Covenant Church Weekend Recap
Dear friends,
It was a real joy to spend the weekend with you. I'm very glad to be on mission together in this city.
Conference
Thank you to all who participated in God + Hope in Infertility on Saturday by your prayers, service, setup, invitations, encouragements, presence, panel questions, and so much more. The conference was a resounding success.
Thank you too to our Provisional Session, Presbytery, and The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, who have all been encouragers and promoters of this, our first conference.
An edited video version of the conference is planned for release in about two weeks.
Morning Worship
Rev. Josh Squires's sermon on Psalm 56 is one of those sermons will be valuable as a first listen or a tenth!
An audio recording is available for streaming or download here:
If you'd like more excellent content from Josh, I commend to you the 1A Podcast, of which many episodes feature Rev. Squires.
Evening Worship
In our evening worship service Sunday I encouraged you to go "all in" for Christ. Here's a quote from Dr. Edmund Clowney that I came across in my sermon research. I hope it's an encouragement to you as you meditate on this truth throughout this week.
"We are to be imitators of God as beloved children; holy as he is holy, perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Be holy in all you do (1:15). The pattern of holy living cannot be reduced to a limited number of 'holy' actions. God's righteous deeds flow from his holy nature; holiness patterned on his must express transformed hearts. On the one hand, this seems to set an impossible standard: how can we be like the holy God? On the other hand, there is a marvelous simplicity in holiness patterned on God himself; it does not require encyclopedic grasp of endless directives and prohibitions. It flows from the heart; its key is love. To be holy is to love the Lord our God with heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We imitate the love of grace that saved us, the love of God's compassion poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."
From: Clowney, Edmund P. The Message of 1 Peter: The Way of the Cross. The Bible Speaks Today. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
Evening Q&A
It's our regular pattern in the evening service to, after the conclusion of worship, have a time for any questions to be asked of the minister. Yesterday, an excellent question (among many excellent questions!) was asked about what it means for people to have been created in "the image of God." And we discussed as an answer, Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 10, that the image of God with which we were created refers to God's attributes of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.
To add onto this, as we think about God relating to us, and we relating to God, it can be a real spiritual help to know too Westminster Larger Catechism Question 36.
WLC Question 36: Who is the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace?
Answer: The only Mediator of the Covenant of Grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, of one substance and equal with the Father, in the fulness of time became man, and so was and continues to be God and man, in two entire and distinct natures, and one person, for ever.
Thank you friends! Looking forward to seeing you Sunday if not before.
-Pastor Brooks
