God's names are promises to us. The names also signify the presence of God.
God’s many names reveal and confirm God's character. From the names for God, we learn about God's heart, the provisions he makes for us, his power and his goodness. Over and over, God reveals a dimension of who God is at a significant turning point in someone's life. Again and again, the attribute God reveals always is exactly what the person in the story needs. When God tells us his name, he is telling us something about himself that we may not know but need to know so we can have a closer relationship with God.
God's names are promises to us. The names also signify the presence of God.
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If the meaning of baptism could be boiled down to one word, that word might be identification. Baptism speaks primarily of a personal, public identification with Jesus Christ; telling the world that we are children of God. In Romans 6:3-4 the Apostle Paul puts the matter this way: “Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” We'll hear these words again in the baptism ceremony. Strong words identifying our baptism in Christ with his death...but more, we identify with his resurrection to new life. This is what we are all celebrating today as we witness and participate in the baptism of Rosie and Gary.
Missions
Psalm 1, 1 John 5: 9-13, John 17: 6-19 May 17, 2015 Jessica and Daniel preaching. Intro: Our gospel reading finds Jesus and the disciples in the upper room the evening of his arrest. He is giving the final instructions to his disciples. I'm picking out just one sentence for our focus today: Jesus said, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” The disciples, and by extension we, are sent into the world to bring the good news and love of Jesus to others. We do that locally in our missions but a few of us are called to go across the sea, to say, Africa. This morning we welcome back Jessica Hasslen Steyn whom we've heard before and she is joined by her husband of 6-9 months Daniel to talk about bringing the love of Christ into the world beyond our borders. Our hymnsing this morning is based on our Psalm's opening verse, “ Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things.” We won't be singing new songs but we may sing with new perspectives. I'm giving a little bit of background on the hymns as we get to each one. This may give new and stronger meaning to the words we sing. To start, our first hymn was I Come to the Garden Alone. It was not written as an invitation to spend time alone with Jesus as I would have thought. It is a reflection on the first Easter morning when Mary Magdalene came to the garden tomb alone.
Our next hymn goes well with our gospel lesson; Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” That promise extends to us in the hymn Jesus Loves Me. |
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