CCC Gainesville | Blog
Next Week our Middle School students will be packing Christ Community for the annual Lock-in! It will be an action packed night with games, tournaments, food, and even an inflatable game. Your student won’t want to miss this night! Cost is $15 per student.
Contact Drew Donovan for more information: ddonovan@christcommunitychurch.com
During this year’s Holy Week (the week before Easter Sunday), we will have a service on Maundy Thursday and Secret Church on Good Friday. Secret Church is six hours of intensive Bible teaching and worship. Watch this brief trailer for this year’s Secret Church – Heaven, Hell, and the End of the World:
Registration for Secret Church will open next week, so we also wanted to share a couple of testimonies from our own people about their experience last year!
From Daniel Turner:
My experience with David Platt’s Secret Church is that it makes me more excited about the Bible, gives me a bigger view of God and a higher value for how he’s revealed himself to us, and sends me away wanting to know Him more. I’ve watched a number of David Platt’s Secret Church sessions and this has been the case each time, no matter the particular topic. Because of watching these teaching sessions, I have a more comprehensive understanding of how God is the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament and the God of today. I highly recommend taking advantage of the opportunity to participate in this experience on Good Friday, March 29, at Christ Community!
From Jonathan Berry:
The whole idea of Secret Church seems completely counter-cultural. In a time where technology allows people to fit sermons and studies perfectly into ever-busier days, having a six-hour Bible study on a Friday night calls us to set ourselves aside and intentionally, intensively seek God through His Word. When we gathered for Secret Church last year, we didn’t witness a big spectacle. We worshiped with several hymns, and then with Pastor David Platt’s guidance, we spent about 6 hours in Biblical study and prayer, seeking to understand more about Suffering. This year, we’ll be doing the same thing, but exploring Heaven, Hell, and the End of the World. There won’t be a large production, but there will be a community of people desperate to understand what God has revealed about His plans and desiring to follow Him better. There will be deep and powerful Biblical teaching, and there will be time to marvel at God’s glory and the plans he has to spread it across the Earth. And in case staying up until 1 A.M. seems impossible, there will be coffee. I hope you’ll be willing to set aside one night and come join us in seeing and savoring the wisdom and glory of God on March 29!
Two New Adult Education Classes—Begins April 7th
9:00AM—“Gospel in Life – From Heart to Culture” Join author and pastor Timothy
Keller in a 12-week study of the gospel (10 minute videos from Tim Keller) and the ways to live it
out in your everyday life. Topics include: the focus on the city, the centrality of the heart, the need
to live by grace, the significance of idolatry, the importance of cultural engagement, the role of
work in mission, and more. Led by Ken French.
10:30AM—”From Gethsemane to Galilee: Poetry of Death and Resurrection”
Consider poetic responses to and reflections on Christ’s death and resurrection. For centuries,
poets have been drawn to the story of Christ’s passion, and we hope that each week the readings
will encourage our own thoughtful consideration of this central moment in the Christian story.
We hope to foster insight into how our contemplation of Christ might be both challenged and
renewed.
*Participants need not read in advance, but poems will be posted online. Led by Stephen Addcox.
By RC Sproul
By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies”
Hebrews 11:31
As Christians we are well-informed about the necessity of faith. We are justified by faith alone. We persevere in salvation through faith alone. Our glorification comes only after living a life of faith.
Even though we know that faith is absolutely necessary if we are to please God (Heb. 11:6), sometimes we have trouble understanding exactly what true faith looks like. Happily, God, in His providence, has provided examples of true persevering faith for us in redemptive history. Hebrews 11 lists many of these examples for us.
Today’s passage discusses the faith of Rahab, the woman who hid Israelites spying on the city of Jericho shortly before the conquest of Canaan (Josh. 2). It took great faith for her to risk her own safety and hide the spies. This faith was rewarded when she and her family were spared the destruction that came to the city (6:22–25).
Rahab is a remarkable character for several reasons. First, she is the only other woman besides Sarah mentioned specifically in the catalog of faith found in Hebrews 11. Thus we can see that she occupies a place of prominence among the other great heroes of the faith such as Abraham and Moses. Her inclusion demonstrates that both women and men are required to exercise persevering faith and are both honored citizens in the kingdom of God. Rahab’s prominence is also markedly displayed in Matthew 1 where she is only one of two women mentioned in the genealogy of Christ.
Rahab was also a Gentile. She was not one of Abraham’s physical descendants and yet was accepted into Israel, God’s people. She foreshadows the great ingrafting of Gentiles into the church now happening under Christ. Like her, those who are outside the people of God today can join His kingdom if they place their faith in Christ alone.
Finally, knowing that Rahab was a prostitute is a reminder of God’s mercy. John Owen says that Rahab is “a blessed example both of the sovereignty of God’s grace and of its power; of its freedom and sovereignty, in the calling and conversion of a person given up through her choice to the vilest of sins. Nobody, no sin, should lead to despair when the cure of God’s sovereign, almighty grace is engaged.” There is no sinner, no matter their sin, that cannot be forgiven if they would but turn to Jesus for salvation.
Q: What does God require in the first, second and third commandments?
A: First, that we know and trust God as the only true and living God. Second, that we avoid all idolatry and do not worship God improperly. Third, that we treat God’s name with fear and reverence, honoring also his Word and works.
As John Lin says in the video this week, the first three commandments show how we can point to the only true and living God. The first one requires that He is to be the exclusive object of our worship, love, and desire. The second one asks that we worship who God really is, not what we want Him to be for us. The third commands that whenever we speak of God, whether through words or lifestyle, we fully respect who He is. These commandments are in place to check our motives for worshiping God. If we look to our goals in life to provide us with deeper comfort than God, we violate the first commandment. If we only worship Him because he will provide us with comfort, we violate the second commandment. John Lin describes such violations as creating a “designer” God. The first two commandments ask that we look to Him as the only true and worthy candidate of our worship. As we recently reviewed in Foundations, our chief purpose for living is to glorify God. He deserves to be worshiped for who He is, not who we think He should be. He created us to desire Him. If we constantly try to replace God or change who He is, we will never be at peace. True comfort, true significance, true joy, and true love can never be grasped without the only true God. If God is at the center of our lives, and as we seek to honor these three commandments, we can begin to know true satisfaction.
This is week 9 of 52 catechism readings from New City Catechism. Christ Community is reciting an entry from the catechism each Sunday in 2013.
