Immanuel Baptist Church

There will be a meeting for Vacation Bible School on Sunday, June 14th at 4:00 pm. The meeting will be held at Springfield Baptist Church.

There will be a meeting for Vacation Bible School on Sunday, May 17th at 4:00 pm. The meeting will be held at Springfield Baptist Church.

The following is our menu for the Wednesday evening fellowship meal on May 6th.

Pork Chops
Mashed Potatoes
Black-eye Peas
Turnips
Cornbread
Dessert

The meal will begin at 5:30 in the fellowship hall. Those unable to attend can still come at 6:15 for the prayer time and Bible study.

Cost for meals is $5.00 per adult or $3.00 per child.

Remember May is Senior Adult month and our meeting May 12th will be very special. We plan to honor all the past members of the Sonshine Club of Immanuel. Alex and his crew will fry fish with all the trimmings. Bro. Randy Kuhn and Donnie Smith will be with us as our guests.

Be involved in all our activities.

Martha

Swine flu. What a name for a virus. At least the symptoms should be simple enough: anyone having a desire to snort and wallow in the mud should see a doctor immediately.

Various medical groups are expressing cautious opinions about the potential severity of this outbreak. Most seem to be saying that it could become a pandemic but probably won’t. Whether or not this becomes the next great health crisis, swine flu has reminded us how fragile we are. Created for eternity, humans now face death and decay because of sin and its consequences.

But even in the midst of suffering and pain, flu and pandemic, there is an opportunity for love and grace. God calls for his people to show love to all, especially the suffering and oppressed. When Christians have done this well, the church has grown. When Christians have failed, the result is stagnation and decline.

I once listened to a Peruvian pastor express perplexity over Christians who flee difficult situations. “What are they so worried about?” he said “Are they afraid to go to Heaven?” We don’t need to be careless with our health but we do need to be bold with our love, taking the love of Christ to those in good health and poor, visiting the sick and the needy even if it might mean we make sacrifices of health. Whenever the next big pandemic does hit (and scientists say it is a matter of when, not if) I pray that Christians will be the first ones in the homes of the sick and dying, loving and ministering to them and giving them eternal hope. Christians might die by the scores but those who die would die for their Savior while building his kingdom, a kingdom they would soon enter into, free from fear and pain for eternity.

As I write this many people are celebrating Earth Day. This day is used to draw attention to the value of our planet and the need to take better care of it. Though this day is almost always a secular celebration, there is value in it for Christians.

God created the heavens and the earth. We know this from the very beginning of Scripture. God created man and woman and commanded that Adam and Eve tend to this new creation. We are to take care of it, tend to it, watch over it. As a gardener tends to his garden, we are to tend to the whole earth.

I don’t want to see people go into environmental extremism. Humans are more important than plants and animals. The planet exists for us, not the other way around – and we all exist for the glory of God. Some people go too far in earth advocacy. But Christians should be among those most concerned for our planet.

The earth is a magnificent gift from God. It is full of such beautiful things, all of which give evidence to the glory of our creator. How terrible when human sin and greed damage this world God has made for us.

Be a good steward of the earth. Tend the garden well. Don’t litter. Pray and work for reduced pollution. Be mindful of how you use resources. Because this sounds like liberal ideology many Christians are quick to reject good stewardship of the earth. But taking care of the planet was God’s idea, not Al Gore’s. Many on the left sin by going too far, many on the right sin by not going far enough. Let’s occupy the middle where we recognize the place of God above all things, the place of man above creation, but the value and need to take care of the world God has given us.

Much has been made lately of the fact that Christianity is losing status in culture. Many news sources are alternating between celebrating, mourning, and simply observing what Newsweek described as The End of Christian America. 

This is not all bad. Theologian J. I. Packer has talked about the Puritan frustration with what they called the gospel hypocrite, the person who went to church every Sunday because he had to, called himself a Christian, but knew nothing of genuine faith. Our churches have had too many gospel hypocrites. Changes in society have made church less desirable and reduces the risk of creating gospel hypocrites.

There are many reasons why a lost person may reject salvation – perhaps he thinks God will forgive everyone, or thinks he isn’t really a sinner, or thinks the whole thing is a sham and there is nothing after death anyway. But a gospel hypocrite believes he doesn’t need to be saved because he thinks he already is. Talk to him all day about salvation and he will agree with you, more or less, never seeing that he is as lost as the person who never comes into the church.

Changes in the world means the church is losing its veneer of cultural Christianity. The result is not more lost people but more people who finally know they are lost – or at least who finally know they don’t fall within conservative, Biblical Christianity. The gospel hypocrite is jumping ship and showing himself for what he is.

The times, they are a-changin’, but it is not all bad. Christians will face new challenges. We will be increasingly marginalized, laughed at, and even persecuted. But the line between being a child of God or a child of the ruler of this age will finally become clear.

Exodus 4:29-7:13

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This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the evening service on April 26, 2009. Tonight we look at the return of Moses to Egypt.

The following resources are available from this service:
Presentation notes
Handout on Exodus 1:1-6:27

Ephesians 2:4-7

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This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the morning service on April 26, 2009. In this message we hear about the sovereign grace of God in salvation.

We continue this morning working through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We looked last week at 2:1-3, this morning we will move through 2:4-7. Both of these passages come within the broader section of Ephesians 2:1-10. In this section Paul is presenting a brief lesson on salvation. In 1-3 he instructs the Ephesians what they were before God saved them; in 4-7 he tells them about God’s work in salvation; and in 8-10 he reminds them about God’s grace and the necessity for believers to do good works.

As we saw last time, verses 1-3 paint a bleak picture of humanity. We are described as dead in our trespasses and sins, sons of disobedience, and children of wrath. We are spiritually dead, cut off from God, capable only of disobedience, and subject to eternal wrath. Left to ourselves we have nothing but hopelessness and despair.

Verses 4-7 give the believer hope, showing us how God moves us from despair to grace. Turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians 2:4-7 and follow along as I read.

These days people are expected to be positive and upbeat about humanity. In the world’s eyes everyone is a winner, even the losers. People should be built up and told how valuable they are. Now, people do have value, but it is not intrinsic, it is not within themselves. Individuals have value because individuals are made in the image of God and that image, though corrupted in us because of sin, is what gives us value.

In ourselves there is nothing to admire. We are rotting corpses under the wrath of God. Many bad teachings in the church originate because people do not understand how foul their sin is before God and how greatly they deserve his wrath. We think so much higher about ourselves than we ought so we misunderstand a great deal about sin and salvation, about how desperate we are but how great God’s grace toward us has been. We are corpses facing God’s wrath, but God has done something to save us.

What would motivate God to do anything for us? Think of your greatest enemy or your biggest nuisance. Would you mold history so that you could spend all eternity with that person? God does. Only he doesn’t leave us as we are but changes us so that we are no longer his enemies, we are no longer a stench in his nostrils, but are blessed children.

But why would God do any of this? Why would he make wretches his children?

In this passage Paul gives four motivations behind God’s action. They are: God’s mercy, in verse 4; his love, also in verse 4; his grace, in verses 5 and 7; and his kindness, in verse 7. We will briefly look at each of these in a moment but first I want you to see something about the source of God’s motivation.

Notice that each of the items we mentioned – mercy, love, grace, and kindness – originate not in us but in God. They are not things that occur in response to an object but are present in the subject. In other words, God’s mercy, love, grace, and kindness do not come because he is enthralled with us but are aspects of his character and we receive them because they are who God is.

You were not saved because God looked at you and found you irresistible and did all he could to save you. You did not receive grace because God thought you deserved it. You deserve nothing but his wrath. What grace is given to sinful people is given because God is merciful and loving, abounding in grace, full of kindness.

Let’s take a closer look at those four characteristics of God. First, mercy and grace. Mercy is when we don’t get what we do deserve. Grace is when we do get what we don’t deserve. We don’t deserve mercy, we deserve wrath. But God in his grace has been merciful to us.

We also read about God’s love and kindness. The kindness emphasizes the love. In God’s kindness we see his love displayed. He has been stern with you, sinner, but stern in love with kindness, calling you to repentance.

So God is motivated by his mercy, love, grace, and kindness and come not because we merit them but because they are part of his character. This helps to answer why God would ever save anyone when we are children of wrath. But what exactly did God do for us?

Verse 5 tells us that God made us alive together with Christ and that he did this even while we were dead in our trespasses.

The sentence against sin is immediate spiritual death and eventual physical death. Spiritual death cuts us off from God and makes it impossible to please him. In fact, Romans 3:11 tells us that people don’t even seek God. The unsaved are dead, under judgment, facing wrath, with no desire to turn to God. From where will salvation come? It comes from the Lord!

There is an unusual passage in Ezekiel I want to read you as an illustration of what it means for God to save a sinner, Ezekiel 37:1-14. I’m going to read verses 1-10. As we hear of the valley of dry bones, picture yourself as one of the skeletons brought to life through the word of God, the breath of God, the power of God.

This is how you were saved! You did not come to Christ because you on your own found him desirable. You did not come to Christ because you were smart enough to realize he was your only hope of eternal safety. You came to Christ because God took you and put meat on your dry bones and breathed life into you, making you alive. Once alive and faced with the glory of your God there was no possibility of you doing anything but clinging to him! Your eyes were opened and you saw the glory of your king! In Ezekiel 37:13-14 God takes credit for the people knowing who he is. He also promises to put his Holy Spirit within these resurrected corpses. He makes them alive, makes them able to serve him, to desire him, to please him, and gives them the Holy Spirit to secure their eternal place with him.

Back in Ephesians, verses 5-6 read: even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus… You were dead, but God came to you and took you and made you alive and raised you with Christ and secured your entrance into Heaven where you will be seated with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is by grace you have been saved! Some have the notion that God did part of the work – he revived humanity just enough that we would be able to desire him – and the rest is left to us. But what we find in Scripture is that no one desires God except those God has brought to himself. Nowhere do we find a partial lifting from sin, a partial revival from death – every unsaved person is dead in his or her sins! Only Christ can make you alive and those he makes alive he saves completely.

This theme of God drawing people to himself is found throughout the gospel of John, starting with the first chapter. In John 1:12 we are told that all who believe in Jesus are given the right to be children of God. Who are those who believe? Verse 13 tells us these people are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. No man’s will led these people to God – that means not even their own wills led them. It was God who took them and made them alive and filled them with faith so that they would be his children.

In John 6 Jesus speaks about this more directly. In John 6:37 Jesus says, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. In verse 40 Jesus says, For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. Who are those that look on the Son? Jesus wants to be sure we are clear about how they are able to have faith. In verse 44 he says: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. So no one comes unless the Father draws. Wait, you say, the Father draws everyone, right? If that were the case everyone would be saved since Jesus says everyone drawn by the Father will be raised up on the last day. Everyone is called to be saved. As Jesus says in Matthew 22:14 many are called, but few are chosen.

What we see in Ephesians is what we also see in Ezekiel and in John and in many other passages: God is sovereign over salvation. To many people this sounds terrible. There are many faithful, committed Christians who despise the things I’ve just told you. I was once one of them. But God must be sovereign over salvation or no one would be saved. Here is why it is so important for you to understand the condition of the unsaved sinner. He is not sick, he is not weak, he is dead. He cannot move an inch toward God.

God has offered salvation to every person, but the lost person is a corpse. He hears the gospel and he mocks or ignores or pretends to go along but he does not desire God and will not choose to receive salvation. If all God did was offer Christ and wait for our decision then no one would be saved. No one would want him! Or are the Scriptures false when they tell us there is no one who seeks God? If the Father did not take the initiative and sovereignly save some, no one would be saved. Why does God not save everyone? I believe he could, but he doesn’t, but that’s a question for another time. If you want to study the question yourself start with Romans 9.

Earlier we spoke of God’s motivation: his mercy, grace, love, and kindness. Verse 7 tells us the purpose of God in salvation. This is what God is seeking to accomplish by saving sinners. Paul writes: so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. You will be the display of God’s glory, the display of his mercy, grace, love, and kindness. For all eternity your presence with Christ in Heaven will be a testimony to the goodness of God.

Have you thought about Heaven in this way? There will be glorious rewards for us in Heaven. There will be rich blessings, including being reunited with loved ones who have gone before us. But this is not all that Heaven is. Heaven is God’s trophy room and God himself is on display. You are the trophies that reflect the work of God. If a man shows you his trophy for catching the biggest bass in a tournament he isn’t really drawing attention to the trophy but to what the trophy represents, his achievement in the tournament. In Heaven you are God’s trophies, representing the greatness of his character.

This is one of the most astounding things about the gospel. You, while an enemy of God, a rotting corpse with no desire for God, he took you and made you alive and covered you with the blood of Christ and made you holy by the Holy Spirit and united you in the body of Christ as the bride of Christ and will present you to himself, a spotless bride, who for all eternity will proclaim his glory. God took the most rotten log in the forest and made with it a beautiful carving. The handiwork displays the greatness of the craftsman.

There is so much more I want to say but we simply do not have time. Let me close with three ways you should respond to the knowledge of God saving you by his grace. First, give God the glory for your salvation. It is all his work, none of it is your own. Let the world know about his grace to you. Second, live for the glory of God. Your purpose in life is to shine God’s glory. A wasted life is a life that does not shine Christ. Live out his example. Tell people about your great God. Third, spread the gospel. But why evangelize if salvation is God’s work? First, because God commands it. Throughout Scripture God’s people are commanded to tell others about him. Second, because God uses us to accomplish his will. This is another display of grace. God does not need you but he chooses to use you! Third, because the sovereignty of God in salvation means you can share Jesus without fear. God, not you, is in control of the response. We sow the seed, God gives the growth. If the person rejects Christ it is not because you botched the gospel presentation. If they come to Christ it’s not because you were a smooth talker. Salvation is in God’s hands. When we encounter lost people we are to be obedient and share the gospel and we are to be trusting and leave the results with God. So rejoice because of God’s grace; live for his glory; and tell people about his saving work.

Exodus 1:1-4:28

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This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the evening service on April 19, 2009. In this installment of our series through the Old Testament we begin the story of the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

The following resources are available from this service:
Presentation notes
Handout on Exodus 1:1-6:27