Grace Bulletin

 

January 30, 2005

 

GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH of DANVILLE

2734 Old Stanford Road-Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438

Telephone (859) 236-8235 - E-Mail don@donfortner.com

 

Donald S. Fortner, Pastor

 

SCHEDULE OF REGULAR SERVICES

 

Sunday                     10:00 A.M. Bible Classes

                                                                        10:30 A.M. Morning Worship Service

                                                                          6:30 P.M. Evening Worship Service

                        Tuesday                    7:30 P.M. Mid-Week Worship Service

 

 

Television Broadcasts

 

Danville                 Channel 6-Sunday Morning                                       8:00 A.M.

                                Channel 6 - Wednesday Evening               6:00 P.M.

                                Channel 6 - Friday Evening                                         7:00 P.M.

Harrodsburg         Channel 6 - Friday Evening                                         7:00 P.M.

 

Web Pages

http://www.donfortner.com

http://www.sovereign-grace/gracechurch.htm

http://www.freegrace.net/danville/default.asp

 

January 30, 2005

 

The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”                                                                                                                                   (Hebrews 13:6)

 

Daily Readings for the Week of January 30-February 6

                Sunday                    Exodus 35-37                                                                          Thursday                Leviticus 8-11

                Monday                  Exodus 38-40                                                                          Friday                     Leviticus 12-13

                Tuesday                  Leviticus 1-4                                                                           Saturday                  Leviticus 14-15

                Wednesday             Leviticus 5-7                                                                           Sunday                    Leviticus 16-18

 

·         I am preaching today for Rescue Baptist Church in Rescue, CA, where Bro. Gene Harmon is pastor. Bros. Ron Wood and Larry Criss will preach the gospel to you today. Bro. Daniel Parks, pastor of Redeemer Baptist Church in Louisville, KY will preach to you Tuesday night.

·         The Lord willing, we will have our Quarterly Fellowship Dinner next Sunday. There will be no service here next Sunday night.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Merle Hart-1st

 

Sovereign Grace O’er Sin Abounding John Kent

(Tune: #291 — Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah — 87.87.87)

 

1.        Sovereign grace o’er sin abounding!

Ransomed souls, the tidings swell;

‘Tis a deep that knows no sounding;

Who its breadth or length can tell?

On its glories, on its glories,

Let my soul forever dwell.

 

2.        What from Christ that soul can sever,

Bound by everlasting bands?

Once in Him, in Him for ever;

Thus the eternal covenant stands.

None shall take Thee, none shall take Thee

From the Strength of Israel’s hands.

 

3.        Heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus,

Long ere time its race begun;

To His name eternal praises;

O what wonders love has done!

One with Jesus, one with Jesus,

By eternal union one.

 

4.        On such love, my soul, still ponder,

Love so great, so rich, so free;

Say, while lost in holy wonder,

Why, O Lord, such love to me?

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Grace shall reign eternally!

 

13

“And Be Found In Him”

Philippians 3:9

 

What man, except the God-man, was more exemplary in self-denial and devotion than the Apostle Paul? Who ever had such rich experiences of grace as him? Who was more gifted and manifestly useful? He was once caught up to the third heaven and saw things no human language can describe. He labored more abundantly than all the other apostles. Still, his heart’s desire was that he might win Christ and be found in him, with no righteousness of his own, but only the righteousness of God in Christ.

 

He renounced as dung all imaginary inherent righteousness and all his own works of righteousness, in which every Pharisee and legalists clings. He was a man who had experienced grace abundant. Yet, the grace he experienced was not to him a basis of confidence before God. He was a man obedient to the will of God, whose life was marked by that “faith which worketh by love.” Still, nothing he had done was looked to, relied upon, or trusted by him in any measure. He desired never to stand at the bar of God with any of those things, but only in the righteousness of God in Christ.

 

God the Holy Spirit gave him precious faith in a precious Savior. Therefore, he looked out of himself, out of all that was wrought in him and done by him. He passed it all by and looked through it all to Christ alone. He renounced all personal worth, merit, and righteousness before God, hoping only to be found in Christ. He put the matter of his eternal life and salvation upon being found in Christ, being found only in his infinitely perfect and glorious righteousness.

 

The law and justice of God, once revealed, pursued Paul as a manslayer to Christ as a city of refuge. He desired to be found in the City of Refuge. This man knew that Christ’s perfect obedience unto death, and that alone, entitles redeemed sinners to heaven and makes us “worthy to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”

 

From Paul’s desire we learn that the singular Object of faith for a sinner, convinced of sin and righteousness and judgment by the Spirit of God, is Christ. The object of our faith is not what we are, or what we have experienced, or what we have done; but what Christ is, what he experienced, and what he has done. The only Object of faith, wholly and exclusively, is the person and work of the Son of God. If we have the faith of God’s elect, we rest the hope of our souls only upon Christ, and desire to be found in him in life, in death, and at the judgment.

 

Does this mean that the grace we experience and the works we are enabled of God to perform are nothing? Of course not! They are nothing in the point of our justification before God. Yet, the grace we experience, giving us life and faith in Christ, is the fruit and evidence of our redemption, righteousness, and justification by Christ. The works others see done by us are evidences to them that our faith is real and that our claim to Christ is genuine.

 

These things do not justify (or even sanctify) us before God. Yet, they do justify our professed faith in Christ and clear the gospel of the grace of God from the legalists’ slanderous charge of licentiousness. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).

 

14

“That I May Know Him”

 

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”                                                                                                                   (Philippians 3:10)

 

There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four say not, It is enough” (Pro. 30:15). This is true of the fire of love, when kindled in believing hearts. It burns with insatiable desire towards the Son of God. Paul had for many years known, loved, and preached the crucified, risen Savior. Yet, he desired to know him. Surely, these words are written in the Book of God to instruct us in some wondrous thing.

 

William Mason wrote, “Such is the nature of faith, that like riches to a miser, the more they increase the more the desires of his heart increase after them. His wants are greater than his possessions.”

 

So the soul living in union with Christ sees such inexhaustible treasures in him, our living Head, and such great needs in himself, that his heart ever cries after and longs for more of his presence, blessings, and comforts in the experience and knowledge of him. As a young couple deeply in love and engaged to be married can never be satisfied until the day that they are united and able to satiate one another’s love, so the soul that loves Christ can never be satisfied with anything but him. Indeed, the heaven born soul can never be fully satisfied and perfectly happy and content, until it is forever present with the Lord.

 

Still, in this mortal state, the knowledge of Christ even now gives the believing sinner a paradise of peace, a heaven of love, and a river of life in the soul. There is, therefore, a godly jealousy in our souls, lest some other object should steal the affection of our hearts from him, even briefly. If at any time our eyes are turned from our blessed Savior, we are filled with shame. Our folly makes us blush and cry, “O that I might know him whose love toward me is constant, perfect, and faithful!”

 

To know that the Son of God has made peace for me by the blood of his cross, that he has wrought out a robe of perfect righteousness to adorn me forever by the obedience of his life, and that he ever lives to make intercession for me, ruling all things for my soul’s everlasting good, this is joy and peace. Daily, constantly to know him dwelling in my heart by faith, ever present with me is the delight of my heart and the sweetness of my life in this world.

 

May God the Holy Spirit keep us in the sweet, experimental knowledge of Christ, looking to and feeding upon him continually in our hearts by faith. Otherwise, other things will creep in and bring us into distress. But sweetly abiding in the knowledge of Christ, looking to him, we live in peace and joy. So shall “grace and peace be multiplied through the knowledge of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”