October 18, 2020
Upcoming Events and Notices
We have resumed in-person worship service. Please join us for worship at 11 AM. We request all adults and older children to wear a mask and maintain social distancing.
We also hope to livestream this week's service via YouTube here. If, however, technical issues prevent the livestream, a video of the service will be available later in the day. Further information will be made available Sunday afternoon via a separate email.
You can find the order of worship and songs here.
The October 11, 2020 sermon, Isaiah 1:21–31. "Justice and Righteousness" is available on our church website. You can also catch up on older sermons from our Sermon page and subscribe to sermon podcast here.
October 21 (Wednesday 7 PM): Please join us for for "Knowing God" Zoom study. This week’s study will cover chapter 6 — "He Shall Testify." Meeting ID: 831 0828 6050.
Thank you for your continued support of Grace Fallbrook (PCA). Your loving support makes the proclamation of the gospel and the building up of the saints possible. Please continue to mail in your gifts and offerings to our church treasurer, Bruce Summers. In addition, our church website now features online giving. Please visit the church website and click on "Give" which you will find in the upper left corner of our church's website. When you click on "Give Online Now" button on that page, you will be directed to the PCA Foundation where you give towards Grace Fallbrook (PCA).
Before We Worship
Not many people can go through life without a care in the world. In fact, most (all?) normal people have no shortage of difficulties in life. We are troubled by the mistakes of the past, insensitive people around us, annoying circumstances, compromised health, foolishness of policy decisions, underperforming retirement account, car troubles just after the warranty has expired, computers acting up, and, for crying out loud, where did I put my keys?
In our day to day life chaos seems seems to rule the day. We are desperate for order and sanity, but peace feels just out of our reach. Our great challenge, obviously, is to keep our heart singing the hymns of gratitude rather than woeful blues. But just how do we do that?
Some people try to maintain a positive attitude by recognizing that as bad as things are now, things could be much worse! Well, that is usually true, and there is probably some value in recognizing that we have a tendency to be myopic. We exaggerate our woes until they fill our entire horizon. So sometimes it is helpful to remember that others have lived through much worse things.
However, as helpful as that may be, it does not exactly fill my heart with songs of praise to remember that other people are far worse off than I am. Instead, gratitude and praise come when we think about our God's tender mercies. We are too nearsighted to see anything other than our problems with much clarity. Crucially, one of the things we often do not see very well is how God daily cares for us, how he constant bears us up, and how he unfailingly blesses us far more abundantly than we deserve. That is to say, our songs blues turn into joyful hymns, not so much when we think about other people, but when we think about God's promises, his power, his faithfulness, and his love.
Think about God and be satisfied. Fix your thoughts on his ways and be comforted. He is a bottomless well from which we can draw an endless supply of grace.