At the throne of mercy, Christ pleads for us there.
(REFRAIN) Christ our Lord, Christ our Lord;
Christ our Lord has bought salvation full and free;
He for sins atonement made,
All the debt we owed He paid;
Christ our Lord has bought salvation full and free.
As we rest in Christ our King,
And His praises we do sing,
As we glory in His righteousness complete.
In our songs His glory raise;
Our great Savior we do praise,
And we worship Him as round His throne we meet.
(REPEAT REFRAIN)
TODAY’S SERVICES – Messages by Pastor Bill Parker
BIBLE CLASS – 10:00 a.m. –
For Abraham and For Us Also – Romans 4:23-25
MORNING WORSHIP – 11:00 a.m –
OPENING – Psalm 30:10-12
CALL TO WORSHIP (above)
HYMN – God Leads Us Along – p. 298
READING – Colossians 3:1-17
MESSAGE – The Character of God’s Elect – Col. 3:12-17
CLOSING HYMN – The Cleansing Wave – p. 227
Birthdays: Brooks Margeson – Nov. 1st
God could have come forth in righteousness and smitten with doom the whole Adamic race. He would have been acting in accordance with His holiness. It would have been "the righteousness of God" unto judgment and would have been just. But God, who is love, though infinitely holy and sin-hating, has chosen to act toward us in righteousness, in a manner wherein all His holy and righteous claims against the sinner have been satisfied upon a Substitute, His own Son.
Had our own righteousness any part or share in clothing us in our justification, how could the righteousness of another be said to be imputed to us, or Christ be said to be the “Lord our righteousness” (Jer. 23:5), or be “made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). As Christ was not made sin for us by any sin inherent in him, so neither are we made righteous by any righteousness inherent in us, but by the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. —Benjamin Keach
“No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.” (John 6:44-45)
THE WORK OF THE SOVEREIGN SPIRIT
Believing the Gospel is not an easy or small thing. The message of salvation altogether by grace based upon the merits and work of the Son of God is offensive to the natural man because it declares his inability to save himself. It proclaims that redemption has been obtained, reconciliation has been accomplished, and righteousness has been brought in for all of God’s people by the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. When God the Holy Spirit comes to a spiritually dead sinner, He finds in that poor soul nothing with which to work. The sinner’s mind is enmity against God, his heart is as an adamant stone toward the truth and his will is set in opposition against the divine will. The Spirit must quicken the dead, break down the rebellion, convince of sin, grant repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord must seal upon the heart and conscience of the newly regenerated sinner that blessed truth that he or she stands accepted before a holy God solely upon the ground of the bloody sacrifice of the glorious Redeemer. What but the work of the sovereign Spirit could bring a needy sinner to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? —Pastor Jim Byrd
GOD DOES NOT REMEMBER OUR SINS!
It is a miracle of God’s free and sovereign grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ that God Who is just and holy, Who knows and sees all things as they are, states emphatically of His chosen, justified, and redeemed people, “And their sins and iniquities I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:12; 10:17). What can this mean? Does God choose to forget our sins? That would not make sense because the Scriptures state that God cannot and does not change. I heard a preacher say in a message that God remembers our sins no more because they no longer exist because Christ bore the away. If we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, as is every sinner saved by grace, can we now say that our sins no longer exist? NO. We are in a daily warfare with our sins. Christ continually intercedes on our behalf, pleading the merits of His blood because of our sins. God sometimes chastises us for our sins. The Bible says that, “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13). God the Holy Spirit continually convicts of our sins.
Believer, our sins most certainly DO exist. But there are some things that do not exist, and this helps us understand what God not remembering our sins means. There is NO CHARGE of sin that exists against us in the books of God’s law – “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. (Rom. 8:33). No charges exist against God’s people in Christ because all of their sins were imputed to HIM. God keeps no legal record of them in His law books. All the charges of sin against His people have been erased – washed clean by the blood of Christ. There is NO CONDEMNATION of the law that exists against us – “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1). As our Surety, Substitute, and Redeemer, Christ was justly condemned under the law and under the wrath of God for our sin. And we are righteous in God’s sight because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us.
Also, there is coming a time of glorification for all the true people of God (His church) where we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye and resurrected in new and glorious spiritual bodies in which no sin will exist. We will inhabit the new earth where no sin will exist. There will be no tears, sickness, sorrow, and no night. It will be an eternal existence of pure righteousness and holiness. But until then – “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). Only Christ in Whom no sin has ever existed or will ever exist.
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