Bible Verse for Sunday Service December 22, 2024
Luke 2:10
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Announcements:
At the conclusion of service today, we will gather in the fellowship hall for a special musical treat. The Shepherd High School Jazz band will perform Christmas music for us. Refreshments are included. Our thanks to the members of the band, and to the music teacher, Kari Drange.
Christmas Eve service will be at 5:30PM. Celebrate the birth of Christ with us as we sing carols, and read the birth accounts of Christ from the book of Luke. We will also plan to have special music, and then a challenge from the Word. We will conclude by singing Silent Night with the traditional candle light. Please bring your family and friends.
Soon our church directory for 2025 will print, and we want to be sure that we have everyone’s correct information. If you are not in the directory now or if you need to change anything, please fill out the insert in the bulletin and drop it in the offering plate or leave it on the foyer table.
We plan to have our annual church business meeting after church on Sunday, January 19. The deacons will need to meet sometime before that to set the budget and nominate officers for the coming year. Deacons, let Pastor Jim know on some good times to meet.
Both AWANA and the Ladies Bible Study will take a two week break.
Special: “O Holy Night”
Our choir blessed us by singing “O Holy Night.” This sacred song has an unusual history. It started life in the imagination of French poet Placide Cappeau in 1847. Immediately after it was written, it was set to music by Adolphe Adam. Instantly popular as a Christmas song, it was translated to English by an American music critic and minister John Sullivan Dwight in 1855. He made minor changes in the words and music. We enjoyed it today as different choir members sang different parts. You can watch below, or through this link on Rumble.
Sermon:
In honor of the Christmas season Pastor Jim preached on the Word in in Luke 1:26-38 a sermon he titled “A Promise Kept.” To appreciate promises kept, we must first understand promises given, and with this understanding, we can move on to review promises kept, how they were kept. Pastor explored these ideas in two points.
Firstly, Pastor explained how God’s promises were to a certain family, and the Bible chronicles those promises made over 4000 years. To begin, God made a promise to the family of man, to Adam and Eve after they sinned in what is understood to be the first exposition of the Gospel. That God would provide from the family of Adam and Eve someone to deal with their sins and vanquish the Deceiver. We next learn more details of this promise when God makes a promise to Abraham. Through him and his family, all the world will enjoy blessing. Lastly, under promises, Pastor looked at the promise made to David. God promised that one of his descendants would sit on the throne forever. While David may have thought one of offspring would rule Israel like he did, God of course had in mind His Son, who will rule the new heaven and new earth after his return.
With these three promises in view, Pastor looked at how they are fulfilled in the New Testament. To begin, God’s promise was fulfilled in a virgin’s child, the baby Jesus, referenced in today’s verses. That virgin, Mary, was highly favored because she gave birth to the God of the universe in human form, and got to spend 33 years with Him. As the prophecies told of His birth, He would bring salvation to everyone who believed in Him, another blessing to Mary. While the promise states that Jesus will reign eternally, that hasn’t happened yet for us to see. He reigns eternally from heaven, But at our celebration of His birth, we wait expectantly and with hope for His return.
We can say, and do say, that God keeps His promises to us. We can see the ones that he has kept already in supplying Jesus to take care of our sin problem, and to explain how we can be part of the Kingdom of God now. Yet, we still have have very great and precious promises to look forward to. Let’s keep these thoughts close by as we celebrate.
Accessing the Service, Bulletin and Sermon Outline:
Here are the pages from the bulletin, click on the images below to see them full size:
If you would like to have the sermon outline, you can download it here, a pdf file.
If you would like a link to this service you can find it here. Perhaps you would like to share it with your friends. You could also share that link on social media, if you use any of the providers. We use Rumble, a safe alternative to Google’s YouTube.