necessity of Nature to undertake herein, because He was the Son of God, but this choice is ascribed wholly to His infinite love and goodness. It is a Sovereign act of His own free grace to undertake for man, and not for angels, and also only for some of the lost Sons of Adam, and not for all. “No man takes my life from me, but I lay it down freely; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again,” John 10:18. “Lo, I come in the volume of the Book, it is written of me to do thy will, O God,” Hebrews 10:5, 7.
BENJAMIN KEACH, 1689
THE POOR IN SPIRIT
“Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,”
Matt. 5:13
|
S |
o who are the “poor in spirit?” They are those who have been brought, by the life giving power of God the Holy Spirit, to know of their spiritual poverty – to know that they have nothing to pay, nothing to merit or earn them anything before God. They have been convinced of sin by the Holy Spirit, including the sin that would deceive us all – what the scriptures call the “deceivableness of unrighteousness – of thinking anything other than the imputed righteousness of Christ (the merit of His obedience unto death) charged to our account, -- of thinking anything else would satisfy a Holy God so as to gain or even contribute to our acceptance by Him. RANDY WAGES, Albany, GA
NOTES
· CLEANING SCHEDULE: Stranges (10.28.07-11.10.07)
· NURSERY: Pam Carter (10.28.07)
· BIRTHDAYS: David Strange-10/27; Joe Slaton- 10/28; Pat Carter- 11/2; Mary Wimer-11/21; Freda Powell-11/24
· ANNIVERSARY: Bob and Pam Atchison-11/30
· SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH FALL GOSPEL MEETINGS: NOVEMBER 16-18, 2007, Brother Bill Parker-Ashland, KY and Brother Richard Warmack- Ruston, LA will be preaching for us, the Lord willing.