A New Church Positioned To Serve Its Hurting City

Grace City Church, led by Joshua Earl, was scheduled to launch their first Sunday service on Sunday, September 23. Little did they know when they decided on that date that a hurricane would have swept through the city less than two weeks prior.

Wilmington, North Carolina has been ravaged by Hurricane Florence. Most of the church were able to evacuate. The city they’ll be returning to soon, though, will be in dire need of restoration, lacking resources, yet filled with grieving people. Though Grace City is a small, new church, God has positioned them to do Gospel ministry in their city in an impactful way. Pray for our brothers and sisters as they respond to the devastation in Wilmington.

To learn about their specific prayers requests, read this blog post written by Joshua Earl, published on the Sovereign Grace Churches blog.

Every Partial Satisfaction Is Intended To Remind Us Of Jesus’ Perfect Satisfaction

The feeding of the 5000 is one of the most famous of all the miracles of Jesus. It’s also a miracle that Jesus performed to teach His followers, us included, something about Himself. It’s important that we understand exactly what He was trying to teach us. If we come away from that story thinking that Jesus wants to “multiply” our food, money, friendships, or any other temporal thing, we’ve missed the point. Jesus offers something far greater.

Listen to last week’s message to discover what Jesus offers

Sunday, October 7 @ The 2nd Street Promenade

Oftentimes on Sundays, once we’re dismissed from the service, our time together has only just begun. We have a church full of people who love one another and love their neighbors. We want to provide ample outlets for that love.

We’re excited to announce that:

On The First Sunday of Every Other Month

We’ll all head over to the 2nd Street Promenade immediately after church to have lunch amongst our neighbors. Here are the details:

• It’s “BYOL” (bring your own lunch). If you forget your lunch or your favorite lunchbox isn’t clean, there are plenty of great restaurants right there and you can even get some great food at the Farmer’s Market that lasts from 11-3 every Sunday!

• It’s optional - but we highly encourage coming!

• Bring some folding chairs - unless you like sitting on bricks, bring something to sit on; a blanket at least.

• Expect the Lord to build existing relationships and create new ones with our neighbors

Downtown Santa Ana - Friday @ 7:00pm

East Santa Ana - Friday @ 7:00pm

Our small groups encourage genuine relationships within the church. Each group meets in a home, splitting their time between singing, praying, and discussion. It’s all centered around God’s Word and the Gospel of Jesus.

Children are welcome at these meetings, but if it’s your first time, please let the host know ahead of time that you’ll be bringing children, so that we can adequately accommodate. All of our groups welcome guests, so feel free to bring a friend or two.

If you’d like directions or more information, email kyle@sovgraceoc.org.

Take a Few Minutes To Write a Review

We want our neighbors to know that we're here, that we're here to serve them and that we're here to stay. Online presence is one of the best ways to spread that news. Help Sovereign Grace Santa Ana become more visible online by writing a review on Yelp. We want to do everything we can, including making our church as easy to find as possible, to spread the joy of Jesus to our neighbors. 

The Identity of Jesus Is Not Up For Interpretation

This past Sunday, we continued our series in the book of John with John 5:16-47, where Jesus, for the first time in John’s Gospel, testifies concerning exactly who He is and where He’s come from. His opponents understood exactly who He was claiming to be: God. Not only does He testify to this identity, but He points to four additional witnesses. The question we and His opponents are left with is, “which witnesses will you choose to listen to?”

Listen to the message here

We’re 5 chapters into the book of John together in our preaching series. Next week, the tone of John’s Gospel takes a turn as he transitions into the next major section. Through longer books like this one, it’s often helpful to take occasional trips through the entire book to get out of the “trees” and see “the forest”. If you’d like to read straight through, we’ve made a version without chapter or verse divisions designed specifically for reading through long chunks at a time. Spend some time this week and catch a glimpse of the forest of the book of John again.

Jesus Doesn’t Want You To Welcome Him

It’s remarkable how often Jesus is referred to Kindly, whether He’s called “a good teacher”, “a great example to follow” or even “the most well-known person in history”. The Galileans of John 4:43-5:15 received Jesus in a similar way - they “welcomed” Him.

Jesus Wants You To Believe In Him

However, Jesus’ response to their welcome reminds us that He didn’t come to be merely welcomed. He didn’t come to be popular or famous or seen as respectable or even as a miracle-worker. He came to be believed in as the Messiah - the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.

Listen to the message here.

Men’s Meeting Thursday. 7:00pm. 4th Street Market Front Patio

Paul writes to the men of the church in Rome “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (Rom. 16:13). This is a solemn charge for a lifelong task. Christian men need God’s Word, God’s grace and other men to effectively and consistently act like men. We meet once a month to discuss, encourage one another and fellowship together toward that very goal. All men, high school-age and up are welcome. For questions, email kyle@sovgraceoc.org.

Equipping Future Teachers For The Local Church

God has gifted every believer with gifts for the explicit purpose of building up the local church. As each person uses and grows in their gifting, it brings glory to God and the intended effect occurs - the church becomes a little bit more like what it is supposed to be. For the next 3 months, a group of men will be gathering every other Sunday evening to grow in the gift of preaching God's Word. They'll read Christ Centered Preaching, have discussions, prepare sermons and some will even preach in the coming months. 

Some have preached many sermons. Some have never taught. We believe that the future preachers, teachers and leaders of Sovereign Grace Santa Ana will be men like these. Please pray that God's grace would be experienced by this group as they seek to honor Him by making much of Christ through the preached Word.