Sisters and brothers,
Happy Sunday and happy Lord’s Day to all! Believers all over the world will meet today at different times and places celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Thus, we call this day the “Lord’s Day.” Jesus is the One who died in our place and the One who conquered death never to die again. Jesus our Lord gives to all who believe in Him eternal life. He alone is worthy of all our worship and we lay our lives down in surrender to Him.
As we looked at Matthew 14, we considered the two great miracles of that chapter, the feeding of the 5000+ and Jesus walking on water. We learned Jesus gives His children impossible tasks to show He is God of the impossible. It is a false teaching that God will not give us more than we can bear. God often gives us more than we can bear to cause us to depend on His presence and power. There is nothing He cannot enable us to do or bear! God wants us to see that His strength is enough even when our strength is gone. We saw that Jesus gives His children impossible tasks to show He is God of the impossible. We learned that Jesus often puts us in overwhelming circumstances so His children will know His presence and power. Is there some impossible thing in your life that you cannot do on your own, but you know needs to be done? You have tried repeatedly to do this impossible thing, to break some habit or addiction, to accomplish some task that you believe God wants you to do? If there is something like that that you cannot and have not accomplished, Jesus is able to do that if you will just rely and turn to Him.
Next Sunday, August 11, Dr. Leo Endel, Executive Director of the Minnesota/Wisconsin Baptist Convention and Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rochester, Minnesota, will be preaching in our worship gathering. Leo is a great friend of mine and Leo is an excellent teacher and preacher of the Word of God. I am excited that he will be with us.
We will be starting a membership class on September 8. This class is designed to help understand what church membership at East Madison is about. It will last four to five weeks and be held during our Bible Study times on Sunday morning at 9:30 AM. Adults and older youth are invited to join us. The class is for those new to East Madison or those who simply want to explore what we are all about. I will be teaching the class so feel free to contact me with any question about the class.
We have a new childcare signup sheet for the next three months and we need some volunteers. All our childcare workers need to have had a background check on file with EMBC. The safety of our children is of primary concern to us. If you can help us out, please let me know. If you haven’t yet had a background check on file with EMBC, we can work on getting that done if you would like to help.
Love being your pastor!
Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church