Bible Verse for Sunday Service Service May 5, 2024
Psalm 107:2
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble
Psalm 119:114
You are my hiding place and my shield;
I hope in your word.
Announcements:
Next Sunday is Mother’s Day and we will recognize the mothers and honor them too during the service.
On Tuesday you are invited after Bible study to join Natasha Zabel is you are a women and you have an interest in putting together VBS decorations.
Congratulations to graduates. This month, we want to recognize those graduating, including Colby Zabel and Jon Stene from Shepherd High School, and Alyssa Zabel from MSUB with a degree in psychology.
Colby Zabel invited us to an open house on May 17th at their home in at 4908 Haynes Rd. The open house will begin at 5PM. If there is bad weather, it will be held at the church.
This summer in VBS we will be going on a “Great Jungle Journey.” As usual, we will need adult and teen volunteers. We set the dates as June 10-14, beginning each day at 9AM. If you can help in any way, let us know by filling out the insert in today’s bulletin and leaving it on the foyer table or giving it to Natasha or Pastor. We are having an organizational meeting for everyone on May 22 at 6:30PM.
LaVie’s Baby bottle campaign will run again this year from May 12th through June 16th. We can support LaVie in its work at its clinic providing compassionate medical care for early pregnancies. Funds donated during this Spring campaign go to assisting women with unplanned pregnancies through education and services. All of this is life affirming. We will host the baby bottles in which you can place your donation.
Shepherd Bible Church: Jimmy Sutton May 5, 24 “Had it not Been”
On the day our church celebrates the Lord through communion, church member Jimmy Sutton reminded us of His sacrifice for us by performing this song. Originally written by Rusty Goodman of the Happy Goodmans, it was made popular by the Gaither Vocal Band. You can find this on Rumble here.
Sermon:
Today, Pastor Jim preached on Heb 12:1-3 in a sermon titled “Our Race.” In today’s sermon, Pastor spoke on what these verses mean to us today. What is it to be surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses? He explored this for us in three points.
To begin, Pastor asked us to consider the cheering crowd. Our Hebrews writer uses the metaphor of the athletic race in a stadium. We are on track running while the saints that have gone before us are in the stands cheering us on. But, Pastor noted these are not witnesses of us but for us, to help, guide and encourage us. Another way of putting this is that this crowd are examples of common, everyday people like you and I. Or, simply put, if they can do it, so can we.
Next Pastor discussed the race we are running as a challenging course. Pictured as a tough race, it makes sense that the Hebrews writer has two suggestions for us. We can take of what is weighing us down. Perhaps we should inventory what we are carrying on this race and get rid of unnecessary weight we are carrying. Besides what encumbers us, the Hebrews writer wants us to forsake that which ensnares us too. If we are susceptible to a particular sin, our race will be easier if through God’s help, we can set it aside.
Lastly, Pastor encouraged us to look the clear champion of this race, Jesus. He ran the race first so we could get to the starting gate. We can think about Him in His race. We can also think about Him our race. Let’s be encouraged by this picture, and the confidence that we have in Jesus.
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.