God’s Ways And God’s Word

”It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” | Psalm 119: 71

God’s Ways and God’s Word are best learned by experience and in time of trouble.

When our Lord is pleased to lay His hand heavily upon us, we do not soon forget the lessons learned.

When the Lord singles out a believer or a church for special affliction and adversity, it is not for punishment nor lack of love for them; it is for eternal blessings and because He does love them. “Whom the Lord loveth” He chastens, corrects, and teaches!

When Job sat before his friends, who was afflicted? The one God loved!

When Paul stood before King Agrippa, who wore the chains? The one God loved!

Humanly speaking, which path of life would you prefer to live on earth, that of Esau or Jacob?

Esau had the life of prosperity and ease; Jacob was full of trouble and conflict – but God loved Jacob!

Thank God He has not left us alone!

Thank God He has loved us in Christ and is pleased to teach us His ways by dealing with us in such a way that we are weaned from the world and find our life, comfort, and hope only in Him.

“But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” (Hebrews 12: 8)

A person who measures his blessings and relationship with God by His prosperity, health, happiness, and worldly comforts makes a fatal mistake.

He who sends the trial for His glory and my good will supply the Grace sufficient.

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10)

Those who know the Redeemer also know that when we are weak, we are strong; when we are poor, we are rich; when we are empty, we are full; and when we die, we live!

~ Pastor Henry Mahan

Click here to listen to the message “The Persecutor Turned Preacher” (38:08 minutes)

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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: 4 February, 2007 | Previous post date: n/a | Pikeville, Kentucky

Happy Fear

”Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” | Philippians 4: 4

God’s people rejoice in the Lord always.

They rejoice that His grace is always sufficient, that His blood cleanses them from all sin, that by His imputed righteousness they are justified before the law, that His love for them never fails, that by His providence all things work together for their good, that His intercession for them before the Father is never ceasing and that their names, for His sake, are written in heaven.

~ Pastor Marvin Stalnaker

Click here to listen to the message “Happy Fear”

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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: 3 April, 2022 | Previous post date: n/a

The Sufficiency Of Christ

”Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’S name is to be praised. The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high.” | Psalm 113: 2-5

Men often make this statement — “nobody is perfect” – in a feeble attempt to justify themselves before God.

Of course, nobody (among the sons of Adam) is perfect.

Truth is, men who say such a thing have no idea how far from perfection they really are.

The problem is, perfection is exactly what God demands. He can settle for nothing less.

Which is why He sent His only begotten Son into this world.

The Lord Jesus Christ is God’s perfect man, and He is man’s perfect God.

The God-Man.

The sinners substitute.

The sovereign, successful, surety of His people.

Yes, Someone is perfect.

Without Him standing in our stead, God’s holy justice will demand our eternal damnation.

“Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace” (Psalm 37: 37)

~ Pastor Greg Elmquist

Click here to listen to the message “The Sufficiency of Christ”

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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: 13 March, 2022 | Previous post date: n/a | Pikeville, Kentucky

My Grace is Sufficient For Thee

”And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” | 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

GRACE IS WHAT I NEED – God’s free, abundant, satisfying, sanctifying grace!

I need grace to believe God and to continue in that faith.

I need grace to give and forgive, grace to love and be loved, grace to live and grace to die.

If I have little grace, the fault is mine; for His grace is called, “abundant grace.”

The Lord may not give gold, but He will give grace.

He may not give ease in life, but He will give grace in proportion to my need.

He will certainly send me trials, but never without the grace to overcome.

I may ask God for something which is not for my good and therefore He is not pleased to give it, but I may ask for as much grace as I will, and it will never be refused; for His throne is literally a throne of grace!

“Lord, fill me with Thy grace, make me an object of Thy grace, let my lips speak of Thy grace, and let my life be lived as a trophy of Thy grace!”

~ Pastor Henry Mahan

Click here to listen to the message “What Is It to Die In the Lord?”

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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: 2 January, 2022 | Previous post date: n/a

We Glory In Tribulations Also

”We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” | Romans 5: 3-5

Why would a believer glory in tribulations which cause us so much sorrow?

In the trial God sweetly forces us to trust Christ to save us and by doing so God makes us a little more patient to wait on Christ in the next trial.

Through patience, God proves to us more clearly that we have no strength and the grace of God is truly sufficient.

This is the perfect work James speaks of when he says let patience have her perfect work.

God sheds his love in our hearts by the Spirit and grows us in hope so that in the next trial we are a little less prone to put our hand to things below but instead “flee for refuge to lay hold upon the Hope set before us.”

This is why we thank God for the school of trial and affliction.

John Bunyan expressed this glorying when writing of his 12 years in prison, “I never had, in all my life, so great an insight into the Word of God as now; insomuch that I have often said, Were it lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comforts’ sake.”

~ Pastor Clay Curtis

Click here to listen to the message “Five Reasons For Joy”

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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

The Grace of God is Sufficient

“But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things [which happened] unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other [places] | Philippians 1: 12-13

Sooner could the ocean prove too little for a small fish or the sky be too small for a swallow than the grace of God prove insufficient for one of God’s people.

Not all their weaknesses, failures or sins can use it up.

~ Pastor Joe Terrell

Click here to listen to the message “Why Do Things Happen?”

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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: 4 October, 2020 | Previous post date: 2 February, 2021

The Declaration of Dependence

“In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.” | Psalm 62: 7

Sooner could the ocean prove too little for a small fish or the sky be too small for a swallow than the grace of God prove insufficient for one of God’s people.

Not all their weaknesses, failures or sins can use it up.

~ Pastor Joe Terrell

Click here to listen to the message “The Declaration of Dependence”

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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

No Sufficiency in Ourselves

“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;” | 2 Corinthians 3: 5

When will we sinners believe the Lord?

We will believe when the Lord makes us see we have nothing good in us but that Christ is All.

We will cast our care into the hand of the Lord when the Lord makes us see that we cannot provide for ourselves but that he careth for you.

We will be strong only when the Lord makes us know we are utterly weak but that Christ is all our strength.

This is so in things spiritual and temporal.

The LORD provides all.

We have no sufficiency in ourselves for anything.

~ Pastor Clay Curtis

Click here to listen to the message “To Whom Shall We Go?”

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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.

Sovereign Grace Baptist Church Bulletin Article date: 15 June, 2014 | Previous post date: n/a | Ewing, New Jersey