Bible Verse for Sunday Service February 02, 2025
Joshua 1:8
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Announcements:
Phil Witschi would like to meet with the pulpit committee right after church to determine the best time for upcoming meetings.
The new church directories are on the foyer table. Please make sure you pick up a copy so that you can keep up-to-date with the names, addresses, and phone numbers of our Church family.
We blessed the Gide.ons last week after their presentation. Included in the offering, you donated $730 to that ministry. Through your generosity and giving, we also added to the offering from the church general fund to make the total amount $1419.
Both Alvin Low and Randy Steel shared the thanks for our commitment to support the ministries. We will be sending a donation to the Siliguri Seminary, a ministry supported by ACTS International. We will also be supporting Randy and Lauri Steel on a monthly basis. They serve a Ethnos 360 Bible Institute in Wisconsin. Please be sure to keep both of these ministries in your prayers.
A special thought on love for our consideration: they say February is the month of love, but there is no greater love than the love of God from above… How he loves us every day, how he listens to what we need to say. He never gets angry or impatient. He is always there for me and you. He gives us gifts every single day, and he shows us his love along the way.
Valentine’s Day is great, but it is only once see you that we tell love ones how we feel and make them feel special. But with God, we have this every second of every day. We can tell others the good news and make people special every day, and although they say February is the month of love, Valentine’s Day is every day without God above the greatest love story ever told. I love in our hearts we can forever hold.
Sermon:
Today, Pastor Jim continued preparing us for a new pastor by preaching on Titus 1:5-9 in a sermon titled “Prerequisites for the Pastorate.” Beginning today’s sermon with an anecdote, Pastor described how when he was young, his grandfather – as part of the committee screening for a new pastor – asked the pastor’s wife whether she could play the piano. Pastor Jim further related that his grandfather, perhaps was asking with some hope, but not making that a prerequisite. The real prerequisites for entering the Pastorate are found in today’s scripture, and Pastor began to discuss them under two headings, those are family and personality qualifications.
Beginning with family qualifications, Pastor Jim noted that the words used in scripture or perhaps ambiguous. What does it mean to be the husband of one wife? While people have developed theories for the meaning of this phrase, it seems most likely that it requires a pastor to be a devoted husband. Besides this, he should also be an influential father. Noting that there is no requirement that the pastor have children, Pastor Jim explained that if the candidate does have children, they should be faithful, and be believing and behaving. It is certainly true that statistics show that pastors believe they should have perfect children. But of course, this is challenging. With these children always being around in church, one might observe less than ideal behavior. But, Pastor reminded us that the easiest thing to do is to pray for them, that the Lord would help them and the family. What a wonderful admonition in today’s sermon.
To begin to discuss the personality, qualifications, Pastor Jim, distinguished, that there is no qualification for the so-called type A or type B personality, in charge or passive. Instead, the personality qualifications grow from the fact that pastors are God’s stewards, and therefore need the qualities to manage others’ property. Pastor Jim also observed that this list about personality is all in the negative. The list in Titus 1:7–8 is a list of disqualifying factors for the pastorate, all of which makes sense given a moments thought. Another way of looking at these negative qualities is they distract from serving God. Someone with these qualities is someone thinking more of himself than God.
But, the list also contains positive qualities, the qualities that one would have being God’s representative. The list includes being hospitable, sober minded, and having a just and holy disposition. All these qualities appear timeless. Such qualities were relevant in the first century, and are still relevant today. Let’s use this list to help us find the right kind of person to serve in our church.
To conclude, Pastor Jim related another anecdote about the church he grew up in eventually choosing the right pastor, the one whose wife couldn’t play the piano. That young man was very influential and Pastor Jim’s life, helping him see the need for his salvation, and treating him with God’s love. From the story, we should get that God brought the right person to that church to be the pastor. We should pray that we recognize the right person brought by God to our church.
Accessing the Service, Bulletin and Sermon Outline:
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