Bible Verses for Sunday Service September 03, 2023
Ephesians 6:18-19
praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel,
Micah 7:7
But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
Announcements:
AWANA starts on Sept 13 @ 6:30PM. In case you didn’t know, AWANA is a ministry to children and youth that emphasizes scripture memory and understanding. It is also fun with AWANA games. This year, we plan four groups, Cubbies (Two years before Kindergarten), Sparks (Kindergarten to 2nd grade), T&T (third to sixth grades) and Trek (Teens). Parents need to register their children on opening night.Please help us get the word our and invite the children in our neighborhoods and families. We also greatly appreciate your prayers.
Sandy Schlosser will again lead a ladies Bible study, starting September 12, meeting at the church at 10AM. Studies will begin on Revelation, using the study guide, Extravagant Hope by Margaret Feinberg.
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.
We are 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 praise the Lord in His graciousness in providing baptisms of Theo and Devon Zabel at the picnic last week at Lake Elmo. Please keep them in prayers as they begin this journey of walking with the Lord.
For prayer requests, we are including cards in the bulletin for you to share your requests. Please drop them in the offering plate or leave them on the foyer table. After we process them, we will email them so that we can all be praying during the week.
Special:
The Suttons sang ” The Eagle Song” by the Gaithers during Sunday service, September 03, 2023. You can watch their special here on Rumble or see it below:
Sermon:
For this service, Pastor preached on Luke 11:3-13 in a sermon he titled “Prayer Changes Things.” This familiar saying served as his introduction. We hear it, but we should ask, what does it change? Pastor’s answer is us. A further story Pastor heard and has previously passed on illustrated how we should view our prayers. Children at a VBS were asked to pray for and write to a missionary, but were told the missionary probably wouldn’t have time to respond to each child. Therefore, the child opened the letter, “we are praying for you, but we are not expecting any response.” Pastor asked us, are we praying, but not expecting any response, double minded in the words of James? Pastor covered this topic in two parts.
Firstly, he spoke to us about petitions to include in our prayers. Jesus provided the template. He instructed us to ask for every need of ours, not wants. In other words please give us what we need, including your forgiveness. Paul speaks to this in Philippians 4:9, writing about Jesus supplying our every need, what we need to thrive in His Kingdom. Besides our needs, our petition needs to include forgiveness to deal with the problem of our continuing sin. A reminder is in order here. Although Jesus instructed us, the Lord’s Prayer, He didn’t need forgiveness as He lived a perfect life. But, we do. Pastor spent a lot of time on this point, and covered it through three Bible verses, 1 John 1:7, 9, Psalm 66.18, and 1 Cor 10:13. These verses provide more guidance on our besetting sins, and the temptation that comes upon us. In all of this, our prayer, which changes us, is the answer.
In his second point, Pastor covered Jesus’ parables that encourage us in prayer. For the first one, Jesus challenges us to be bold in asking. He gave the example of the neighbor asking for bread at midnight, and encouraged us to have the same heart in approaching God. We should also never underestimate what God can do for us, nor the fact that He will answer. Besides being bold, Pastor asked us to be sure that we will receive God best in His answer to our prayers. In the rest of the parables in this section, God is compared to a human father. If a child asks for something good, like food, his father provides the food, not something inedible like a rock or a scorpion. So we can be sure God who is perfectly good, and not subject to being fickle like us human fathers will answer us.
For his conclusion, Pastor gave a quotation from F.B. Meyer: “The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.” Do we have anything holding back us in prayer? Let’s examine ourselves and pray well to our good and heavenly Father.
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.