Church Blog

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Easter Monday to all! What a fantastic day of worship we had yesterday. Worshipping with Emmanuel in two languages was so wonderful! We celebrated the resurrection of our Lord. As Pastor Jose said, all other religions have dead founders, but we have a living Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ conquered death and is Lord of all. Because Jesus rose from the dead, this changes everything! Jesus takes the mess we make of our lives and the waste laying all around us and make it a beautiful structure. Jesus takes broken and ruined lives, hopeless and helpless lives, and make them brand new. Jesus takes the ruins of our lives and bring beauty and poetry from them. Always remember His Word will not fail and His promises will be kept! Remember a tomb that is empty never to be occupied again!

This Sunday will be the last Sunday to give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. Special offering envelopes are provided on the table in the back of the sanctuary to support the spreading of the gospel across our continent. Give as the Lord leads.

We are planning a workday at the church building Saturday, May 7 at 9:00 AM.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Sisters and brothers,

Happy Monday to all! This week, Holy Week, is the week we remember the events that remind us Jesus alone is the hope of all the world. We remember Christ Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt proclaiming He was Israel’s and the world’s Savior and King. We remember His confrontation with hypocritical religious leaders whose religion was nothing more than empty rituals. We remember His giving us His supper to remind us that He gave His body and shed His blood so our sins could be justly forgiven, and we could be right with God. We remember the cross and Jesus dying in our place, taking in Himself the punishment we deserved for our sins. We remember the borrowed tomb in which Jesus was buried. And we remember Jesus is stronger than death in that He rose from the dead physically and bodily. Jesus forever conquered death! Jesus conquered death for you if you will believe in and receive Him. Take time this week to think deeply about all these things and to adore and love the Savior of the world.

On April 15 at 7:00 PM, we will have a joint Good Friday service with Midvale Baptist Church, 821 S. Midvale Blvd., Madison, at their building. Join us in this time of worship with our brothers and sisters at Midvale on Good Friday.

Resurrection Sunday is coming next Sunday, April 17! This is the great day of celebration for believers as we rejoice in worshipping our Savior who conquered death. We will begin our celebration of Resurrection Sunday with an Easter Breakfast at 9:30 AM in our basement with our brothers and sisters of Emmanuel Church. Then at 10:45 AM, we will have a joint worship service in Spanish and English with Emmanuel Church. Plan to join us for this great celebration.

Pray for Donald Smith as doctors have had to change his treatment plan. The treatment Donald has been receiving is becoming less effective and they are looking at other options. Donald, Deanna, and family, we love you and will keep you continually before the Lord in prayer.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday to all! Yesterday we had some crazy things happen. Some of our Bible Study leaders were sick and missed. Our sound system was down, and we had to adjust to this during our morning worship. But despite all that, God’s children met, worshipped our great God and Savior, and enjoyed being the family of God gathered. We learned from Genesis 9 how believers should respond to temptation and sin. We learned we should never overestimate our own strength to resist temptation but humbly depend on the Holy Spirit who lives in every person who believes. We also learned that we are never to rejoice in the failures of others or use their failures as an excuse for us to sin. We learned that as long as we are in these mortal bodies, we will be tempted to sin and will sometimes fall into sin. As Mark Dever wrote, “I often tell my congregation that when it comes to battling sin in our lives, the difference is not that non-Christians sin whereas Christians do not. The difference is found in which side we take in the battle. In other words, a Christian will sin, but then he will turn to God and His Word and say, ‘Help me fight against sin.’ A non-Christian, even if he recognizes his sin, effectively responds, ‘I want sin more than God.’”  Christians respond to sin by continually confessing and turning away from it.

We will have our annual business meeting next Sunday, April 10, following the morning worship gathering.

On April 15 at 7:00 PM, we will have a joint Good Friday service with Midvale Baptist Church, 821 S. Midvale Blvd., Madison, at their building. Join us in this time of worship with our brothers and sisters at Midvale on Good Friday.

Resurrection Sunday is coming on April 17! This is the great day of celebration for believers as we rejoice in worshipping our Savior who conquered death. Because Jesus rose, all who believe in Him will also conquer death and rise. We will begin our celebration of Resurrection Sunday with an Easter Breakfast at 9:30 AM in our basement with our brothers and sisters of Emmanuel Church. (There is a sign-up sheet with things needed for the breakfast in the foyer.) Then at 10:30 AM, we will have a joint worship service in Spanish and English with Emmanuel Church. Plan to join us for this great celebration.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Sisters and brothers,

Happy Monday to all! Yesterday was an exciting day with all that was happening! We shared the Lord’s Supper together. We sang about our wonderful, merciful Savior. We witnessed the beginning of a new congregation of Christ’s followers in our midst. And we learned from Genesis 9 that God graciously entrusts mankind with caring for the earth and those people made in God’s image. We thought about the value of each person. Each person is worth more than all the stuff in the world. We learned that we are to value each human being the way God values them. Christians need to be the first to say, “We will not be part of the culture of disrespect that we find all around us. We will not denigrate or defame others because they disagree with us. We will respect and cherish the image of God we see in every person.”

We are excited for the beginning of worship services for Emmanuel Church. It was exciting to see so many new people in the building and hear the worship of God’s people and the preaching of the gospel in Spanish. If you know someone whose primary language is in Spanish, invite them to Emmanuel’s Worship at 9:30 AM here at the EMBC building.

We will be adjusting the beginning of our worship time starting next Sunday, March 27. East Madison will begin worship at 10:45 AM instead of 10:30 AM.  This will give the two congregations time to fellowship for a few minutes and get to know each other. Next week, Jose Marco will also be preaching during East Madison’s worship time.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday to all! Yesterday, it was wonderful to celebrate our oneness in Christ and worship the true and living God together. In our worship, we looked at Genesis 7 and 8 how God cared for Noah and his family during and after the flood. We learned about God’s care for all who trust Him. We discovered God brings us through the storms of life. We learned that God cares for us in and after the storms of life.  And we saw how God’s people respond to God’s love and care by worshipping Him and surrendering our lives continually to Him. During life’s most violent storms, God always provides and cares for those who trust Him. Trust Him in your storms today.

We will observe the Lord’s Supper during our worship gathering next Sunday at 10:30 AM.

Our Hispanic mission, Emmanuel Church, will begin having worship services next Sunday, March 20 during our Bible Study time at 9:30 AM. Some of the children of those adults attending will join our Sunday School classes during this time. Pray for Jose and Mary Lou Marco as they take the next step in reaching Hispanics for Christ in our community. We are so excited to be part of this gospel outreach!

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Sisters and brothers,

Happy Monday to all! Yesterday as we worshipped, we looked from Genesis 6 at the catastrophic judgment God brought on the world through The Flood. God revealed through Genesis 6 that He would not tolerate evil forever. Though the Lord is more than patient with sinful human beings, the Lord’s patience is limited. God will not continue forever to be merciful to sinners who will not turn from self-centeredness and evil. The Scripture says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on Him while He is near.”  All of us, for the first time or for the hundredth time, need to turn to Him and call on Him today! We also saw that the wickedness of men grieves the heart of a holy and loving God. God takes no pleasure in the destruction of sinful men but seeks for them to turn to Him and live. And just as God grieves over the evil of human beings, His children should also grieve over the ruin and death that sin causes among us and to those all around us. We also finally saw that just as God was merciful to Noah and his family, the Lord looks for those to whom He can be merciful. God is just and His justice will compel Him to destroy evil. But we see even in this, Almighty God as ultimate judge is merciful to those who will trust Him.

I want to thank all of you who give so much of yourselves in serving the Lord at East Madison. We have so many who volunteer and work behind the scenes to help us be able to be on mission with God. I consider it a privilege to work beside all of you.

Next Sunday, March 13, Daylight Savings time begins. Do not forget to move your clocks ahead one hour on Saturday before you go to bed.

Our Hispanic mission, Emmanuel Church, will begin having worship services on Sunday, March 20 during our Bible Study time at 9:30 AM. Some of the children of those adults attending will join our Sunday School classes during this time. Pray for Jose and Mary Lou Marco as they take the next step in reaching Hispanics for Christ in our community. We are so excited to be part of this gospel outreach!

This song has been an encouragement to me lately and I would like to share it with you. It was written by Bob Kauflin and Keaton Bunting, and is called, “My Soul Will Wait.”  It can be found here: https://youtu.be/e4brmgdJvBc. I hope it encourages you as much as it has me.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday to all! It was wonderful to worship our great God and be with His children yesterday. We learned from Genesis five, looking at Adam and his descendants through Seth, about sin’s penalty and God’s gift. We learned fallen mankind still bears the image of God, even though that image has been marred by sin. We learned fallen mankind finds hope in the birth of each new generation. We saw fallen mankind is reminded of the curse and penalty of sin, which is death. We discovered those with faith look forward to freedom from the curse and penalty of sin. And we saw that fallen mankind sees glimpses of life without death. We see in Enoch a glimpse of what it will be like in the last generation of Christians alive when Christ returns. That generation will not see death but will be changed. 1 Corinthians 15:51-57 reminds us: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵²in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”  Death will not have the last word. Life in Jesus will have the last word. Death will be swallowed up in victory. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Sisters and brothers,

Happy Monday to all! It was wonderful to worship with all of you yesterday. We learned from Genesis 4 about Cain’s murder of Abel and the downward spiral of sin. Cain’s faithless sacrifice was not accepted by God, while Abel’s was accepted. God in His love came to Cain and warned him about the danger he was in because of his anger over this. However, Cain’s continued to allow his anger at God and Abel to fester, which led to his murder of Abel. Then, when God again graciously comes to Cain for Cain to confess his evil deed, Cain refuses to confess and shows no remorse over the murder of his brother Abel. That is the way of sin. Sin starts small and grows. Sin is progressive. Sin will enslave. And the ultimate end of sin is death. We see sin’s downward spiral in this event. The sins of one generation can lead to greater rebellion, greater sin of the next generation, especially if those sins are not confessed. Sin springs out of faithlessness, out of not believing God’s Word. We think we know better than God, so we ignore what His Word tells us and warns us about. Faithlessness leads to broken relationships between both God and each other.However, we also learned that sin does not have the last word. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins so in Him we are made right with God. Never forget evil will be destroyed. The world will not destroy itself by nuclear war, through climate change, or any other means. Jesus, the seed of the woman, fulfilled the promise to crush the head of Satan when He came the first time to die in our place and rise again. Jesus is coming again to completely destroy evil, restore creation, and rule and reign in righteousness forever and ever and ever. The faithlessness of men will not negate the promises and faithfulness of God.

 Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday to all! It was great to worship with all of you yesterday. As we took the Lord’s Supper together, we remembered that Jesus’ death and resurrection have made all who believe God’s children and one with each other. We remembered Jesus’ shed blood made the forgiveness of our sin possible. From Genesis 3 yesterday we looked at the entry of sin into God’s good creation. Sin brought judgment, death, and chaos to all of creation. However, we saw God immediately began to pursue fallen men and women to redeem and restore them and creation  to Himself. When Adam and Eve sinned, they tried to cover their guilt and shame by sewing fig leaves together to cover their nakedness, their guilt. But it did not work. However, God took animals, slaughtered them, and made coverings for the man and the woman. This is a picture that I think points to Christ and His being slaughtered in our place. All we can try to do to cover our guilt and sin will not work. All the fig leaves we can sew together, all the moral living and benevolence and religious rituals we do to try to cover our sin will never cover our sin. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Blood was shed to provided skins to temporarily cover Adam and Eve. Ultimately, God provides the permanent covering for our sin when Jesus shed His blood in our place to take away our guilt. The innocent One, Jesus, became sin, the sin offering, for us because only what He does covers our sin. We see in all this God loving, caring, and pursuing sinful mankind. God pursues us so that we can have paradise restored and once again walk with God. God pursues sinful men and women and provides the way for us to be restored to Himself and each other.

I want to thank our faithful Bible study teachers and small group leaders for all they do to help us grow in understanding and living for God’s glory. Thank you, Jason, David, Deanna, Grace and Annette for their leadership.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Sisters and brothers,

Happy Monday to all! It was great to worship with all of you yesterday. It is always wonderful to gather with the family of God. We looked closely at Genesis 2 and God’s special creation of man and woman. We saw God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into man the breath of life. God placed man in a beautiful setting with purposeful existence and provided abundantly for man. God gave man the freedom to love Him and enjoy Him or reject Him. God specifically created the woman for man to be his spouse, companion, and helper. God wanted to show mankind they need other people, so mankind might live in families and in community. God created us to live in relationship and submission to Him. We are not to live bowing to the false god of absolute personal autonomy. Personal autonomy as an idol makes a person the very center of their universe and no outside force can tell that person who they are and how they are supposed to live. This idol denies that there is God in heaven who created us and defines us and who knows what is best for us. This idol denies God as the center of the universe and makes a person the center of his or her universe. The view that you have absolute personal autonomy is in direct conflict with the truth of the Word of God that God made you for Himself to live in relationship to Him and for His glory. God made you to know, love and live for Him and bring Him glory. If you refuse to live for God and outside of Him and apart from Him, you miss what life is truly meant to be. If you make yourself the center of your universe, you miss knowing the true and living God who is truly the center of the universe. You live in a delusional and unreal world. God created mankind to live in relationship with Him as His submissive servants and created us to live in community with each other.

We will be observing the Lord’s Supper next Sunday, February 13, during our morning worship. If you are worshipping with us on livestream, I encourage you to get some crackers and juice and participate with us in the taking of the Supper. You are always welcome to come by the church building during the week and pick up the prepackaged elements for the Supper so you can have them on Sunday.

We are considering updating the windows in the church building and are looking for estimates from responsible companies. If you have a recommendation, could you email that recommendation to me. Also, if you have a company we should avoid, please let us know that.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other. 

Love being your pastor,

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church