LIVERMORE — At the March 6 North Livermore Baptist Church service the congregation was welcomed 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 “Victory in Jesus”, “Are You Washed in the Blood?” and “I Surrender All”. The service was concluded with Communion and “Blest Be the Tie That Binds”. Linda Lyman is the organist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.
The sermon, titled “Understanding Sacrifice” and reading the scriptures from Hebrews 10:8-10. Pastor Bonnie began explaining that we are now beginning the Holy season of the journey towards the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. She went on to say that a sacrifice is giving up something valuable. God gave up the most valuable person to Him, His Son, Jesus for us, and we were sinners and He still knew that He needed to sacrifice His Son for us to be reconciled with Him. The sacrifice of God’s Son, is what brings us together as believers through the blood that Jesus shed for all people. Only those who accept the gift of salvation that was brought to us by Jesus’ blood are reconciled with God. This free gift of salvation is all because of the sacrifice God did for us.
Pastor Bonnie used Abraham and his son, Isaac from the Old Testament as an example of another father who was to sacrifice his son. As Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God intervened and delivered a ram to be sacrificed instead. God did not do that for Himself. He sent His Son to be the sacrifice for all mankind for the sin in the world. Pastor Bonnie told the story from the New Testament about how the rich man went to the temple and placed money in the coffers but made sure everyone heard the money go in. They were doing this not only because it was expected to give, but to make sure everyone sees them give. They gave what they had to and made sure they kept what they needed. When the woman came and placed a few coins in, which is all she had, Jesus was satisfied more with the woman because she gave all she had. The woman sacrificed all she had for God, the rich men did not.
During this time and the rest of the year, there are reasons why we should sacrifice for God. It isn’t a sacrifice if we don’t willingly give up something that is valuable to us. If you give up something that is not worth anything to you, is it really a sacrifice? Saying you are going to give up coffee for a time and you only drink it once or twice a month, it really isn’t a sacrifice. If you say you are going to fast because you don’t have much food, that is a life condition and not a sacrifice. You cannot sacrifice something that is not yours. If you volunteer someone else to do something, you are not sacrificing anything, not your money, your time, nothing. When we sacrifice something, we must be involved in it.
Ways to make sacrifices to God, is giving time to Him, giving up your favorite TV show to read His Word or to pray to Him, taking your time to volunteer to help others, visit people, call people, feed people, etc. the list is unlimited. Our time is valuable to us, we all have things in our lives, we just need to prioritize our time to make sure we give some of it in Jesus’ name to others, most times, it means giving up something in our lives to work on the relationship with God.
For us to have a personal relationship with God, God knew that we were all sinners and that needed to be rectified for us to be in His presence. If we were going to be spending eternity with Him, we needed to be rid of the sin we were carrying around. That was done by Jesus on the cross, He took all our sin upon Himself so we could be reconciled with God. In the Old Testament, people would bring a blood offering to the priests to abolish their sins for a year. They needed to keep coming back for forgiveness. God decided that He wanted sin to be rid once and for all, and that is why He sent Jesus to the cross to shed His own blood for each of us and our sins. Jesus was sinless, yet He became sin for each of us, so we could receive eternal life through His death and resurrection, just by accepting and repenting of our sins.
We are to remember during this season, that Jesus voluntarily came to earth from Heaven to sacrifice all He was for us. It was the ultimate sacrifice!
Announcements listed in the bulletin was that the congregation will be collecting any kind of dry pasta for the Food Pantry in the month of March. Bible Study begins at 1 p.m. every Tuesday. If there is snow on the roof, do not park by the side of the church. 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 a.m. to noon. When there is no school due to the weather, Pastor Bonnie will not be in the office and all events of that day will be cancelled.
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