Evangelical Church of Fairport

Excellent interview on the church facing our cultural moment. The World and Everything In. The segment is from the 12 min mark to 16 min mark: https://content.blubrry.com//TWAEII-2021-04-09-1719-4921-C

I could not be more pleased than to announce that the family at ECF voted in Jim Luckey to take my place as lead Pastor April 1, 2021. God has blessed us greatly indeed.

A Paper delivered to the Reformation Society of Western NY on April 8, 2021 Reformation Society of Western New York Thursday, April 8th, 2021 Lessons Lifted, Learned and Listed Pastoring, Proverbs and the Christian Mind. Reid A. Ferguson Sr. Pastor (Ret. Evangelical Church of Fairport) 6256 Brownsville Rd. Farmington, NY 14425 585-303-0128 [email protected] www.ResponsiveReiding.com It is my conviction that the book of Proverbs is one of the most misused, misunderstood and neglected portions of Scripture.... http://responsivereiding.com//lessons-lifted-learned-and-/

Growth in faith is not a matter of quantity, but of confidence. And it has 2 aspects. One for the Believer, and one for the Unbeliever. Faith is the "assurance": This is for the Believer. When I am believing God, trusting in His person and promises, I have true assurance. In other words, faith grasps the word and promises of God as realities, and not theories or mere wishes.... http://responsivereiding.com/2021/04/08/faith/

God willing I'll be preaching this Sunday @ ECF on Matthew 5:13-16. Such a rich passage.

Dear ECF, In the whirl of transition it is possible to overlook the season we are in. But the beautiful weather of Spring is singing the song of the new life. This week is set apart in the life of the church to reflect on the central events of Jesus' ministry for us, namely our Lord's death on the cross and His bodily resurrection. The historical events we celebrate over Easter have unfathomable depths of comfort and grace for His people, for through them we have been brought... from darkness and into the light and life of God. I want to share some links to help set our hearts and minds on the death and resurrection of Christ this week. Music: CityAlight https://www.cityalight.com/ The music is excellent and lyrics are theologically rich. They are profiling a song on their website called It was finished on the cross. If you have a hymnal at home, look in the back and find songs related to the cross and resurrection and read them as a family, or use them in your devotions. Read ahead in Matthew: Read Matthew 26 - 28 and consider how the themes we've seen so far in Matthew of salvation, God's true people, and God's Kingdom are unfolded in his account of Jesus' death and resurrection. Parkside Church Good Friday Online Service: Live April 2nd @ 7PM https://www.parksidechurch.com/w/sunday-morning-livestream/ Many of you have been built up by the ministry of Alistar Begg and in lieu of our own service this year, this would be really good to participate in as a family. Resurrection Sunday @ ECF: Come and Worship together on Sunday! Grace and Peace in Christ! Jim

D. A. Carson preaching on the Sermon on the Mount - and meekness. A word we need to consider much in today's climate both in, and outside, the Church. "Blesse...d are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. How does this meekness differ from the poverty of spirit? In this way, I think, poverty of spirit has more to do with what a person is in himself. Meekness has more to do with his relationship to others, first toward God and secondly toward his peers, his colleagues. Again, it is apparent that meekness is not considered an ideal by the world. Meekness is simply not one of the world’s ideas of strength, yet every Christian ought to be characterized by this beatitude, by this meek spirit. I fear that too frequently we who name the name of Christ lay the ax to this beatitude more quickly than any other on the list. Think of God’s method of decreasing Gideon’s host and increasing the percentage of committed holiness. He didn’t seem to be interested in the large display and the large showy force, but he was interested in the men. Or think again of Abraham’s deference to Lot. That’s meekness. Or think of Moses so reluctant to be pushed into the forefront. That’s meekness. The meekest man who ever lived, we read. Meekness, therefore, is certainly not to be confused with weakness. Meekness does not mean being a wishy-washy Charlie Brown who can be walked over and pushed over with a wet noodle. It is something strong and deep. It is with respect to God the conscious acknowledgement that he is Lord, and with respect to my fellow men that I desire to see their interests and their attitudes precede my own. One writer puts it this way: The man who is truly meek is the one who is amazed that God and men can think of him as well as they do. Meekness must then go on and express itself in our whole demeanor and in our behavior. In other words, there is to be no cheap spirit of retaliation and endless one-upmanship. Rather, we are to leave everything ourselves, our rights, our cause, our whole future in the hands of God, and especially so if we feel we are suffering unjustly. In this day, when many people are yelling loudly about their rights, the Christian in matters of personal relationship with others is willing to leave his rights in the hands of God. I draw your attention in passing to Titus 3:17 and 2 Peter, chapter 3. We read, And the meek shall inherit the earth. What a devastating contradiction to the world’s philosophy. The materialism of our day says, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, only do it first. The philosophy of our day says, Grab what you can. The strong man first and the Devil take the hindmost. That is so whether you are on the left of the political spectrum or on the right. Somehow people get embroiled in their own things, and they see themselves as being attacked when even their ideas are questioned, but while the pressures of a competitive and increasingly crooked business world forge such philosophies, Jesus says, The meek shall inherit the earth. This is true in at least two ways. It is true now, in the first place, because the truly meek man is the truly contented and satisfied man. In this sense, he inherits the earth now. Paul, therefore, could affirm, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. The materialist is never truly content, no matter how much he owns. All things are yours, Paul insists. You may not have them right now, but they’re yours. They’re yours in principle. Look at the long-range view. They’re all Christ’s, and you’re Christ’s, and therefore they’re all yours. This brings us to the second way in which it’s true. It will be demonstrably true in the new heaven and the new earth. If I dare speak of eternity in terms of time, 50 million billion trillion years into eternity, the threescore years and ten we spend down here will not seem like much more than that. Then we will wish we had reoriented our perspectives, our goals, and our values during these threescore years and ten." D. A. Carson, Kingdom of Heaven: Its Norms and Witness, in D. A. Carson Sermon Library (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2016), Mt 5:116.

Video for this sermon can be found here: Something Jim mentioned in his sermon last week reminded me of a conversation I was involved in a number of years ago. It was at one of our Pastor’s fellowships. We were discussing the Sermon on the Mount. One of the men, a dear brother, a solid brother whom I love, made this statement: If I am on my deathbed, and you are called to minister to me, one passage I... http://responsivereiding.com/2021/03/15/salt-and-light/

For the audio Podcast of this and every episode, find us on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Spotify or HERE If you’d like to join us in our journey reading all the way through the Bible this year, drop me a line at [email protected], and I’ll be glad to email back a copy of the reading plan we are using. [ 619 more words ] http://responsivereiding.com//through-the-word-in-2020-14/

This morning at ECF

The European folk tale of Henny Penny or Chicken Little brought the phrase the sky is falling into popular use. In all versions, a real event, in most an acorn dropping on a hen’s head, starts the whole thing rolling. The hen, concludes that since something fell randomly out of the sky and hit her - then the sky must be falling. [ 573 more words ] http://responsivereiding.com//through-the-word-in-2020-13/

As you know, I end each podcast saying God willing, we’ll be back... whenever. Well Providence intervened Friday and I was not able to be with you. But if you’ve kept up with reading, then we are brought to today’s passages: Jeremiah 17:1921:10; Psalm 124; Luke 22:6623:5; and 1 Peter 3:822 with a most interesting connection between Jeremiah and 1 Peter. [ 575 more words ] http://responsivereiding.com//through-the-word-in-2020-13/