Posts

Bulletin for 8-6-23

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Birthdays and Anniversaries

8-10 Wendi Camacho

8-11 Vanessea Chance

Prayer requests:

Emma Reames new doctor, working it out

Chaney Reames is undergoing extensive dental work.

Gladys Ramirez tests on stomach.

Paul Tyler has a bad sort Parkinson’s. Got stem cell treatments. Pray for their success.

Shirley Weeks, Steve’s mom, some better

Teresa Weeks, Steve’s sister, having age related issues. She has Down’s Syndrome. PT for knee.

Robert and Sue Waller, health issues

Darla Nitti, kidney disease

Leta, has a recurring cancer, prayer request from her granddaughter via our website.

Tammy Jones, Weeks’ neighbor, kidney failure/dialysis

Sarah Ussery, Chris Girvin’s sister, in hospice care after long fight with cancer.

Even them

“Even them I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer” (Isaiah 56:7 NKJV).

In the Law of Moses there were certain classes of people who were not to be admitted to “the assembly of Israel” or be allowed to participate in its worship in the tabernacle and temple (Leviticus 21:16-23). Isaiah prophesied concerning some of those classes (probably intended to be understood as representing all those previously banned) that, at some point in his future, “even they” would receive God’s blessings and be included as part of his chosen people.

God has never forgotten or rejected the masses of humanity with whom he did not establish a covenant relationship, either through Moses or through Christ. The Bible is filled with references to his being the creator of the entire world, including all of humanity, and of his love and compassion for all of mankind. So the prophet Isaiah proclaimed, “The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, ‘Yet I will gather to him others besides those who are gathered to him’” (Isaiah 56:8).

It is this conviction, that all mankind lives within the scope of the love of God, that drives mission activity. And not only that, but all of mankind also lives within accountability to God’s laws and will (Romans 3:9, 23). This was the basis for the Great Commission given by Jesus to his apostles (and all Christians) just before his ascension (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16).

No land is too remote for the Gospel to reach. No peoples are so poor, or immoral, or idolatrous that it is useless to attempt to proclaim the good news of salvation to them. “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) speaks just as clearly today as it did in the first century.

The greatest barrier to fulfillment of Jesus’ command is not expense or governmental anti-evangelistic interference. Neither is it persecution, though there is much more persecution of Christians today than most American Christians imagine. The greatest barrier to evangelism is the indifference of far too many to the plight of the lost — especially those lost who are not just like us.

John wrote, “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). We are not the sole object of God’s love, nor of Jesus’ sacrifice. John is not teaching universal salvation, but rather universal potential. Jesus’ blood is available to anyone, anywhere, and anytime, who will turn to him in obedient trust.

But they can turn only when they know of Jesus. Paul reminds us,

“For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent . . . So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:13-15a, 16).

Billions of people whom God brought to life and whom he loves live today without knowledge of Jesus. It is both the burden and the privilege of the Church to reach out to them with God’s saving message. Let us never be indifferent to their plight or blind to our opportunities to help them.

Michael Brooks, link to original article

Bulletin for 6-18-23

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Birthdays and Anniversaries

None this week

Prayer requests:

Emma Reames new doctor, working it out

Chaney Reames is undergoing extensive dental work.

Gladys Ramirez tests on stomach.

Paul Tyler has a bad sort Parkinson’s. Got stem cell treatments. Pray for their success.

Shirley Weeks, Steve’s mom, continues to have trouble.

Teresa Weeks, Steve’s sister, having age related issues. She has Down’s Syndrome. Also a fractured shin.

Sarah, Chris Girvin’s sister, on hospice care and not doing well

Robert and Sue Waller, health issues

Darla Nitti, recovering from a fall

Leta, has a recurring cancer, prayer request from her granddaughter via our website.

Tammy Jones, Weeks’ neighbor, kidney failure/dialysis

James Jones, friend of Steve’s, blood sugar issues seeming connected to covid.

Christ the means. God the doer.

“Jesus saves!” This exclamation is absolutely true. I have also come to realize that merely affirming “Jesus saves” is ambiguous and could promote misunderstanding.

In my reading of scripture, it is Jesus who has made our salvation possible while God is responsible for causing us to enter salvation. Such an understanding aids in interpreting at least one ambiguous text.

But first things first. Is this dichotomy of roles accurate?

A sample of scripture reveals a unified voice. God’s transformative power takes us from death to spiritual life.

  • “The immeasurable greatness of his (God’s) power toward us who believe. ….you were  dead in the trespasses and sins …. But God …made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved” Ephesians 1:19;2:1,4,5
  • “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him (Christ), having forgiven us all our trespasses” Colossians 2:13.
  • “The Lord added to their number day by day those who  were being saved” Acts 2:47. In verse 39 the Lord is identified as being “the Lord our God.”
  • “He (God) has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to  the kingdom of  his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” Colossians 1:13-14.
  • “When  the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, …  according to his own mercy” Titus 3:4,5.
  • “He (God) is the one who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not based on our works but on his own purpose and grace, granted to us in Christ Jesus” 2 Timothy 1:9.

While it is God who makes us alive with Christ, salvation is possible because of Jesus. It is through Christ’s blood and death that salvation exists (Matthew 26:28; Ephesians 1:7; Romans 3:24-25; 1 Peter 1:18-19). In other words, Jesus’ sacrificial death created atonement, adoption, being right with God, etc.

In view of the above, I would suggest that texts like John 3:17; 12:47 and 1 Timothy 1:15 teach us Jesus is the means making salvation possible, not that he will personally transform us from being dead in sin into being spiritually alive with himself.

If all of the foregoing reasoning is accurate, then we have a tool for understanding the ambiguous phrase, “the circumcision of Christ” in Colossians 2:11. What was Paul trying to communicate?

What is clear is Paul associates a spiritual circumcision somehow to Christ and the moment of baptism. But how? Who performs(ed) this surgery?

Some commentators propose Christ is the surgeon who performs a spiritual surgery upon us. Others assert God performs or has performed this surgery. Which is it?

If this surgery is upon us, then because scripture repeatedly touts God as being the one responsible for causing us to enter salvation this would identify God as the surgeon. This understanding is confirmed three verses later. Colossians 3:14 describes God as taking us from being dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of the flesh to making us alive together with Christ and forgiven. God is the surgeon who works on us.

This still doesn’t fully explain the phrase “circumcision of Christ.” How is Christ related to the surgery?

It would appear Paul is teaching us that it is Christ who has made this spiritual circumcision possible, hence it is the circumcision of Christ. Accordingly the apostle was reminding his readers that at baptism God performs a spiritual surgery upon us made possible by Christ.

Barry Newton, link to original article