Faith to Sight

Welcome and Offering

Good morning! We are going to try that one more time. Good morning!

You can go ahead and make your way to your seats. We are having a little bit of technical difficulties with the slides right now, so we started a little bit later. If you want to make sure you can actually read the lyrics, there are bulletins right by the offering plate in the back that you can grab. We also have bigger single-page versions; there is no shame in taking those to be able to sing and follow along. This will be our guide to the service this morning.

I want to welcome you to this gathering of First Baptist Church of Aria. My name is John Lee, and I am one of the pastors here. I have a couple of announcements for us before we begin.

First, if you would like to give to the church, you can do so online or in the offering plate in the back. I just want to read to you a quick passage from Acts chapter 20 before we pray and give thanks to God for the offering. This is Paul teaching, and he says in Acts 20:35:

In every way I’ve shown you that it is necessary to help the weak by laboring like this and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, because he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

— Acts 20:35 (CSB)

That is one of the many reasons that we give to contribute to church ministry: because we believe that money is not something we hoard, and resources are not things we use to build our own kingdoms, but things we use to advance the kingdom of God. When we do so, we receive even more blessing as we give than we receive.

Let me go ahead and pray and give thanks to God for our offering this morning. Let us pray together.

Lord, we thank you for all the things that you have given us. We pray, Lord, that you would be able to use every single dollar, every single penny of our offering to be able to advance your kingdom and to bring more glory to your name. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Announcements and Community Life

You can see some of our other gatherings on the inside of your bulletin there. There are three things I want to point out to you.

First, we do have our evening service tonight at 5:00 PM. I want to encourage you to come and pray together. That is really when our church gets to work—when we pray together. Ultimately, God is most honored and most active not when we obsess over the to-do lists that we may have and things we try to achieve, but when we go before the Lord in prayer. So, I want to encourage you to attend that.

Secondly, after service in the room in the back—if you just follow the hallway all the way down—we are going to have a Q&A with me. You can ask me any questions because next Sunday, Lord willing, after the service, we will be having a members' meeting where we vote and finalize a pastoral transition here at the church. So again, after this service we will have a Q&A, and then next Sunday after the service we will have a vote, Lord willing.

Oh, I forgot to mention this: if you are a visitor here this morning and you just heard that giving announcement, I want to make it really clear that you should not feel any obligation to give. We are just glad that you are here. Giving is something that God commands Christians and members of their local church to do out of obedience to Christ. We are just glad you are here. We ask that you would pay attention as you hear the Word preached and ask any questions that you may have. I will be at the door after service, so I would love to talk to you more about what it looks like to follow Jesus.

Call to Worship

And now, let us have a brief moment of silence before I read Colossians 1, as God calls us to worship him this morning.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

— Colossians 1:15-20 (CSB)

That is the Christ that we get to worship every single Sunday morning—the one who rules over all creation. Let us stand, and if you have a hymnal, turn to hymn number 20 as we praise him. As we sing "All People That on Earth Do Dwell," let us stand and sing together.

Hymn: All People That on Earth Do Dwell

All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell, Come ye before him and rejoice.

Know that the Lord is God indeed; Without our aid he did us make. We are his folk, he doth us feed, And for his sheep he doth us take.

O enter then his gates with praise, Approach with joy his courts unto. Praise, laud, and bless his name always, For it is seemly so to do.

For why? The Lord our God is good, His mercy is forever sure. His truth at all times firmly stood, And shall from age to age endure.

To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, The God whom heaven and earth adore, From men and from the angel host, Be praise and glory evermore. Amen.