Bible Verses for Sunday Service March 12, 2023
Psalm 95:6
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
Daniel 2:20-23
Daniel answered and said:
“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;
he reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him.
To you, O God of my fathers,
I give thanks and praise,
for you have given me wisdom and might,
and have now made known to me what we asked of you,
for you have made known to us the king’s matter.”
Announcements:
On March 16th at 7PM, the deacons will meet at the home of Phil Witschi to discuss the need to review church finances and other business such as hiring a janitor to clean the church.
Awana awards night is April 5th at 6:30 to 8PM. If you’ve helped with Awana or you have a child in the program, please be sure to attend to support this wonderful program to reach children with Christ.
Pastor is planning the traditional Easter Breakfast. As usual, we will meet for breakfast and have a short time of praise and worship as we celebrate our Lord’s resurrection. There will be a sign-up sheet so we can plan for numbers and the food.
Steve Jones announced that he will be moving to New Mexico shortly to be with his daughter to help with adoptions she and her husband are planning. We will all miss Steve.
On April 20, LaVie will host 321 Improv, a Christian improv group. Laughter will fill that night, along fun and prizes. Everyone is welcome, but it is geared towards youth ages 11-18. While it is a fundraiser for LaVie, SBC will receive free tickets for their youth groups. Pastor Jim needs to know by Feb 28 how many tickets to request. You can find more information on the church bulletin board.
Coming April 29th is a Ladies Luncheon, which will be a time of fellowship for women of all ages. Bring your family and friends. Soon, we will post a signup sheet.
Sermon:
In this week’s message, Pastor spoke to us on Luke 5:27-32, a sermon with the title “Levi – The Least Likely Apostle.” This part of Luke continues the story from the last miracles, leaving the healing of the paralytic. Jesus now calls Levi who will become Matthew. Pastor began by reminding us about taxes that will be due shortly here for us. Also, he asked us to consider this story of calling a perfect example of God using the weak things of the world to fool the wise, 1 Cor 1:27-29. God converts Levi the tax collector into Matthew, a trophy of grace.
In these five verses, Pastor first covered how Levi accepted Jesus’ call on his life. Jesus did this publicly, perhaps calling him as he passed his centrally located tax booth in Capernaum with the pharisees from the recent healing in tow. In covering this call, Pastor used a transition through physical postures to illustrate it. Levi was first sitting in his tax booth perhaps ruminating over his lot. He was hated by his own people, and his only friends are other tax collectors. A passage from the old testament, from Ecclesiastes illustrates how unsatisfied are those who love money, Ecc 5:10. After receiving the the call, Levi left his booth, and his life, forsaking it. By doing this, he illustrates he has what it takes to be a disciple. From leaving behind his past life, Levi next followed Jesus to take on a new life of leaving his old habits behind. Soon Levi was inviting his fellow tax collectors to a dinner where he could share his new find with his friends. Levi shared the best of what he found in his call, Jesus.
In covering these few verses, Pastor moved from the recording of Jesus’ call of Levi to Christ answering the complaints about that call from the pharisees and scribes. Of course their complaints were that Jesus was associating with known sinners. Jesus has a clear answer to this. He used a medical analogy to show he didn’t come to heal the well, not that the pharisees are well, but to heal the sick. We need to remember what a blessing Jesus’ answer is as we are sinners before hearing our call to salvation. Besides rebutting the complaints, Jesus spoke of the transformation of sinners. The process of justification takes us forward from our past life of sin so we can be an example to others and be a witness for Jesus. Let’s do that today so that we are influencing others for Jesus, helping Him in his call to the sick.
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.