Objections to Sovereign Mercy (2) – Romans 9:14-18
MORNING WORSHIP – 11:00 a.m –
OPENING – 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17
CALL TO WORSHIP (above)
HYMN – Take the Name of Jesus With You – p. 63
READING – Luke 2:21-35
MESSAGE – Strong Consolation in Christ – Heb. 6:13-20
CLOSING HYMN – Praise the Savior – p. 51
Birthdays: Jeremy Pannell – Aug. 30th | Rodney Hiers – Aug. 30th
BEHOLD YOUR GOD (Isaiah 40:9)
Get up on a high mountain, lift up your voice, be not afraid, and say to the people, “Behold your God.” That Divine person is come that was promised, prophesied, and expected – even EMMANUEL, God with us, God in our nature, God manifest in the flesh, God our Saviour; and who, being God, truly God, is able to save to the uttermost. Look to Him and be saved! Behold your God! Behold the Son of God! Behold the Lamb of God who has borne all our sins and taken them away. Behold Him now as your King and your Lord on the throne, crowned with glory and honor. Behold him on the same throne with His heavenly Father, having all power in heaven and earth; and let your heart-faith exclaim, “My Lord and my God”! —John Gill
HOW DOES GOD MAKE SINNERS RIGHTEOUS?
Some claim that God makes us righteous in His sight by an inward work of grace by the Holy Spirit in our new birth. But the Gospel shows how God makes us righteous in His sight solely by the merits of the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ as our Surety, Substitute and Redeemer. This is justification by God imputing the merits of Christ’s righteousness to us. The Gospel shows that the inward work of the Holy Spirit in our new birth is the fruit of God having already imputed Christ’s righteousness to us. It is by the Holy Spirit’s inward working under the preaching of the Gospel that we are convicted of our sin and depravity and driven by God-given faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for all salvation, forgiveness righteousness, and eternal life. The perfection of righteousness is not found within us; for we are SINNERS saved by God’s grace. The perfection of righteousness is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Righteousness before God is being washed from our sins by His blood and clothed in His righteousness imputed to us. As we have received new hearts, new spiritual life, knowledge, and faith by the inward working of the Holy Spirit in the new birth, we long to be perfectly conformed to the image of Christ. As we live now in this body of death, we have not yet reached the perfection of righteousness in ourselves (Rom. 7:14-24). We will be brought by God to perfection of righteousness when we are delivered from this body by Christ (Rom. 7:25; cf. Php. 3:11-21). Until then, we are to strive to be like and to follow Christ, and by the Spirit we are to war against the flesh, being confident that “by ONE OFFERING, HE HATH PERFECTED FOREVER THEM THAT ARE SANCTIFIED” (Heb. 10:14). —Pastor Bill Parker
“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
WHEN DID GOD SEE THE BLOOD?
There has never been a time when the eternal Jehovah did not look to Christ, the Lamb slain, as the ground of all His blessings to and the salvation of His elect. As He said of that earthly people that picture His redeemed, "When I see the blood I will pass over you." (Exodus 12:13) It was not when they saw it but when He saw it! When did God "see" the blood of His Son as the justice-satisfying sacrifice for the sins of His people? "When" really doesn't apply to God who beholds everything in all of time and eternity with one all-encompassing view. Without a doubt there is a progressive manifestation and revelation of the purpose and will of God's grace in Christ, but the unchanging God of eternal glory views and always has viewed all His grace children in Christ. Looking to Christ crucified, He loved them, chose them, established His everlasting covenant concerning them, all with an eye to "the blood." Looking to this Lamb slain (there being no possibility that He could fail), He could justly bless them even then with "all spiritual blessings." Christ the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is Christ the Lamb hanging on the cross and the Lamb John sees in the Revelation as "newly slain." Christ's sacrifice for the sins of His people is the "everlasting righteousness" that was brought in or made manifest when He came into the world and died the death of the cross. The great change comes when He enables us to see the blood by faith! When we see the blood, which occurs when the Spirit of God reveals it to us and in us through the gospel of Christ crucified, we change, casting off the rags of our self-righteousness and pleading the blood of Christ as the only way God has and could be just and justify us. We look to this Lamb slain just as God always has! "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:" (Romans 3:24) "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." (Hebrews 9:12) The word "obtained" here means to find, discover, perceive. By His blood (death, sacrifice) Christ entered into the holy place of heaven and we in Him find or perceive this "eternal redemption" sure and accomplished through His blood. His blood is the blood of the everlasting covenant which is ordered in all things and sure and this is all the salvation of the people of God!—Pastor Gary Shepard
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