Bible Verses for Sunday Service July 16, 2023
1 Timothy 2:5-6
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
Announcements:
We will have a Work Day on Thursday, July 20 to say good-bye to the two storage sheds. We therefore need to empty them of their contents. Regarding the contents, we will have to decide what stays and what goes. Besides this, you could help with other jobs: prepare and paint the wall in the fellowship/game room, wash windows inside and out, clean appliances in the kitchen, or any other job that you see needs taken care of. Please come first thing or as soon as you can. We welcome the help.
Our ladies are planning a garden tour on Saturday, July 29. We will meet at the church at 9AM or at the gardens, the Dan Walt Gardens (720 N. Washington St) at 9:30AM. Admission is $7.50, but children are free. Included at the gardens are a Japanese garden, a rose garden and a pond. After the tour, we will meet for lunch at a local restaurant.
We have a pavilion reserved for a picnic on Sunday afternoon, August 27. We will meet there right after church and enjoy an afternoon of fellowship and recreation. Besides the fun, we could also have baptisms in the lake if anyone wishes. Please contact Pastor Jim if you want to be baptized.
We received a thank you from La Vie. Our church contributed $1,016. La Vie expressed their sincere appreciation fo helping them to continue God’s important work.
Special: Mixed Quartet
As listed in the church program, the Dan and Paula Weschenfelder and Pastor and Gaylene Miller performed “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.” If you would just like to watch this aspect of the service, or listen again to this song, you can watch here, or you can watch online.
Sermon:
Pastor preached to us on Luke 9:46-48 in a sermon titled “Childish Behavior.” In this section of Scripture, Jesus addressed the problem of pride. Some disciples were arguing about who was greatest among them. Jesus arrested this behavior through a lesson taught through a child. In covering this important lesson Jesus taught, Pastor covered it in two points.
For his first point, Pastor saw Jesus dealing with the ongoing problem of pride within the disciples. He commented that pride is compared well to a beard. We have to shave it every day, or cut it back to keep it in check. To see pride, he said that it is best revealed in selfish ambition. For example, the disciples were arguing who was greatest in the Kingdom, most favored by Jesus. This argument received Christ’s attention. He used a child to make His point. Thinking about this teaching, Pastor commented that Jesus is the greatest teacher ever on humility, which is not thinking little of ourselves, but rather not thinking of ourselves.
In his second point, Pastor explored the lesson on humility that Jesus delivered. He first explained to the disciples that they were thinking like the world. In the Kingdom, greatness is determined by service not status. To illustrate humility, tellingly Jesus did not use himself. Instead, He used a child. In his lesson, He taught that to value the weakest, here a child, is to be valued by the greatest, God or Jesus. Pastor remarked while that might seem normal to us today, in Roman times it was common practice to toss children in the trash if they were the wrong sex for instance, a girl when a boy was desired. Pastor all reminded us that there are other scriptures about the value of children, making sure we didn’t do anything to cause them to sin. Another one asks to remember that Jesus considers things done to the least, done to Him.
In closing Pastor asked us to remember the awful things the world is doing today to children, facilitating child sex slavery. Such sin is clearly brought to light in the recent hit movie “The Sound of Freedom.” Besides that slavery, we see the slavery of transgenderism, destroying the order God ordained in creating them man and woman. Pastor asked would we help with children. We should do it for Christ.
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.