IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to the Corona virus pandemic, we are asking you to stay home this morning and watch Pastor Parker preaching the messages on live-stream at 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. You can access our live-stream by going directly to SermonAudio.com or through our website at www.rofgrace.com. Last week Sermon Audio had a hard time dealing with the high traffic load and people had trouble getting and staying connected. If you cannot stay connected, know that we are recording both messages, and they will be posted on SermonAudio and on our website as soon as possible.

We all know that our sovereign Lord is in control of this whole situation and it is for His glory our eternal good. Let us all pray that He will bring us through this and bring us back together in corporate and public worship soon. If any of you need anything, please do not hesitate to contact us. If we can help you, we will. —Pastor Parker

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TODAY’S SERVICES – Messages by Pastor Bill Parker

BIBLE CLASS – 10:00 a.m. –

Believers Caring for One Another – Romans 15:20-29

MORNING WORSHIP – 11:00 a.m –

-- READING – 2 Peter 1:1-11

-- MESSAGE – Fellowship With the Divine – 2 Peter. 1:4

LORD’S SUPPER SERVICE TO BE ANNOUNCED LATER

As you know we normally schedule our Lord’s Supper service on the 5^th Sunday which will be next Sunday (March 29). Due to the circumstances as they are, we will postpone this service and our church dinner to a later time to be announced. I want to thank all of you for your patience, understanding, and caution through this trial.

CHRIST’S GREAT WORK

What is His work? The work which the Father gave Him to do; the work covenanted from before the world began, the work that shall crown Him with glory and honor for ever and ever; the work of fulfilling, of magnifying, and of honoring the holy law of God; the work of satisfying it and sheathing the sword of inflexible justice in His own heart; the work of vanquishing the powers of darkness, bruising the old serpent’s head, spoiling principalities and powers, taking away the sting of death, and removing the curse forever from all the election of grace. That is the work of God; that is the work of Christ, and it is freely given to the believer. – Joseph Irons

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“HE MUST INCREASE, I MUST DECREASE”

Look at a candle and how it burns. The more the light shines, the more the candle diminishes. What a beautiful illustration of the believer in Christ! The more he learns the Gospel of Christ, the more precious Christ becomes and the less he thinks of himself. One who is truly the Lord’s shines forth the light of HIS righteousness, grace, goodness, mercy, forgiveness, and truth. In so shining, self does not get bigger and more noticeable – CHRIST does! The glory is not to self but to HIM. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30). -- Author unknown

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THE CHASTENING HAND OF THE LORD UPON HIS CHILDREN

Bees gather honey from bitter flowers, as well as sweet; so should we from bitter conditions. Crosses are Christ’s servants as they come and go at His command. They are sent to do us good; all is sent in love and best for me; for God will supply all our wants with His all-sufficiency. We should not look so much at freedom from trouble as to profit by it, to enjoy God by it, and strength to bear it, looking upon all that befalls us as appointed and ordered by God in His wisdom and love for our good (I Thess. 3:3).

– Samuel Richardson (Divine Consolations, Part One, 1649)

THE POWER AND VALUE OF CHRIST’S OFFERING

“For by one offering HE hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14).

It is an awesome thought for us to consider that a just and holy God does not and cannot charge His people with sin(s) because of the “one offering” of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we stand in Christ and believe in Him, the almighty, holy, and just God has blotted out our transgressions and remembers our sins no more. And this great reality is established forever upon one ground – THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST WHO BY HIS ONE SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS MADE A COMPLETE PROPITIATION FOR US. The whole record of our sins that testified against us, God’s elect people, was imputed (charged, accounted) to the Lord Jesus Christ as our Surety, Substitute, and Redeemer. All the record of His obedience unto death, His righteousness, was imputed to the account of all for whom He died, all who are brought by God to believe in Him. And He now stands forever and ever as our Intercessor to plead the merits of that one sacrifice for our sins. Is there anything more powerful and valuable than Christ and what He accomplished by Himself as our sin-bearer and sin-offering? Absolutely not! —Pastor Bill Parker

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HE HAS BLOTTED OUT THIS WHOLE FEARFUL RECORD!

"I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and remembers your sins no more." (Isaiah 43:25)

What an amount of guilt has He pardoned! It is impossible to overstate this. No view that I can now take of it ascends to the truth.

My original debasement, my wayward youth, my rejection of His love, my rebellion against His authority, my forgetfulness of His goodness, my backslidings from His way, my inconsistent profession, my vain and sinful example, the wickedness of my unconverted state, the errors of my renewed state. Alas! Every day and every act brings up its separate testimony. And all condemn me! But He has freely pardoned! He has blotted out this whole fearful record! He will remember it no more!