…and get $25 off registration! Today is the last day for early-bird registration for NEXT. It looks like over 50 young adults have already registered from SGC. I am excited about attending this conference with you and trust that God will encourage us as we gather, teach us as we study His word, meet us as we worship and respond and equip us for life and godliness in Christ Jesus as we apply what He’s taught us! Check out the website here!
Eric
Yesterday morning we completed our study of the book of Galatians. What a rich study it was! While we leave our study of the book, the book never leaves us! It will remain in our Bibles just after 2 Corinthians and just before Ephesians, ready for us to read and study and learn from the rest of our lives. In preparing the final overview message yesterday, my main prayer was that the Lord would seal the things that we’ve learned from Galatians to our hearts and to our church. While the message of Galatians is the gospel of Jesus Christ and it’s main theme is justification by faith, I proposed that we never forget a significant message and implication from Galatians. That implication is this: the purity and power of the gospel at the heart of our church will always determine the health of our church. We reviewed the major disease found in the Galatian churches (and all churches) – legalism, we looked at 9 symptoms of legalism, and then we review the cure – the Gospel! You can listen to or download the sermon here. I hope these questions will help you consider how God wants you to be different as a result of our study together.
1) What is legalism? Why is it so dangerous and lethal?
2) Which of the symptoms of legalism did you most resonate with? Can you give a specific example of how your thinking, actions or attitudes about yourself or towards others have been infected by legalism? In what ways are you on a performance treadmill?
3) What is the gospel? Why is the gospel the only cure for legalism?
4) How is a person justified by God? How then does our justification by God through the gospel absolutely destroy legalism? If God has forever declared you not guilty of all your sins and clothed you in the perfect righteousness of Christ, then why do you continue to related to God based on our performance? How does God want this to change in your life?
5) The gospel also ushers us into our new life in the Spirit. Is the Spirit of Christ in you the ruling principle of your life or is it something else? What is the Spirit of God doing in your life right now? Where do you see Him at work? Where are you growing as a result of His power in you? Where do you think He is wanting you to grow and change?
We are saved by grace, we are justified by faith, we continue by the Spirit, and all of this because of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for our sins on the cross. When we placed our faith in Christ, we were united to Christ by faith. We were justified, declared not guilty, not condemned, completely forgiven and forever freed from the sentence and punishment we deserve! We were also forever clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ that He earned in His sinless life for us! When God looks at you today, He sees the perfect righteousness of His Son! And all of this came to us because of the great love of God our Father and His free grace given to us. How good it is to know that God will never change His mind, His steadfast love endures forever, our righteousness in in Heaven right now seated at His right hand, and one day He will bring us to where He is!
Have a grace-filled day today!
Eric
Good evening! I hope you have had a wonderful day. We are looking forward to gathering as a church tomorrow, to worship God, hear from His word and fellowship with one another. If you are considering visiting for the first time, please do. We would love to meet you.
Our morning will begin at 9:00 for anyone that wants to join us for Sunday morning prayer. We will meet in the Spurgeon Room and pray for our service. At 10:00 Jordan Smith and the worship team will lead us in singing. We are planning to learn an new song called Desert Song. This song helps us to look to the Lord in the midst of trial and sing to the One who is faithful and strong; who provides for us.
On a sad note (unless you’re ready to move on!), tomorrow will be our last sermon from Galatians. I can’t believe it’s come to an end! On Friday I was putting my commentaries back on the shelf. These are books that have been laying on my desk for 7 months, always ready to get into a conversation with me about each passage. What a wonderful study this has been – so helpful, so transforming and so freeing. Tomorrow we will look at what we’ve learned together from this book.
Our service will end with an opportunity for prayer and ministry for any in need and we will share a cup of coffee together in the lobby! Please pray for our service tonight if you can and we’ll see you tomorrow.
Grace to you,
Eric
One of the blogs that I periodically read is called Shepherd Press Blog. It has bloggers that are connected with Shepherd Press Publishing, which has produced a number of books that we have enjoyed and benefited from as a church. I was encouraged by this morning’s post. You can read it below or go here to read and see more!
Weary Parents – by Jay Younts
Parenting is a challenging task–at times even overwhelming. Because of this reality, there are countless remedies offered from every corner to make parenting easier and less stressful. Even the makers of the modern family transport, aka mini-vans, have added optional DVD players to help keep children passive while traveling to the supermarket. Yet despite all the advice and devices, at the end of the day, concerned parents are frequently left in a state of weariness. Weary not only because of the trials of the day just finished, but also weary because tomorrow is just a few hours away. In this in-between time, weariness often reaches its peak. The free advice and stress-reducing gadgets offer little consolation in this time. Even Bible verses may seem disconnected from the pressures of getting ready for tomorrow. Perhaps the most discouraging realization is knowing that in the morning you will wake up weary.
While I don’t have a magic wand to solve this state of affairs, I believe that there are some things you can think about that will help strengthen a weary mind and body. Isaiah 55:8 reminds us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and that his ways are not our ways. Weariness tends to overtake us when we see life’s responsibilities and burdens in abstraction from God’s purposes. A parent looks at his responsibilities as if they were all his own idea. In other words, Having children was my own choice. (If personal choice were all that were needed, fertility clinics would be out of business.) When this type of thinking goes on, the parent takes on the burden of parenting in his own strength. This is at least one reason why parents may become overwhelmingly weary.
God is at work in the most intimate details of our lives. He delights in blessing his children with his strength. For this to occur, you must see that God is the one who has brought you to this point of weariness so that you will lean on him and acknowledge him. Christ has these words for the weary:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
To a weary parent these words are words of hope. Christ is not teasing you with empty promises. He means what he says. Your life and your children are not accidents. He has things to teach you and he has rest to give you. Think about this, and we will consider his rest more in the next post. If you are discouraged or weary, leave a comment so that others can pray with you and for you and so that we can look specifically at how Christ offers rest and encouragement to you.
Yesterday morning we studied our last passage from the book of Galatians – hard to believe. What a wonderful series this has been and what wonderful instruction we received yesterday. Brett preached from Galatians 6:11-18 a message entitled: Remember What Counts – the New Creation. He showed us from this text that what really matters is a new creation and in that we rejoice! We looked at the goal of the Judaisers, which is outward conformity, and the goal of the gospel, which is inward transformation. You can listen to the sermon or download it here. We hope these questions will help you to apply this message to your life.
1) Why were the Judaisers so interested in outward appearances? What were they hoping to gain?
2) Brett mentioned that we find it easier to fix the outward because that is attainable. Where do you find this true in your life? Where is external conformity easier to attain than inward change?
3) Why does Paul choose to boast only in the cross of Jesus Christ? What are you tempted to boast in?
4) The closing point Paul makes in this book is: the only thing that matters is a new creation. What does that mean? Do you view yourself as a new creation in Christ and rejoice in this reality?
5) How would you summarize the message of the book of Galatians? How have you been most impacted by this study?
We hope that the change that has come to your life through the gospel of Jesus Christ causes much rejoicing and gratitude to fill your heart! We indeed are new creations in Christ, the old has past away, the new has come! Glory to God!
Have a grace filled week,
Eric
Here’s what Jack has been up to! This Tuesday, as we prayed as a staff, Jack asked the Lord to use these crosses to draw people to our church this Easter and ultimately to draw people to Himself. We agreed together that as people drive by and see the crosses, their hearts would be stirred. Maybe they would be stirred by the reminder of their childhood in Sunday School hearing about Jesus and the cross. Maybe their hearts will be stirred to wonder what the cross is all about. Maybe their hearts will be stirred to get to church this Easter as many choose this day of the year to go to church. And maybe their hearts will be stirred by the sovereign Lord who uses various ways to draw people to Himself.
Please pray with us that the words of Jesus would come true again this Easter season: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32) Pray that unbelievers will come to church. Pray that as the gospel is preached, God would regenerate hearts. Pray that the lost and blind would come to their Savior and see and love and worship the One who came to save.
Grace to you today,
Eric
PS: Jordan guessed it! Albert did not.
