NO. LIVERMORE — At the North Livermore Baptist Church Dec. 24 service the congregation was welcomed in by Pastor Bonnie Higgins at 9:30 a.m. to begin the service. The Invocation/Lord’s Prayer were recited. The hymns that was sung was “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”, and “Good Christin Men, Rejoice”. The service ended with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda Lyman is the organist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.
The fourth Advent candle was lit.
The sermon was titled “The Words of Christmas – “Worship and Obedience” and scriptures from Romans 12:1-2. Pastor Bonnie began by asking, what is the highest form of worship? Scriptures tell us the highest form is being obedient to God and following His commandments. How do we show obedience? By showing our love to God.
As we grow in faith, God will empower us to want to do the things that will please Him. Pleasing God is our way of worship to Him. Worship is more than just going to church on Sunday, it is putting God first and showing His love and grace to others. The importance of obeying Jesus is tied directly to worship. What we, as Christians, need to show is that our worship doesn’t make us worthy in His eyes, it recognizes that He alone is worthy, by giving Him our complete devotion.
Both our worship and our obedience are tied to God’s Word. We know that God loves it when we take the time out of our busy lives and take time to read His word, pray to Him, listen to Him, follow Him, and spend time with Him. To worship Him means to love Him, unconditionally. Many times, we put conditions on our love, not just to others on earth, but also to God. But that isn’t what worshipping God is all about. It is giving of yourself to Him without any conditions, including our love to Him.
We need to remember that to obey God is to worship God.
Our Christmas Eve service began at 4:00 p.m. on Dec. 24. Many Christmas hymns were sung and concluded the evening with “Silent Night” in candlelight. The sermon title was “The Reasons Christ Came” and used the scriptures from Luke 19:10 and 1 Timothy 1:15.
The last candle, the Christ candle, was lit.
Pastor Bonnie asked how people today can find the true meaning of Christmas when so many things in this world have turned Christmas into a secular holiday. As Christians, we must keep Christ in the Christmas story. The question that needs to be answered is, why did Jesus come in the first place? What was God’s plan through Jesus?
The first thing is that Jesus came to take away our sins. The world was sinful and no one was paying attention to God anymore. Just like today. People go on with their business forgetting about a Savior that came 2,000 years ago to save us and went to a cross to die, then resurrected and ascended into Heaven to conquer our sins, our death and to give us eternal life with Him.
The next thing Jesus came to do was to destroy Satan’s Work. The arrival of Jesus in Bethlehem was the signal of the beginning of the end for Satan and his ways. Even though we know that Satan is still working in this world today, he was defeated at the cross and resurrection.
The third thing that Jesus came to do was to make the Father known. Jesus showed us who God really was. God was kind, loving, generous, forgiving, our protector, and our rescuer.
The last thing Jesus came was to prepare us for a second Advent, His second coming. Jesus promised us that He would come back for us and take us with Him and be with Him eternally.
This is what Christmas is all about!
Announcements listed in the bulletin are that the congregation will be collecting crackers for the Food Pantry in December.
You can email the church at lbcmaine@gmail.com. Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Tuesday’s from 9 a.m. to noon. Pastor Bonnie will be out of the office Tuesday, Dec. 26.
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