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God First Loved Us

“We love Him, because He first loved us.” | 1 John 4: 19

Because He first loved us, there are some things that we, God’s people, love about Him:

We love His sovereignty. We love the fact that He has the power, ability, and right to do as He pleases. We especially love that truth because He said, in Christ, it pleased Him to make us His people. “For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake: because it hath pleased the LORD to make you his people.” (1 Samuel 12: 22)

We love His election. We love who He elected to save. He said He chose to save sinners, and that is what we are. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” (1 Timothy 1: 15)

We love His predestination. It is the means that He said He would use to conform us to the image of Christ, and that is our greatest desire and need. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8: 29)

We love His grace, because it is what gave Christ to us.

We love His mercy, because it is what gave Christ to the cross of our punishment. It is what shed His blood for the payment of our sin.

We love His redemption, because it is finished. We are washed clean, made pure, and accepted in Him.

We love His righteousness, because it has covered everything that we are in our flesh with His perfection.

We love His glory, because it magnifies Him.

We love His word, because it reveals Him.

We love His message, because it points us and calls us to Him.

We love His people, because there is no greater pleasure on earth than being with those who love Him and desire to worship and praise Him together.

The glorious gospel of Christ is in the fact that He loved us, even when there was nothing about us to love.

For that, we love Him.

~ Pastor Gabe Stalnaker

Click here to listen to the message “The Problem Is Within”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 18 April, 2021 | Previous post date: 21 April, 2021

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DOGS

”Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” | Matthew 15: 25-27

My wife and I have a little dog. We love that little dog.

That little dog serves no real purpose in life, she only desires to be the object of our affection.

She begs for food. Sometimes she has to be cleaned up after. She is totally dependent on us and without our constant care, she will die.

She is somewhat a liability. Yet, in spite of her liabilities, she brings us great joy.

She is always glad to see us when we return from being away.

She loves us dearly and desires to be with us every hour.

We go to great lengths to make sure every need of our dog is provided for. We see to it that she is treated with compassion and tender care. Regardless of all her endearing qualities, at the end of the day, she is still a dog.

She still acts like a dog. I think she enjoys being a dog. Many dogs in this world do not fare so well as our dog does.

From my perspective, being OUR dog is a wonderful privilege. I have seen other dogs that do not fare as well as our dog. It seems that the quality of a dog’s life depends on who their master is.

I rejoice greatly that I, the dog that I am, belong to that Master who constantly sees to it that I have all I need and yet much more.

My Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, requires only one thing from me in return.

What does He require of me?

Nothing but my love, adoration and worship of Him.

How wonderful and life sustaining it is to constantly eat of the crumbs that fall from His table.

Child of God, I like being my Master’s dog! Don’t you?

~ Pastor David Eddmenson

Click here to listen to the message “Even Dogs Get Crumbs”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Central Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 31 October, 2021 | Previous post date: n/a | Rocky Mount, Virginia

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There Are Only Two Religions

”But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” | Luke 10: 42

There are only two kinds of religion in the world.

The one says, “Nothing in my hands I bring”; the other says, “Something in my hands I bring.”

Click here to listen to the message “The One Thing Needful”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 18 April, 2018 | Previous post date: n/a

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Eternally Beloved of the Lord

“We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation.” | 2 Thessalonians 2: 13

If you are “beloved of the Lord,” you always were “beloved of the Lord.”

He did not begin to love you when you repented of sin and believed on Christ. God saw you in Christ in His eternal covenant and loved you then. That love for those “beloved of the Lord” was shown two thousand years ago when it pleased Him to bruise His Son for you.

Christ redeemed you not only before you were aware of His grace, but before you were born. There was nothing in you to merit His eternal, infinite, and unchangeable love.

On the contrary, you were His enemies, profaned His name, and even despised His mercy after you heard about it. “HEREIN IS LOVE, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

~ Pastor Henry Mahan

Click here to listen to the message “Man’s Religion – God’s Redemption”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 11 July, 2021 | Previous post date: n/a

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“Plucked Out of the Burning”

“I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.” | Amos 4: 11

And here I am plucked as a brand out of the burning, sought out by the Lord, a monument of mercy permitted and privileged to proclaim the glorious gospel of the grace of God!

Surely there must be a cause!

The cause, I tell you, was not in me, for I hated God and religion, but in the Sovereign choice of Jehovah, Who will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. (Romans 9: 15)

~ Abraham Booth

Click here to listen to the message “The Truth From Romans 9”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Central Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 20 June, 2021 | Previous post date: n/a | Rocky Mount, Virginia

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SALVATION IS OF THE LORD

“But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD” | Psalm 37: 39

We have all heard of putting the cart before the horse. That summarizes man’s religion.

It inverts the divine order. It makes forgiveness the end rather than the beginning of salvation.

Man’s religion says you must believe before you can have life, rather than you believe because you live. It says God will if you will, rather than God will and you shall. It makes man the deciding factor rather than God. Anything that has man as the deciding factor is doomed for failure.

Thank God, “Salvation is of the Lord”

~ Pastor Todd Nibert

Click here to listen to the message “The True Jew”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 6 June, 2021 | Previous post date: n/a

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No Rewards in Heaven

“Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.” | Psalm 29: 2

God’s glory is the result of his nature and acts.

He is glorious in his character, for there is such a store of everything that is holy, and good, and lovely in God, that he must be glorious. The actions which flow from his character are also glorious; but while he intends that they should manifest to his creatures his goodness, and mercy, and justice, He is equally concerned that the glory associated with them should be given only to himself.

Nor is there aught in ourselves in which we may glory; for who maketh us to differ from another? And what have we that we did not receive from the God of all grace? Then how careful ought we to be to walk humbly before the Lord!

The moment we glorify ourselves, since there is room for one glory only in the universe, we set ourselves up as rivals to the Most High. Shall the insect of an hour glorify itself against the sun which warmed it into life? Shall the potsherd exalt itself above the man who fashioned it upon the wheel? Shall the dust of the desert strive with the whirlwind? Or the drops of the ocean struggle with the tempest?

Give unto the Lord, all ye righteous, give unto the Lord glory and strength; give unto him the honour that is due unto his name. Yet it is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence: “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory.” It is a lesson which God is ever teaching us, and teaching us sometimes by most painful discipline.

Let a Christian begin to boast, ‘I can do all things’, without adding ‘through Christ which strengtheneth me’, and before long he will have to groan, ‘I can do nothing’, and bemoan himself in the dust. When we do anything for the Lord, and he is pleased to accept of our doings, let us lay our crown at his feet, and exclaim, ‘Not I, but the grace of God which was with me’!”

~ Charles H. Spurgeon

Click here to listen to the message “No rewards in heaven”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 20 June, 2021 | Previous post date: n/a

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His Resurrection and Our Regeneration

“For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” | Romans 4: 3

The power of God that quickened us and made us to live spiritually is, in the Scriptures, compared with that power which raised Christ from the dead. Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. (Romans 4: 25) We live because He lives; and we are free from sin because our Surety, who bore our sins, is now free from them. But there is a likeness between His resurrection and our regeneration and quickening. (Ephesians 1: 19-20)

1). His resurrection is called a begetting. He is the first-begotten from the dead. Our regeneration is called a begetting. (1 Peter 1: 3)

2). His human body was lifeless in the grave, as natural men are dead in sin and without spiritual life. (Romans 5: 12)

3). His human body could not raise itself, as we cannot give ourselves life. (Romans 9: 13-16; James 1: 18)

4). His resurrection was the pure, unaided work of God, as is our regeneration. (Ephesians 2: 1)

5). His resurrection led to His exaltation at the right hand of God and is where, in our representative, Jesus Christ, we are already seated. (Ephesians 2: 6)

~ Pastor Henry T. Mahan

Click here to listen to the message “Imputed Righteousness”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Zebulon Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 20 June, 2021 | Previous post date: n/a | Pikeville, Kentucky

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Esau Have I Hated

“As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” | Romans 9: 13

When I was first exposed to the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God, the above verse became the sledge-hammer that I used to pulverize the erroneous doctrines of “Universal Redemption,” “God loving everybody” and “Christ dying for everyone.”

It was almost as though I rejoiced in the fact that “God hated Esau.”

I don’t feel or think that way any longer.

The more God shows me how much l am like Jacob, the wretched deceiver that he was, the more my heart is astonished that God could love Jacob or me. I understand how He could hate me, but how He could love me is beyond my understanding.

~ Pastor David Eddmenson

Click here to listen to the message “The Water and the Blood”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 9 May, 2021 | Previous post date: n/a

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True Faith

“And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.” | 2 Samuel 11: 26-27

True faith throbs in a man’s pulse, it looks out of his eyes, it lights up his countenance, it softens his touch, it mellows his voice, it bows his head, it bends his knee, it opens his hand, it soft-pedals his tongue, it breaks his heart, it orders his steps, and it gives him a hearing ear. He lives for Christ; and, if necessary, he would die for Him.

~ Pastor Henry Mahan

Click here to listen to the message “The Lord Has Put Away Your Sin”

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Visit our primary website at www.ksgctn.org for more information about Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, watch our livestream (when available) and access our previously recorded messages.

Zebulon Grace Church Bulletin Article date: 2 May, 2020 | Previous post date: 1986 | Pikeville, Kentucky