Grace Baptist Church of Danville

December 30, 2012

Any preacher who is too big to preach to a few is too little to preach to many.

·      Bro. Eric Richardson has accepted the call to become pastor of the San Diego Grace Fellowship in San Diego, CA. May the blessings of our God upon them be manifest and unceasing as they serve our Savior together.

·      Rescue Baptist Church in Rescue, CA will host its Annual Winter Conference January 25-27. For more information contact Pastor Gene Harmon. — Telephone: 530-677-2486 — Email: gharmon@hughes.net

·      Bro. Eric Richards will bring the message tonight.

·      Bro Frank Hall is preaching today for Millsite Baptist Church in Cottageville, WV.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Marilyn Sadler-31^st       Sammy Wall-1^st     Laura Peterson-4^th    Bob Poncer-5^th

NURSERY DUTY THIS WEEK

Today: Jenny Bartley (AM) Dee Dee Raneri (PM)   Tuesday: Celeste Peterson

With This, We Close the Year – Don Fortner

(Tune: #52 — Majestic Sweetness -- CM)

1.    Father, humbly, before Your throne, Your children gathered here,

Bow to acknowledge mercies shown, throughout this closing year.

2.    Your judgments in the earth are good. (We this confession share.)

All that You’ve done, our God, is good. With this, we close the year.

3.    We’ve seen sickness, and we’ve seen death, — Some sorrows hard to bear!

Yet, Lord, Your goodness, (Oh, the breadth!) pursued us through the year.

4.    Past sins and follies, Lord, forgive, and fill our hearts with cheer.

Enable us for Christ to live throughout this op’ning year.

5.    As You have loved us, let us love, and for each other care.

Oh, set each heart on things above, each day of this new year!

6.    Prepare us, Father, for Your will, whatever may appear;

And keep us clinging firmer still, to Christ through all the year.

7.    Confirm our souls in grace, and we will walk with You in fear,

And Christ our Savior then shall be our song throughout the year

Happy New Year! — May God our Savior be pleased to flood your life with the manifest blessings of his goodness and grace upon you in Christ. I do not desire that you and I be free of sickness, sorrow, and sighing. Those very things we most naturally seek to avoid may be the instruments of God’s great goodness to our soul. Rather, I desire and pray that our God will bend your will and my will to his will in all things. — That will make the New Year happy indeed.

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A New Year’s Prayer

“Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.”                                                                                                           — Psalms 86:11

There is no better way for us to begin the New Year than by earnestly seeking the will of God in it. It is certain that God sovereignly accomplishes his will, his eternal purpose, in all things (Isaiah 46:9-1 1).

“Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.”

Nothing comes to pass in time except that which God purposed in eternity. Yet nothing is more important, and nothing more difficult to a believer than seeking the will of God in making responsible choices and decisions about his actions in life.

We know by painful experience that it is possible to make the wrong choices. We rejoice to know that God graciously overrules our errors in judgment for our spiritual, eternal good and for the glory of his own great name (Romans 8:28). And we praise him for that! But when a believer walks contrary to the will of his Lord, he brings grief and trouble to himself. Be wise, therefore, and seek grace both to know and do the will of God in all things.

“Teach me thy way, O Lord.” — Do you desire to know the will of God in all things? Then ask God himself to reveal his will to you, by his Spirit and by his Word. He alone can teach you his way and he will if you are willing to walk in it.

“I will walk in thy truth.” — In essence, David is saying, “Lord, if you teach me your way, by your grace, I will gladly walk in it. If you will mark out my path in providence, I will stick to it.” This is the attitude of submission and faith before the Lord. And where there is true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and submission to his will, there will always be an acknowledgement of weakness and sin and the need for divine grace.

“Unite my heart to fear thy name.” — We can walk in God’s will only as he gives us grace to do so. When we do make errors concerning the will of God, it is either because we have not earnestly sought his will, or else because we are rebellious to it. Of this one thing we can be sure: God always reveals his will to the person who is willing to do his will. — “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path.” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

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“Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.”

Psalm 17:5

As the New Year approaches, we commonly wish people a “Happy New Year!” Some think such wishes are frivolous and should not be spoken. Their overmuch piety makes them sourpusses. Surely, if it is right for us to desire one another’s good (And it is!), it cannot be wrong to express it in a few words of friendly greeting.

Time for Confession

It is proper for us to reflect upon our sins and failures, our wanderings and departings from our God during the year that is gone. But having done so, let us bury the past. As the stroke of the clock at midnight last night buried all the past forever, so let us bury the past. Forgetting those things which are behind, let us each reach out and press forward to those things that are set before us in Christ.

            Give thanks to God for mercies experienced and received; but do not live upon those either. Yesterday’s bread will not sustain your soul today. Let us awake every day given us in the New Year with an intense desire to see, experience, and rejoice in the great mercies of our great God, which are new every morning.

Time for Consecration

This is also a time for consecration. This is the first day of the rest of your life. It matters not what you have done with your life in the past. Today, if you will hear God’ s voice, harden not your heart. Give yourself in unqualified surrender to Jesus Christ the Lord. Oh, may God be pleased this day to bring you to Christ. What a blessed new year this will be for you, if he does!

If God has saved you by his grace, you are not your own. You have been bought with a price, the price of Immanuel’s precious blood. God the Holy Spirit dwells within you. Heaven is your home. Glory is your inheritance. — “I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God that you present your {body} a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” What can be more reasonable than for regenerate souls, bought with the precious blood of the Lamb of God, to give themselves in wholehearted devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, in all things seeking to do his will and glorify his name?

Leave it to superstitious worldlings to make foolish “New Year’s Resolutions.” That is not what I am urging. I am urging all who believe God to walk with God. I am urging all who are born of the Spirit to walk in the Spirit. I am urging all who know Christ to live for Christ. How can we do anything less?

This is my prayer to God today, my prayer for the rest of the days I may have upon this earth: -- “Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not,” for Christ’s sake, I ask it. God give us grace to live for him, for his glory, for the interests of his kingdom in the days he has appointed for us. If he will grant this, we shall, indeed, have a happy New Year.

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The Grace Bulletin

December 30, 2012

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 in Danville

Channel 6 - Sunday Morning 7:45 A.M.

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

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

Television Broadcasts in Harrodsburg

Channel 6 - Sunday Afternoon 3:00 P.M.

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

Web Pages

http://www.DonFortner.com

http://www.FreegraceRadio.com

http://www.Grace-eBooks.com

Don Fortner

Listen to sermons at FreeGraceRadio.com