Bible Verses for Sunday Service September 24, 2023
Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Announcements:
Next Sunday we will have a time of fellowship and lunch together. Soups, salads, and desserts are on the menu. We will provide three soups. If you are coming, please bring salads, desserts or anything that would go well with the meal.
Next Sunday we are also blessed to have a visit from a missionary that proposes to teach in Peru and is seeking support. Andy Streit and his family will be with us to present his ministry on October 1. He will speak both during the Sunday School hour and during the morning service. We will have a pot luck after service to facilitate getting to know the Streits and their ministry. We will also take up an offering for them.
Please contribute items to the annual Christmas Child Boxes ministry by Samaritan’s Purse. Our Awana children will pack these boxes on Nov 8th. You will find the list of desired items in the foyer. Please indicate what you can provide.
Our ladies are planning a time of fellowship for October 28th at 11AM that will have a pineapple theme. A luncheon is also planned. Please make sure to mark your calendars and plan on joining us.
Sermon:
Pastor spoke to us on Luke 11:39-54 in a sermon title “How not to be a Pharisee.” In this sermon, Pastor warned us that we can easily look down on the Pharisees for their rejection of Jesus, but we might harbor Pharisaical attitudes in hearts. It is in this respect, we should not be Pharisees. He developed his encouragement to us this Sunday in three points.
Firstly, he warned us not to forget our hearts. We should keep it well as most of Christ’s confronting the Pharisees was about their hearts what they believed that informed their actions. He tried to get them to understand that merely keeping man-made regulations in no way excused thinking poorly of others and God. So Jesus instructed them. Don’t focus on externals. Focus on your on heart. Keep it clean of bad thoughts and beliefs.
Next, Pastor used a familiar idea, don’t major on the minors, to help us understand and avoid bad thinking. His example was tithing. The Pharisees believed in tithing everything down to the smallest quantity of herbs. So focusing on strict adherence to the Law was a way to avoid the bigger requirements of the Law, like loving your neighbor. Pastor commented on this for us. Our faith needs to be just that, faith, and not a religion were we focus on adhering to the tenets of it. A loving relationship with our neighbors is far more important to God than any pride we might feel by doing a small thing in the law.
Lastly, Pastor focused on what pattern of thinking can cause one to slip into the habits of the Pharisee: Don’t have people’s admiration as our highest motivation. This was clearly the motivation of the Pharisees. They prayed in public, and gave large donations in public for the public praise. Our motivation in our faith should obviously be something else. For an example, Pastor used Eric Liddell who refused to run on a Sunday in the 1924 Olympics even though he would have won and received the gold medal. Staying true to God was more important to him than the adoration of crowds.
Let’s look at our hearts, take an inventory, and root out every Pharisaical attitude. Let’s major on the majors, our relationship to Christ.
Accessing the Service, Bulletin and Sermon Outline:
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If you would like to have the sermon outline, you can download it here, a pdf file.
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