LIVERMORE — At the North Livermore Baptist Church Jan. 16 service. the congregation was welcomed 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 “We Have Come into His House”, “It is Well with My Soul” and “The Longer I serve Him”. The service was concluded with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda Lyman is the organist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.

The sermon, titled “My Cup Overflows” and reading the scripture from Psalm 23:5. Pastor Bonnie started out speaking about how we are people who like to complain. We are never satisfied with the way our lives are going or the way the world is. We live in a negative world, and we see that in our own lives. It is hard to see good in a world or in our lives when everything around us is so unstable. Even Winnie the Pooh’s friend Eeyore couldn’t find anything to be happy about. Everyone falls into the categories of being a pessimist, optimist, or a realist. She gave examples of each while the congregation figured out what group they were in.
Pastor Bonnie went on to say the cup that is used in scripture for the message was not talking about a real cup, but our lives. For our lives to overflow, we must have a relationship with Jesus so He could bless us in our lives. What does “my cup overflows” mean? It means that God has provided more than enough for all our needs.

She went on to say that if our cup is filled with the world, we will never be satisfied. We will always be wanting more. The world tells us that we need more, God says He is enough. If we fill our cup with material things, it says that money is what brings us happiness. We go on searching for a shinier thing to have in our lives.

Too many times we fill our cup with envy. We want what others have. We compare our lives to everyone else and when someone has something we want, we get envious of them. Scripture tells us in Psalm 23:1 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.” This tells us with Christ, we are in need of nothing, He has supplied us with everything that we need.

So, why does the scripture say our cup overflows? It overflows when we have Christ. When we accept Him as our personal Savior and live our lives for Him, we do not need anything He hasn’t already supplied. Our cup overflows because God sent His Son, Jesus to die for us so we will have eternal life.

This life is temporary, but through Christ, we can live eternally with Him. God’s love was shown at this time so we will always know that His love is everlasting and unfailing. When we start counting all the blessings that God has provided to us, our cup will overflow.

Our cup overflows because we have a relationship with God and He supplies us with His love, protection, guidance, etc. God gives everything to us in His Will, so we won’t want anything else. God should be enough for each of us. We cannot out do God.

God overflows our cups every day. Jesus tells us this in John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Having that personal relationship with God, my cup does overflow because His provisions are endless.

We need to remember that if we want God to fill our cups, we must make sure the cup is ready to be filled. To do that, we must accept what Jesus did at the cross and ask for forgiveness of our sins. God can’t fill us, if the cup is upside down.

Sometimes our cups are cracked from being in sin, being selfish, being disobedient, and when that is the case, we need to fix the cracks so the cup will contain what God has for us. We need to go to God for forgiveness, God is the only one that can fix the cracks in our lives.

We need to stop trying to fill our own cup and let God do it. We will never be able to fill the cup of this world, we need to let Jesus do it. Because when we let Jesus do it, it will overflow with His love, forgiveness, generosity, and his blessings.

Jan. 23 service

The congregation was welcomed 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 “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, “Whiter Than Snow” and “Cleanse Me”. The service was concluded with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda Lyman is the organist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.

The sermon, titled “Red as Sin, White as Snow” and reading the scriptures from Isaiah 1:18 and Romans 3:23. Pastor Bonnie began with telling the congregation that too many times we have heard or said ourselves that we are not worthy of God’s forgiveness by what we have done in our past. We sometimes believe that we must clean ourselves up before we can come to Jesus. What we need to know is that we cannot clean ourselves up without Jesus. We must go to Him.

Pastor Bonnie stated that there is only one person who ever walked this earth that was sinless and that was Jesus Christ. Which means, we are all born sinners and must repent of our sins before Jesus, so Jesus can give us forgiveness. Jesus has said He was sent here to earth to save the world not to condemn the world.

God tells us in the Old Testament and Jesus says in the New Testament to come to Him and confess, believe, and be saved. Scripture tells us that our sin is a crimson stain on our lives and it can only be washed white as snow by the blood of Jesus on the cross. Jesus’ resurrection tells us that we can be cleansed by His blood and we can be made pure in His sight.

We know a deep red stain doesn’t come out of anything. There will always be a tint of red left, even after many washings and pre-treatments. We cannot change the crimson stain by ourselves, we need Jesus to do it. Scripture tells us that all things are possible through God, He is the God of the impossible. So, we know that only God can truly remove the stain of sin from our lives.

God has been telling us to come to Him since sin first came upon the earth. He has been telling us to come throughout the Bible. Beginning in Genesis when He told Noah and his family to come into the ark. We have been told to come and rest, come and see, come to Me and drink if thirsty, come and follow Me, come for Jesus has risen, and many other times that we have been told to come to Him.

How should we come to Him? We should go to Him just as we are. There are no preparations to do first, we just need to come before Him. Many have asked when should we come to Him, there is never a better time than now. If we wait too long, it might be too late. We can only come to Him when we are living on this earth.

The stains on our hearts cannot be made pure unless we come to Jesus. We cannot expect forgiveness of our sins unless we come before the Father and repent. The penalty of sin is death and separation from the Holy Father. The only way to be forgiven is to come to God and confess our sins to Him and ask for Jesus to come into our lives.

There are not any sins that God will not forgive you for and God will forget that they ever happened. Satan keeps throwing them up in our faces all the time, putting doubt that God has forgiven us, but we need to tell Satan that isn’t how God works. God can and will forgive us and change the crimson stain of sin into a white as snow pure heart. God is waiting for you to come, are you going?

Announcements listed in the bulletin was that the congregation will be collecting Cereal for the Food Pantry in the month of January. Bible Study begins at 1 p.m. every Tuesday. After church service will be the church’s annual business meeting. If there is snow on the roof, do not park by the side of the church. The AA meetings are held on Friday nights at the church.

For information, check out our website at northlivermorebaptistchurch.org. You can email the church at nlbcmaine@gmail.com. Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Monday and Tuesday’s from 9 a.m. to noon. When there is no school due to the weather, Pastor Bonnie will not be in the office and all events of that day will be cancelled.

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