Chili Cook-off Controversy II

What a great day together on Sunday! The promises of God displayed in baptism... the hope of renewal in the grace of Jesus Christ... and hanging together around the fountain while enjoying chili and each other.

The winner will be announced Sunday. Apparently there are charges of voter fraud and hanging chads that still need to be worked out. I think Katherine Harris is being brought in to help!

Enjoying Christ

It is only "Christ enjoyed" which can loosen our hold
of things seen, and of those earthly attractions which
have long entwined themselves around the heart--for
then we have found something infinitely better! --Ruth Bryan

quotes

1. There is really only one thing that can minimize Christ's saving work and that is our failing to lay hold of it. I'm convinced…that this is when we begin to make our forward steps as Christians: When I know through experience that I can lay hold of Christ's blood by faith to cover my sins this morning, and then to cover my sins this afternoon, even if they're the same sins—when I know this, the preciousness of Christ's blood becomes a tremendous reality, I begin to live in the light of His presence and in the light of His work—not just in the past or in the future, but in the present. I begin to live in the reality of the supernatural world…a true Christian is that person who knows, by experience, the ever-present wonder of being able to lay hold of the blood of Jesus and then being able to say thank you, knowing that his or her fellowship with God is completely restored.

--Francis Schaeffer

2. The life of the believer is here described as a delight in God, and we are thus certified of the great fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. –Charles Spurgeon

4. “The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ.” --Maurice Roberts

5. Sometimes our religious systems make Jesus so ethereal that He is no longer relevant to anything but theological polemics and doctrinal propositions. You need your soul "washed out" and once again drawn to the One who loves you beyond anything you could possibly imagine. I need it because sometimes I forget. --Steve Brown

6. Cling to the Lord Jesus in your feebleness, in your fickleness, in your nothingness; and
abidingly take him to be everything to you. –Spurgeon

7. “Though your faith is as weak as a single strand of a spider's web, if it is faith in Christ, it is saving faith; because it is not faith that saves… it is Christ who saves.” --John Murray

8. We did not merely say "Be good, come to church." We did not merely say "Keep the commandments" but above all, "Christ is risen, Christ is risen." --THOMAS MERTON

9. “For decades we psychologists looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus and acclaimed our liberation from it as epoch making. But at length we have discovered that to be free in this sense, that is, to have the excuse of being sick rather than sinful, is to court the danger of also becoming lost. For in becoming amoral, ethically neutral and free, we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood and identity, and with neurotics we find ourselves asking, ‘Who am I, what is my deepest destiny, what does living mean?’” --Hobart Mowrer— former Professor of Psychology at Harvard and former President of the American Psychological Assoc.

10. "Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among them. So we remain alone with our sin, living lies and hypocrisy. The fact is we are sinners. But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you…He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. God has come to save the sinner." --Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

11. Although sorrow for sin is certainly a legitimate aspect of worship, it should be understood as only a moment in worship, not a pervasive tone or atmosphere. In Psalm 51 and Isaiah 6, sorrow for sin soon dissolves into joy as the sinner finds forgiveness through the grace of God. The overall tone of our worship of God is to be a tone of reverent joy. –John Frame

Transforming Grace

"Love in response to goodness, perfection, and
obedience isn't love; it's reward. Only those who don't deserve it can be
loved, and only those who have been loved can love." Steve Brown

What do you mean when you say, "Our Father, in heaven"

2nd in series on concise explanations of the Lord's Prayer, line by line.... you can search for the 1st one on this site...

OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN: The balance is found not in toning down either God's transcendence or immanence or by taking a middle path between this world (the here and now) and heaven (the eternal), but by understanding what our Lord is teaching us as we address God in prayer: "Our Father[immanence] who art in Heaven[transcendence]." Even in this brief prayer our Lord gave us, we have the proper balance between transcendence and immanence. God is completely above and beyond us (transcendent), but we are instructed to call him "our Father." Isn't this a contradiction? Not at all. For in Christ, the Father reconciles us to himself and adopts us as his own children, co-heirs with Christ. --Mike Horton

Offering Hope & Healing

While i was in Crystal River last Sunday I spoke with a dear friend who is open to the idea of coming to Gainesville once per week to do counseling. He is a 50'something who has learned alot from schools and trials. He was on a mission team in Japan for almost 20 years and now has been called to help people appropriate the love of Christ in their times of trial. Do you think there would be enough need in West Gainesville for him to come one day per week?

please email me robp AT christcommunitychurch DOT com
if you think there would be serious interest

sunday at 10 we gather

here is a song lyric that captures part of what we come to do:
"Sing to the King who is coming to reign
Glory to Jesus the Lamb that was slain
Life and salvation, His empire shall bring
Joy to the nations when Jesus is King"
---Billy Foote and Candi Pearon

"You can’t handle the truth!”

So said Col. Nathan R. Jessep in A Few Good Men. Handling the truth is not an easy thing to do, particularly when it reveals things about us that we would rather not be known. But when it comes to the light of truth exposing the depth of our own sinfulness and idolatry, we find the truth not just difficult but impossible to handle. Only in the gospel can we “handle the truth” about ourselves. Richard Lovelace writes:

“Through faith in the Messiah, the soul is able to face reality again with cleared vision. As T.S. Eliot said, ‘Humankind cannot bear very much reality.’ But through the light shed by the Holy Spirit on the Messiah and his saving work, the soul can take in at a glance the truth about its own standing before God. It can bear the bad news about the justice of God and the depth of its sin, because it can see in the same glance the good news of the grace of Christ available simply through faith”.
HT to this dude

GLOCAL missions

GLObal and
LoCAL.... GLOCAL missions had a great 1st meeting sunday after service. Frank Matthews is mobilizing this group that currently has about 20 people involved.

Who wants welfare?

"Perhaps the most difficult task for us to perform is to rely on God's grace and God's grace alone for our salvation. It is difficult for our pride to rest on grace. Grace is for other people—for beggars. We don't want to live by a heavenly welfare system. We want to earn our own way and atone for our own sins. We like to think that we will go to heaven because we deserve to be there." --R C Sproul.

Missio Dei

The mission of God... missio Dei. God is renewing all things through the ongoing work of His Son... Do you want to hear more about how CCC seeks to extend the grace & mission of God? then come to a brief missions meeting after the worship service sunday

more info on church site

Note to Preachers... YES! this means you, "normal Christian"

“The gospel of Christ crucified and risen is meant to be preached to our soul–both in corporate worship where we hear it week after week, and from hour to hour as we preach it to ourselves in the daily fight for joy…The cross must be central in the fight for joy. We must put ourselves under is preaching on the Lord’s day, and we must preach it to ourselves all day every day” (John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy, 76-77).

Faith & Love

Faith brings and gives Christ to you with all his possessions. Love gives you to your neighbor with all your possessions.

Martin Luther, in Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol 1, pg 34.

Share in the Joy of God

"We are questioning, doubting, sorrowing, trembling; and all the while he who sees the end from the beginning knows what will come out of the present disquietude, and therefore rejoices. Let us rise in faith to share the joy of God.” Charles Spurgeon

Discipleship Course Reminders

faith and union with Christ, lessons 13 and 14

Reminder over instruction

"People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed." --Samuel Johnson, made famous b/c CS Lewis quoted it in Mere Xnity

One Look at Sin, 10 at the Cross

Although sorrow for sin is certainly a legitimate aspect of worship, it should be understood as only a moment in worship, not a pervasive tone or atmosphere. In Psalm 51 and Isaiah 6, sorrow for sin soon dissolves into joy as the sinner finds forgiveness through the grace of God. The overall tone of our worship of God is to be a tone of reverent joy. –John Frame

Why God Invented Elders

Why God Invented Elders Ligon Duncan Titus 1:5-9

We already have a divinely inspired model for ministry in the pastoral epistles.
The people of Crete were being transformed by the culture – Paul writes to Titus to tell him how to deal with these matters. He offers apostolic counsel on how a church can deal with pressure to conform to the world.
If God’s people are to adorn the gospel of God in all things, then they need godly elders, who by example in their homes and character, and in their teaching to show people how to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Why did God invent elders? For . . .
1. Discipleship
v. 5 - The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.
Shows the discipleship work of godly men who were necessary for the welfare of the church.
Note the plurality of elders – Paul does not exhort Titus to appoint an elder, but a plurality of godly elders.
v. 7 – the elders are overseers. They are appointed for discipleship in the local church – Christian discipleship takes place in the local church. This involves the careful ministry of elder shepherds – that is what elders are for.
In our day it is common for elders to see themselves as a spiritual board of directors. We must not denigrate the administrative function of elders, but we must never let this overshadow his role as a discipling shepherd.
2. Example
Elders are to be an example in two areas:
1. In home life – v. 6
v. 6 shows the importance of faithfulness in the home. These men are examples of what a Christian is like in their husbandry and parenting.
These are those whose children share their faith. If this is what God wants in all the church then it is essential that the elder’s homes show what it looks like to be a Christian in the family.
2. In character – vv. 7-8
vv. 7-8 – when the world says that the reality of the church as embodying the gospel is a lie the church is to be able to point to the elders and say “there are examples of lives transformed by the gospel.” Elders are to be the proof of the power of God in the lives of men.
The elder’s character is a witness to the truth of the gospel.
Paul shows how people can be gripped by sins of the self in verse 7 and says that elders are not characterized by such things.
The elder must love people and he must equally love truth and virtue.
Every qualification in this list has to do with behavior in the home and with character, not a person’s place in society.
Notice that it is godly men that Paul is calling to step up to the plate here.
3. Doctrine.
v. 9 – elders are for the conveying of truth and the confronting of error.
Elders must be orthodox – able to teach and defend the faith. Not only an assent to the truth, but an embrace of the truth. If you don’t love truth you can’t love people the way God calls you to love people.
They are able to convey the truth of the Christian faith. This does not mean that they have to have pulpit power. Elders have different ways of teaching. They don’t have to be grand orators, but they do have to be competent to teach.
Ability to teach is the only competency, outside of the family life and character, which elders are required to have.
Elders are also to be able to warn people against the errors that are the enemies of their soul. They are zealous to defend and promote sound doctrine.
Elders, along with all the heralds of God’s word, will one day stand before God to give an account for how they have shepherded the people of God.

God Welcomes The Sinner, As Should We

"Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among them. So we remain alone with our sin, living lies and hypocrisy. The fact is we are sinners. But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you…He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. God has come to save the sinner." --Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

With Arms Wide Open

True worship always proclaims the gospel, the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ. It proclaims the work of Christ and it centers in the cross. With the apostle Paul we say, "In the cross of Christ we glory." We proclaim liberty to the captive, grace and pardon to all who believe in His name. If sinners come to Him, He will by no means cast them out. --Al Mohler, on Isaiah 6

One way we try, as a congregation, to convince people that the above is true...
To all who are spiritually weary and seek rest; to all who mourn and long for comfort; to all who struggle and desire victory; to all who sin and need a Savior; to all who are strangers and want to belong; to all who hunger and thirst after righteousness; and to all who will come, this church opens wide her arms and offers welcome in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. --from CCC worship folder