On the Lord’s Day:
9:15 am — Sunday school classes for all ages: Classes for graded age groups meet to learn from the Scriptures. To see Sunday school classes, ages and meeting locations, click on the red “Ministries” button under the category “Pages” (to the right).
10:30 am — In his continuing series on the benefits of — and need for — the local church, one of our elders will bring the message from God’s Word this Sunday. Please prepare your heart and mind now to receive God’s Word into your heart and your life.
During the Week:
- Our Ten-thirty Tuesdays Bible study continues this Tuesday in our chronological look at the Old Testament. This group meets at 10:30 am in the Fireside Room
- Awana Clubs meet at 6:30 pm with “Relay Night!”
- The Thursday Night Toolkit Bible study continues our survey of the New Testament, “Knowing Jesus and Living Like It.”
- Friday, 7:00 pm: Valentine’s Dinner at Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe. See info below for more details!
- Saturday, 4:00 pm: Elim League Bowling
Upcoming and Ongoing:
- Got a date for this Friday Night? You’ll want to bring your sweetie to the Valentine’s Dinner at 7:00 pm this Friday, February 12th. In conjunction with our friends at First Baptist Church, we’re going to take over Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe at Cherry Vale Mall for a special time to focus on food and love! Each couple will pay for their own dinner (ordering off Camille’s menu) as we get to know other couples and each other better. Please RSVP to the Elim church office for this event by Thursday, 2/11.
- Check your bulletins this week and next for information about the Grace & Truth Conference for Women on April 30 & May 1st. Ladies, you’ll want to set aside this Friday & Saturday for biblical teaching on cultivating a fruitful life for the glory of God.
- If you are planning on graduating from high school or college this spring, please contact the church office.
- For immediate prayer needs, Elim has a chain of faithful folks who pray for the needs of the congregation and our loved ones. Requests for prayer are given by phone or e-mail. During the month of February, all requests should be sent through the church office.
From the Pastor’s Recent Reading:
While studying James 5:19-20 — “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”
These two verses form a fitting conclusion to the book of James. They express James’s primary objective in writing his epistle: to confront those in the assembly of believers who possessed false, dead faith. As already noted, the epistle does have an evangelistic emphasis, but one that is mainly directed toward professing believers in the church. James wrote, as did John in his first epistle, to call professed believers to examine their faith and make sure it is real. He was deeply concerned that no one be deceived about his salvation.
That concern originated with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew 7:21–23 He warned, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
Echoing the words of Jesus, James called for true, genuine saving faith. It is a frightening and tragic reality that throughout the church’s history there have always been tares among the wheat; rocky, shallow, thorny soils that produce no spiritual fruit; those who draw near to God with their words while their hearts are far from Him (Isa. 29:13) ; those for whom God is “near to their lips but far from their mind” (Jer. 12:2) ; those who are hearers of the Word, but not doers of it (James 1:22). To help people avoid being deceived, James has given a series of tests by which one’s faith can be evaluated. True saving faith is marked by its proper response to trials, temptations, the Word of God, and God’s standards for holy living (chapter 1) ; its response to people from various social classes and its manifestation of righteous deeds (chapter 2) ; by proper speech, wisdom, and by not being a friend of the world (chapter 3) ; by humility and submission to God’s will (chapter 4) ; by a proper view of money and by truthfulness (chapter 5). Those tests form the benchmarks against which a person’s faith can be measured.
—from The MacArthur New Testament Commentary
Posted on February 5th, 2010 by Janet
Filed under: This Week @ Elim