July 30, 2006

 

God's view of things is reality. Ours is only a dim perception. If the Lord God views us in Christ and one with Christ, altogether as Christ is, that is reality; and he tells us to reckon it so, just as he does (Rom. 6:11).

 

Daily Readings for the Week of July 30-August 6

                                                     Sunday                                  Jeremiah 1-3                                                                          Thursday                             Jeremiah 12-14

                                                     Monday                               Jeremiah 4-5                                                                          Friday                                     Jeremiah 15-17

                                                     Tuesday                               Jeremiah 6-8                                                                          Saturday                              Jeremiah 18-21

                                                     Wednesday                       Jeremiah 9-11                                                                      Sunday                                  Jeremiah 22-24

 

á          Conference Offering Today — Please mark you gifts for our Bible conference "Conference."

á          We will have our Quarterly Fellowship dinner today. There will be no service here tonight.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Carol Brown-4th Cathy Pruitt-5th

 

There is a Time Ordained of God — Don Fortner

(Tune: #77 — Sun of My Soul — LM)

1.        There is a time ordained of God

When every sinner bought by blood,

Shall by His grace be born again,

And life, eternal life, obtain!

2.        At peace with hell, with God at war,

Children of wrath, they wander far,

Indulging every lust obscene,

Until, by grace, they're born again.

3.        Goodness and mercy shall pursue

The chosen souls, where'er they go.

Wherever ransomed souls may stray,

God's pricking thorns hedge up their way.

4.        Though oft in fear, they madly reel,

As drunken souls, rushing to hell;

But fear cannot the rebel sway,

Or turn him from destruction's way. ]

5.        Yet, God's elect shall never rove

Beyond the bounds of His great love,

Fenced by Jehovah's shalls and wills,

Whose providence His will fulfills.

6.        And when "the time of love" has come,

                           Grace fetches ransomed sinners home,

Not by proposals, but by pow'r,

Life-giving, sov'reign, saving pow'r!

 

13

Righteousness Imputed

 

"But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." (Romans 4:24)

 

The only way a sinner can be made righteous is by the holy Lord God imputing righteousness to him. In justification God imputes the righteousness of Christ to his people in exactly the same way as he imputed the sins of his people to Christ (Rom. 5:18-19; 2 Cor. 5:21). How are sinners made to become the righteousness of God in Christ? I appeal to the Word of God alone for the answer to that question. The opinions of men are totally irrelevant. What does the Book say? Nothing else matters.

 

         When Christ was made sin, that was a one time, once and for all act accomplished in the past, a work in which he was personally involved. But when the Holy Spirit speaks of us being "made the righteousness of God in him," the word he uses for "made" is another word altogether. It is a present tense, passive verb, implying total passiveness on our part, and means "continually cause to become." He is telling us that those for whom Christ was made sin God continually causes to become the righteousness of God in him without doing a thing. Let me show you how he has done it and is doing it.

 

         Eternally — Our great, all-wise, eternally gracious God made us righteous before the world was made in his sovereign, eternal purpose of grace in Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, (Rom. 8:28-30; Eph. 1:3-6; 2 Tim. 1:9-10; Jude 1). If we were blessed of God with all spiritual blessings before the world began and accepted in the Beloved, it was not as unrighteous but as the righteousness of God in Christ.

 

         Judicially — We were made to become the righteousness of God judicially, in a legal sense, when the Lord Jesus died as our Substitute under the wrath of God, satisfying divine justice for us. When he had put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, he obtained eternal redemption for us, and we were made to become the righteousness of God in him by divine imputation in justification (Rom. 4:25; 5:12, 17-21).

 

         Experimentally — But this matter of being made the righteousness of God in Christ, while it is something with which we have no involvement, is not just a matter of law, any more than Christ's being made sin was just a matter of law. It is not something that takes place altogether outside our experience, any more than Christ being made sin was outside his experience.

 

         Sinners are made the righteousness of God in Christ experimentally in the new birth, when we are made "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). That holy thing in us that is born of God, that John tells us cannot sin, is "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). We experience this blessed thing (being made the righteousness of God) in the inmost depths of our souls, in the constant assurance of our access to, acceptance with, and forgiveness of our sins by our God (1 John 1:7-2:2).

 

14

         We are in Christ, in whom alone God is well pleased. That means he is well pleased with us (Matt. 17:5). Our sacrifices are accepted of God as a sweet-smelling savor in Christ (1 Pet. 2:5). Our sins are never imputed to us, but perpetually forgiven because we are one with him who was once made sin for us, in whom we are perpetually made to become the righteousness of God.

 

         Absolutely — Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, every sinner who trusts him is made to become the righteousness of God in him absolutely (2 Cor. 5:17; Col. 1:12). Discerning the Lord's body, that is to say, knowing our need of a Substitute and knowing the Substitute himself, trusting his finished work and trusting him, sinners like you and me are worthy to enter his church, worthy to call upon his name, worthy to receive the Lord's Table, and worthy to enter into and possess forever his glory! Tobias Crisp wrote...

 

"Mark it well, Christ himself is not so completely righteous, but we are as righteous as he was. Nor are we so completely sinful, but he became (being made sin) as completely sinful as we. Nay more, the righteousness that Christ hath with the Father, we are the same, for we are 'made the righteousness of God.' And that very sinfulness that we were, Christ is made before God. So that here is a direct change. — Christ takes our persons and condition, and stands in our stead. We take his person and condition, and stand in his stead. What the Lord beheld Christ to be, that he beholds his members to be. What he beholds them to be in themselves, that he beheld Christ himself to be.

 

              So that if you would speak of a sinner, supposing him to be a member of Christ, you must not speak of what he manifests, but of what Christ was.

 

              If you would speak of one completely righteous, you must speak and know that Christ himself is not more righteous than he is. And that that person is not more sinful than Christ was when he took his sins on him. So that if you will reckon well, beloved, you must always reckon yourself in another's person, and that other in yours. And until the Lord find out transgressions of Christ's own acting, he will never find one to charge upon you."

 

         Everlastingly — We shall be made to become the righteousness of God everlastingly in the last day in resurrection glory. We shall be raised in righteousness. We shall be declared righteous according to the record book of heaven at the Day of Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15; Jer. 50:20). We shall be declared righteous to wondering worlds to the glory of our God forever (Eph. 2:7). Then, we shall forever begin to enjoy, in such experimental reality, as words cannot describe, the blessedness of being made to become the righteousness of God in Christ (Rev. 21:2-5; 22:1-6).

 

                  I am lost in wonder. All this, all that Christ has as the God-man our Mediator, we have in him. All that he is, we are in him. All that he enjoys, soon, I shall enjoy forever in him, because, — "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17).

 

15

 

 

 

Grace Bulletin

 

July 30, 2006

 

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.

 

Web Pages

http://www.donfortner.com

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

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