Set in Stone

Romans 3:19 "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God."

Dear CBC Family,

The day has finally come! Today they poured the concrete on our new fellowship area. This has been months in the making and we are finally beginning to see its fruition. At 5:30 AM the crew showed up and at 11:30 AM they are just finishing. In two weeks, they will come back, because it takes that long to “cure”, and finish the color and then seal it. It will look fantastic.

This process has been incredibly long. There were tons (literally) of dirt to be removed from the front and then grade it level. We had to remove the old sidewalks up to the building and the came another grading and rebar. Everything but the rebar was done in house by the men of the church. I was so proud of our guys for all the labor of love they had shown towards the Lord’s name. Now we have some landscaping to do so if you want to help with that let me know. It isn’t hard but the more the merrier. We will also have a minor project adding stacked stone to the front of the building to cover all the old weather seal from when the dirt was almost three feet higher.

This weekend we have a special message from the book of Romans which I think you will find really interesting. We will see how the narrative of Old Testament Israel is actually a theater where we can “watch” our own spiritual struggles played out in history – and learn what they mean and how to respond to them. This is one reason why the early church never gave up the Old Testament, even though Christ has come and fulfills all of it. In Romans 3:19 Paul says, "Now we know that whatever the law says [that is, the Old Testament law for Israel] it speaks to those who are under the law [that is, Israel], so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God." Do you see the point? God deals with Israel not just to make things plain to Israel, but to make things plain to the "whole world." God speaks to Israel so that "every mouth may be stopped. This is not just the Jews but all others as well. The Jews read their story and didn’t see the point. Are you reading your story and not seeing the point? Do you know what your conscience and your failures and your guilt feelings are all about? Have you watched the theater of God’s dealings with Israel and learned about his dealings with you? When you see this clearly it opens our understanding to see ourselves in their struggles and thus show us how to avoid some of their pitfalls. This will be a very helpful study for each of us.

Blessings to our family,
 
Pastor Scott