Once again we are forced to stay in our homes on the Lord’s Day and worship through live-streaming at 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. I know this is difficult for us as we so enjoy gathering together in the fellowship of faith to worship the Lord. As I stated last week, only the Lord knows when this trial will end. Until then, we all want to stay as safe as we can, and we especially want to try to keep our children and our elderly brethren away from any contamination from this virus. Again, if any of you have trouble connecting to our live-streaming services, be assured that we will have these messages upon on our website and on SermonAudio as soon as possible.

We continue to pray for our nation and that our sovereign Lord would cause this virus to pass soon. Let us all live in the light of our Lord and Savior. We know that we are safe in His arms and secure in His grace that reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Pastor Parker

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TODAY’S SERVICES –

Messages by Pastor Bill Parker

BIBLE CLASS – 10:00 a.m. –

Gospel Doctrine – The Cure for Deception – Romans 16:17-18

MORNING WORSHIP – 11:00 a.m –

READING – 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

MESSAGE – Making Our Calling and Election Sure – 2 Peter 1:8-11

Birthdays: Tammy Hall – Apr. 13^th | Kandice Drake – Apr. 14^th

Worshipping God is as necessary in a true believer's spiritual life as breathing is to his physical life. Let us never be indifferent concerning the gracious privileges God has given us in public worship. Those who have become partakers of His grace must worship the God of all grace and expect God's blessings based on the merits of Christ. —Copied

THE MIRACLE OF THE RESURRECTION

The miracle of the resurrection of Christ is not that He who is life could conquer death. Christ is the Creator of all things and by Him all things consist (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:16-17). The miracle of the resurrection is that by His obedience and death Christ has perfectly satisfied God's law and justice on behalf of God's elect. By His one sacrifice for sin, He established peace between God and men, thus, enabling God to be just when He justifies sinners on the ground of the righteousness of Christ imputed and received by faith. This is how every one of God's people are counted righteous, accepted in His favor, and entitled to all the benefits and blessings of salvation, even Abraham of old. "Now it was not written for his (Abraham's) sake alone, that it (the righteousness Christ) was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again FOR OUR JUSTIFICATION" (Rom. 4:23-25).

Christ did not become incarnate, suffer, die, arise again, and ascend to the Father as a private Person. He did this as the Representa­tive and Surety of the whole election of grace. Everyone of God's elect were in the Person of Christ. Everything Christ did, He did in OUR name and in OUR nature. Everything He accomplished was stored up for us in Him, so that in each generation He would make us actual partakers of all that was stored up for us in Him. He communicates it to us in the new birth. His resurrection signifies His fulfillment of His priestly duties in satisfying law and justice on our behalf, establishing a righteousness for us, and ascending to His rightful position of preeminence to give His sheep eternal life (John 17:2). His resurrection is the earnest pledge that all for whom He died shall be saved and live with Him eternally. —Pastor Bill Parker

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If we could peer into heaven and see that great number of departed and glorified saints, I think we would see Abraham and his nephew Lot, Joshua and Rahab the harlot, Samuel and Samson, the penitent thief and the glorious Apostle Paul, ALL dressed in the very same raiment – that beautiful garment of salvation, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ which was freely given them (Isa. 61:10). After all, nothing less will make a sinner acceptable in God's sight and qualified for heaven! What more is there? Can anything be added to the righteousness of Christ? Can anything make a sinner more approved of God? The Lord Jesus Christ is ALL the believer's justifying righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21).

—Copied

The true believer has conflict with the religious world. The greatest enemies of Christ have always been those who boasted of their knowledge of God. It was in the synagogue that the death of Christ was plotted. It was in the cathedrals that the reformers were tried and burned. It is in the churches and seminaries that the gospel of grace is denied. (copied)

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CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS

We must be declared free from guilt and invested with a righteousness that will stand before the law of sinless perfection and entitle us to the kingdom of heaven. And if we have it not in ourselves, where must we look for it but as existing solely in the person of Jesus Christ? Dependence therefore upon that righteousness, as wrought out by Him for believers and appointed of God for sinners to trust in, is the gracious faith of the gospel by which the soul is justified. Satan and the world may ask us, “How can ye be justified by a righteousness which is not yours?” We answer, “The righteousness of Christ is ours, and ours by as great a right as any other thing we possess by the free gift of God; for it hath pleased Him to give us a garment who were naked, and to give us who had none of our own, a righteousness answerable to divine justice.” —William Cowper (author of “There is a Fountain”)

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