Service Team Helps Out at Alternaterm Center in Cleveland
Alternaterm Pregnancy Services is a ministry of prevention, intervention, and restoration to those in pregnancy-related situations, providing love, practical support and hope through the message of Jesus Christ.” On March 1st members of the Service Team met together to support this important ministry in some practical ways. Upon arrival, members were immediately put to work doing things such as painting, wall-papering, dusting, stamping, cleaning, office work and more. Finally after a few hours of munching on pretzel rods and chex mix, much work had been accomplished. Mariah T. commented saying that “amongst all of our hard work we still found time to be silly and the room seemed to resemble a post office with people sorting through a never ending stack of mail. We joked around and even had the pleasure of listening to random bursts of song. We had a blast!” Even after receiving T-shirts as a gift seeing the fruit of our labor was much more rewarding. For those of you that were unable to come, hopefully next year we will have the pleasure of your company as we work to serve Christ in all that we do.
Written by Sarah P
Looking for some music to help you understanding more deeply who God is and what Jesus has done for us? Kyle J. sent over a link for you to check out. The music is free for download and pretty good. There is a CD that this church put out that will be available soon called Rain City Hymnal. Right now you can only purchase the CD at the church but they are working on the details for distribution.
One of the new features of parksideyouth.org v2.0 is Twitter. This is another social software that allows you to keep up with what is going on in the lives of your friends. One way that you can keep up with other is by receiving text messages to your cell phone and that is how we are hoping to use this technology. When you become a friend (follower) of parksidehs you will periodically get updates on important items. For example, look at the bottom of the homepage right now and you will see that an update was sent out on Mar. 29 letting everyone know that the registration for the Real Retreat is now online. We will also use Twitter to give updated return times for trips that we are on (yes….eventually the Clueline will be a thing of the past, minimal tears please). So that is the deal with Twitter.
Moment of honest: It can be a little challenging to figure out the registration process for Twitter and begin following parksidehs. We promise that it will be worth the effort. So we had a Twitter Tutorial (thanks Nick B!) put together that gives you step by step screen shot instructions. So download the PDF and start Twittering!
Download the Twitter Tutorial
It is Wednesday so that means that I will answer a question that you asked. So here it is, “Hey Matt, What is justification by faith?” Thanks for the great question.
I will answer this question in two parts. The brief response is that as Christians we are declared “not guilty” by God for all the things that we should not have done and things we have left undone, when we are trusting in Jesus. There is nothing we can do to alter the status of this declaration by God because it is all wrapped up in what Jesus has done for us that we receive by faith. We have been justified.
One of my favorite authors is a guy named Jerry Bridges, he has written a book called The Gospel for Real Life. This is a brief excerpt from his book on the topic of justification.
“Through His representative union with us, Jesus assumed our obligation to perfectly obey the Law of God and obeyed it to the letter. Through the same union Jesus assumed our liability for not obeying the Law and paid that liability to the utmost. He fully and completely satisfied the justice of God on our behalf as our substitute.
Therefore everyone who has trusted in Christ as Savior can say, ‘God’s justice toward me is satisfied.’ In our judicial system, when a sentence has been fully served, justice is satisfied. If someone who has been sentenced to ten years in prison fully serves that time, he can walk out of prison a completely free person. Justice no longer has a claim on him. It has been satisfied.
As believers we must steadily keep in mind that Christ has satisfied the justice of God on our behalf. Never again should we fear the retributive justice of God. Yet many believers do live under a sense of fear of God’s justice. We know we sin continually, and sometimes the painful awareness of our sin almost overwhelms us. At such times we still are prone to view God as our judge meting our absolute justice. We fail to grasp by faith the fact that Christ Jesus has fully satisfied God’s justice for us.
One morning in my private devotions I was reflecting on my sin, which for some reason seemed particularly painful to me that day. In my discouragement I blurted out, ‘God, You would be perfectly just in sending me to hell.’ Immediately, on the heel of those words, though, came this thought: ‘No, You wouldn’t, because Jesus satisfied Your justice for me.’
That is the stand we must take as believers. We must not allow the accusations of Satan or the condemning justice of our consciences to bring us under a sense of God’s unrequited justice. Instead, we should by faith, lay hold of the wonderful trust that God’s justice has been satisfied for us by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is Wednesday so that means that I will answer a question that you asked. So here it is, “Hey Matt, When Jesus was dead for three days, does that mean the world was without God for three whole days?” Thanks for the great question.As we approach Good Friday and Easter Sunday this weekend this is a very timely subject to think about. Part of what is hard to understand about Jesus coming to earth is wrapping our arms around the nature of God. If Jesus is God was God still in heaven during Jesus life on earth? Is Jesus talking to himself when he prays? Why does the Holy Spirit have to descend on Jesus if he is already God? There are many other things that can drive you crazy if you let your mind wander around. These types of questions make us realize that God is mysterious and beyond our complete understanding. At the same time we are not left completely in the dark.
To help make sense of this we have to remember that there is one God who is three persons. The Shorter Catechism provides some guidance. Question 5: “Is there more than one God? There is only one, the living and true God.” Question 6: “How many persons are in the one God? Three persons are in the one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The three are one God, the same in substance and equal in power and glory.”
The answer to your question of was the world without God for three days is, no. It is unclear what exactly was going on with Jesus during his three days in the tomb. However, there is no question that God the Father was still in charging and orchestrating all of the events of human history according to His good plan.
All right today is “Selection Sunday” for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. If you would like to participate in our bracket competition you will want to follow the steps in this posting and get on board. There will be fab prizes for the top finishers and you must have your picks completed before the first game on Thursday!
The theme for the Real Retreat this year is Holiness. In attending you will be introduced to J.C. Ryle who wrote an essay on this subject that has stood the test of time in the Christian church. His words are written in the distant past but have striking relevance for the Christian who is serious about loving and living for Jesus Christ. He addresses hard and trying subjects: the power and depth of indwelling sin, the necessity of a holy life, the struggle and fight of faith, and the cost of following Jesus.
Be at the Warehouse at 4/18 at 6:15pm for dinner together then we’ll head to Camp Burton. Returning to the Warehouse on 4/19 at 6:30pm
Bring Bible, sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight, toiletries and warm clothes.
1. Read today’s One Year New Testament entry.
2. Alistair Begg (the Sr. Pastor at Parkside) was on National Public Radio this past week. Listen to the interview. Thanks Hiram for the link!
3. Sign up for the NCAA Men’s Basketball pick em’ competition. The students who finish with the highest score will win some sort of fabulous prize.
4. Upload a recent pic for the Picture of the Week.
5. Get a Twitter account and get text messages sent to your phone on important stuff…like when something is canceled because we got 20 inches of snow or when registration is open for an upcoming event.
6. Give this quote some thought. What do you think this guy (Samuel Rutherford: lived in the 17th century) is saying? “I urge upon you…a nearer communion with Christ and a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn by in Christ that we never saw, and new foldings of love in him. I despair that ever I shall win to the far end of that love, there are so many plies in it; therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labour, and take pains for him, and set by so much time in the day for him as you can: he will be win with labour.”
The trip to the Creation Museum that is scheduled for Saturday, March 8 has been canceled due to bad weather. We will try and reschedule this trip in May. Stay updated on all events by signing up for Twitter and get text messages sent to your cell phone!
