Bible Verse for Sunday Service March 17, 2024
Proverbs 19:23
The fear of the Lord leads to life,
and whoever has it rests satisfied;
he will not be visited by harm.
Announcements:
After church today, we will have choir practice. Please meet up by the piano to practice for the upcoming Easter Special.
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.
Can you help with Grand Prix? If you can, please let Cody Houska or Pastor Jim know. We would like to get everything organized ahead of time, so we would appreciate it if you would let us know.
Join us for Easter Breakfast on March 31st and we will celebrate the resurrection. Please invite your family and friends. If you decide to come, please sign up and let us know how many are coming, and what food you can bring.
We welcome your donations of lilies to decorate the sanctuary during the Easter season.
Sermon:
Pastor Jim spoke to us today about Hebrews 11:24-27 on the faith based decisions of Moses made in a sermon aptly called “Faith Based Decisions.” To introduce these points, Pastor reminded us of how Moses appears to us in our lives today in the 21st century, and he connected this to the choices he made. By considering these faith based choices, we can learn much. Pastor explored this in two points.
Firstly, he looked at the descriptions of a decision of faith. Moses, at the age of 35, walked away from a life of ease and wealth in the palace of Pharaoh, and from his adoptive mother. On a superficial level, this decision makes no sense, walking away from the security he enjoyed. In considering Moses’ decision, Pastor noted it was a very personal one, he had evaluated his choices, and he made the decision. But, this decision did cost him. It was a painful one, leaving his mother behind, and the family he had known. Pastor wondered if we all don’t experience this on some level in making a decision for Christ, perplex our families and friends. Lastly, Pastor asked us to consider Moses’ decision would also be a peculiar one to most people. When we say no to the world and all it provides to its adherents, and say yes to Jesus, it often will seem strange to the world. People who are oblivious to sin, or perhaps enter in to sinning, love the world, and our rejection of it will always seem strange to them. In this regard, not much has changed in 3000 years.
Next, Pastor analyzed the directives behind Moses’s decision of faith. What were the reasons behind it? Pastor saw two reasons. Firstly, his and our values. While Moses’ had all the riches of Egypt available to him, he turned them down. He received a great reward that we know about. He was one of two Old Testament figures who appeared with Jesus at his transfiguration. Perhaps our decisions for Christ will be recognized on some level in Heaven. We can be confident in the One we serve, his knowledge of everything, our actions for him. Another way of thinking about the motives behind Moses’ actions is to recognize his and our vision. Moses had the ability to see Him who is invisible. While He saw God and obeyed His commands, we see our God with the eyes of the heart, and do the same obey His commands.
To conclude this survey, Pastor reminded us about one Jesus’ last directives and reminders, go make disciples of the world, and that He would be with us to the end of the age. What an encouraging and heart-warming thought.
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.