Today was Communion Sunday which we celebrate every first Sunday of the month. We confess our sins and break bread, remembering our Savior’s blood shed for us. The sermon for this day was Luke 2:1-7 and a story we know so well. Listen with a glad heart and when done, go serve your King!
Today’s sermon on this first Sunday of Advent was from Luke 1:26-38, titled Mary Did You Know.
And since our Pastor has a love of puns, his sermon in a sentence was “The Mary way for us to live life is to find favor in the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ.”
Audio of First Baptist Church service and Pastor Aaron preaching on Acts 4:19-31 Missional Prayer.
Sermon in a Sentence for this week: If the GLORY of God through the SALVATION of sinners is what we desire, then this is HOW we must pray.
Audio of First Baptist Church service and Pastor Aaron preaching on Matthew 6:9-13 – The Lord’s Prayer. As a youth, I remember going to Peace Lutheran Church of Hutchinson MN, we said the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday. My recollection was most of us said it without meaning or feeling. It is the same today, and I ask you to ponder why that is. Jesus gave us this prayer. Did He do it so we would have something to say to end the service and go home? God has used 2020 to shake what can be shaken (Hebrews 12:26-29). You only have to look at what’s happening in the daily news of Minnesota. Our leaders are panicking and I have to wonder where their hope lies? Cling to your rock of salvation (Psalm 18:46 ) and may the peace of the Lord be given to you so that you will remember that those things that cannot be shaken will remain.
Another good and practical sermon by Pastor Aaron on this Lord’s Day. Colossians 4 verses 2 to 4 – Devoted to Prayer. The Sermon in a Sentence: Devote yourself to prayer at all times; it is the key to opening the door for effective ministry to take place.
Our job as His creation is to follow His law and give glory unto Him. As in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
Go forth and do so.
Another great service brought to us by Pastor Aaron. He mentions a terrific turn out last night for the Trunk or Treat idea he brought to us. It was also Communion Sunday with a confession of sins and breaking of bread.
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same way He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
In my study of the scriptures, I have come to the conclusion that we should be having the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, not once a month as in the Lutheran Church where I grew up and every other church I have been to, including this one. Nowhere does it state in the scripture that it should be done this way, although the earliest christians did. For me, it was a few conversations with family and friends that somewhat alarmed me when we talked of repenting. The long and short of it was this “Their sins had been forgiven by Christ, so they had no need to repent further.” Ah huh. We were not on the same wavelength and that is troubling. I do think that it is the result of not studying the scripture, or even reading the whole bible. How are you going to know these things unless you read them for yourself?
We all acknowledge the confession of sins when partaking of the Lord’s supper. If that’s what it takes, why can’t we do that every week? I have mentioned it to the church leaders and so far we haven’t seen eye to eye, yet. I’ll keep working on them and you do your part by listening to the whole service. Deal?
Church got a bit more complicated today. Not the sermon and service, but my part in presenting the whole thing to the world.
Up to last week, we were doing a Zoom session for those, who for whatever reason could not get to church. And then last week, Zoom decided that none shall login. The reasons are complicated but they confirmed my unhappiness at using the very popular app. Plan B, because there is always a plan B in my world, was to build a low power FM transmitter and pump out the message the old fashion way. Turns out I have all the bits and bobs required to make it work, but then the Government got in the way. While the FCC allows low power FM stations, it is only with a license. Fine, I figured that, this is the Government after all, but the catch is you can only apply for said license when they say so and the last say so was 2013. I read somewhere that the FCC has made no plans to “say so” again.
Plan C was to put the audio on the church website about a half hour after the service is done. It takes that long for me to edit it and upload it. And that’s what I did. Until I got to the part where the church website only lets you upload 50 megabytes or less for any file. The church audio comes in at 67 megabytes and sorry Charlie, you can’t put the file here.
Plan D is my website and here we are with the complete audio of the service of First Baptist Church of Grove City MN. It includes little Luke saying “Hi Dad” and other things. Luke is the 3 year old son of Pastor Aaron and a joy of the church.
Listen to the message, ponder the message and let the Lord guide your path as you apply the message.