Pastor's Notes

     Greetings and grace to you in the wonderful name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is good, all the time!  Space does not allow me to go into every detail of how the Lord is working through ERBC, you, to impact people’s lives.  Everyone sees the impact during services, people responding to God’s Word and the Gospel of Christ, baptisms, new faces and families and engagement in ministry.  But, what happens inside the building during services is only the manifestation of what takes place the other six days a week in each of your lives as we are dispersed in our community.  You, ERBC, are directly impacting and changing lives, whether it is being a good neighbor, helping someone in need, ministering through First Priority or Full Tummy, and especially individually sharing Jesus with everyone.  May the Lord continue to be pleased to bless us and glorify Himself through us.

     Thank you, ERBC family for taking the step of faith to approve the Personnel & Budget Teams recommendation to create the Associate Pastor of Education and Family Ministry position.  This has been a matter of prayer for over a year.  We must continue in prayer to discern God’s will and call the man He has appointed to serve in this position.  Intentional ministry to young families is greatly needed and something that could certainly produce great fruit unto the glory of God. 

     October begins with a flurry of activity.  Please be in prayer for the Haiti Keswick, as I will be traveling with a team of preachers October 4-11.  The Youth Beach Retreat is Oct. 7-10, and there are approximately 30 students signed up to go!  The Lord’s Supper will be on October 14 during the morning service.  The Senior Adult Ministry is sponsoring a trip to the Celebrators Conference, Oct. 22-25.  October 27 is the day for our Hoedown at the LeSueur’s Ranch.  This is ERBC’s annual fall church-wide outreach event.  Children’s activities will begin at 3:30pm, and will be followed by food, Gospel music, fellowship and a Gospel presentation.  Begin now to invite your neighbors and unchurched friends. 

     “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:” (1 Peter 2:9)  The Lord has always spoken to my heart in this verse.  Just as the Lord is forever the same, without change, so this verse is just as relevant to us as it was its original readers.  You and I are a “chosen generation.”  The Lord purposes to work through us to accomplish His will as He has chosen us in the Lord and has “made us unto our God kings and priests.” (Rev. 5:10)  We are a “royal priesthood.”  He has given us the majesty of kings and the ministry of priests, granting us power with God and with man.  We stand before men for God and before God for men.  Let us never be guilty of only standing before men for God, but first let us stand before God for men in loving intercession and fervent prayer.  Only as we stand before the Lord will He make us a “holy” and “peculiar” people.  The word “peculiar” is translated from the Greek word “peripoiesis,” which means a preservation; possession, one’s own property; an obtaining.  In the English it carries the meaning of unusual or unique, which is true of the born again Christian as we consider the other four verses the Greek word is used.  Being born again, we are the “purchased possession” (Eph. 1:14), appointed to “obtain” salvation (1 Thess. 5:9), called by the Gospel to “the obtaining” of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thess. 2:14) and “are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to ‘the saving’ of the soul.” (Heb. 10:39)  Yes indeed, an unusual and unique people, God’s people, being blood bought, Holy Spirit filled, born again children of God!  As a child of God, we are to “shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:”  As we are light in the Lord and walking as children of light (Eph. 5:8), our lives will give praise and give cause for others to praise the Lord Who has saved us.  “For to me to live is Christ!” (Philp. 1:21a).

By His grace,

Toney