September
29, 2013
SOVEREIGN GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH
LOCATION
Rocky Hill Firehouse, 2nd Floor
150 Washington Street
Rocky Hill, New Jersey, 08553
Clay Curtis, pastor
Telephone: 615-513-4464
Schedule of Services
Sunday 10: 15 AM Bible Class
Sunday 11:00 AM Morning Service
Thursday 7: 30 PM Midweek Service
Order
of service, announcements, nursery schedule, etc., are in attachment. All articles in the bulletin are by the
pastor unless otherwise noted.
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Ladies, if you are unable to keep the nursery please make
arrangements with one of the other ladies to take your place.
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From Charles Spurgeon’s sermon, “Faith: What is It? And How Can it be
Obtained?”: Faith
occupies the position of a channel or conduit-pipe. Grace is the fountain and
the stream: faith is the aqueduct along which the flood of mercy flows down to
refresh the thirsty sons of men. It is a great pity when the aqueduct is
broken. It is a sad sight to see around Rome the many noble aqueducts which no
longer convey water into the city, because the arches are broken and the
marvelous structures are in ruins. The aqueduct must be kept entire to convey
the current; and, even so, faith must be true and sound, leading right up to
God and coming right down to ourselves, that it may become a serviceable
channel of mercy to our souls. Still, I again remind you that faith is the
channel or aqueduct, and not the fountain head, and we must not look so much to
it as to exalt it above the divine source of all blessing which lies in the
grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of it as if it
were the independent source of your salvation. Our life is found in “looking
unto Jesus,” not in looking to our own faith. By faith all things become
possible to us; yet the power is not in the faith, but in the God upon whom
faith relies. Grace is the locomotive, and faith is the chain by which the
carriage of the soul is attached to the great motive power. The righteousness
of faith is not the moral excellence of faith, but the righteousness of Jesus
Christ which faith grasps and appropriates. The peace within the soul is not
derived from the contemplation of our own faith, but it comes to us from him who
is our peace, the hem of whose garment faith touches, and virtue comes out of
him into the soul.
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BUCKET LIST:
For My Unbelieving Loved Ones Near Eternity
1. Find out who God is: holy,
righteous, merciful, by no means clearing the guilty. (Ex 34: 6-7)
2. Find out who you are: guilty,
ruined in sin, with no way of gaining acceptance with God by your works. (Rom
3: 10-20)
3. Find out who Christ is: God’s Salvation,
the Righteousness we must have, the Sanctification we must have, the Way we
must be in, the Truth we must believe, the Wisdom we must have, the Redemption
who must free us, the Life of eternity. (1 Cor 1: 29-31)
4. Repent from all that is ungodly,
cast all your care on Christ, believing Him. (Act 13: 39)
5. Confess Christ publicly in
believer’s baptism. (Mt 10: 32-33)
6. Then go enjoy the Grand Canyon and
see some sights if you’d like.
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RICHES OR RIGHTEOUSNESS?
Proverbs 13: 8
When you hear the words “riches” and “righteousness”
which do we think is most profitable? A
person does not have to be a millionaire to have his heart set on riches. We
could be living beneath the poverty line and still trust in the security of
temporal things. The thing that man’s
tradition calls profitable—riches—is the thing God plainly says shall destroy
us. (1 Tim 6: 10; Pro 8:18; 11:4, 28; 13:7)
Do we invest as much in the pursuit of everlasting righteousness as we
do temporary riches? I wonder how God would bless us if we trusted him so much
that we were willing to invest more in giving our children the gospel of
Christ’s righteousness than these other things.
The
Heart Set on Riches
When a man thinks in his heart that
his riches are security, if held for ransom, has money to redeem himself. If disease comes upon him then he can pay for
medical help to save himself. Were famine to strike the land then he can pay
for food to preserve himself. So the man
whose security is in his possessions never has to look to God for
anything. But temporal riches can only
purchase temporary salvation. Soon those
who trust in carnal riches will hear the rebuke of God. (Ps 49: 6-13; 52:7)
The
Heart Made Poor
The poor in spirit knows in our flesh
dwells no good thing. Such poverty of heart makes a man depend entirely upon
the precious ransom accomplished for him by Christ, not by corruptible things
as silver and gold, but his precious blood.
This is poverty which makes a man depend upon Christ who healeth
thee. The poor in spirit knows that if
he is cured of sin-sickness then he has life eternal and cured of all, even death.
This is poverty that makes a man see the utter famine of this world so that he depends
upon Christ the Living Bread. If I have
Christ I trust that the righteous shall not be found begging bread. Such a one may not be sleeping in satin
sheets on a bed with gold bed posts but he can stretch out on God’s bed in the
sweet rest and assurance of knowing Christ has him covered. If Christ has you covered in righteousness,
Christ has you covered in whatever else you need. (Ro 8: 32) That man who went
through life looking to his wealth shall meet God and his very riches will be a
witness against him. (Ja 5: 3) But the
man poor in spirit who put all his trust in Christ shall never hear this rebuke
from God. He is an heir of God’s eternal
inheritance, a joint-heir with Jesus Christ the Lord. (Mt 5: 3; 1 Cor 3: 21-23) Now which is better? Riches which can ransom
you temporarily then damn you for all eternity OR enduring riches of Christ that
provide both now and forever! Christ is the ONE THING NEEDFUL. (Ps 37: 16; Mt
6: 24-34)