Bulletin for June 2, 2024

Is the Sabbath on Saturday?

Something I don’t have time to mention in the sermon this week on Exodus 16 is the timing of the Sabbath. We will talk about Sabbath principles, but another important question is “When is the Sabbath? Saturday or Sunday?”

In Exodus 16:23, we get the first appearance of the word “Sabbath” in Scripture:

[Moses] said to them, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’”

Often, we think of “Sabbath” as referring to the seventh day of the week. The reason is that, over time, the seventh day of the week came to be associated with the word Sabbath. But Sabbath simply means something like “holiday.” A Sabbath is a period of time where work ceases.

Notice that in Exodus 16, God makes the seventh day a Sabbath, a holiday. It’s not unlike how the President can say the last Monday in May is a federal holiday. There’s nothing special about that Monday, but the President makes it special by designating it as Memorial Day. However, there’s nothing stopping him from moving Memorial Day to the fourth Tuesday in May. It’s not the date itself that is special; it is the President’s decree.

The same is true of the Sabbath day. There’s nothing special about the seventh day in itself. Seven is just a number. But when God made a law concerning the seventh day, then it became special. In fact, God applies the name of Sabbath to other days in the Old Covenant as well (see for example, the feasts listedin Lev. 23). And just as the President can move Memorial Day, God, as the lawgiver, can move of the Sabbath. In fact, he did just that. After the resurrection of Christ, God moved the Sabbath day to the first day of the week through the authority of the apostles (more on that another time).

If you want to read more about the Saturday to Sunday change, check out this article.

Updates

1. Wednesday Night Adult Bible Study will be taking the month of June off. In addition to being out a couple of weeks, I’ll be working on several extra things this month. We’ll pick back up in July.

2. Remember, we’ve got the new prayer request cards if you want to add someone to the bulletin. And thank you to those of you who filled one out Sunday. This is just to help keep me organized and to make sure no one falls through the cracks!

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for May 26, 2024

For Whom Did Jesus Die?

On Wednesday night, we briefly touched on the doctrine of limited atonement or particular redemption. This is the doctrine that answers the question, “For whom did Christ die?” Reformed Christians have answered this question with different nuances, but the central thing we have to affirm is that Christ shed his blood for those whom the Father had promised him, not indiscriminately.

I mentioned a couple of key passages from the gospel of John, but we didn’t have time to dive into them. The following lecture/sermon walks through the passages and clearly explains them.

Announcements

1. Don’t forget that our Parents’ Fellowship meets Sunday night at 5! We’ll continue working through Jonah.

2. PROMISS bottles are due on June 16th. That’s also Father’s Day. If you haven’t picked up a bottle or want to do extra, there are some in the Fellowship Hall.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for May 19, 2024

Psalm 122

Our call to worship this Lord’s Day is a responsive reading of Psalm 122. This is one of the Psalms of Ascent which presumably would have been sung as God’s people made their pilgrimages to the temple in the Old Covenant. In the New Covenant, we no longer go up the physical Temple Mount; instead, we ascend into the heavenly Jerusalem any time we gather for worship. Our Jerusalem is a spiritual city, as Hebrews 12:22 reminds us. So how does Psalm 122 direct us how to enter into God’s presence?

The Psalm starts this way:

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”

Is this your attitude toward worship? When you alarm goes off on Sunday morning, are you delighted, or do you come to worship begrudgingly?

Furthermore, the Psalm reminds us that our purpose in worship is to give thanks to the Lord (v. 4). Often, we come to church looking to “get something.” Of course, God does give us something in worship. He gives himself in the promises of the gospel, in the Word and sacrament and prayer. But our first priority should be to give things. Is this your priority?

Finally, verse 9 reminds us that we are to seek the good of the house (meaning the household or family) of God. Our next priority in worship, after the thankfulness of God, is the love of our Christian neighbors. Once again, is this your priority?

Psalm 122, then, reminds us that we are to enter into God’s house with joy for the love of God and neighbor. As we approach this Lord’s Day, examine your own heart. Is this your desire?

If you want some music to help you reflect, here’s a choral setting of Psalm 122. The text is directly from the New King James Version of the Bible.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for May 12, 2024

Psalm 106

This week, we’re going to start learning a new psalm. Psalm 106 is the last psalm of Book 4, and the last of three “Hallelujah” psalms. Book 4 is all about the hope of the heavenly king (Jesus), and Psalms 104-106 end that theme with an explosion of praise.

Psalm 104 is praise to God for his creation, and 105-106 are praise to God for his redemption. Psalm 105 is about God’s faithfulness in redemption, but the unique contribution of Psalm 106 is that it’s about Israel’s unfaithfulness in redemption. This is key to understanding how redemption works. All we can offer to God is our own sin, but in spite of our failure, he is faithful.

Psalm 106 illustrates this by rehearsing several key events of the wilderness wanderings. As we study these wilderness wanderings over the next few weeks, we’ll be singing the portions of the Psalm that go with our sermon text. You may notice that some of the verses go with events in Numbers, so we won’t be singing those. In particular, we won’t sing verses 9-14 (vv. 24-43 according to the numbering in your Bible.) But it might be interesting to go back and study those for yourself.

Updates

1. Bible Camp is scheduled for the week of June 24th. Be sure to mark you calendars!

2. The next Parents’ Fellowship is May 26th.

3. As always, don’t forget to support our mercy ministries, Antioch’s Food Pantry and PROMISS!

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for May 5, 2024

Bulletin for April 28, 2024

The Divinity of Jesus in Titus

As Christians, we confess that Jesus is God. A lot of times, we take that for granted, but it is actually something that comes straight out of Scripture. In particular, although it’s not the main point of the epistle, we can clearly see that Paul understands Jesus to be God in Titus.

If you look for the word “Savior” in Titus, you’ll see that it appears six times.

The first two are back to back in Titus 1:3-4:

…and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

Notice that first God is called Savior, and immediately following, Christ Jesus is called Savior.

Two more times, God is referred to as Savior, in Titus 2:10 and 3:4:

…not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared…

Once more, Jesus Christ is Savior in Titus 3:6:

…whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior…

But the kicker is in Titus 2:13:

…waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…

There are two ways to understand this verse. Either our great God refers to the Father, and Savior refers to Jesus Christ, but I am more inclined to see the whole phrase “our great God and Savior” as a unified phrase all referring to Jesus Christ.

But the point is this: in Titus, we can clearly see that Paul understands God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son to be one. They both take on the same title, Savior.

So next time the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on your door, you can turn to Titus to have a discussion about the divinity of Christ!

Updates

1. Yesterday, I was at First Presbyterian Pascagoula for our Gulf South Presbytery meeting. I’ll have some great updates for you tomorrow, but please continue to pray for our missionaries and church plants as they seek the minister in the places they’re called.

2. Rev. Ron Pierce is joining us next week, May 5, to preach and serve communion. Be preparing your hearts this next week.

3. Parents’ Fellowship meets tomorrow at 5 at the Newmans’ house.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for April 21, 2024

Psalm 113

This Sunday, we will open our worship service with a responsive call to worship from Psalm 113. This psalm is the first of the Hillel psalms (113-118) which would have been sung each year at the Passover. In Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26, it says that Jesus and his disciples sang a “hymn.” That almost certainly refers to this sequence of psalms.

Psalm 113 is a call to praise God, and it lists several reasons to praise him.

Praise the LORD! Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD! Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised! The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens!

Verses 1-4 tell us to praise God because he is creator. We praise him because he is sovereign over all things. He sets the sun in its place, and he establishes all the rulers of the earth. Nothing is outside of his control. This is certainly enough reason to praise him, but there’s more.

Who is like the LORD our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the LORD!

Verses 5-9 tell us to praise God because he is our redeemer. Although God is high above all things, sitting on the throne of heaven, he does not remain unapproachable. In fact, he bends down from his throne to raise up the poor and needy. This is exactly what Christ did in his incarnation, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6-7).

We are the poor and needy, and he raises us up from the dust and ash by becoming dust and ash himself, i.e., by becoming man. He takes barren Israel, and makes her fruitful so that the children of God are multiplied with the gospel. He gives the church a home in heaven, and guards her from all danger.

When we worship each Sunday, we rejoice in this–that God is both creator and redeemer. This is how John Calvin summarizes this truth:

In this ruin of mankind no one now experiences God either as Father or as Author of salvation, or favorable in any way, until Christ the Mediator comes forward to reconcile him to us. Nevertheless, it is one thing to feel that God as our Maker supports us by his power, governs us by his providence, nourishes us by his goodness, and attends us with all sorts of blessings—and another thing to embrace the grace of reconciliation offered to us in Christ. First, as much in the fashioning of the universe as in the general teaching of Scripture the Lord shows himself to be simply the Creator. Then in the face of Christ [cf. II Cor. 4:6] he shows himself the Redeemer. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.2.1)

Updates

1. Parents’ Fellowship is scheduled to meet again on April 28th (next Sunday) at 5 PM. We’ll be diving deep into what the Bible teaches about how to study the Bible.

2. Presbyterian Women will meet on Thursday, May 2, at 6:30 PM

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletins for April 14, 2024

What’s Happening Sunday?

This Sunday, we’re doing something a little unusual. In fact, it’s possible that some of you may have never seen this kind of service before. Under normal circumstances, elders in the local church are ordained and installed in the local church by the local Session, but since we have been received into the EPC, our elders need to be installed by our new presbytery. We’ll have elders from several churches in our presbytery joining us for this service.

Ordination is what makes someone an elder. This is done through the laying on of hands by other elders (see 1 Tim. 4:14, 2 Tim. 1:6), and it is only done one time–once an elder, always an elder. Installation is when an ordained elder is appointed to a particular role. All of our elders have previously been ordained, so the purpose of Sunday evening’s service is to install them as elders in the EPC. They will take vows to serve the church with moral integrity and doctrinal purity, and the congregation will take vows to sumbit to and support the elders in their calling. This is a very solemn and important event in the life of our church, but it is also a great time of rejoicing and thanksgiving for God’s provision to us.

Also, here’s a short video explaining the basic of Presbyterian church government to help you:

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for April 7, 2024

Psalm 87

This Sunday, we’ll open worship with a responsive call to worship from Psalm 87. Then, we’ll sing “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.” John Newton (also the author of “Amazing Grace”) wrote this hymn as a reflection on Psalm 87. So I thought it would be good to prepare you with a couple thoughts on what this psalm means.

Psalm 87 is divided into three stanzas by the word “Selah”–vv. 1-3, 4-6, and 7.

On the holy mount stands the city he founded;
the LORD loves the gates of Zion
more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.
Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God. Selah

Zion/Jerusalem/the city of God are all used in the psalms to designate the place of God’s worship. In the Old Covenant, the highest worship happened on the Temple Mount in the city where the people would gather periodically to perform their duties. Of course, there were synagogues throughout the land of Israel, and the people worshipped each Sabbath in these smaller settings. But notice what the psalm says, “The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.” The people’s synagogue worship was certainly accepted by God, but the fullest and best expression of worship occurred in the Temple.

In the New Covenant, these terms are redefined. The temple is now the body of Christ and the people of God (Eph. 2:21). When God’s people gather, they themselves constitute the temple. This is why the author of Hebrews can say that we have “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22).

So Psalm 87 takes on new meaning in the New Covenant. It is still true that the LORD loves Zion more than the dwelling places of Jacob, but Zion is no longer bound to a physical hill in Jerusalem. Zion is the weekly gathered worship of God’s people. This also means that, although it is good to worship God privately and in our families, the pinnacle of our worship, the most important time of our week, is weekly Lord’s Day worship. This, of course, makes this psalm particularly appropriate for our call to worship. When we read this together, we are proclaiming the value of the worship that we are about to engage in. Our weekly worship is the thing that most delights God in this life, and it should also be the thing that most delights us.

Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;
behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush–
“This one was born there,” they say.
And of Zion it shall be said,
“This one and that one were born in her”;
for the Most High himself will establish her.
The LORD records as he registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.” Selah

In the second, we get a catalog of some of the nations that surround Israel. Each of these nations is praising the one who is born in Jerusalem. The word “born” here can mean physical birth, but more generally, it refers to any “bringing forth.” Those who are born/brought forth in Zion have a special distinction of belonging to the LORD who makes note of them.

Of course, in the New Covenant, one element of salvation is the new birth–we are born again to a living hope. To borrow Jesus’ words from John 3, we are born of the Spirit. Verses 4-6, then, are a picture of the nations coming to God’s temple to rejoice with his people, which is ultimately fulfilled in the church.

Singers and dancers alike say,
“All my springs are in you.”

The spring (some translations, “fountain”) is the source of water. In the same way, the public worship of God among the people of God is the source of life. When we ascend Mount Zion each Sunday morning, we are going to drink from the well of living water. We call these springs the means of grace: the Word, sacraments, and prayer.¹ It is in these things that God has promised to meet us, and they are found in their most potent and concentrated form in public worship.

So as we worship this Sunday, let us delight in the streams of living water God offers us, the streams that flow from his holy temple, the people of God.

Updates

1. The floors are getting closer, but we’re not quite there yet! We’ve got one more week out of the Fellowship Hall, and one more week of adult Sunday school in the sanctuary.

2. Keep in mind that we’ll have a special installation service next Sunday, April 14th, at 5pm. Be sure to join us to welcome our guests and celebrate our elders!

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletins for Easter Weekend 2024

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