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Magnificat Morning: Contentment in All Seasons


And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. Philippians 4:19-20

True contentment seems to be an elusive character trait.  Do you know anyone who is truly content? Are you? If you are like many, your contentment is most likely dependent on your circumstances. When life is going “your way” you’re content, when it isn’t, then you are not so content. You are not alone in this phenomenon! Yet, this is not the way it is supposed to be for women who seek to “pursue their joy in Christ alone”! What does God say about our being content in His Word? Can we really learn to be content, no matter what?

To help us answer these questions, the FPCC Women’s Ministry Team is excited to have Jodi Ware coming to explore the foundations of true biblical contentment. Every teen girl and woman is invited to come and be challenged by Jodi to embrace God’s provision regardless of our circumstances. We can learn to be content because our God is a Bountiful Provider!

Jodi is the wife of Dr. Bruce Ware, a professor of theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY. She is involved with the music ministry and women’s ministry at their church, Clifton Baptist, in Louisville. Jodi also works with the Seminary Wives Institute as a registrar and teacher, and the Facility Wives at Southern. She loves walking, reading, playing the piano, and meeting one-on-one with women, engaging in “conversational ministry.”

This will be a relaxing and casual morning with great teaching, wonderful fellowship, light refreshments and a book table specific to our topic. Tickets will be available after the Worship Service and from the church office for $3 per person or $5 per family. We look forward to seeing you for this great morning of encouragement!

Check the event page for more information.


Third Pastoral Candidate


Dear Five Points Family,

Over the past several months, the Elders have been seeking the Lord and asking you to pray with us regarding the calling of a third pastor. The Elders have focused their search towards a man who is able to preach, teach, counsel, and lead with specific gifts in the areas of leadership and administration. He will join the pastors in carrying out the duties of the pastoral office with a primary focus on shepherding the organizational and administrative processes of the church.

Accordingly, the Elders have reviewed dozens of resumes and interviewed approximately ten individuals. Most recently, the Elders have spent substantial time interviewing one individual and we are excited to introduce him to you. Per the Five Points Constitution and Bylaws, we are formally entering the second phase of the process (Selection of Vocational Elders) as stated in Section 5(b): “The Council shall inform the congregation of candidates being considered to allow for prayerful and informed consideration of the candidate.” To this end, Mr. Brett Toney and his wife Kelina will be visiting Five Points on Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22. Brett will be teaching a combined Adult Bible Study Hour at 9:30am, April 22 in the Sanctuary and then the Toney’s will share their testimonies and answer questions for our Evening Family Gathering. Finally, we will fellowship with them during the subsequent White Horse Inn. In order for Five Points to prayerfully consider Brett’s candidacy, we invite you to participate in this exciting weekend in the life of our church.

After the Toney’s visit, the entire church (Elders and congregation) will spend two weeks prayerfully considering Brett as a candidate, after which the Elder Council will meet and decide whether to formally recommend him to the congregation for calling into office per Section 5(d). Should the Lord confirm his candidacy, the Elders will formally recommend to the congregation that Brett be called into office. We have set a tentative date of May 6 for a congregational vote.

Let me provide you with some background on Brett Toney. Brett and Kelina currently reside in Minneapolis, MN where he is finishing his Master of Divinity degree at Bethlehem College & Seminary. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies at Northwestern College in 2008. Brett has not served as a full-time pastor, yet he has served in pastoral ministry roles with increasing responsibilities since 2008. Since December 2009, he has served both as a Ministry and Pastoral Assistant to a lead pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church. His roles have included significant administrative and pastoral responsibilities. The Elders have spent a substantial amount of time appraising Brett’s experience and giftedness. We strongly believe that his demonstrated giftedness in a large, multi-campus church has prepared him well to serve in the context of Five Points. He is eager to teach, disciple, counsel, and serve in full-time ministry. There is a strong unity amongst the Elders that his God-given giftedness and experience squarely meet the needs we are seeking in a third pastor. Please visit Brett’s website at http://about.me/bretttoney where you will find links to his resume, sermons and writings.

We count it a joy and privilege to serve alongside such grace-filled saints at Five Points. We are excited about what God is doing in our midst and for you to meet Brett and Kelina on April 21-22. We ask you to join us in prayer as the Lord continues to lead and build His Church for His glory.


Grace and peace to you,

Mark Kakkuri, Joe Slezak, and Mike Martoia
FPCC Personnel Committee


PASTORAL CANDIDATE SCHEDULE:

• April 22, 9:30am: Brett Toney teaching combined adult Bible Study Hour
• April 22, 5:45pm: Elder led Q&A during the Evening Family Gathering
• April 22, 7:00pm: White Horse Inn with the Toney’s
• May 6, 5:45pm: Congregational Vote (pending affirmation of candidacy)


I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
2 Timothy 4:1-5
 

 


The Temple Replaced


When Jesus entered into Jerusalem, it was in both justice and mercy. We often try to separate the two; but they are inseparable in Christ Jesus. His justice will not let sin linger. His mercy will not let sin’s guilt linger. Both are on display on the day when Jesus came to town.

In Mark 11 Jesus makes His triumphal entry as King. The very next day he proceeds to curse an out of season fig tree. Even the things that God made good, are under the Creator’s curse. The justice of God against a fallen world rises to the surface of our Lord’s mind as he moves resolutely toward the cross. It is fitting that when Christ dies, his death will “reconcile all things to himself whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross,” (Colossians 1:20) -  even fig trees.

And if his death reconciles lowly fig trees, then surely his death is able to reconcile hell-bound sinners like us. Jesus wasn’t so much concerned about botany as he was purity. The Jewish leaders had begun to use the Temple of the living God for financial gain. Jesus purified the Temple with divine anger and indignation. He reminded them, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, “ (Mark 11:17). The Father had plainly said the Temple was for sweet intimacy with His glory for his people and the foreigners who seek Him. But they had profaned that purpose, with the evil love of money.

Jesus didn’t just come to reestablish a building, but to replace it with himself. He said, “Something greater than the Temple is here” (Mt. 12:6). What an indescribable mercy, that our Lord would give himself to the same people who violated the gift of the first Temple! In Christ the twin glories of justice and mercy meet and meet us.


Most Important Resurrection Outcome


What’s the most important outcome of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? Surely His rising proves His identity as God’s Messiah and confirms all He taught and achieved.  Even more His rising vindicates His death on behalf of sinners. We’re certain we are forgiven because Jesus rose again! And we can celebrate the fact that as He rose from the dead, we who trust in Him will rise with Him too.  How awesome is the lethal blow to death and evil Christ delivered in His rising from the dead.

But greatest and most important of all, undergirding all those priceless realities and many others, Christ’s rising from the dead confirms that He is the reigning King of all that exists. Listen to how Paul celebrates this in Ephesians 1, God demonstrated his great might in Christ, “when He raised him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (Eph. 1:20-23).

What demon can oppose Christ? He created them, rules over them and now as the risen Lord, dispenses them to eternal death.

What government or world leader can stand against Jesus Christ? They all get sick and die. Christ lives and reigns forever!

What race, ethnicity, nation or people can stand against Christ. He created them all and they all collapse, dissolve or die. But Jesus never shall die. He outlasts them all!

What in nature outlasts Christ? Nothing, it all disintegrates. One day the world will burn. Christ alone lives forever!

Only those in Christ, His body the Church, live on with Him.  He rules in perpetual glory. Nothing can hinder or threaten Him, He is Lord. In glory shout, “He is Lord for He is risen!


The Cup


In Matthew 26.37-38 we read, “And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Words cannot truly express the depth of emotion that our great Savior begins to feel here in the garden. The grief is encompassing, encircling and overwhelming our Lord. Thomas Goodwin, the puritan wrote, “He was plunged head and ears in sorrow and had no breathing-hole.” The grief was overwhelming our Lord to the point where he felt like he was suffocating. Our Savior was drenched with a sorrow so deep that it felt to him as if it were killing him. Surely he had felt grief and sorrow in his life, but why is there now a sudden plunge into deep agony?

Here in the garden, Matthew gives us a view into what it means for Jesus to be Savior and his sinless nature was shocked beyond our comprehension at how intimately he was now being associated with iniquity… iniquity he did not commit. He began to be sorrowful and troubled because the Father began to withdraw His presence from His One and Only Son. Charles Spurgeon said, “The shadow of that great eclipse began to fall upon His spirit when he knelt in that cold midnight amidst the olives of Gethsemane… He was left single-handed… to contend for the deliverance of man.” He now begins to taste what his name means, to be the Savior (Matthew 1.21), what it means to receive God’s full and holy wrath on our sin. The cup that was always future is now this cup and Matthew’s language describes quite simply that Jesus began to be overcome with distress because of the cup’s arrival.

What is this cup? It is a reference fully loaded with Old Testament imagery of God’s wrath against mankind’s sin. Isaiah 51.17, “Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.” Psalm 11. 6, says it’s a cup of “fire and sulfur and a scorching wind”. Isaiah 51.22 says it is a cup “of staggering; the bowl of my wrath”. This is what caused our Savior to shudder in terror, to become deeply distressed and overcome with sorrow to the point of death. He beheld this now present cup. So overwhelmed, he falls to the ground and prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” This cup leading to death is the one held out for Jesus to take from the Father’s hand in fulfillment of his mission to save his people from their sins.

The first Adam, in the Garden of Eden, knew what the will of God was but he did not submit his will to the will of God. Now here, the Last Adam, also in a garden, must come to terms in both emotion and will with what he has known was coming his entire life. In the garden of Eden, the first Adam said ‘Not your will but mine‘ and sin and death changed Perfection to wilderness. But here, in the garden of Gethsemane, the Last Adam prays ‘Not my will but yours be done’ and it brings extreme sorrow and anguish to him but transforms the wilderness and saves his people from their sins!


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