Bible Verses for Sunday Service November 19, 2023
Psalm 97:12
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name!
Psalm 141:2
Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!
Announcements:
After church today, the choir will meet to practice for a Christmas special they will be presenting to the residents at Wyndstone retirement center on Dec 3.
No AWANA this week with the Thanksgiving break.
Our missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Lauren and Connie Runia, sent us a letter. You may read it in the foyer. In their report they describe how they use technology to create audio Bibles and dub native languages to Christian videos and movies. They ask us to pray for the upcoming Jesus video project and the Gospel of John project that they will be working on to be dubbed into the many languages of the people of Papua New Guinea.
God has blessed us a church so that we might in turn bless others and further His work. With the amount of we have in our account, we are able to send one-time year end gifts to a number of missionaries and mission organizations. They include our missionaries (Lauren and Connie Runia, Jeff and Shelly Kessler, Melissa Mattingly, and Nancy Burns). We will also send gifts to the Streit family (on deputation to Peru), Baptist International Evangelistic Ministry (war relief in Ukraine), David Paskal (Jewish ministry in New York City), and Allan Knowles (South Africa). We will prayerfully consider other mission ministries that God might lead us to help support.
Sermon:
For Thanksgiving, Pastor Jim gave a sermon from Revelation 7:9-17 titled “A Heavenly Thanksgiving.” This piece of scripture depicts giving thanks in heaven by a multitude. What those in heaven are thankful for Pastor explored in two points. By way of introduction, Pastor asked us this Thanksgiving to be thinking about a future Thanksgiving in Heaven. If we understood how we would be thankful in Heaven then might that not help us have a fuller Thanksgiving now?
For his first point, Pastor noted that those in Heaven were thankful for their salvation. They were rejoicing being there and understood how that happened. They were saved by the Gospel of Christ. A Gospel that they had heard and believed in. Also, they were grateful knowing that the the salvation that they enjoyed came from Christ’s sacrifice, his blood shed and atoning work on the cross. But, perhaps most importantly, the passage depicts a people who are thankful for being saved for the Glory of Christ. That they can see the majesty of Him and His work, and they rejoice in giving Him His due, glorifying Him in praise.
Secondly, Pastor explored how the residents of Heaven were Thankful for their security. All those in this section of scripture seem very aware of what they have in Heaven, how they are secure in a heavenly temple. They are secure from earthly threats that perhaps they dealt with here on earth like hunger and thirst. They are also secure from earthly tears, all the heart ache and disappointment that comes from living in a fallen world. They are celebrating all things made new again. Something truly to be thankful for.
To conclude Pastor asked us, if through our salvation we are sure of heaven, we should count our blessings in the future today as we celebrate here on earth. Let’s thank God in prayer.
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.
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