We will have a New Years Eve service beginning at 7 p.m. with a time of fellowship following the service.

We will have one service on New Year’s Day beginning at 11 a.m.

LOOKING TO CHRIST

The believer walks through this world below looking to Christ by faith. The only way we can finish our course is by looking to Christ by faith, for we have no place else to look. “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

The believer will never be finished with looking to Christ by faith until the Lord calls us home. Then we will be finished with faith because we will see by sight not by faith. We will be finished with faith, but the believer will never be finished with looking to Christ. Here we see Christ by faith. In glory we will still be looking at Christ. The only difference is it will be face to face with nothing between.

TEMPERANCE

The last fruit of the Spirit is temperance. It means control from within. Being a fruit of the Spirit, it is possessed by all who have been born of the Spirit. Since we still have an evil nature with evil passions, how we need temperance to not be controlled by the passions and lust of a fallen nature. As there is growth in all of the fruit of the Spirit, oh for growth in this fruit! Temperance, like the rest of the fruit of the Spirit, is a beautiful thing!

Pastor Todd Nibert

DEAD TO SIN AND ALIVE TO GOD

IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD

Charlemagne (c.742-814) was the foremost ruler in his day. His empire stretched over most of Europe. He ruled firmly until he was conquered by Death. His body was then seated on a throne in a tomb, with his crown on his head and his scepter in his hand. But he no longer had dominion over his subjects. He was dead to them, and they therefore served his successor.

That which happened to the great ruler Charlemagne is analogous to what happened to the great ruler named sin in the life of believers in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Paul the apostle teaches this doctrine in Romans 6:1-14. Sin throughout this passage is our Adamic nature, that with which we were born. This sin is “our old man [that] was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be done away with” (v.6).

Christ did to believers’ sin what death did to Charlemagne. And sin is now like Charlemagne was after his death: enthroned in a tomb, crown on head and scepter in hand, having no dominion. Sin’s servants who now are believers in Christ now serve sin’s successor.

Believers are therefore assured that we are “dead indeed to sin” (v.11), “freed from sin” (v.7), and “that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (v.6), because “sin shall not have dominion over you” (v.14). We are warned “do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin” (vv.12-13a).

Rather, believers are to “reckon yourselves to be ... alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v.11). And we are to “present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (v.13).

Missionary Daniel Parks

“God works powerfully, but for the most part, gently and gradually.”

John Newton

“None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.”