Bible Verse for Sunday Service March 16, 2025
Isaiah 40:31
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Announcements:
March 22nd is the date of this year’s Awana Grand Prix where the Awana kids will be putting together cars to race down the track on race day. The kits will be available soon for purchase. If you are a kindergartner through 6th grade, you can enter. If any adults and teens want to participate, we could have an open class. If you can help, we will need people for the race and lunch, please let Pastor know.
Following up on the Awana Grand Prix, people will be at the church on Friday afternoon between 4 and 6 PM to get the cars ready for the race on Saturday. We will tune up the cars by adding weight, and then give them a test run down the track.
We conclude Awana with Awana awards tonight, April 3. We will be recognizing all those of participated, and helped with Awana this year. Be praying about leaders needed for next fall as both Pastor Jim and Chris will be retiring at the end of this season.
Our Easter breakfast this year will be on April 20. Join us for breakfast on resurrection morning. We will have a short time of worship along with the breakfast.
Continuing our series of posts about church history, on March 22, 1758 Jonathan Edwards a Christian pastor, theologian and missionary died in New Jersey from smallpox. The great awakening of 1734–1744 broke out in this and other New England churches. His sermons, such as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” had a powerful influence upon his audiences
Sermon:
Today, Pastor Jim continued preparing us for a new pastor by preaching on Titus 2:11-14 in a sermon titled “The Appearances of the Savior.” To introduce his exposition of this week’s scripture, Pastor started with the big picture, the context. He related how Paul, the writer here, often gave some doctrine first and then worked out the practical application with examples. Chapter one followed this pattern, and this chapter is no different. Now Paul focuses on the doctrine, that we have had one appearance of Christ, and what did that bring us, and we will have another. That second one will also have consequences. How should we think about it? Pastor explored this in two points.
Firstly Pastor looked at Christ’s first appearance, His gracious appearance. By His first coming, Christ offered and brought Grace to redeem us. He clearly told everyone who would listen that He came to seek and save the lost. And by his sacrifice on the cross, he made grace available to us all. We just have to accept it, and believe in him for Him to save us. Besides this grace that brought about our salvation, he also offered grace to remake us in this first appearance. If we accept His grace, it can continue to work in our lives to make us more like Jesus. If we can become more like Him we will fit in better in Heaven, and be able to enjoy him more.
Secondly, Pastor covered that these verses in Titus speak of Jesus’ glorious return. Other verses in the Bible teach of the rapture, Jesus’ glorious return to Earth to take his people, those who believe in Him back to Heaven. So Paul remarks here that this second appearance is an event that brings anticipation. Pastor remarked that we can look forward to or anticipate the complete delivery from the power of sin. Put another way from the presence of sin in our lives or around us. Besides anticipation, we are motivated here and now by the anticipation of His return. If we truly understand the wonder, the glory of His return and all that it means, we should live every day as if His return was imminent, tomorrow. A great example of this is Jim Elliot, the famous missionary. He is quoted as saying: “Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven.”
To conclude, we can think of this pattern, doctrine and practical application daily in our Christian life. As we understand each day more of the glory of Christ, we can think on it and use the grace we receive to tackle daily life in a Godly way.
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.