Brothers and Sisters,

I pray this week finds you well, and that God’s Word has been working in your hearts to bring about godly things.

Sermon Recap

Our sermon series so far has shown us that God’s Word creates God’s people who display God’s glory, and that God has designed for His adopted family to flourish in certain family structures. Last Sunday, we considered the traits of this family. We saw that God’s family is to be a people who are increasingly Bible-believing, gospel-centered, transformation-minded, joyfully committed to each other, and passionately concerned for our community and the world.

But how does one acquire these family traits? To answer this question, we considered Jesus’s parable about two lost sons and their gracious father. One son was rebellious and worldly, the other respectful and obedient—and yet both sons were self-serving, treasuring the father’s possessions rather than the father himself. The younger son came to recognize his sinful heart, returning to the father in desperate humility. The father’s response? He ran to embrace his lost son. Here we have a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us. He came to the earth to embrace lost sinners; he humbled himself upon the cross, taking on our sin, even as the father humbled himself in running to his son and covering his shame. This is the key to acquiring the family traits. We are captivated by the knowledge of what Christ has done on our behalf, and are transformed by this glorious truth. As the gospel increasingly permeates our hearts, we increasingly become the embodiment of the gospel.

Want to Grow Spiritually?  

As part of our on-going partnership with The Gospel Coalition Arizona, Donald Whitney, author of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life and well-respected seminary professor, will speak on “Biblical Spiritual Disciplines for Real People”, March 3-4, 2017.  We’d love for dozens from the COM family to attend this great conference.  For more information or to register, see here.

Financial Update

Church On Mill is grateful for the generosity of its members who give sacrificially as partners in gospel work. While we ended last year strong, we are about $10,000 behind this year.  Please consider an extra gift to help glorify God through lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ here.

Your brother in Christ,

Phil Hoshiwara