This Week at Cross of Grace

APRIL 21 - APRIL 27

Every Tuesday we publish a blog post to lay out in one place what’s going in the life of the church for the upcoming week. See below for a snapshot of what’s on the calendar this week:

THURSDAY, april 24

  • French Park Run Club

    • 6:30am - French Park Grass Area

  • Women’s Meeting

    • 6:30pm - DTSA - Night on the Town

    • Contact us here for location details

SUNDAY, APRIL 27

  • Sunday Gathering at the Ebell Club

    • 10:00am - Meeting Room: Ballroom

  • Youth Ministry

    • 6:30pm - Hopper & Burr in DTSA

    • Learn more here

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What Kind of Jesus Have You Come To See?

THE DYING AND RISING JESUS IS WHO WE NEED TO SEE

Easter is the good news of the new life made possible through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But we must remember that he couldn’t be raised unless he was first crucified. Though it seems so obvious, we can’t miss this. Because everyone wants life. One way or another, we’re all seeking resurrection, but no one wants to die. Yet according to the Easter story, life is given through death. Jesus died so that we may live and he invites us to come and die to that which is not life in order that we may truly live. His death and resurrection are what it took to bring us new life. Death and resurrection is the on-going shape of the Christian life: from the very beginning, in the middle, and up until the very end. We die to live. We give to receive. We sacrifice to gain. We serve to be great. We say “no” for a better “yes.” We move from suffering to glory. This is Christ's story. This is our story. This is the gospel story that we'll celebrate forever. 

LISTEN TO THE EASTER HOMILY HERE

Sermons, LatestCGSA Assistant
Why Is Good Friday “Good?”

REFLECTING ON THE DEATH OF CHRIST

Today, we remember that Jesus was crucified.

In the most egregious miscarriage of human justice ever committed, the only truly innocent man was condemned. In the height of cosmic rebellion, man and the Evil One conspired together to most defiantly reject their Maker.

Yet we call it “good,” because in and through the greatest act of evil, God worked our eternal good. Because on that first Good Friday, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). And apart from what happened on that Friday, there’d be no good news for us to celebrate Easter Sunday. Because Jesus died a death without which we could never enter new life.

Dying for us, as our Substitute. He bore the penalty of our sin in our place and on our behalf. He satisfied the righteous demands of God’s law. His blood washed away the very sins that separated us from God.

As our Representative, his death for sin meant our death to sin. We died with him so that God could do away with our old selves and raise us up as new creations.

So we call today “good” because death secured the hope of life. Because our condemnation was taken and Christ’s righteousness was given. Because crucifixion brought an end to the old for resurrection to usher in the new. Because Friday’s suffering paved the way to Sunday’s glory.

Would our hearts rest in the goodness of Good Friday to the glory of our Savior.

DON’T FORGET TO JOIN US TONIGHT AS WE REMEMBER JESUS CHRIST

7PM AT THE HOULTON HOME

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Good Friday Gathering Tomorrow

FRIDAY, APRIL 18 AT 7PM

Our Thursday & Friday evening small groups are coming together to observe Good Friday. We’ll meet in the Houlton backyard for a time of singing, reading Scripture, and reflecting upon our Savior’s sacrifice.

The meeting should be about an hour long, but feel free to bring a chair if you’d like to sit. You’re welcome to bring a snack or drink to share as well. And don’t forget to dress warm!

CONTACT US HERE FOR LOCATION DETAILS

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Using the Law “Lawfully”

THE 3 USES OF THE LAW

Our current sermon series in 1 Timothy provides us with opportunities to consider the law of God. In the letter, Paul charges Timothy to put a stop to “certain persons” within the church at Ephesus who are promoting “different doctrine,” given over to “myths” and “speculations,” and “desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they or saying or the things about which they make confident assertions” (1 Tim 1:3, 4, 7).

At the heart of the false teaching they’re promoting is an “unlawful” use of the Mosaic Law (see 1 Tim 1:8-10). This is likely occurring in either one of two (or a mix of both) ways: 1) by promoting any form of law-keeping in order to be saved and declared righteous in God’s sight, or 2) by promoting fringe, fanciful, or novel interpretations of the Mosaic Law as a means to experience true spirituality.

The problem with both of these approaches is that they are “unlawful” uses of the law which miss the point of why it was given. As scholar Philip Ryken puts it, “Paul was opposed to the self-appointed teachers of the law in Ephesus, but not to the law itself.” So, in order to help us make sense of what’s happening in 1 Timothy and rightly relate to the law in our Christian lives, we’ll consider the three classic categories for the purpose of God’s law.

TO EXPOSE AND CONDEMN SIN

While the law itself is “holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7:12) it was given “because of transgressions” (Gal 3:19). Revealed “so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified (declared righteous) in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:19-20). The first purpose of the law is to present us with God’s righteous standards and demonstrate that we’ve fallen short of meeting them. The law functions like a mirror to show us who we really are. It comes to convict us, humble us, leave us despairing of our own righteousness, and, by God’s grace, send us running to Christ.

Clashing with the potential purpose of the false teachers, the Bible makes it clear there was never a law given by which we could be saved. But instead, the law was given to show us that we were sinful, guilty, and in need of a salvation and redemption that must come from outside of us. Similar to our laws today, the law was not given to reward us. If you follow the speeding limit, you don’t get a reward. You just don’t get a ticket. The law was not given to get anything from it, it’s given to expose and condemn those who break it.

Because of this, any pursuit of law-keeping, obedience to God’s commands, or trust in anything we could do to contribute to or establish our acceptance before the holy and righteous Lawgiver is an “unlawful” use of the law. This error not only misses the first purpose of the law, it denies the gospel as well.

TO RESTRAIN EVIL AND UNRIGHTEOUSNESS

While the law cannot save or change our hearts, it can restrain people (both believers and not) from acting as unrighteously as they might otherwise. The law functions to deter wrongdoing by revealing the consequences and judgment law-breakers deserve. In the Mosaic Law, there were a variety of punishments for a variety of crimes. In our legal system today, there are sentences and outcomes assigned to those who violate the law. Ultimately, the Bible reveals that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23) and every human being made in the image of God, possesses an undeniable sense that evil deserves to be punished. In some instances, they may refrain from doing what God has said to be in the wrong, even if only out of fear of punishment or negative consequences. This restraint isn’t always the case, but that’s not because the law is unclear or isn’t all that good, but because we’re bad and go beyond its bounds.

Like Paul says in Rom 1:32, “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things (see vv.28-31) deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

1 Tim 1:3-11 seems to indicate that the false teachers in Ephesus were missing this second purpose of the law. They were so caught up in myths, speculations, and their own fringe, fanciful, and novel interpretation of the law that they forgotten the plain purpose of the law - to prevent sins! It’s in this way that the “law is not laid down for the just,” (not as in believers, but as in those who are generally well-behaved, basically righteous - from an external standpoint) “but for the lawless and disobedient” (1 Tim 1:9). The implication is that the false teachers misuse of the law was leading them to engage in the very behavior the law of God most emphatically and expressly forbids! The kind of behaviors which violate the summary of God’s righteous standards revealed in the 10 Commandments - which are echoed in the list of sins mentioned in 1:9-10 (see Ex 20:1-17; Deut 5:6-21).

Among other things happening here, the fact that the sins Paul mentions correspond with the order and contents of the 10 Commandments demonstrates the on-going and abiding validity of God’s law as a moral standard for righteous living. Even in the era of the New Covenant, after the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, these commandments remain the standard by which all mankind is judged.

TO GUIDE THE LIVES OF GOD’S REDEEMED PEOPLE

Lastly, while the law cannot be used for justification (our right-standing before God), it does have a role to play in our sanctification (our on-going growth in holiness and conformity to Christ). Paul reflects this as he cites principles from the law in order to guide the on-going life of the church (1 Tim 5:18-20). As believers, we can learn to love the law because of what the gospel has done for us and begin to use it “lawfully” in our Christian lives.

How does this work? First by acknowledging that Christ has fulfilled the law. In his perfect life and sacrificial death he kept every command of the law and satisfied the consequences for our law-breaking. This fulfillment means that there is a new way for us to relate to the law. We’re no longer bound to the ceremonial, dietary, or laws that governed Israel’s worship because Christ is our perfect high priest and perfect sacrifice. The particular civil codes, penalties, and punishments that governed national Israel - while remaining as examples of God’s righteousness applied to specific situations of social life that any government could learn from today - no longer bind God’s people (comprised of those who are spiritually united to Christ by faith) as they once did. But the moral core of the law (summarized in the 10 Commandments - which codified in time and history the righteous character and demands of God that had existed from the beginning) remains. Not so that we would strive to be saved by keeping it, but so that we’d be guided in our lives as God’s redeemed. Christ’s kept the moral law of God perfectly and then died for our every violation of it in order that we would no longer sit under its condemnation but now learn from its instruction.

Jesus himself said that the summary of the whole law is to 1) Love God, and 2) Love others (Mt 22:34-40). So what does it look like to love God and love others? It looks like the 10 Commandments. As Charles Spurgeon once put it, “You want to know what God would have you to do. Nine times out of ten, look to the Ten Commandments, and you will as least know what you must not do; and knowing what you must not do, you will be able to conclude what you may do.”

Commandments 1-4 are what it looks like to love God. Commandments 5-10 are what it looks like to love others. These commands were once written on tablets of stone under the Old Covenant, but have now been etched upon our hearts by the work of the Spirit according to the promises of the New Covenant (Jer 31:31-34; Heb 8:6-13). They are intended to be kept not only according to the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. Just as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7). Which means that the believer who has been justified and declared righteous before God by faith and filled with the Holy Spirit, can now begin to keep the law in the power of the Spirit, from the heart - not to earn or contribute to our salvation - but to become more and more like our Savior (Rom 8:1-13).

Would we meditate upon the law in order to be made more like Christ and enjoy life in God’s house to the fullest as we embrace his commands. Loving the God who has so loved us in Christ. Loving one another, “for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Rom 13:8).

FOR FURTHER READING, CLICK HERE

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This Week at Cross of Grace

APRIL 14 - APRIL 20

Every Tuesday we publish a blog post to lay out in one place what’s going in the life of the church for the upcoming week. See below for a snapshot of what’s on the calendar this week:

THURSDAY, april 17

  • French Park Run Club

    • 6:30am - French Park Grass Area

FRIDAY, APRIL 18

  • All Small Groups Good Friday Gathering

    • 7:00pm - Houlton Home

    • More details here

SUNDAY, APRIL 20

  • Easter Sunday Gathering at the Ebell Club

    • 10:00am - Meeting Room: Ballroom

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Easter Sunday is Here!

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND NEIGHBORS

Easter Sunday is this Sunday! Join us at the Ebell Club at 10:00am to hear the good news of new life in Christ. We’ll have a photo booth before and after service, enjoy coffee & treats, and have a special activity for the kids. Share the digital flyer located here with your friends, family, neighbors and on social media.

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Our Believing Roots Always Bear Moral Fruit

LIFE CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM DOCTRINE

Does it really matter what you believe as long as you're a good person? According to the Bible, apart from believing what is true it's impossible to be a good person. While our culture today strives to separate beliefs and morality, the Bible won’t allow us to make this move. This is because religious beliefs don’t stay in our heads or hearts. They always make their way out through our hands, our mouths, and the way we live our lives. 1 Timothy 1:3-11 demonstrates the inevitable connection between what we worship, trust in, and believe to be true and the moral fruit that is borne in our lives. For this reason, Paul charges Timothy to put a stop to "certain persons" in the Ephesian Church who are teaching a "different doctrine.” Their roots are planted in error, they’re devoted to “myths,” all caught up in theological “speculations,” and their lives are marked by rotten fruit. On the other hand, those who have roots sunk deeply into "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God" will yield the fruit of "love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE

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Men's Meeting Tonight

EVERY 2ND THURSDAY OF THE MONTH

All guys, 15 years and older, are invited to participate in a conversation where "men talk like men" about God. Join in at Hopper & Burr (202 W 4th St, Santa Ana, CA 92701) at 7:00 pm. Tonight the men are discussing how the truth of the gospel shapes our lives.

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Neighborhood Outreach This Saturday

MEET AT THE EBELL PARKING LOT AT 9:45AM

Join us as we strike up spiritual conversations with our neighbors in DTSA & French Park. We’ll take the initiative to get to know them, ask how we can pray for them, share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and invite them to our Easter Service.

We’re expecting the Lord will use this time : 1) to equip us for mission, 2) build up our faith, and 3) use us to draw Santa Anans closer to himself as he takes our very ordinary efforts and blesses them in extraordinary ways.

We’ll meet at the Ebell parking lot at 9:45am to pray before we go out. We’ll wrap up around noon at Hidden House for a quick debrief.

Reach out to Robert Lopez with any questions about getting involved.

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