Wed. Night : Youth Learn About Baptism

Wed night there was a worship service in the sanctuary where we sang "Blessed be the Name of the Lord" followed up by Justin singing Saved by Grace. The kids took another step in outreach as they sponsored a child from another country. The country chosen was Haiti and they chose a boy. We asked the kids to be in prayer about stepping up to take on the role of "outreach overseer". The person/people will be responsible for making sure letters are sent to the sponsored child, help choose a Christmas gift for the child, possibly sponsor a child in the community for Christmas, and any other outreach opportunities that may come. Judy led the word as she taught about baptism and the meaning behind it, where she also illustrated baptizing Alicia Keever to give the kids a picture of what takes place during a baptism. Judy learned a new word from the kids.... "peeps" Peeps is another word for a group of friends. So, Judy taught her peeps about baptism. There were 5 kids that were asked to read a scripture passage, who were Justin, Summer, Miranda, Elizabeth, and Brady. (Zach took it away from Brady, because he wanted to read it) As Judy ended the lesson with her peeps, she passed around a sign up sheet for those individuals that would be interested in learning more about baptism. There was a great response as 10 kids signed up for these classes, which will be the next 2 Wed. after youth for about an hour. After these, the kids will be given the opportunity to take the next step to be baptized. There was a great response from the kids during prayer, as the majority came to the front to bring concerns before God, and some come forward just to be with Him. Klara plays the piano during these times of prayer each week.

Youth Mission

Some of our youth went to another church, Soul Purpose Ministries, Sunday night. They presented a drama, which shows the saving work of Jesus. Scott Frame preached on "New Beginnings." The drama and Scott's words were a powerful message.

I Know Where You Live

Sermon by John Turner
Based on Revelation 2:12-17

Nut-Shell Summary of the Revelation to John

Today, we come to the third of seven sermons drawn from Revelation, Chapters 2 and 3. The Revelation to John is not a series of revelations about end-time events. Rather, it is the unified Revelation of Jesus Christ as the Lion King , the Lamb Servant, and the Shepherd Guide of his flock. Jesus knows and cares for his churches. He redeems all creation, bringing the perfect new heaven and new earth where his faithful servants will reign with him. Even times of severe persecution cannot prevent Jesus from bringing his faithful servants to final victory.

The Message to the Pergamum Church, Where Satan’s Throne Is

The risen and exalted Christ is imparting messages through John to seven churches in Asia, what is now western Turkey. Today we view the church that was located in Pergamum. Pergamum was a strong center of countless pagan religions. It was the world’s leading center for the worship of Asclepias, the Greek god of healing, represented to this day by the snake on the physician’s staff. More to the point, Pergamum was the world’s leading center of emperor and empire worship, especially featuring temples to Caesar Augustus and to the goddess Roma. The various pagan religions of Pergamum flowed among each other and created a formidable culture for Christians to penetrate.

Hear what Jesus says to his church in this difficult location: “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. Jesus speaks with the authority of the direct word of God, and he has the discernment to cut through any mixture of truth and error to straighten out and purify hearts and minds and to judge rightly any twisting of the truth.

“‘I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Satan’s throne most likely referred to the cult of the emperors and their empire. Jesus knows and cares about the spiritual environment in which we live. He knows what we are up against. He knows the temptations we face. He knows when we give in, and he knows when we stand firm.

Bishop Antipas, Faithful Witness/Martyr

Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. Against strong and direct opposition, the church members of Pergamum have stood bravely and firmly, at the risk of their lives. Antipas was the bishop of the Pergamum church who, under the threat of death, refused to renounce Jesus. Tradition says that he was consequently roasted in a brass bull in 92 A.D. Jesus was pleased to share with Antipas his own designation as a faithful witness, a martyr for the faith. Jesus was also pleased that the church had stood with Antipas, even though in doing so they risked suffering the same fate.

Not many citizens took with ultimate seriousness the claim that the emperor was God. But if the claim was not viewed as spiritually significant, it was viewed as socially significant. Emperor worship brought significant political and commercial advantages to Pergamum, especially public works projects, and the jobs and wealth that followed them. To refuse to worship the emperor was to risk irritating Rome, thus shutting down the flow of benefits. It seemed to the general public that refusing to worship the emperor was to let one’s personal views stand in the way of the public good. From their perspective, such a lack of civic-mindedness and patriotism was not to be tolerated. But Jesus takes the opposite view. In the Revelation to John, he warns against the Roman imperial cult.

Skipping the Balaamite/Nicolaitan Cult This Week

I am going today to skip over the second issue addressed in Jesus’ letter to the Pergamum church, the issue of the Balaamite/Nicolaitan cult which we will include when we address the similar Jezebel cult at the Thyatiran church next week.

The Danger of Worshiping a Nation, Government, or Politics

My focus for the rest of this sermon will be on avoiding the dangers of worshiping a nation or a government or even the political process itself. In worship, we are declaring what we believe to be powerful, excellent, holy, of highest worth, and the source of whatever worth we have. We become like what we worship.

As Christians we worship not a What but a Who, not a force but a divine personality who has become human and has dwelt among us full of grace and truth. Our God has not remained distant and uninvolved, but has revealed exactly what we need to know in order to be transformed by degrees into his image, to be saved from our sins, to live with faith, hope, and love, to be prepared for a perfectly blessed future. No other god can do that for us. No nation or government can do that for us. Only Jesus can do that for us. He alone is worthy of our full and unchecked devotion.

There are many excellent things in God’s creation that we should appreciate, but that we should not worship. We should appreciate the rich variety of creatures and the various environments that God has provided for us, but we should not worship them. We should appreciate the diverse benefits of the social order in which God has placed us. We should pray and work for the maintenance and spreading of those benefits, but we must not worship the social order or the people who lead it or the political process that runs it. If God through the apostles told the citizens of the Roman empire to be thankful for and prayerful for the order and prosperity provided by the empire, and he did, then we who live in the twenty-first century United States of America have all that much more reason to be prayerful and thankful for our country which provides us with relatively large degrees of liberty and justice and material resources with which we may serve our God. But if God insisted that the citizens of the Roman empire resist any tendency to imply even in an empty ceremony that they might be worshiping the empire or its leaders, then we who may be more greatly tempted by the greater benefits of our country have all the more reason to clarify that we do not worship anyone or anything other than the God we know through Jesus Christ.

We need to keep clear that Jesus Christ has a unique and absolute control over our identity as Christians, and that it is to him and him alone that our ultimate loyalty lies. We need to be aware that when we gather to worship Jesus, we are one with true believers in every land, one with faithful people living under every kind of government.

Why I Can Say the Pledge

As a citizen of the United States of America, I can say the pledge of allegiance to the national flag because it includes the words, “one nation under God.” which I understand to mean that the pledge to the country is superseded by our higher allegiance to our Lord. I am able to offer my allegiance to my country without implying that I am worshiping something other than God. My baptism, in which I have died to the world, sin, self, and the devil, and come alive to God, means that, in a case of conflict between Jesus and my country, Jesus wins. We need to keep that clear. That reservation is what makes American liberty real liberty. It is not unpatriotic to put Jesus first, but it is the highest act of patriotism. Christians who put Christ first help prevent our country from giving itself over to totalitarianism. By insisting on our freedom to follow Christ above the government, we keep our government safe for real liberty.

The Dangers of Political Involvement by the Church

As important as our democratic republic is to us, it is even more important that we not idolize politics. When the church has leaped too enthusiastically into politics, it has been costly to the church. Perhaps the worst example of this was in the lead-up to World War 1. You may have heard me mention this before. The church threw itself so fully and unreservedly into the war to end all wars, the war to make the world safe for democracy, that, when the inevitable disillusionment with the fallenness of human institutions and the impotence of human worldly ideals set in, the church caught the brunt of it. The church moved from its highest point in American history prior to World War 1 to one of its lowest points after World War 1. A little more reserve, a little more restraint, a little more awareness that political processes even at their best are riddled with sin and futility, and the church would have come through that time still strong rather than discredited in much of the public eye. Whether our ideals are liberal or conservative, whether or cause is health care or abortion, we will end up disappointed in the policies that emerge from our government because our government is primarily composed of pragmatic power politicians. They wouldn’t survive if they were not. They will use us when we advance their power and discard us when we don’t. That fact won’t change.

We as the church do not exist to exercise political power. We exist to testify about Jesus Christ, to be formed in his likeness, and to do what we can to make the world better in ways appropriate to our identity as a community of faith. Our power is exercised not by the coercive arm of government, but by the voluntary associations of people of faith, working together creatively to make life better.

Democrats and Republicans and independents, liberals and conservatives, libertarians and distributists, can work together through Jesus Christ in reaching out to the children and youth of our community, in praying together and encouraging one another that we may become more like Jesus, in supporting Loaves and Fishes and community gardens, and so forth. Together we can worship Jesus Christ and seek to follow him. Together we can challenge the idolatry of our culture that government makes all the important decisions and that politics is the center of power. As individual citizens, we have the obligation to vote in ways that express our values as best we can, but we do not have to all agree about how we vote. We can agree on Christian values about things like hunger, health care, jobs, abortion, and so forth, but disagree on the role that government ought to play in advancing those values.

Let me give a specific example. Many of you volunteer for Loaves and Fishes. You believe that caring about hungry people is an important Christian value. I know that those of you who work side by side have differing opinions about what role government ought to play in helping the hungry, but you don’t let that stop you from working together. You could argue with one another about government policy with such vehemence that you would be unable to work with one another, but you don’t. Some of the things that you learn at Loaves and Fishes affect your voting, but you do not insist that your fellow workers learn the same lessons. I think Jesus is pleased.

What Jesus Came to Do

Among Jesus’ closest disciples he included one who had collected taxes for Rome and one who had participated in rebellion against Rome. He had bigger fish to catch than building a political movement for or against Rome. He came to build a community of faith that could itself offer real hope of new life with God. He kept his focus off politics and on building that community of hope. We exist as a church because he did. He would advise us to be grateful and responsible citizens in the country that supplies us with so many benefits, but he would advise us never to idolize that country or its government or its leaders or its policies or a particular political party or a specific political crusade, but to keep our eyes on representing the reign of God in our lives together. The real solutions and the real hope come from what we do together as his disciples. It is right to be grateful for living in a country where we can have this discussion without fear of persecution. It is right to be responsible citizens. But it is wrong to get sidetracked from the one thing that gives our lives eternal meaning, being disciples of Jesus Christ.

Promise for the Spiritually Pure

Jesus has a great promise for those who overcome the temptation to false worship. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’ The hidden manna is a symbolic promise to sustain the faithful people of God through the wilderness to the Promised Land. The white stone with a new name written on it probably refers to the new identity believers receive when they are baptized into Christ, and the subsequent new nature that gradually makes us more and more like Jesus. There is a happy ending for the faithful. The call in this text is to purify our worship by focusing on Jesus. If we do that, it will work out all right at last.

Youth Worship Service Oct. 21

YOUTH GROUP COVENANT

Consistency - I will give my best efforts to attend every session

Honesty - I will take risks to share truthfully about issues in my life

Confidentiality - I will support the foundation of trust in our group by not participating in gossip
And will not reveal personal information about others

Prayer- I will commit to pray for others in our group

Accountability -I will allow others to hold me accountable for growing spiritually


SCOTT’S MESSAGE ON WORSHIP

To worship we need to take our eyes off ourselves so we can focus
on God. When we go too long without worshiping God, the overwhelming
details of life begin to weigh us down and ultimately to
trap us. That’s when we begin to believe we’re too busy or too tired
to focus on God

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy,
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing
to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform
any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be
able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good,
pleasing and perfect will.
3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you:
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but
rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance
with the measure of faith God has given you.

1. What are ways that we can worship?
*Praying (Psalm 95:6)
*Hearing the Word (John 17:17; Deuteronomy 31:11)
*Giving (1 Corinthians 16:1-2)
*Baptizing (Romans 6:3-4)
*Meditating and being silent (Habakkuk 2:20) we actually took a minute of silence and the kids said they didn't like it
*Celebrating the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
*Singing (Ephesians 5:19)
*Celebrating the arts (Exodus 35:30-36:7)

2. What does it mean to offer your body
as a spiritual act of worship?

3. What are some signs that you’re being
transformed by the renewing of your mind?

4. Worshiping God leads to renewal, which leads to
transformation. According to this passage, what
follows transformation?

5. Would you consider yourself to be a discerning
person (meaning that you regularly know the will
of God)? Explain why you think so.

6. How can a better understanding of God’s
mercy improve your worship of him?

Children and Youth News

During the fellowship time children and youth enjoy the food. Andrew particularly likes the donuts! Eion is one of the children who like to serve by washing the dishes. It’s wonderful to have more children and youth as part of the church family gathered on Sunday mornings.

Josie and Brandon come on Wednesday nights, and are now coming for Sunday School and worship on Sunday morning.

Every seat in the Youth Room was filled Sunday morning for the Youth Sunday School class, taught by Eddie Keever.
Eddie led the middle school and high school youth in thinking about what it means that God is always with you. It means that you have God’s undivided attention throughout your life. You are never alone. God speaks to you often, and you need to learn to interpret what’s happening in you and around you so that you can understand what God is saying. When you choose to do something destructive, you are taking God with you. No decision you make will affect just you. You decide where you will take God next.

And so to bed...

Our Community Garden has looked like an unmade bed the last few weeks. Fear not, fall is the period of time when gardeners are as busy as bees turning dirt, planting cover crops, preparing beds for spring, and otherwise daydreaming about next season.



Preparation includes covering some of the beds with black plastic as a weed control strategy while a few of the other gardeners have planted oats to both control weeds and enrich the soil. Both strategies look awfully messy just now, but the end result--fewer weeds!--is well worth a bit of unsightliness.



Among the tasks that never quite got finished was putting a coat of white wash of the old cross at the far end of the garden. If we get a warm day soon we may get to it--otherwise, it will need to wait for spring. In any case, the Community Gardeners have lots of plans for making the garden a pleasant place to spend time in next year as well as a place of production and growth.

Even now, though we're in the last minutes of the gardening season, spots of beauty and inspiration remain; these nasturtiums, resting at the end of the Loaves and Fishes bed, remind us how bountiful and generous was our first-year garden. We are confident of even more blessing nest year!

Our Community Gardeners planted 14 Duke variety highbush blueberry plants on the first Saturday of October. These plants will grow to a height of 4 feet and will form a pretty hedge around the perimeter on the west side of the garden. Because blueberries are a perennial plant they can be taken as evidence that the Community Gardeners have faith that the garden will be perennial and a place over the coming years of our commitment to exploring and celebrating God's gift of the earth to us.

Youth News

Scott and Amanda Frame Share Exciting News from Wednesday Night, Oct. 13:

Wednesday night was great. God is always at work, but sometimes it's more obvious than others. Kids are bringing kids who are bringing kids. Praise GOD!
We began as always with food, fun, and friends, just hanging out with one another. We are so grateful for the adult volunteers who work behind the scenes to provide our meals.
We went into the sanctuary for our second Youth Worship Service. A newcomer to our group named Justin played guitar to a Christian remix called “Saved by Grace”. We see In Justin a lot of musical talents that could be very beneficial to the ministry. We have several kids with musical ability, and we hope they will provide the music leadership for this service. Scott brought the message (an outline of the message is at the end of this post).

The kids are very receptive to God’s Spirit. They do not seem to be ashamed or embarrassed to step out in faith. They want Jesus and more of Him. When Scott offered the invitation to make a decision for Christ or come forward to pray, there were so many youth that came forward that you couldn’t squeeze another body at the front. Also, many youth prayed together in their seats. One youth gave his life to Christ. That makes 2 since the beginning of the school year. Praise God!! Several youth texted us later to thank us for being there for them.

Overall, we could not have asked for anything more. God is faithful and wonderful. We are so excited to see our youth grow in prayer and worship.

OUTLINE OF SCOTT'S MESSAGE, "A FRESH START"

IDENTIFY THE PAIN Recognize that we all are hurt or wounded and we need to know where it comes from
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . (Isaiah 6:1)
WHY should I change?

IT’S ALL ABOUT GOD realize that if God is not at the center of our life something else will be. Does it have to power to give you a fresh start?
. . . I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:1).
WHO is my God?

REVEAL THE TRUTH ABOUT MYSELF Spiritual honesty
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips . . .”
(Isaiah 6:5).
WHERE is my heart?

RELEASE THE PAST We are forgiven so lets forgive ourselves
With it, he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7 NIV).
Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them . . . And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone (Psalm 32:5 NLT).

He forgives all my sins . . . (Psalm 103:3 ).
WHAT am I holding on to?

SAY “YES” TO GOD the time is now!!!
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8 )
WHEN will I get started?

Scott would like to credit Doug Fields, Youth Minister of Saddleback Church, for some of the ideas in this sermon.