Listen to sermons at FreeGraceRadio.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace Baptist Church of Danville

November 24, 2019

All Services Live Streamed At

www.youtube.com/c/gracebaptistchurchofdanvilleky

 

To all who vainly imagine that the grace of God is a license to sin God the Holy Ghost says, “Ye have not so learned Christ.

 

Daily Readings for the Week of November 24-December 1, 2019

Sunday                Romans 12-15                            Thursday 1 Corinthians 11-13

      Monday                Romans 16-1 Cor. 3                  Friday                   1 Corinthians 14-15

      Tuesday               1 Corinthians 4-7                       Saturday              1 Cor. 16-2 Cor. 3

      Wednesday         1 Corinthians 8-10         Sunday                2 Corinthians 4-7

 

·       The Lord willing we will have our annual Church Family Thanksgiving-Christmas dinner together next Sunday.

 

Happy Anniversary-Skip & Sandy Gladfelter-1st

Church Cleaning in December: David & Celeste Peterson

Nursery Duty Today – Diane Campbell

 

Thanksgiving to Our God Don Fortner

(Tune: This Is My Father’s World  #39 SMD)

  1. Thanksgiving to our God! We bring with hearts of praise,

For all the wondrous things You’ve done, for mercy, love and grace!

You, from our mothers’ womb, have carried us along,

And promised through old age that You will not forsake Your own!

 

  1. Thanksgiving to our God, the mighty Three-in-One,

The Father, and the Spirit, and Christ Jesus, God the Son!

The Triune God we praise for all His works of grace;

Chosen, redeemed, and called, we are trophies of sov’reign grace!

 

  1. Thanksgiving to our God! With hearts and voices too,

As ransomed sinners saved by grace, we give our God His due!

While in this world we live, let us live for our God,

And may our dying breath express thanksgiving to our God!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

“Behold how he loved him!”

John 11:36

 

The tears of the Lord Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus produced such astonishment in the minds of the Jews who stood before the tomb, that they exclaimed, “Behold, how he loved him!” But had they known what many of us know of the love of the Son of God, their astonishment would have been indescribably greater. Oh, that we might know the length, and breadth, and height, and depth of the love of God that passes knowledge, the unquenchable love of God in Christ Jesus! Think, O my soul, what a huge volume shall be read over in eternity of the Savior’s love to me: His distinct and distinguishing, personal, and particular love! Truly, my Lord, I have found, “Thy love is better than wine!” I am astonished that the Son of God should ever even cast a glance in my direction, that the Holy One of Israel should choose to look upon me, but that he should love me! — That is utterly astonishing!

 

 

 “Made the Righteousness of God in Him”

2 Corinthians 5:21

 

The righteousness which the Lord God makes redeemed sinners to become, the righteousness by which we are accepted and with which we are made worthy of heavenly glory (Colossians 1:12) is always called “the righteousness of God.” It is the work of Christ alone. It is that righteousness of which all men by nature are ignorant. The proof of their ignorance is that they go about to establish their own righteousness (Romans 9:33-10:4).

 

Obedience in Life

According to the Book of God, it is the life obedience of Christ that constitutes that righteousness with which we are clothed and made to become before God. His death washed away our sins; and his life covers us from head to foot. His death was the sacrifice to God; and his life is the gift to man, by which all God’s elect have satisfied the demands of the law.

      Only in this way is it possible for the law to be honored and our souls accepted by God. Many who appear to be perfectly clear about the merits of Christ’s death do not seem to understand the merits of his life. Remember, from the moment that our blessed Savior broke his mother’s womb, until the hour that he ascended up on high, he was at work for his people. From the moment that he was seen in Mary’s arms, until the moment that he was in the arms of death, when “he bowed his head and gave up the ghost,” he was performing the work of our salvation.

 

Obedience unto Death

The Lord Jesus Christ completed the work of his obedience in his life, and said to his Father, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4). Then he finished the work of his atonement in his death. And, knowing that all things were accomplished, he cried, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

      Throughout his earthly life, the Savior was spinning the fabric of that royal, priestly garment in which we are robed. In his death, he dipped that garment in his blood. In his life, he was gathering precious gold. In his death, he hammered it out to make for us a garment of wrought gold. We have as much to be thankful for in the life of Christ as we do in his death. In his life, Christ Jesus rendered perfect obedience to the law as our Substitute. And in his death, he satisfied the claims of the law as our Substitute.

      Therefore, the prophet of God declares of Christ, “This is the name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6), and of us, “This is the name whereby she shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:16).

      That is the message that is set before us in 2nd Corinthians 5:21. The Lord Jesus Christ is our only righteousness, and it is our joy to confess that he is. — “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31). — Righteousness is not something we perform. It is something God gives!

 

Partakers of the Divine Nature

2 Peter 1:4

 

As all men were created in and simultaneously with the first Adam, all God’s elect were created new and simultaneously with the last Adam, Christ. As we had being in Adam from the beginning of creation, all God’s elect have had being with Christ from eternity. Being born of Adam in natural generation, we necessarily partake of Adam’s nature. And being “born of God” in regeneration, we are made “partakers of the divine nature.” As the seed of the first Adam partake of his nature, the seed of the last Adam partake of his nature.

 

Two Natures

The children of the first Adam are born of the flesh, and are earthy in all their thoughts, feelings and affections. The children of the last Adam are born of the Spirit, and are spiritual and heavenly in all their thoughts, feelings and affections. The children of the first Adam are born for the earth. The children of the last Adam are born for heaven.

            These two men, the old and the new, Adam and Christ, flesh and spirit, dwell in every child of God in this world; but they do not dwell together. They are in a state of perpetual warfare (Romans 7:14; Galatians 5:16-25). The flesh, the old man, is altogether sinful and corrupt. It can do nothing but sin. The spirit, the new man “created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24), that which is born of God, is altogether righteousness and cannot sin (1 John 3:5-10). That new man is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). He is our sanctification (1 Corinthians 1:30). He is that “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

 

Real Union

Our existence in Adam was a representative existence, yes, but it was more. It was a real, vital existence. We had being in our father Adam from the beginning, being created in him and with him. Our union with him in the Garden was real. When he sinned, we sinned in him. When he died, we died in him. It is not merely that we were reckoned to have sinned and reckoned to have died. — We sinned in Adam and we died in Adam, because we were one with Adam from the beginning.

            Now, here’s the good news. — Our existence in Christ from the beginning, before the foundation of the world, our eternal union with Christ, was and is a real, vital existence with the God-man, our Mediator, Surety and Savior. When he stood forth as our Surety before time began and was accepted of God as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8), we were accepted in him and blessed with all spiritual blessings in him (Ephesians 1:3-6).

 

Fit for Heaven

Yet, before we could enter heaven as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, something more must be done. Justice satisfied does not make anyone fit for heaven. Righteousness imputed does not make the ransomed sinner worthy of heavenly glory. It is only when redeemed sinners are made “partakers of the divine nature” in the new birth that the righteousness of Christ is imparted to them and they are, by the grace and gracious operations of God, made “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12). The imputed righteousness of Christ in redemption makes us worthy of heaven. The imparted righteousness of Christ in regeneration makes us fit for heaven.

 

 

 

 

 

The Grace Bulletin

 

November 24, 2019

 

Grace Baptist Church of Danville

2734 Old Stanford Road-Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438

Telephone (859) 576-3400 — 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

 

Web Pages

http://www.DonFortner.com

http://www.FreegraceRadio.com

http://www.Grace-eBooks.com

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pastor Fortner’s

 

Audio Sermons

Video Sermons

Books

Itinerary