May 28, 2006

CALL TO WORSHIP

(Tune: “Come Thou Fount”)

Praise the God of all creation,

Praise the Father’s boundless love;

Praise the Lamb, our expiation,

Priest and King enthroned above;

Praise the Fountain of salvation,

Him by whom our spirits live;

Undivided adoration

To the ONE JEHOVAH give!

For Thy free electing favor,

Thee, O Father, we adore!

Jesus, our atoning Saviour,

Thee we worship evermore!

Praise the God of our salvation,

Hosts on high His love proclaim;

Heav’n and earth and all creation,

Laud and magnify His name.

“Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.” (Psalm 31:24)

TODAY’S SPEAKER: Brother Mark Pannell will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God’s word.

_{THE BELIEVER’S PERFECTION}

he believer's perfection is in Christ. Oh that He may condescend to teach me, and lead me to look straight out of self--to a glorious Christ! "And you are complete in Him." Colossians 2:10.

R. BRYAN

TRUE HUMILITY

True humility in its greatest demonstration was evidenced by the subordination of God the Son in his offices to God the Father for the purpose of redemption. When he “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” he willingly set aside the glory he had with his Father, but he did not cease to be God. When he “made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant,” he took into union with his divine person, true sinless humanity, body and soul as God-Man. When he “humbled himself and became obedient unto death,” he was made to be sin by imputation only, in order to satisfy all the conditions for the sins of his people as God-Man Mediator. When “he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” he became a curse to put away sin for all those he represented, for it is written;” cursed is every one who hangs on a tree.” And through all this he remained holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” What humility.

The second demonstration of true humility is that sinner who is submitted to Christ and his righteousness imputed as his only means of salvation and acceptance before God. He has seen that God would be just to condemn him based on his best efforts to serve God and that nothing short of Christ’s righteousness imputed could ever recommend him to God. He has seen that Christ’s righteousness imputed is his one and only means of standing complete before a holy God, and he is glad to stand there. “Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner” is his only plea.

--- Winston Pannell, Eager Ave. Grace Church

Reconciled to God

We say, that we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, Rom. 10:9,10; 2 Cor. 5:18,19. What Christ did was actual. Will it not then follow upon your grant, that the elect were then reconciled? And seeing Christ died before we believed, it will follow we were reconciled before we believed. Notwithstanding we grant that no man can know or be assured that he is one of them that is justified, and shall be saved, until he believes. And whereas you ask what conversion that is, that is without calling? We answer. None at all: neither is any man called in this sense until he believes. We grant with you, that what was done before the world concerning our salvation, was only in God's decree, purpose and love.

--- Samuel Richardson

CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK REVEALED BY GOD’S SPIRIT

"Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all the truth, for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. HE SHALL GLORIFY ME: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you" John 16:13

asn’t the Spirit of God already in the world before Christ died on the cross? Most definitely yes! We see Him first mentioned in Genesis 1:2 in the creation of the world, ‘moving upon the waters.’ He was the Spirit of faith then as now. Apart from the Spirit of God regenerating sinners in the Old Testament, none could have believed on the Christ who was to come, being otherwise dead in their sins. It was not just that the Spirit came upon them, but Peter affirmed that ‘the very Spirit of Christ was IN them,’ 1 Peter 1:11. It was the very same Spirit of Christ, which regenerates, illumines, and draws sinners to Him today, that was at work in them, ‘testifying BEFOREHAND the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should FOLLOW.’

So when our Lord said, ‘when He, the Spirit of truth IS COME,’ He was clearly speaking of the presence of the Spirit in the world as an ADVOCATE, v. 7 (the meaning of ‘comforter’) attesting to the work that Christ came and accomplished by His death, to satisfy God’s law and justice on behalf of sinner’s whom He had eternally chosen by His electing grace in Christ, Eph. 1:4-14. Christ is not referring here to His work of regeneration as being new, but the Spirit’s very presence in the world attesting and confirming (which an advocate does) that indeed what God the Father purposed from eternity, Christ has accomplished in putting away the sin of His people, and the Father justifying them in one simultaneous act by His death on the cross. What the Spirit had regenerated those of the Old Testament to know and believe through Promise (Galatians 3:18), his presence now testifies as FULFILLED- FINISHED ONCE FOR ALL.

The revelation of Christ’s death by the Spirit of God is essential to the comfort and consolation of those for whom Christ died- v. 7. This order is vital in our understanding of the relationship of the Father in election, the Son in redemption and justification, and the Spirit in regeneration and the revelation of that righteousness -PURPOSED by the Father, IMPUTED at the Son’s death, and REVEALED by the Spirit.

--- KEN WIMER