Bible Verse for Sunday Service February 25, 2024
Romans 15:7
Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Announcements:
Next Sunday is Fellowship Sunday. We will have refreshments between Sunday School and Church. Please bring a favorite treat or snack to share.
Also next Sunday, we will have a representative from the Gideons who will share a report about the work of the Gideons in distributing God’s Word in our community, our country and around the world. During service, you can give to this ministry if you wish.
On March 11, the Church will provide AED/First Aid training for our safety team and ministry leaders who have asked to be included. A schedule has been set up for the training. If you have any questions, please ask Dale.
On March 23, we will once again host the AWANA Grand Prix, which is a fun day of racing cars that the Awana kids make. Beside being fun, it is a great outreach to families, and a good opportunity for involving parents in a project with their children. We run the races in the morning and serve lunch as noon. Please volunteer to help set up the track, run the race, and serve lunch. Let us know if you can help. Car kits are available for $10 each. Any child, attendees at Awana or not, may participate.
We are also hosting a Grand Prix test and tune on the Friday before the Grand Prix between 4 and 6PM. If you plan to race, we encourage you to come in and have your car weighed and “tuned up” for the big race.
On the foyer table you will find the March-May copies of the Daily Bread devotionals. You may take copies for your self and others at no charge.
Sermon:
Pastor Jim spoke to us today about Hebrews 11:11-19. He titled his sermon “The God Who Is.” In it, he covered two attributes of God, that He is faithful and He is able. But, Pastor encouraged us to complete the sentence the God who is … with our own experience of His greatness. With Psalm 19:1 in mind, Pastor opened his sermon, by way of recalling the contrast between two pronouncements from man’s exploration of the moon, the US acknowledging God and the Russian denying he could be found in the heavens. He went on to examine Sarah’s faith, imperfect in light of two attributes.
Firstly, Pastor looked at how God is faithful. Pastor remarked that the Bible contains exactly what God wanted recorded, and this section dealing with Sarah’s faith in Hebrews is in spite of, not because of, here earlier response to God’s promises to her and Abraham. By contrast, her earlier responses record failure to believe God, but here she is in the chronicles of faith. But, she was able to get the right focus, which is on the idea that nothing is impossible for God. And, the fulfillment of His promise to her was truly remarkable. What women conceives and bears a child at the age of 90?
Next in this chapter, Pastor covered God’s call to Abraham regarding his requirement that he sacrifice his son. Pastor covered this under the heading God is able, able to provide, able to protect Isaac and if necessary, able to resurrect Isaac from the dead. This call to Abraham was certainly a test of his faith, and a reminder to us that He has tests for us too. Testing will come. Another aspect of testing is that it requires sacrifice on our parts. For Abraham it was to sacrifice his son, but Paul remind us in Romans that we are to be living sacrifices. Lastly in the working out this idea of testing is that it requires or should demonstrate faith. It is remarkable in the Genesis account, as Abraham and Isaac set off up the mountain, Abraham says to his man, we will return. So even though up to this point in the Bible, God had provided no resurrections, Abraham had one in mind for his son.
In conclusion, it is good to remember that God solved the problem of sacrifice by providing a substitute, the ram caught in a thicket. Of course this substitute points to Jesus, our substitionary sacrifice. It is always good to see Jesus on every page of the Bible, and be reminded of His work for us.
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.