Morningview Baptist Church

AWANA Closing Ceremony

May 22nd at 6:00 p.m.

This is our sixth year for Awana Clubs…it has been such a blessing to this church. All the children who have been involved have done a great job. Come and enjoy our closing ceremony in the Sanctuary with Cubbies, Sparks and Truth in Training on Wednesday, May 22nd at 6:00 pm. Parents, Cubbies will need to go to their rooms on the Preschool Hall, Sparks and Truth in Training will meet on the 2nd floor North. Please have them in place by 5:45. Awana will not meet during the summer months.

When:

June 3-7, 2013

9:00 a.m. – Noon

Kindergarten – 5th grade

FREE

Where:

Morningview Baptist Church

Register online or call the church office at 272-2304.

Please click the button below to sign-up for your photography time for the church directory.   The link will NOT be available when the sign-up sheets are out.

Sunday, February 3, 2013 (Morning service)

Hebrews 9:13-14

MP3: Grace and Law

I do not read nearly as much as I would like. Part of that is the result of the mound of important tasks that I have to accomplish on a week to week basis, and part of that is the result of other chosen distractions. However, I am almost always desiring more reading time, and lamenting when I fail to make it. Dr. Mohler said, “Readers are a hopeful lot. Ask most serious readers what they intend to read over the next month, and you are likely to hear a considerable list. Books stack easily in more ways than one. The stack of books to be read beside the desk or reading chair is a statement of hope. No matter how busy we find ourselves to be, the books are there waiting.” That is certainly the case for me, as I have an entire bookshelf that I call the “to read shelf.” In the hope that it will encourage us to read more, and that we might have more conversations about what we are reading, I would like to share with you 3 books that I am currently reading.

The Armies of the Lamb: the Spirituality of Andrew Fuller by Michael A. G. Haykin
My favorite genre is history. I think this is because I am a “big-picture” person, and therefore, history makes for compelling reading precisely Continue reading

This past Sunday, we had the opportunity to consider the story of the Hebrew midwives in Exodus, chapter one.  They were commanded by Pharaoh to kill the boy infants born to the Hebrew women.  Because they feared God, they refused to obey Pharaoh’s command.  When called to account for their failure to heed his command, they lied and said that the Hebrew women were vigorous and gave birth before they arrived.

We find a similar story in Joshua, chapter two.  Joshua sent spies into the land to discern the strength of Jericho.  The two spies were hidden by Rahab the harlot on the roof of her house.  When the authorities came to her seeking to arrest the spies, she lied to them; she sent them out on a false report and continued Continue reading

Lisa and I recently had the opportunity to view the latest movie release of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.”  I am always very cautious of commending any product of Hollywood, but I found the layered story of human suffering and the juxtaposition of law and grace very moving in this production.  Because of two suggestive scenes involving prostitutes, I want to caution anyone who might stumble, and I would certainly limit viewing to adults (it is rated PG-13), but as it is a current topic of discussion among our members and in our culture, I though I would provide some insights to help direct our conversations.

Joe Rigney is a professor at Piper’s Bethlehem College and Seminary.  In a blog post entitled, “Les Miserables and the Law of God,” He provides solid biblical perspective.  What follows is a significant portion of his post.

Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is again a topic of conversation, and for good reason.  Christians, in particular, have rightly celebrated the portrayal of the beauty of mercy and grace in this moving 150-year-old tale. Most of the theological analyses have contrasted Javert, the law-obsessed Inspector, with Valjean, the grace-transformed thief.  And while much Continue reading

So how are you doing on your New Years Resolutions?  By the time you receive this, you will have already had 3 or 4 days to work on them.  Are you still watching what you eat?  Are you still exercising?  Are you still keeping up with your Bible reading and study?  Are you still praying daily with your spouse?  Are you turning off the television like you need to?

The first couple weeks are always the hardest when it comes to starting new habits and honoring new personal commitments.  It is hard because starting work on new habits requires breaking old habits.  It takes discipline, a lot of hard work, and a lot of prayer and dependence on Christ and His Spirit if we are going to see fruit; but it is certainly worth it when we find success in retraining our minds and bodies.

As we embark on this new year, I wanted to provide you with some useful questions for personal evaluation and preparation.  These are from Donald S. Whitney, a dear brother in Christ who has written a great deal on biblical spirituality.  Plan now to sit down and give serious, thoughtful answers to these questions.

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

In addition to these ten questions, Whitney provides twenty-one more to help us “Consider your ways.” You could think on the entire list at once, or you could answer one question each day for a month.  It would also be very beneficial to sit down with your spouse and allow these questions to spawn discussion and guide your shared goals for the future.
11. What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?
12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what’s one way you could simplify in that area?
13. What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?
14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
15. Who is the person you most want to encourage this year?
16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?
17. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?
18. What’s one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
19. What’s one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?
20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?
21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?
22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?
23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?
24. What’s the most important trip you want to take this year?
25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?
26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?
27. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?
28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?
29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?
30. What’s the most important new item you want to buy this year?
31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

Tis the time for “New Year’s Resolutions.” While I’m not totally opposed to making New Year’s resolutions, I would submit that there is no power in them at all. The power to change your life does not come from your personal resolve, but from God’s resolve.

When we make New Year’s resolutions, we often focus on ourselves, our determination, our discipline, and our personal efforts. But our focus should never be on ourselves, especially when it comes to personal change. Our focus should be on God and what He has done in Christ, is doing in Christ and will do in Christ. When we think on God’s resolutions, our hearts are won to Him and then we lovingly, joyfully, and willingly resolve to change for His glory.

So this year, rather than making “New Year’s resolutions” (especially ones not found in the Bible), I would encourage you to think on God’s resolutions. Certainly God’s resolutions are never limited to the New Year, and that’s part of their beauty. God’s resolutions originate in eternity, and they remain immutably constant in time. God’s resolutions never need to be renewed because He brings every one of them to pass according to the times appointed in His eternal decree.

Let us simply look on Him and His works. Let us look away from ourselves, away from our sins, away from our faith, away from our love and good works, and instead set our eyes upon our God.

Consider just a few of God’s eternal resolutions related to “newness.”

1. He resolved to forgive us. “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. . . . I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa 43:19, 25).

2. He resolved to create a new heavens and a new earth in which weeping will be no more. “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress” (Isa 65:17-19).

3. He resolved to make an unbreakable new covenant, unlike the old covenant. “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer 31:31-34).

4. He resolved that His love and mercy will never come to an end, but that they are new every morning. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lam 3:22-23).

5. He resolved to give His people one heart and a new spirit that walks in His commandments. “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezek 11:19-20).

6. He resolved to make His people a new creation in Christ. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17).

7. He resolved to end the division between Jews and Greeks (and all racial/ethnic divisions) and to make one new man in Christ. “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph 2:14-16).

8. He resolved to open a new and living way to Himself through the shed blood of His Son. “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (Heb 10:19-20).

9. He resolved to make all things new. “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true” (Rev 21:5).

It is very hard to process a tragedy like the one that took place in Newton, Connecticut this past Friday.  Murder of even one person is appalling.  Mass murder is exceedingly horrific.  The mass murder of children is inconceivable.  We must continue to be in prayer for the families affected by this tragedy, especially this week, as so many funerals are conducted and as the town reels in emotional trauma.  Pray specifically that the gospel of Christ would be lifted up and that the grace of Christ would bring ultimate peace to troubled hearts.

In the aftermath of this event, we have seen differing factions passionately take up their positions on mental health, gun control, and media violence.  Some piece of inadequate legislation will undoubtedly follow.  While we may need to evaluate ourselves and make some hard decisions in these areas, the real issues behind such wicked acts Continue reading