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Justification by Faith Alone

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Justification by Faith Alone

“Abraham has been brought to faith by a faithful God. His deepest trust and belief was in the One who had promised, and not in this son whom God had provided. God’s faithfulness is evident throughout Abraham’s life—even when Abraham is the villain of the story—even when Abraham makes the dumbest move available. Abraham, a primary biblical example of faith, is also our example of the obedience brought by faith. God’s test required him to give up everything that had come together so far in the fulfillment of God’s promises; everything that had worked out so far for Abraham to get what he was hoping for, trusting God for. And Abraham can let everything good in his life go; every provision; every advance in the achievement of his hope, and ultimately his salvation, because his trust is in the giver and not in the gift…”

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Sola Fide (Galatians 1)

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Sola Fide (Galatians 1)

“…(R)ather than relaxing his command for humans to be perfect, Jesus reiterates the commands of Deuteronomy 18:13 and Leviticus 19:2 in Matthew 5:48  calling us to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And instead of relieving this righteous demand, God makes the greatest provision for purification ever, in Christ. In order to approach the all Holy God, sinners needed to be made sinless. Which is the impossible thing. So before time began, it was decided that the ultimate and only worthy sacrifice of God’s own Son, would be the necessary and perfect substitute and target of God’s good wrath, and Christ Jesus would die in the place of sinners, in order to cleanse sin fully, once for all…”

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Israel Needs a Worshipping King (1 Samuel 21 and Psalm 34)

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Israel Needs a Worshipping King (1 Samuel 21 and Psalm 34)

“…(L)et us respond to David’s testimony, and recall our own: Have we had the opportunity to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good!’ If so, let us remember and bless the Lord at all times, praise him continually and boast in the Lord to one another.”

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Israel Needs God's Covenantal Law (1 Samuel 21)

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Israel Needs God's Covenantal Law (1 Samuel 21)

“The commandments of the Law were perfectly designed by God to teach his people the definition of love. But it was their constant predisposition to keep the external elements of the law without understanding its purpose. Though keeping the law was a serious thing, with a death sentence for rebellion, love and compassion always trumped the external trappings of the law.”

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Israel Needs God's Covenantal Love (1 Samuel 20)

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Israel Needs God's Covenantal Love (1 Samuel 20)

“There must have been at least a moment—after Saul’s gaslighting—where Jonathan felt as though he had betrayed his father and dishonored his mother. And he would certainly have had some desire to claim the comfort, control and glory of royalty for himself. Any one of these emotions could have motivated him to break his commitment to David and obey his father’s edict. Looking to the end of the story, we know that Jonathan’s loyalty to God’s people not only cost him in his relationship with his own father and king, but that he suffered lifelong separation from David as well. He did not get an immediate reward of happy fellowship to replace the family relationships, position and glory that such covenant love had cost him…”

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Israel Needs an Obedient King (1 Samuel 18-19)

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Israel Needs an Obedient King (1 Samuel 18-19)
Josh Handford

Tune in as Pastor Josh preaches from the extended narrative in 1 Samuel 18-19, which is bookended the removal of royal robes:

“In this context, the robes represent everything that we desire as humans: control, comfort, and glory. These are things that are uniquely possessed by the king of Israel…Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory are unable to genuinely love the people of God. Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory will find themselves in opposition to the people of God. Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory will find themselves in opposition to God. Those who seek their own control, comfort and glory will lose it all anyway…”

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Resurrection Sunday (Romans 6:1-14)

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Resurrection Sunday (Romans 6:1-14)

“When we come to consider the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, we tend to think that Christ died so that I can live — and that is certainly part of it. But we also need to understand that the power of the cross is that Christ died so that I, if I am in Christ, am crucified with Christ and have died with him—died to myself and to sin.”

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Sola Scriptura (Hebrews 1:1-4)

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Sola Scriptura (Hebrews 1:1-4)

“…(T)he Bible is our first and last word on who God is. It is his very revelation of himself in writing. And it is the supreme source of our understanding of God and man, sin and salvation, Jesus and his Gospel. The reformers call this the doctrine of sola scriptura, or scripture alone. This means the final or highest authority on all matters is found in scripture, rest in God’s word alone, and that this authority is not to be shared by things like traditions or councils, popes or church leaders, science or reason,…or just how we feel. Which is to say, the Holy Bible stands above them all.”

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Israel Needs a Humble Warrior King (1 Samuel 17)

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Israel Needs a Humble Warrior King (1 Samuel 17)

“This is not a story about God’s people winning the battle. This is about the one who will go out before us and fight our battles. This is about the Lord of hosts, the God of armies who, through his anointed king, defeated the enemy of His people, prefiguring Christ Jesus, who doesn’t just help us to win the battles of life, but first he goes out before us, alone, to win the war. Only then does he call us to follow him in his victory. Like the Israelites, we are blessed to be a part of the clean-up action. Driving out the last remnant of our enemies — sin, death, and Satan — all who have already been wholly defeated by Christ…”

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God Gives Israel a Humble King (1 Samuel 16)

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God Gives Israel a Humble King (1 Samuel 16)

“One of the main themes of this chapter is the human inability to see what God sees.…It seems that the biblical record deliberately creates the impression that Yahweh prefers to use weak, the lowly, the disenfranchised members of society, to do his most significant work…”

ROSE CITY BAPTIST CHURCH   •   6406 44B AVENUE   •   CAMROSE, AB   •   T4V 0B6