Young adults from across South Wales and the West of England are gathering at the Christchurch Centre to worship Jesus and consider what’s important. If you’re planning on coming (it’s not too late to sign up!), below is some information which you might find helpful.
We’re watching a certain rugby match…
Some months ago, when we first organised PRIORITY, we chose the date so as to not clash with anything… way back then, there was no chance of it clashing with anyone’s interests in the Rugby World Cup… no way were Wales still going to be in it at the semi final stage!
But things have changed, and so have our plans. Christchurch will be open at 8:45am and from 9am we’ll be showing the match live with coffee on tap for those who want to watch it. At half time, there’ll be bacon rolls for everyone, so if you’d rather just show up for breakfast, make it to the building for 9:40am in time to start the first session at 10:30am.
You can pay on the day.
It’s not too late to sign up and hand over your fiver electronically. Follow the link to get it done. But if you’d rather pay on the day, you can do that too. All you have to do is get in touch with Nathan and give us the heads up that you’re coming, and we’ll see you then.
Need a lift across the bridge?
Priority is taking place at the Christchurch Centre in Newport, South Wales. If you need a lift there and back, please contact Nathan.
It was great to be together on Sunday morning, to lift up our voices in praise of our great God, who’s grace has saved us!
Jadie Stiven led us in singing praises to God, and rejoicing in the immensity of the love God has lavished upon us, displayed most incredibly through the cross of Christ.
We sang the following songs together:
Sunday’s sermon was the first part in our new “Bookends of the Christian Life” series, inspired by the book of the same title by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington. It was preached by Nathan Smith and was entitled: “The Righteousness of Christ“ from 2 Corinthians 5:21. You can listen to or download the audio file from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.
Here’s the quotes from the sermon (and some that we had no time for!):
C.H. Spurgeon:
“Christ was free from the corruption and condemnation of the sin of Adam, [and] in his life no sin ever corrupted his way. His eyes never flashed with unhallowed anger; his lips never uttered a treacherous word; his heart never harboured an evil imagination. Never did he wander after lust; no covetousness ever so much as glanced his soul. He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. From the beginning of his life to the end, you cannot put your finger even upon a mistake, much less a wilful error. With sin he had no communion, no fellowship, no brotherhood. He was a perfect stranger in the presence of sin; he was a foreigner in the land sin in habited.”
Philip Hughes:
“[It] is of vital importance for us that as a man, in his incarnate state, Christ knew no sin, for only on that ground was he qualified to effect an atonement as man for man…Only he who had completely and uninterruptedly obeyed the law of God was fitted to suffer the punishment due to those who have wilfully disobeyed the law. Only he who was entirely without sin of his own was free to bear the sin of others.”
John Calvin:
“In Christ every part of our salvation is complete. As all mankind are, in the sight of God, lost sinners, we hold that Christ is their only righteousness, since, by His obedience he has wiped off our transgressions, by his sacrifice appeased the divine anger, by his blood washed away our sins, by his cross borne our curse, and by his death made satisfaction for us. We maintain that in this way man is reconciled in Christ to God the Father, by no merit of his own, by no value of works, but by gratuitous mercy.”
John Stott:
“When we are united to Christ a mysterious exchange takes place: He took our curse, so that we may receive his blessing; He became with our sin, so that we might become righteous with his righteousness.”
David Dickson:
“I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad deeds, and have cast them together in a heap before the Lord, and have fled from both to Jesus Christ, and in Him I have sweet peace.”
Jerry Bridges:
“Before battery-powered watches were invented, wristwatches had to be wound every day. A watch’s stem was used not only to adjust the hands, but also to wind up the mainspring. The gradual unwinding of the mainspring throughout the day drove the mechanism of the watch to keep time. The gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ is the mainspring of the Christian life. And like the mainspring in old watches, it must be wound every day. Because we have the tendency to look within ourselves for the basis of our approval or disapproval, we must make a daily conscious effort to look outside of ourselves to the righteousness of Christ, then to stand in the present reality of our justification. Only then will we experience the stability that the first bookend is meant to provide.”
Tomorrow (7th October 2011) is the next instalment of our “First Friday Fast” at Grace Church.
It’s one day a month we encourage all the people of Grace Church to set aside, to devote time to fasting and praying for our church and the advance of the gospel in our community and city.
To encourage us all in the importance of prayer, take another nose at these notes from a recent prayer meeting. Hopefully they will remind us all of the need for devoted, earnest prayer for church and city.
Here’s a few prayer points to help us guide our praying.
GENERAL PRAYER POINTS:
THEN THERE’S A DUAL FOCUS THIS MONTH:
1) We want to pray for students and the new opportunities we have as a church to reach out to them and care for them, as the academic year gets into full swing . Also pray that the gospel goes forward on university campuses, that many students will be saved, and students be added to our local church.
2) We want to pray for the upcoming evangelistic outreaches the church is involved with:
Matt and Lizzie, Noah and Beth Chapman are living in the USA as Matt undertakes study at the Sovereign Grace Pastors College this year. We’ve asked him to keep us all up to speed with what’s happening in their world and lives. Here’s their second monthly update:
It’s hard to believe that a whole month has passed since we last wrote a post for the blog! This past month has been much busier than our first but in and through all that has been taking place, we have experienced God’s abundant kindness and generosity to us as he has met with us and provided for us again and again. Just a few evidences of his kindness to us are that we’re continuing to enjoy and benefit from deepening friendships with other families here at the Pastors College. We have received timely advice and encouragement from Gary and Betsy Ricucci that has really helped us in our parenting. And we have been provided with an abundance of toys and books for Noah and Beth to keep while we’re here!
I (Matt) have now had four weeks of classes in the Pastors College. We focus on a different area of study each week and so far we’ve covered some Systematic Theology, some Biblical Theology, some Church History and some Old Testament studies. I’ve learnt so much already but the thing that has stood out to me each and every day is this: We have a God who speaks! And he speaks clearly to us, through the Scriptures, in order to bless us and make himself known to us. Please bear with me as I just expand on this a little here. I am eager to pass on to you some of the riches of what I have been learning and I don’t want to wait until I get home to start doing so.
Some philosophers like to argue that we can’t really know true things about God because God is so much bigger than language and words and letters on a page – ‘how can language be adequate to describe God?’ they ask. But the truth that has powerfully and freshly impacted me again is that language and relationship are not human inventions. Before any part of the creation was brought into being, God was a speaking and relational God. Something that’s easy to overlook is that language is God’s idea, not man’s! When God made Adam and Eve, he made them to be creatures who could listen and talk and enjoy fellowship because he is a God who listens and talks and pursues fellowship. The all-holy, all-powerful, creator God made you and I for intimate relationship with him. This is so central to his purpose for us that he went as far as to sacrifice his own Son, to make a way for our sins to be covered and for this relationship to be restored.
Now God himself has determined that the means he will use to make us wise to all of this is to speak to us, in his own words, from between the covers of that small unassuming book called The Bible. The Bible is not like any other book we will ever read! It is God-breathed and able to make us wise for salvation. And I am excited that you and I get to read it and enjoy fellowship with our God through it each day!
During all the time that I spend each week studying and reading (and generally enjoying myself!), Lizzie has been patiently and cheerfully caring for our family and our home in a thousand and one ways. We guys are regularly reminded by those teaching us at the PC that our wives sacrifice far more and work far harder than we do each day and I have never been more aware of that than I am now. I thank God each day for Lizzie’s patience and perseverance in all that she does as a wife and mother to serve us as a family.
Lizzie has been able to fit in a few regular highlights into her weekly schedule. One of these has been a weekly ‘mums and kids’ group that is run here at the church for the wives and children of the PC students. Towards the end of the session all the husbands take a break from class to go next door and ‘surprise’ the children. Noah never fails to look surprised even though we’ve done it five times now! We’ve also taken out a family membership at the local library and I’ll often arrive home from college with two or three books I’ve been studying that day, only to find that Noah and Beth have taken out twenty new books from the library for them to study and (literally in Beth’s case) chew over!
We think of you all constantly and, while we are experiencing much blessing and enjoyment here, our hearts are very much with you all. We can’t wait to be together with you again soon and we are eager to hear about all that God has been doing in your lives while we’ve been away!
Hope you will agree that it was good to be together to lift up our voices in praise of our great God, who’s grace has saved us! It was fantastic to see so many new faces, and have the opportunity to serve lunch to our growing student community!
Tim Hacker led us in singing praises to God, and Peter Bowley led us in sharing communion, helping us to remember and rejoice in the incredible grace of God towards sinners like us; ours through the finished work of Jesus Christ.
We sang the following songs together:
Sunday’s sermon was preached by Nathan Smith and was entitled: “The Long and Winding Road to Rome“ from Acts 21-28. It was the final part of our “Momentum: The Unstoppable Gospel in the Book of Acts” series. You can listen to or download the audio file from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.
During the service on Sunday (25/09/11), as we were rejoicing in the grace and goodness of God, Angi Sussex sensed that God wanted to minister through prophetic song specifically to these who were struggling with doubt, and questioning the goodness of God, because of particular situations in their lives at present. Here’s the lyrics from the song. May they serve and encourage all who read them!
Sunday 25th September 2011
Prophetic Song for those Struggling with Doubt.
I hear your cry, I see your tears in the night
You are weak and you wonder why
You feel alone but I am with you
So let my grace, let my grace be enough
Find your strength in me the solid rock
for my power never ends
For I am the God who draws near unto
Those who call on me
I welcome you to my throne of grace
To find help in times of need
I hear your cry, my promised good you cannot see
Your situation’s not what you want it to be
But it’s my design and sovereignty
So let my peace, let my peace bring calm to your soul
In stormy trials I won’t let you go
Rest in the shadow of my wings
For I’m the God who heals the brokenhearted
I stoop down to seek the lost
I’ve shown my love and compassion for you
In the mercy of the cross
I’m the father to the fatherless
The defender of the weak
Always watching over you
Put your trust in me
So lift you eyes to me your Coming King
Lift your heart and voice to sing
Hope in my love that’s unfailing
I’m the sustainer of everything
I’m your God, trust in me
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