LIBERTY CHURCH, PCA. Praising God Connecting with His People Advancing His Kingdom. Sunday, December 31, 2017

Transcription

1 LIBERTY CHURCH, PCA A congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America Sunday, December 31, 2017 Praising God Connecting with His People Advancing His Kingdom Dr. Barry Cureton Shepherding Pastor Phill & Kelly Thomas Youth Directors

2 Worship Service Meditation Ephesians 6:10-20 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Welcome and Announcements Elder Michael Anderson Silent Prayer of Preparation Call to Worship Psalm 34:1-8 *Hymn of Praise As with Gladness #154 *Invocation Confession of Sin Almighty and most merciful Father; We have erred and strayed from Your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore those who are penitent; According to Your promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O merciful Father, for His sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life; To the glory of Your holy name. Amen.

3 Words of Assurance Psalm 32:1-7 *Songs of Praise Praise Team 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord oh My Soul) Matt Redman CHORUS Bless the Lord, oh, my soul, oh my soul, worship His holy name Sing like never before oh, my soul; I worship Your holy name. The sun comes up, it s a new day dawning. It s time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, Let me be singing when the evening comes. CHORUS You re rich in love and you re slow to anger. Your Name is great and Your heart is kind. For all your goodness I will keep on singing Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find. CHORUS And on that day when my strength is failing, The end draws near and my time has come, Still my soul will sing Your praise unending Ten thousand years and then forever more! CHORUS I worship Your holy Name; Lord, I worship your holy Name. Jesus Messiah Chris Tomlin He became sin, who knew no sin That we might become His Righteousness He humbled himself and carried the cross Love so amazing (2x) Chorus: Jesus Messiah, Name above all names Blessed Redeemer, Emmanuel The rescue for sinners; the ransom from Heaven Jesus Messiah, Lord of all

4 His body the bread, His blood the wine Broken and poured out all for love The whole earth trembled and the veil was torn Love so amazing (2x) Chorus Bridge: All our hope is in You (2x) All the glory to You, God the light of the world Chorus (2x) 2nd time repeat last line CCLI Shepherding Prayer Elder Michael Anderson *Hymn of Thanksgiving Joy to the World Joy to the world! The Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing (2 x) And heaven, and heaven and nature sing. Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy (2 x) Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found (2 x) Far as, far as the curse is found. He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness And wonders of His love (2 x) And wonders, wonders of His love. Receiving of Tithes and Offerings Offertory Celebrate the Child Children s Choir Michael Card

5 Sermon Scripture 1 Timothy 2:1-8 [There is no children s church today.] Sermon The Problem of Prayer Rev. Chuck Garriott *Closing Hymn What a Friend #533 *Benediction (followed by an opportunity to pray with the elders) *Postlude We welcome Chuck Garriott to the pulpit. Chuck is the director of Ministry to State in Washington, DC. The Sacrament of the Lord s Supper will be administered next Sunday and our mercy needs offering will be received during the regular offering.

6 From Pastor Barry Pastor Barry is on vacation through January 2nd and will be taking some study leave time January 4 8 to work on a new sermon series. Inclement Weather Policy Inclement weather information: If we have to cancel Sunday worship due to the weather, we will do a phone tree message to those who do not have , send a message through /constant Contact and put a message on our answering machine to let you know. If you are not currently receiving phone tree messages or Constant Contact s, please call the church office so we can add you to the list. Activities during the week are automatically cancelled or delayed if either Baltimore County or Carroll County Schools are closed or delayed for inclement weather. Save the Date! Prayer and Praise Service Praise and Prayer Service followed by a Fellowship Dinner on Sunday, January 21 st starting at 6 PM. Please join us for a special season of concerted prayer for our church for revival and renewal in the New Year. Dinner details to be announced at a later date. Church Envelopes If you would like church envelopes for next year and didn t have them this year, please contact the church office or Chris Bohmer at Need for Volunteers The Deacons are making some adjustments in procedures for SECURITY during Church services. We need additional men to participate in monitoring the building and property one Sunday about every three months. If interested in helping contact Oliver Dearden Year End Reports The Year End Reports must be sent to the office by Wednesday, January 10th, in order to put in the booklet. Please keep your report brief (no longer than a couple paragraphs of text) and send pictures. If the report is too long, people will not want to read it. As you consider your report, please think about how it can also be a Year Forward Report in which you not only reflect how the Lord used your ministry in 2017 but what goals you have for 2018 and how the church can be praying for you.

7 Women s Bible Study A new Thursday Night Ladies Bible study begins promptly at 7pm on January 4, ALL are welcome. Please call a friend and invite her along. We will study Paul's letter to the Philippians (JOY is the theme) using an inductive method. Our booklet guide was written by Keri Folmar. Books will be available the first night. Let us know if you will join us. Peggy Walker, Jackie Fuhrer, Deb Reiblich Owings Mills/Reisterstown Small Group The OM/R Small Group will be meeting this month at Geof & Lynn Smith s house, at 307 Butler Road (beyond the end of I-795 North), in Reisterstown/Glyndon for fellowship, worship and studying Genesis 3, on Friday, January 12th at 7:30PM. We would love to have you join us, including folks from Russ' old small group. We will be looking at Adam & Eve's original state and their desire to know Good and Evil (do you?). So read ahead and bring your insights and a refreshment. Youth Group Youth Group is for 6-12 grade students every other Sunday night at 6:30 p.m. through 8:30 pm in the Block House. For next meeting date contact Phill or Kelly Thomas.

8 A Note from the Pulpit Nominating Committee Dear Congregation, We thank you for your letters, prayers, and concerns for the Pulpit Nominating Committee (PNC). We appreciate and would encourage your continued support. We'd like to remind you what the purpose of the PNC is. We do not hire a pastor; we do not ask anyone to leave or fire anyone. We seek the Holy Spirit through prayer, devotion, and community among the committee members. Our work consists of vast research; poring over resumes and listening to three or more sermons (if need be) for each applicant. For seven months we have met each Monday night to pray and discuss the applicants. We used the resumes and sermons to weed out applicants which were obviously not a fit for Liberty and began the next round (interviews) with those who might fit. We have since further narrowed the candidate pool. Our next step is to meet candidates and see them preach at a neutral church in the area. After this last step, we will present a candidate to you, the congregation. You will hear him preach and run a worship service at Liberty. You, the congregation, will vote on whether or not to call the candidate as our pastor. All of the steps described have required a lot of our free time over the past seven months. It is not an easy task humbling ourselves in seeking God's Spirit and will. However, we do put our faith in our holy, pure, perfect, sovereign Father who is not in the business of making mistakes. We need your continued prayers for wisdom, patience, and unity! In His Grip, The Pulpit Nominating Committee The Pictorial Directories are here and are on the back table with name labels. Please feel free to pick yours up today.

9 Contest! Pastor Barry didn t get to all of his points in his Advent Series: Jesus the Ultimate Prophet, Priest and King. As a follow-up he would like to offer a contest to see who can be the first to answer this thought provoking, challenging question which was one of the points he didn t get to: Here it is: Jesus had to be all three offices of Prophet, Priest and King. If He didn t fulfill one of them, something essential would be missing in His role as Messiah. What would be the outcome if He were not each of the offices? In other words, what if Jesus was only King and Priest, but not a Prophet? What if He was Prophet and Priest but not a King? What if He was King and Prophet and not a Priest? You need to describe what would be missing in each scenario. The first person to Pastor Barry with the correct answer will receive a prize. You can him at barry_cureton@liberty/churchpca.org. Contest Rules: No age limit but if you are two years old and get the answer, Pastor B will be highly skeptical that you didn t have some help. However, you can make it a family project. As with all promotions, my family members are excluded. Excluded as well are those in Pastor B s Westminster Confession Class as you already answered this question in our study. Prize to be determined based on what Pastor B might re-gift from Christmas (only joking as he liked all of his presents). Winner to be announced once we have one. Have fun figuring it out.

10 Schedule of Volunteers December 31 January 7 Nursery 9:30 a.m. Nursery 10:30 a.m. Toddler 10:30 a.m. No Sunday School Carol & Katie Byrd Dianna & Emma Cote Dianna Cote Becky Goedeke, Hannah Watkins Christa Moges, Liz Davidson Lock-up Werner Kloetzli Brian Moran Sound Jeff Jordan TBA Greeters Chas & Pat Tracy Jeff & Cindy Watkins Usher Team Leader Geof Smith Kurt Reiblich Adult Sunday School Classes Colossians Charlie Cate Fellowship Hall 1 Peter Howard Hill Parlor Leadership Class Barry Cureton Barry s Office Thank You A heartfelt thank you to all those who helped to make the Candlelight Christmas Eve service such a wonderful time of worship and reflection on our Savior s birth. I appreciate all those who used their musical gifts to bless us and give glory to the Lord, also the candle lighters (special thanks to Phill and Kelly and Zach and Rachel for organizing it), the readers, ushers and sound crew. Thanks to you all for great teamwork and for being a blessing to our congregation and visitors.

11 Sunday, December 31 10:45 am Worship Service Monday, January 1 New Year s Day/Office Closed Weekly Schedule Tuesday, January 2 6:00 am Men s Bible Study/Denny s 7:00 pm Battalion/Chapelgate PCA Wednesday, January 3 6:30 pm Prayer Group 7:00 pm Stockade/LCS Pioneer Girls/FH 7;00 pm Choir 7:00 pm Men s Bible Study/Parlor Thursday, January 4 7:00 pm Women s Bible Study Sunday, January 7 9:30 am Sunday School for All Ages 10:30 am Coffee Fellowship 10:45 am Worship Service Sunday Morning Preaching Schedule Dec 31 - Chuck Garriott- Prayer (Pastor Barry is on vacation) Jan 7 - Howard Hill- Preaching on Exodus 3:1-11, Here am I Lord! Send my brother. Pastor Barry will be here to administer the Lord s Supper.

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