Pastor’s Note for June

Greetings and grace to you in the wonderful name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is actually June! I don’t remember blinking during the first five months of 2023. Another school year has ended, and a new church year is beginning. Sunday, June 4, is advancement day for all children, youth and recent high school graduates in Sunday School. Newly promoted 6th graders move up to Youth classes and recent graduates now move into the Coed 1 class. Youth Girls Class (room #302) is led by Staci Ebert & Candace Long, and Youth Guys class (room #300) is led by John Crutcher & Daniel Long. Coed 1 (Young Singles) meets in room #204 and is led by Rodney Ferguson. God is good, all the time!

This year during the summer months we will continue with our current Sunday evening Discipleship schedule. There will be some announced special nights and fellowships. Vacations are always popular during the summer. Well deserved times of realization with family. But we never take a vacation from the Lord! Summer presents great opportunities for ministry and outreach. Be alert to these opportunities and invite friends and family to join you at ERBC.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3) As John is inspired by the Lord to write encouragingly to the Church in his first epistle, we read these two verses which reveal two truths the appearing of the Lord Christ produces in the believer’s life. These two truths are Personal Expectation and Personal Purification. It is verse two which speaks to the appearing of Christ and in verse three we read, “every man that hath this hope.” Hope is a translated from the Greek, elpis, which is used in the Christian sense to mean confident expectation. Being a child of God brings this hope, confident expectation, that one day He will appear, and we will be like Him. This Personal Expectation of a future event produces a present effect: Personal Purification, turning from self and sin unto the Savior in all things. “Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” (Matt. 24:46)

By His grace,

Toney