Philippians 4:6
“...but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (ESV)

In Philippians 4:6, Paul speaks of a particular kind of prayer, namely, “requests.” He then speaks of the kind of heart from which we are to make these requests. There is a right way to make requests of our Sovereign Lord and this a matter of having a right heart. Yet, to be clear, it’s not a matter of trying to figure out the right wording or formula in making our request, but rather it is out of the right heart that we are to make our request known to God. Contrast this with the fact that a bad heart leads us to make the wrong kind of request. In James 4:3 we hear, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Cleary, an idolatrous, selfish, and greedy heart leads us to “ask wrongly.” God knows the heart. We can use all of the right words and follow the right formula and still find that we honor Him with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him (Matthew 15:8).

The good news is that God continues to teach us about prayer and here in Philippians about how we make our requests known to Him. Yes, He invites us to ask Him. Study Matthew 7:7-11. Ask… Ask… Ask… It’s His invitation, yet, He instructs us on the kind of heart we are to have when we ask. 

Allow me to point to just one word in Verse 6 - “supplication.” This word denotes the heart posture of a humble beggar. Having a right heart in prayer is having a humble heart as we approach His presence. We come needy, lowly, and desperate. Charles Spurgeon writes: “Our addresses to the throne of grace must be solemn and humble, not flippant and loud, or formal and careless.” Also, “When you are engaged in prayer, plead your strength, and you will get nothing; then plead your weakness, and you will prevail. There is no better plea with Divine love than weakness and pain; nothing can so prevail with the heart of God as for your heart to faint and swoon. The man who rises in prayer to tears and agony, and feels all the while as if he could not pray, and yet must pray - he is the man who will see the desire of his soul.” What a gracious God and King! When we enter His presence, we should immediately hear Him demand, “Silence!,” but, we discover that His throne is a throne of grace inviting us to humbly come and petition Him. 

May we plead with God in weakness, finding that we will prevail, and see the “desire of our soul”! 

“But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.”
Isaiah 66:2

- Tom

Our hope and prayer for this series are that God will grow these seven marks of grace in us as we identify them and learn to obediently pursue them with our hearts focused on Jesus. Below is an outline summary of the sermon for your further study and deeper reflection.

SERIES: Our 7 Shared Virtues
TEXT: Philippians 2:1-11
TITLE: Humility
PREACHER: Derek Overstreet
BIG IDEA: The humiliation of Christ in the gospel creates humble hearts in His people

POINTS:
I. Our Manifestation of Humility
II. Our Motive and Model for Humility

SERMON EXCERPTS:
”Why this series? It's simple—We desire to become more like Jesus. We exist for God's glory. God's glory is revealed as His church reflects His greatness in Jesus Christ. So, we desire to become more like Jesus. We are not trying to start a revolution; we just long for our lives to proclaim the praises of our Savior. It's that simple.”

“…we begin with the virtue that is the fountain of all other virtues—Humility.”

“What is humility? Humility is a selfless disposition of the heart created by an accurate view of God, self, and Christ. God is infinitely holy; I am utterly sinful. Therefore, the only way I can joyfully relate to God and generously receive from God is His undeserved saving grace toward me in Jesus Christ. The degree this reality shapes us is the degree we will be characterized by true humility as a church.”

“Humility is interesting. The key to becoming more humble is not focusing on being more humble; it's focusing on the humility and humiliation of Jesus.”

“The first step in growing in humility is understanding pride. By nature, we are proud, not humble. We're prone to conceit because our hearts naturally crave praise. Pride is in our DNA.”

“Pride has many faces. Some are obvious; others are not. But self is at the center of them all: 

• Feel unappreciated when you serve others and receive no recognition for your efforts—Pride!

• Self-deprecating speech actually meant to draw praises for something you are proud of—It's called humblebrag, its false humility, a.k.a. Pride!

• Loudest person when you enter the room, while you're in the room when you leave the room because you desire everyone's attention—Pride!

• Wallow in self-pity because life is hard, and you deserve better—Pride!

• Unwilling to get out of your comfort zone for the spiritual good of another—It's called fear of man, and it may be the most deceptive and destructive form of Pride!

• Characterized by telling others what you know rather than seeking others for input—Pride!

• Expectations to be served by others exceed your enthusiasm to serve others—Pride!

• Hyper-critical of self and others because little things that go wrong reflect poorly on you—Pride!”

“LOOKING is labor. Listen to the phrases connected with the original word for LOOKING: notice carefully; watch out for; fix one's attention. These are intentional activities.”

“Practically, LOOKING means:

• Pausing in the middle of your busy day to listen to someone who needs encouragement 

• Patiently praying for someone when you really what to punch them

• Inquiring instead of accusing when you share a concern or correction

• Judging someone charitably until you know the facts

• Listening to someone instead of interrupting them because you have something so great to say”

“True gospel humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less because you are looking to the interest of others more.”

“The gospel puts this claim on our lives. If this (in Christ), Then this (put on humility). Christ calls us to it. Commands us to it. And, is our sufficiency for it. That’s where Paul points us.”

“Instead of grasping his godness, Jesus willingly surrendered the honor, praise, and glory that was rightfully his and had been from eternity past in the perfect fellowship of the Trinity to become a Jewish boy from Nazareth who would be crucified as a criminal. That's what Paul means in verse 7 when he says Jesus emptied himself. Jesus didn't empty himself of divine attributes. He didn't become less God when he became fully man. Jesus never minimized or denied his deity. He just didn't grasp it.”

“Jesus did not simply take on a human disguise; he took on our human nature. The Creator and Sustainer of all things condescended into our fallen world, subjecting himself to our frailties as human beings in every way except one—he was without sin.”

“Jesus didn’t come high and lifted up in society. He could have—he is God! He came as a scorned slave. Look at verse 7. The word translated servant means slave. Think about that: 

• A slave was less significant than the least significant

• A slave had one interest—the interest of others 

• A slave was above no one and beneath everyone

Jesus humbled himself, assuming our nature, becoming a servant—translation: substitute sacrifice for us—and obediently died the most humiliating, shameful, excruciating, cursed death possible, (8) death on a cross—for you!”

“The cross is the opposite of selfish ambition and vain conceit. In true humility, God the Son counted you more significant than himself, making his entire life about your greatest interest—being made right with God.”

“That is true humility that led to the humility of Christ that compels and enables us to live humbly with one another.”

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE:
James 4:6
Isaiah 66:2
Hebrews 1:3
Hebrews 2:17
Romans 5

QUOTES:
Jerry Bridges - “Humility opens the way to all other godly character traits. It is the soil in which the other traits of the fruit of the Spirit grow.”

C.J. Mahaney - “The real issue is not if pride exists in your heart; its where pride exists and how pride is being expressed in your life.”

APPLICATION:
How can we cultivate true humility? 

Read book of quarter—contexts of application

Application specific to today’s text

1. Visit the cross often by reminding yourself who God is, who you were, and why Jesus matters

2. Pray the words of Phi 2:3-4 for yourself and our church

3. LOOK for ways to serve others

4. When you complete a task, something good happens to you, or encouraging words are spoken about you, take a moment to transfer all glory to God 

5. Eagerly encourage one another where you see humility and carefully correct one another where you see pride

6. Live today in light of tomorrow

Se·cret  /ˈsēkrət/

“not known or seen or not meant to be known or seen by others.” - Oxford

Matthew 6:5-6

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

The Scriptures reveal all kinds of prayers - songs of prayer, group prayer, public prayer, and the like. In Matthew 6:5-6, Jesus provides very specific instructions regarding a particular place and a particular kind of prayer. 

There is a place where God is calling us to go and meet with Him. Out of the eye of public knowledge, this place is a “secret” place.

This secret place for prayer guards against the pride mentioned in Verse 5. There are “hypocrites” who pray in public “that they may be seen by others”. Pride is at work more often than we can admit when find ourselves praying to be seen or heard by others. I have never stood on a corner and belted out a prayer, but I have raised the volume while praying at a restaurant, just to be seen by others (boy, the kids loved that!). Jesus said “go into your room and shut the door” and pray in a humble secret place. 

What’s amazing about the text is that our Father is waiting there for that secret conversation (Vs 6) and He will reward that private time with Him. Author Steve Miller writes, “[Charles] Spurgeon’s public prayers stirred the hearts of his listeners as much or even more so than his preaching. But these prayers were only the tip of the iceberg, buoyed upward by the unseen depth and breadth of his private times alone with God.” Jesus said that the Father was waiting in that place to hear our prayers. Secret prayer moves us toward a deeper trust, dependency, and growth in our relationship with Him. We know Him more and more, and we are changed by Him in those secret times. Spurgeon’s public prayers were evidence of what God had done in him in that secret place. The same remains true for us. Go to that secret place and pray. God’s presence in that place will meet you, change you, and help you! 

Spurgeon wrote, “Neglect of private prayer is the locust which devours the strength of the church.” The opposite is true as well. When the members of the church pray privately, the corporate strength of the church is immeasurable! Together, we grow in the knowledge of God, we are met by God and our faith in God together as Christ’s body is galvanized. 

A secret place waits for you. Go there often and pray.

“Our Father in heaven, 
hallowed be your name…”

- Tom

We are grateful for what the Lord has done over the past fourteen months as we have gone through the sermon series “Hopeful: A Study in the Book of Acts”. This Sunday we begin a new sermon series where we will unpack the biblical virtues that shape and characterize our lives and church in Christ.

We believe when the gospel of Jesus Christ is embraced, it produces a culture marked by the fruit of the gospel. All churches that have come to know the grace of God should prioritize and pursue those qualities that are in keeping with the message of grace. In Sovereign Grace, the explicit gospel-focus that has marked our history has led us to value seven particular Shaping Virtues: humility, joy, gratitude, encouragement, generosity, servanthood, and godliness.

If you want to know more about this exciting series before Sunday, CLICK HERE.

humility - joy - encouragement - generosity - servanthood - godliness

What God began before us, He is still working out through us until He comes back for us! Below is an outline summary of the sermon for your further study and deeper reflection.

SERIES: Hopeful: The Book of Acts
TEXT: Acts 28:11-31
TITLE: To Be Continued
PREACHER: Derek Overstreet

POINTS:
I. The Same Gospel
II. The Same Results
III. The Same Mission

SERMON EXCERPTS:
”…it’s understandable if the ending of Acts seems a bit unremarkable. The book that began with Jesus physically ascending into heaven ends with an aging Apostle living in a rental, making ends meet, and talking about Jesus to his visitor. …But I think that’s the point. The end of Acts reveals an unfinished task. Acts focuses on Peter and Paul, but the story is not about them. Acts is about the unstoppable gospel advancing in the power of the Spirit through the church's witness to the ends of the earth to the praise of God’s cosmic and eternal glory until His Son returns—and Jesus hasn’t come back yet!”

“The great promise in Acts 1:8 to take the gospel to the ends of the earth belongs to us. Our purpose and mission continue what the Lord began in the first century into our neighborhoods and schools, the workplace and hang-out spot, the classroom and field of competition.”

“How Hopeful is that! Too often we think we need a new perspective. A new message. A new approach. We don’t need something new, we need something true. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation then and it is still today. Whether for your friend’s salvation or your personal sanctification, a crucified and risen Savior is our foundation and hope!”

“Paul was a Jew. These are his people. His family. His friends. His tribe. The desire for their salvation ran deep in Paul’s heart. When they rejected Christ, Paul didn’t charge God. He didn’t interrogate God. He didn’t try to figure God out. Paul understood the pattern as part of God’s plan from texts like Isaiah 6, and took comfort in it. He trusted in the character of God. He let God be God by resting in God’s ways, even when he didn’t understand those ways. Nowhere is this more clear than Romans 9—Go read this week!”

“This final scene of Acts may not have much razzle dazzle, but it is glorious. Paul isn’t globe-trotting and planting churches. Luke doesn’t mention a great moving of God’s Spirit. But the Great Commission, the gospel mission is being fulfilled as Paul pays his bills and shares Christ. Our mission is the same!”

“As an extension of Acts, we worship God with our lives personally and corporately by learning to love Jesus with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. As an extension of Acts, we are devoted to fellowshipping and caring for one another, living lives of glad obedience to Christ who is our head. As an extension of Acts, we take the message of the transforming power of the gospel to the world around us. Some may reject us other will believe, but God is in control of it all and He gets the glory in it all!”

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE:
Ephesians 3
1 John 2

QUOTES:
Derek Thomas -“Luke has finished his story, but the story has not finished! There is an unwritten “To be continued” in the progress of the gospel.”

APPLICATION:
- Have you stopped giving gospel-centered counsel to someone because they keep rejecting it? 

- Have you quit sharing a gospel-centered perspective on a situation because the person disagrees with it? 

- Have you stopped sharing the gospel with someone because no one has ever believed when you do? 

Allow the results in Acts to make you Hopeful in your life and ministry.

Church, we are not a memorial to greater days of old in Acts. The task is unfinished. We are the unwritten To Be Continued. God’s mission to display His manifold wisdom to the cosmos through the salvation of sinners and the building of His church is full steam ahead, and we are a living extension of that plan. 

“Today, we end Acts in the most appropriate way I can think of—Adoration.
- Adoration to God with our prayers for this church

- Adoration to god with our speech about this church

- Right now, adoration to God with our voices as the church” 

Over the next few months, our church’s youth group, SGYouth, will be hosting fundraisers to raise money for the youth to go to the Sovereign Grace regional youth retreat! Below is information about the upcoming youth retreat from the SGyouth leader, Jon Lambros:

This year SGYouth has the wonderful opportunity of joining the other churches in our Sovereign Grace region for a multi-church youth retreat this July!  We’ve had the exciting opportunity of seeing multiple pastors from different churches plan the teaching topics. What the pastors settled on is both well thought through and extremely applicable to our youth’s daily lives, so we are very excited to have them participate.

This retreat is extremely well thought through and planned, but with that comes a higher cost than our previous smaller retreats, so we’re asking for your help! We are shooting for 100% attendance with the youth, and we don’t want anyone to not be able to go due to financial reasons.

On behalf of the Youth team and the pastors, we’re asking that you all please make it a point to participate in the upcoming youth fundraisers (details to come soon!) and that you consider helping the youth make it to this retreat. I can guarantee you it will be a worthwhile investment in the lives of these students in our church!

Jon Lambros – (520) 609-8864

If you have any questions about SGYouth or the upcoming retreat, feel free to reach out to Jon Lambros or the church office.

Psalm 16:11

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

A few years ago, a dear friend of mine, Todd, found out that he had cancer on the back of his eye. Over the following months, he made visits to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Todd, whose faith in Christ was sure, would prayerfully bring a hopeful Christ-like presence of life, joy, and eternal perspective into the waiting areas that were filled with cancer patients many of whom were desperate, dying, and suffering greatly! 

In Psalm 16:11 we find these three amazing things in God: the path of life, the fullness of joy, and pleasures forevermore. At different times in our lives, we find ourselves desperate for these things. Amazingly, God’s word reveals that there are more than these three. Prayer brings us before the One who has them all and then some! Charles Spurgeon says this about prayer, “To pray is to enter the treasure-house of God and to enrich oneself out of an inexhaustible storehouse.” Desperate for life when we are facing death, lost in misery, and gripped by sorrow, we can come to God in prayer and find life, joy, and pleasures forevermore, each being found in the treasure-house of God, knowing that He is ready to give. Ask Him for life. Ask Him for joy. Ask Him for pleasures that come from Him! In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus says that the Father is ready to “...give good things to those who ask him!” God desires that we pray and make requests of Him while standing ready to answer the requests with “good things.” When we pray, we make our request known and trust that He is good. 

In the same context, Spurgeon said “the very act of prayer is a blessing… apart from the answer”. This should encourage us all, but what about those, like myself, who struggle during the times when God answers “no,” or “not yet” to our prayers? Joni Eareckson Tada, after 50 years of being paralyzed from the neck down, while speaking on what she has learned from God, said, “A ‘no’ answer to my request for a miraculous physical healing has meant purged sin, a love for the lost, increased compassion, stretched hope, an appetite for grace, an increase of faith, a happy longing for heaven, a desire to serve, a delight in prayer, and a hunger for his Word.” She is able to say prayer itself has become a delight! In prayer, we pull down heaven into our souls in sense and behold the inexhaustible storehouse of God’s eternal faithfulness and goodness. While we wait for His answer, basking in His presence in prayer sets our hearts aflame in hope! 

“To pray is to grasp heaven in one’s arms, to embrace God.” - Spurgeon. 

- Tom

As we near the end of Acts, we see how the Lord not only brings us safely through our earthly storms but continues to sustain and equip us once they have passed - ALL for his glory and our joy! Below is an outline summary of the sermon for your further study and deeper reflection.

SERIES: Hopeful: The Book of Acts
TEXT: Acts 28:1-10
TITLE: Our Refuge After the Storm
PREACHER: Tom Wilkins
BIG IDEA: God is not done revealing His grace, power, and purposes after the storm.

POINTS:
I. God is our refuge AFTER the storm
1. A refuge following the storm
2. An unusual kindness
3. Divine protection
II. God’s work He performs
1. He has Gospel work right where we are
2. He will provide all that we need for the task at hand

SERMON EXCERPTS:
”He has brought us “safely through” for a purpose! He has brought us “safely through” to Glorify His name, reveal His power and rule, and show that He is our gracious God. He is our powerful God, and He will advance His Gospel!”

“God’s providential shore that these cold and drenched sailors, passengers, soldiers, and prisoners crawl out of the sea onto is called REFUGE! They were terrified, worn out, starving, and confused as thrashed and paddled their way into the beach. For weeks they had fought the storm and each other. Day and night they were met with worsening conditions and desperation. They had lost everything but their lives! BUT THEY HAD SURVIVED! THEY HAD LIVED.”

“We preach and believe that God will be there for us when the Storms come and He will be our refuge in the midst of the storm BUT here find with Paul that God will be refuge AFTER the storm!”

“I love considering the amazing truth’s of God design in creation - Malta will be its name! - I will place the refuge right here!”

“…the islanders get it partly right - sin wreaks havoc. BUT, in this case, the overarching truth is God, not some pagan goddess, will get the His glory and not through His wrath but through His salvation and kindness, and protection.“

“Take heart Christian, God is not done taking care of you! IN the storm - TAKE HEART. AFTER the storm - TAKE HEART - ‘One More Thing’ will not destroy you!”

“NOW Remember our GOSPEL HOPE in these Gospel truths:

What we get What we deserve

Brought safely through Lost in the storm

Unusual kindness Justified Wrath 

A fire to warm A fire to consume us

Shook Viper into the fire We should be in eternal fire

No misfortune Loss of everything and soul”

“In the storm, Jesus is our refuge! AFTER the storm, Jesus still is our refuge!”

“For three months God kept healing and healing and healing and healing. His plan, His purposes continue over and over and over again to unfold and they will not stop in this life until we reach heaven’s shore.”

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 30:55
Romans 8:32
Psalm 62:7-8
Numbers 6:24-26

QUOTES:
F. F. Bruce - “The name of the island was originally given by the Phoenician sailors, in whose language ‘Melita’ meant ‘refuge’, and Paul would recognize how apt the name was.”

Psalm 91:14-16 
14 “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. 15 When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

“Intimacy with God” is a loaded statement. Take just a moment and consider it. 
Intimacy…………… with God.

If we think about it for more than just a few seconds it may become a precious thought. It may lead us to smile. It may cause us to be uncomfortable. It may be uncomfortable due to a limited understanding of the word “intimacy”. I may have an intimate knowledge of computer networks [I’m tooting my horn here - but pride might be in a future blog, ha!], but I would never say that I experience intimacy in my relationship with a computer network. Words are important! Intimacy with God is the stuff of our relationship with Him. Depending on the nature of your relationship with God, this could bring us joy or immediately concern us.

For the follower of Christ, prayer is an intimate means of talking with God. In Psalm 91:14, the writer “holds fast to [God] in love.” He [knows God’s name]. This is an intimate knowledge of God in a deep affection for God. And in this intimate relationship with God, he “calls” on God. He speaks to God. He prays to God. It is clear that prayer is an intimate encounter with God. 

Charles Spurgeon knew of this intimate nature of prayer when he said, “Prayer links us with the Eternal, the Omnipotent, the Infinite, and hence it is our chief resort.” In prayer, he said that we should “Be sure that you are with God, and then you may be sure that God is with you.” This is amazing! We have true intimacy with God in prayer. We then are greatly comforted knowing that He is very near when we pray! 

It gets better! Psalm 91:15-16 reveals that God moves toward us in salvation when we call on Him for help. He truly is with us. Yet, now there is even greater a joy in discovering that He moves in closer when we pray for His help. In these times, we will intimately know that we are with Him and that He is with us! 

The possibility of the nearness of God is a surprising joy when we remember that He is holy and we are not. The surprising intimacy we have in prayer is made possible only by the Cross of Christ (Hebrews 10:19). He loved us first (1 John 4:19). 

Think about those words, “intimacy with God” again, and pray knowing that God is very near.

- Tom

Chorus:
O sing, hallelujah! 
Our hope springs eternal!
O sing, hallelujah!
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death

We are excited to sing a new song from Getty Music this Sunday.
Whatever we encounter this week, may this truth spur us to sing as we proclaim that Christ is our hope in life and death!

Title: Christ Our Hope In Life and Death

Words and Music: Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Jordan Kauflin, and Matt Papa

Link to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OibIi1rz7mw