NO. LIVERMORE — North Livermore Baptist Church January 3, service:

The congregation was welcome in 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 “Savior, like a Shepherd Lead Us”, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”, and “God Will Take Care of You”, with “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” as the postlude to complete the service.

The sermon, titled “Facing 2021 using the scripture of Isaiah 41:10. Pastor Bonnie began the message with a look back on 2020. Many people think of the bad of 2020 and how it turned the world upside down, but a lot of good came from 2021. Families came together again, people slowed down, people came back to church through online services, others opened up their Bibles and started reading again, people came to help their neighbors. Pastor Bonnie said to look at all the good and not concentrate on the bad things.

Pastor Bonnie spoke of the scripture passage of Isaiah 41:10 is something we should carry with us throughout the year 2021. She explained this first we see two statements of “Do not Fear” (do not fear, do not dismayed), two statements of “I am” (I am with you, I am your God) and three statements of “I will” (I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will uphold you). From this verse we see five promises from God about our future. The first one was God’s presence is with us, when God says “I am with you”. God will never leave or forsake His children. Moving to the second promise, God is personally involved with us, when He says “I am with you”. God is telling us that He knows us and that He only wants the good for us. We are His children and as a parent we want the best for our children, God is the same way with His children, us. The third promise is that we have God’s power available to us when He says “I will strengthen you”. We have the same power over this world as Jesus did because of our relationship with God the Father. We can keep Satan away from us when we use the power God has given us. Satan has no power of God’s children. The fourth promise is that God will provide for us, He states that when it says “I will help you”. God has always provided for His children; God provides all that we need. The last promise is the ultimate promise to His children – “I will uphold you”. God will always love His children unconditionally. No matter where our life is, He will always be there to pull us up and keep us in His care. God is always there with open arms.

Pastor Bonnie went on to say no matter what 2021 brings, as long as we remember these five promises in Isaiah 41:10, we can get through it and rejoice in 2021. She asked the congregation to remember this verse as they go through the year.

Pastor Bonnie moved into the Communion service. She finished the Communion service with the Benediction.

Announcements listed in the bulletin were that the congregation will be collecting tuna fish for the food pantry in January. The Annual Business Meeting of the church will be on January 17^th. The AA meetings are held on Friday nights at the church.

For information, check out the new website at northlivermorebaptistchurch.org. Also, on the North Livermore Baptist Church’s Facebook page the sermon is posted and on their website is a link to YouTube for the sermon. You can email the church at nlbcmaine@gmail.com. Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Monday and Tuesday from 9:00 a.m. to noon. (If there is a no school day in the school district, Pastor Bonnie will not be in the church’s office that day)

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