Bible Verse for Sunday Service January 14, 2024
Psalms 27:4
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.
Announcements:
We postponed the potluck and annual business meeting that was scheduled for today due to the cold weather. Next week, we will meet after church for a soup and salad luncheon and have the meeting to follow. In the meeting we will elect officers for the coming year and discussing the church budget. We will also discuss possible projects for the coming year. Everyone is welcome to stay for lunch and attend the meeting. Please bring your favorite soup, salad or dessert to share.
The revised church directory is complete and ready. Be sure to pick up a copy and use it to keep in contact with one another. We’ve placed them on the foyer table. At the back of the directory is a blank page on which you can add names. We will be glad to to add any names that aren’t included.
Last week the church donated a total of $861 to HeartCry in the offering taken up during Hunter Gately’s presentations to us.
Sermon:
Today Pastor Jim spoke from Hebrews 10:19-23 in a sermon he titled “An Open Door Policy.” Pastor’s theme was the access we have to God through Jesus our high priest in heaven. He analogized to that captured in a famous picture from the Kennedy era. While JFK worked at his desk looking seriously at the papers on it, his child played carefree under it. JFK’s child had access to the most powerful man in the world. We have continual access to God through Jesus, something covered in today’s verses. Pastor covered aspects of access that we enjoy in three points.
To begin, we have confident access. We need not be uncertain or circumspect in our access. Jesus our high priest died to provide access to everyone who believes in Him. Pastor saw two aspects of this confidence. We are accessing a Holy Place in coming before Him in prayer or study. That place is much like the Holy of Holies of old, except no one except the Jewish high priest could access it, and then only once a year. Pastor also wanted us to consider that the access we confidently enjoy is through a Holy person, Jesus. It is only through His work on the cross, his acceptable sacrifice that we can enter.
Next Pastor spoke on the compelling nature of the access. That is the access is from God’s love for us His children. This can be hard to see sometimes. That is why the Old Testament has many references to the writer feeling abandoned by God, notable David’s writing in the Psalms, Jeremiah and Job. But, in all things we should have an assured heart, confidence of the love we enjoy. Pastor provided good advice to us: don’t let your feeling overrule that which you know to be true. But, he did consider that we must also have a clean heart with all of our sin confessed. God will not hear an unrepentant believer. So we should walk in the light like John advises and confess our sin, agree with God as to how he sees it. Then the Holy Spirit can clean us up, wash us.
Lastly, we have changeless access. This is almost self explanatory. God doesn’t change he is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He isn’t fickle in his feelings of love toward us. We can rely on the access we have today tomorrow and the next day. So, let us come to Him, step into His presence. His door is not shut, therefore, run to Him today.
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.