Hello friends,
It is another day that the Lord has made. I am rejoicing and I’m certainly glad in it.
We have covered a lot of ground since you called me to serve as your lead friend. In the first sermon on November 4th, we opened up with our core values and went through the entire month of November explaining the core values of Severns Valley. We want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus who is the Christ, and in order for us to do that we will pursue generosity, renewal, accountability, community, and evangelism.
Shortly thereafter in the month of December, we discussed Christology and now we’re setting a rhythm for every December discussing biblical Christology which is the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Last December we looked at Christology from above. This 2021, if the Lord wills and if He tarries, we shall study Christology from below, and then in 2022, guess what, Christology from behind, and all of these have significant meanings as we look at the biblical record concerning Christ together. I can hardly wait to see what God is going to do as we continue to learn more about Jesus Christ.
As you know this is the Lord’s church it’s not my church. It doesn’t belong to me. It doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to Jesus and we have graciously been grafted into the family of God, and as a result of that ingrafting, we are church members so in January we dealt with biblical church membership, everything from accountability, once again, to community, to evangelism, to regenerate church membership, all of these things were dealt with, even church discipline which to my delight has received a lot of praise from our membership. A hard sermon on church discipline normally doesn’t receive praise but I am serving a family of friends who want God’s Word to be preached from Genesis to Revelation, the entire council of God, and so you were excited about being a part of a church that will pursue church discipline as a restorative process for a member who has fallen by the wayside. So I as your lead friend am overjoyed to see how God is already working through his Word as we minister to His people.
You know that I explained very early on that my desire is to be an expositor – going to God’s Word looking for the author’s intent and then delivering that intent to you, and that is called biblical exposition or expository preaching. Normally expository preaching is through a particular book of the Bible. Everything that I just named – looking at our core values, Christology, church membership – that was topical exposition, but my favorite preaching is Bible exposition. It is expository preaching through a biblical book. So guess what? We’re jumping back into the books of the Bible. We will study for the next three months the Book of Ruth and the theme is True Love Waits. Within this book, we’ll learn everything about God’s covenant loyalty amidst suffering, faithfulness, joy, His grace and His mercy, all of these things are throughout the book, even spiritual friendship, and as we study Ruth together I’m praying that the covenantal loyalty of God would be made manifest in our body together, so start reading through the Book of Ruth, meditating on the Book of Ruth, and most of all seek to apply the Book of Ruth within your family life, as well as your community life.
Lastly, but certainly not least, I’ll have my very first opportunity to spend time with our beautiful seniors on February 9th. We will be together again for a senior adult gathering at 11:00 am. Please remember to register online. Pastor Emory is excited, Pastor Curtis is excited, the worship team is excited, we all are excited, and I hope you’re excited too because I will meet many of you for the first time. We will have our masks on, we will be socially distant, and we will give you all the air hugs we can and the hi-fives from afar, but most of all, we want to see you because we love you deeply as a part of this body known as Severns Valley.
Friends, as I close I always want to reiterate the verse that motivates our fellowship, and that particular verse is 2 Peter 3:18 that reminds us…
but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and to eternity.
Go in peace beloved. I can’t wait to see you this Lord’s Day.
Pastor Curtis
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