Sunday April 29

A hot sermon didn't help Britanie

Careful analysis of which pew to sit in

Eddie's miraculous cure for blindness...Hallelujah!

First Look at April 29

Here's a first look at tomorrow's bulletin and worship
FREEDOM BAPTIST CHURCH
April 29, 2012
Church News
We will have a representative from the Gideons here on May 20th
Mother’s Day is coming up May 13th; Father’s Day is June 17th
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Today’s Teachings
Sunday School: Dueling Denominations (started study April 24 last year)
Churches of Christ
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Today’s Sermon
Trampolining through John - Section 4, chapters 9-12
The Blind and the Lost: Jesus the Light and the Shepherd
John 9:25-10:10
John 9 with John 10
Spiritual sight vs. blindness on the part of the blind man healed in ch. 9 and blindness of the religious leaders
Chapter 10 a transition from blindness to the ability to hear the shepherd call his sheep into the safety of the sheepfold (which contrasts spiritual hearing vs. spiritual deafness)
The parable of the door of the sheep pen illustrated the open invitation to the nation to follow His guidance and be saved; all they had to do was hear His call to go into the door of the sheep pen and they would be safe in His care as the Good Shepherd
The blind man received sight and found his way; the Pharisees were blind and deaf and lost. Jesus had just ushered in the previously rejected blind man into the kingdom of God sheepfold
The Pharisees had also “put out” the blind man for his insolence in daring to defy their spiritual leadership; they thought they were sending the man out of the sheep pen but instead they sent him into the arms of Jesus where he was safe and sound
This “discourse” (speech on a particular topic) of Jesus started in chapter 9 and continued to 10:21. The setting did not change and the incident was one continuous flow
Jesus came to give abundant life, not death
• The doctrine of the Pharisees yielded spiritual starvation, bondage and death
• Through Christ is freedom and life, and taken care of by a loving shepherd
• Abundant life
 “Shall go in and out” – Freedom to be sheep and do what sheep do, without interference from “wolves”
 “And find pasture” – Be free of the worry and anxiety of not having needs met
 “He shall be saved” – To be afraid of nothing, that we don’t have to be afraid of anything but disobeying (for sheep are naturally afraid and “skittish”)
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WORSHIP SERVICE
I Will Sing the Wondrous Story p. 508
Great is the Lord  p. 31
Scripture Reading
I will give thanks to the LORD for His righteousness. I will sing the praises of the name of the LORD Most High. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. You have set your glory in the heavens. Ps. 7:17; 8:1-2 NIV
"How Great Thou Art" was based on a Swedish poem written by Carl Boberg (1859–1940) in 1885. The melody is a Swedish folk song. It was translated into English by British missionary Stuart K. Hine, who added two verses.
The inspiration for the poem came when Boberg was walking home from church near Kroneback, Sweden, and listening to church bells. A sudden awe-inspiring storm caught him and then just as suddenly subsided to a peaceful calm over Monsteras Bay. When Boberg arrived home, he opened the window and saw the bay like a mirror before him. From the woods on the other side of the bay, he heard the song of a thrush. The church bells were tolling in the quiet evening. It was this series of sights, sounds, and experiences that inspired the song, first published in 1886.
Stuart Hine first heard the Russian translation of the song in 1931 and wrote the English paraphrase “How Great Thou Art.” Other versions of the song appeared in the 1950’s and 1960’s because of its popularity. One of these versions is “O Mighty God” which was an attempt to portray the original translation of the song, but Hine’s version is the most popular.
Elvis Presley won Sacred Music Grammy’s for his recordings of the song in 1967 and 1974 (for the live version). Billy Graham chose the song to be the theme of his crusade in Madison Square Garden in 1957, performed hundreds of times by George Beverly Shea.
How Great Thou Art p. 4
O Mighty God, When I Behold the Wonder
(To the tune of How Great Thou Art)
Offering

Sunday April 22: Glory at 6081 ft.

Sit down fellowshipping

The long and the short of it, and yes he is standing up

Folks glad to see each other at church

Stand up fellowshipping

Like all Sundays, we dedicate ourselves to the joy of worship, prayer, teaching and fellowship. That's just what we do!
Praising God in song:
Our God Reigns  p. 229
Ten Thousand Angels
Great Is Thy Faithfulness  p. 43
Redeemed p. 521
Praising God with the public reading of Scripture:
Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. The heavens praise your wonders, LORD, your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones. Ps. 36:5-6; 89:5
Praising God with teaching:
Sunday School: Dueling Denominations
Churches of Christ
Independent movements that occurred through the leadership of Thomas and Alexander Campbell, and Barton W. Stone
Declared their independence from various denominations, seeking to restore the New Testament church
These churches about 5 million members, over 40,000 individual congregations worldwide, approx 13,000 congregations in US
Today’s Sermon
Trampolining through John
Section 4 of John, chapters 9-12
Beginning with John 9 – Healing of the Blind Man
As Jesus walked through Jerusalem He encountered a man with congenital blindness
Blindness was a malady with spiritual and theological significance for Jews:
• Is. 42:7 was one of 4 Servant-Songs in the book of Isaiah and mentions the opening of blind eyes as a Kingdom promise
• Is. 29:18 was quoted by Jesus as confirming His ministry to John the Baptist (Matt. 11:5), mentioned blind seeing and deaf hearing
• Is. 35:5 noted the eyes of the blind opened which referenced spiritual blindness of the nation to whom Isaiah was prophesying
The “disciples” mentioned here were probably not the 12, for they were not mentioned at all in chapters 7 and 8. This group was probably a group of nominal followers. They would have been trained in their synagogue education to think that physical maladies were a result of sin as a direct cause-effect relationship.
• The Rabbi’s did not emphasize universal, original sin as causing suffering in the world but that specific sins of an individual caused specific suffering. One Rabbi (Ammi) wrote, “There is no death without sin, and there is no suffering without iniquity.”
• Some Rabbis even held that a baby could sin in the womb, using Jacob and Esau as their proof.
• Some held to the belief that sins were generational, that a parent’s sins could doom their children. This was a variation on “karma” and God did note in the OT that “the sins of the fathers could be visited to the 3rd or 4th generation,” (generational sins) but that had a national application for Israel’s general unbelief, not a tribal or familial application. It had been misapplied by many Jewish theologians.
Since this man had been blind from birth this created a theological problem: how could this have caused his suffering, did he sin in the womb? Or was the man carrying the penalty of his parent’s sins?
Jesus answered, “Neither!” “It was neither this man nor his parents.” The man’s problem was not caused by specific sins by any party, but that “the works of God might be displayed in him.” The man would be an illustration of the spiritual blindness of the nation, a blindness that had lasted for generations, and that the Messiah would open their eyes if they would but believe.

First Sunday After Easter

Getting sassy talkback....I mean feedback

Congregation trying to look studious

Hawaiian shirts while 49 degrees outside?

We had a fun group last Sunday, enjoying the cold weather while I was in my first Hawaiian shirt of the season. It's a sure sign of spring when the pastor dons his Hawaiian garb and hangs ten while surfing through the book of John. Banzai!

Easter 2012

We had great services this past Easter Sunday. It was good to see all the family members and visitors who took time out from their family activities for the day to worship the Lord and His resurrection. We repeated our Homecoming songs (He Set Me Free/I Saw the Light/Jesus, Hold My Hand/Just Over in the Gloryland) that all enjoyed (Bill Gaither eat your heart out). Greg sang two fat tenor songs (John Peterson’s “My Song” and another old favorite “O What a Savior” with “He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need”). Our thanks to Lisa Heald for all the hard work and tremendous piano playing of the day. Christ is Risen…He is Risen Indeed!

 Now that another "suit Sunday" has passed (Christmas and  Easter) we can now get the Hawaiian shirts back out guys.....Aloha and praise the Lord! (Although the forecast is for 42 degrees as the high, so maybe one more Sunday of long-sleeve would be prudent!)

Dearly Beloved….Boogie!

Had the privilege of performing the wedding for Travis Heald and Amber County in Estes Park this past week. The setting was beautiful and discovered that church pianists could boogie. Who knew!



Church pianists can boogie