I’m resting on the highest ground; no higher plain can e’er be found.
Tis Christ alone, the crucified; He suffered for my sins and died.
Chorus: Lord, help me trust in Christ alone,
In all His work and not my own.
In Him alone, may I be found,
For there is not a higher ground!
His precious blood and righteousness is all my hope, I now confess.
My rescue from the Adam fall; I need no more, for Christ is all.
Christ is the Way, the Truth, the Life, a refuge from all sin and strife.
Accepted in God’s Son beloved, in Him made fit for heav’n above.
God lifted me by grace alone, and made me sit with Christ enthroned.
Caused me to hear the gospel sound that grace in Christ o’er sin abounds.
TODAY’S SERVICES – Messages by Pastor Bill Parker
BIBLE CLASS – 10:00 a.m. –
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit – Matthew 5:3
MORNING WORSHIP – 11:00 a.m –
OPENING – Psalm 24:3-6
CALL TO WORSHIP (above)
HYMN – Near to the Heart of God – p. 356
READING – Genesis 50
MESSAGE – Where God Places His People – Heb. 11:22 CLOSING HYMN – Sitting At the Feet of Jesus – p. 329
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. –Psalm 95:6
STANDING IN AN EVEN PLACE
But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity: redeem me, and be merciful unto me. My foot standeth in an even place: in the congregations will I bless the LORD. (Psalm 26:11-12)
We should all strive to be honest and trustworthy in our relationships with others here on earth. But when it comes to honesty before God who knows and sees all, we recognize that to “walk in mine integrity” is to walk by faith looking to and resting in Christ for ALL salvation and eternal blessedness. It is to walk as a redeemed sinner, an object of God’s mercy because of what Christ has accomplished for us in salvation. In Christ we stand “in an even place,” a sure foundation, for we stand on the Rock Christ Jesus. In His righteousness imputed we are safe from the judgment of God’s wrath against our sins (Psa. 32:1-2).
–Pastor Bill Parker
God’s people are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2).
THE SALVATION OF THE TRIUNE GOD
Each glorious Person in the Godhead has a glorious part in our salvation. GOD THE FATHER chose, sanctified, and set us apart in Christ before the world was. GOD THE SON took our humanity into union to His personal Godhead, was made flesh, lived a perfect life, suffered and died a solemn death, rose again from the dead, and is now exalted at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. GOD THE SPIRIT awakened the dead and "called us with a holy calling." This call is the solemn, soul-quickening, heart-rending call of the Holy God from death to life, from darkness to light, from the power of sin and Satan to the kingdom of the Son of His love. So that, BEFORE THE WORLD WAS, the church was saved purposely by God the Father; IN TIME meritoriously by the God-man, Christ Jesus, who now lives above as their Mediator, High Priest, and Advocate; and IN THE DAY OF GOD'S POWER they are saved manifestly and vitally by the "washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:4-7). – William Gadsby
Works aimed at righteousness for justification, sanctification, and/or salvation, are works of the flesh. Works aimed at the glory of God in Christ Jesus are works of the Spirit. No work, however, can save us, make us righteous, sanctified, and accepted with God, and no work can give a truly convicted sinner assurance of salvation and acceptance with God, but the ONE WORK OF CHRIST AS THE SURETY AND SUBSTITUTE OF HIS PEOPLE – HIS BLOOD AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ALONE.
–Pastor Bill Parker
"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way." The Gospel is as broad as Christ and as narrow as Christ. It shuts the door of hope everywhere except based on His imputed righteousness. But it opens the way at this very point. "BE YE RECONCILED UNTO GOD" based on the merits of Christ's blood and righteousness alone, and forsake yourself and all that you believed before would recommend you unto God, "for God has commanded all men everywhere to repent." Seek this repentance through faith in Christ, based on His merits alone, according to God's promise. –Copied
God teaches us humility, not only by hearing what wicked creatures we are; nor by merely looking into ourselves and seeing a whole swarm of evils there. We learn humility, not merely by a discovery of what we are as sinful and depraved, pitiful creatures, but also by a discovery of who and what the Lord Jesus Christ is to His people. We need a glimpse of Christ Jesus, of His love, of His grace, of His blood that satisfies infinite justice against us for our sins. When these two sights meet together in our hearts, our shame, and the Lord's goodness; our guilt, and His forgiveness; our wickedness, and His superabounding mercy; they break us, humble us, and lay us dissolved in tears of godly sorrow and contrition, at the footstool of mercy! And thus we learn humility, that sweet grace, that blessed fruit of the Spirit in real, and we bow to glory of God revealed in Christ Jesus. Outside of this Gospel revelation, all is pride and self-righteousness, “for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). All whom God teaches humility find nothing but sin in themselves and nothing but righteousness in Christ. –J. C. Philpot
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