LIVERMORE — At the North Livermore Baptist Church May 29, service, the congregation was welcome in by Pastor Bonnie Higgins at 9:30 a.m. to begin the service. The Call to Worship was read and the Invocation/Lord’s Prayer was recited. The hymns that were sung was “God of Our Father”, “America, the Beautiful”, and “Trust and Obey”. The service ended with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda Lyman is the organist each week. Janet Diaz is the pianist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.
The sermon, titled “Doubts vs. Trust” and reading the scripture from 1 Samuel 17:4-11. Pastor began by telling the congregation the Sunday School version we all heard about the story of David and Goliath. She explained how big Goliath was and how intimidating he was. Then you have a young boy named David and how he compared to Goliath.
In the scripture, verse three says how Goliath and the Philistines was on one side of a mountain and Israel was on the other mountain, leaving a valley between them. You can use this picture as the church on one side of the mountain and the world on the other side of the mountain with the valley between them.
As we look around this world, sometimes you can’t determine who are Christians and who isn’t because many Christians are living their lives as being in this world, a world of sin. Christians are not of this world; we only are passing through. Our final home is Heaven with Jesus Christ. People should be able to distinguish Christians from unbelievers. Too often they can’t.
Pastor Bonnie went on to talk about Goliath and how he was used by Satan in this story. In the scriptures, verse 8 tells the reader how Goliath was questioning the Israelites. He questioned them basically if they were thought they were strong enough to fight him. He was putting doubt in their minds before he sent out a proposal, trying to defeat them before anything started.
He was getting into their mind. Goliath gave them a proposition, that if he won, they would become servants to the Palestines and if their fighter won, the Palestines would become servants of Israel. This is just like the example in Genesis 3 when the serpent (Satan) questioned Eve and put doubt in her mind. Just like Satan is putting doubts in many people in the Old Testament, he is still doing it today.
As Goliath is yelling this down to the Israelites, they were probably thinking that no one in the past was able to bring Goliath down, why do they think they can do it now. That is how Satan works, he will pick up on our weak times and really work at it and make us doubt that we are capable of anything.
We know that we aren’t strong enough on our own to fight Satan, but we are strong enough with God in our corner. In Joshua 1:9, it says “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” As it also says in scripture, if God is for you, who can be against you? No one! We mustn’t let Satan use our minds to doubting what God has already planned for us.
Satan uses doubts and fear in our lives so we won’t seek God out. We will ask in times of trouble, why would God do this to us? God doesn’t bring the trouble in our lives, we do, by not trusting and focusing on Him. Satan will use our fear and doubts to manipulate us.
To overcome the doubts and fears in our lives, we need to trust more in God and what He has to tell us. Not on what we hear in this world. It comes down to who do you trust more, God or Satan? The fear that Satan uses on us keep us from stepping out in our faith with God. In Matthew 14, it tells the story of the disciples seeing Jesus walk on water and Peter decides to do it too.
Peter took a leap of faith, trust in Jesus to step out of the boat. His eyes are on Jesus as he gets out of the boat and began to walk on water, but as soon as his eyes are off Jesus because of the wind (who do you think brought on the wind?), he begins to sink. Jesus catches him and asks him why did you doubt? Too many times, we take our eyes off Jesus and Satan rushes in to place the doubt in our minds.
David decided he would stand up to Goliath. When the king tried to dress him up for protection, David chose to fight without it. David knew all he needed was God on his side. David knew that his belief in God to protect him was from his time when he fought the bear and lion and God brought him through those times. Even in our times today, we are put in situations that to test our faith.
God allows situations to happen to see if our faith will bring us to Him for His protection and strength. We know from our past, God has brought us through many situations, so why would we question Him if He can get us through another situation? Because of the faith that David had in God, God produced a victory in his life. He was able to take down Goliath with only a stone. We have all had God’s victories in our lives.
We all face troubles in our lives, and the closer you seek God, the more Satan will try to disrupt our lives. We hear words like, you aren’t qualified for the job, you aren’t good enough, you can’t save your marriage, you can’t shake your past, you can’t pay your bills, you don’t have a future, and some have even heard your life is a mistake. These words come from Satan not God!
At times when you hear these words, you need to make sure you are plugged into God. Reading stories in the Bible, it shows us where others seemed defeated, but God came through for them. Those examples are for us to know that we too, can overcome doubts and fears. We know our electrical appliances at home can’t work without being plugged into electricity outlets, we can’t work if we are not plugged in with God. We need to be plugged into God by praying, having that relationship with Him through conversation with him. We need to be plugged into His Word, the Bible.
Read it often as you can. We must put God as our number one priority in our lives, no one or anything is more important than our relationship with God. We need to run towards our doubts and fears with the God who is more powerful than Satan. We can’t win if we don’t have the power that God brings to us, to strengthen us. David knew and believed in God’s power, and that is why he won the battle between him and Goliath. He didn’t let doubt overcome him, he trusted in the Almighty God.
When you come up with doubts and fears, your life doesn’t seem to be going well, look to God and tell Him that the battle is His! Jesus died on a cross, to overcome death, sin, and Satan., He won that battle. Why do you think He isn’t going to win your battle? The God of All is telling us it is His battle to fight and win.
Announcements listed in the bulletin was that the congregation will be collecting any kind of canned fruit for the Food Pantry in the month of June. The church will be collecting for ABCOM in the month of May. Bible Study will be Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. Pastor Bonnie will be out of the office on May 30th because of the Memorial Day holiday. On June 4th there will be a Deacons and Trustees Meetings. The AA meetings are held on Friday nights at the church.
For information, check out our website at northlivermorebaptistchurch.org. You can email the church at nlbcmaine@gmail.com. Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Monday and Tuesday’s from 9:00 a.m. to noon.
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