Bible Verses for Sunday Service April 3, 2022
Jeremiah 31:3
the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Psalm 73:26
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Announcements:
AWANA ended this week with the final regular session. The coming Wednesday, we will recognize the clubbers and give out awards. The deacons will meet on April 14 at 7PM. We continue to plan for the Easter breakfast on April 17th at 9:30AM. Steve reminded us to invite our family and friends to join us, and to sign up to bring something. Mae’s bridal shower approaches on April 23rd, and she is now registered at Amazon. You can click to be taken directly to her page. With then end of AWANA, our ministry focus for children turns to the Vacation Bible School. This year’s theme is “Zoomerang,” and is slated to run between June 6 through the 10th. Not on the formal list of announcements in the bulletin, but very important nonetheless, Steve let us know Langton Smith is graduating Shepherd High School, more details to follow. Lastly, we were blessed by Cole’s playing today with Dale.
Sermon:
Pastor continued his review of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus’ proclamation of the arrival of the Kingdom of God with a message titled “Talking to God.” In these verses Jesus continues to teach about prayer. Pastor gave us a framework for considering the Lord’s prayer.
To begin, Pastor challenged us to think about the Lord’s prayer as a model for talking to God. In the first part of the prayer we are talking to God about God. So rightly, we adore His character. We also consider how we can advance His kingdom. Lastly, we accept God’s command. We can strive to be like angels who swiftly and completely obey. Our model is Jesus with his focus on obeying the Father’s will, not his own.
In expounding on this, Pastor gave us some instruction on prayer. We are to make it a private conversation, just between God and us. Also we are to make it personal. How can we do this, while we don’t want to get stuck in wrote prayers, we can make it personal to us, develop our style of praying, and our times when we chose to focus on the Lord through prayer.
Besides talking to God about Himself, the Lord’s prayer models presenting our needs to our Father. In other words, we are talking to God about ourselves. Our need for food, the basic for physical sustenance. But, in presenting our needs, Pastor reminded us that we are presenting needs not wants. We are also to present our faults, our spiritual troubles, where we need help to grow so we can be conformed to the image of the Son, Jesus. Lastly, Pastor reminded us to talk to God about the future. Perhaps we need help so our prayer isn’t undone by our mistakes in trials, we undo prayer’s work by succumbing to Satan’s tricks. Alternatively, maybe we struggle with a besetting sin. In either case, these are problems to present to the Lord in our prayers, in our conversation with Him.
Accessing the Service, Bulletin and Sermon Outline:
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