Sunday
March 7, 2010
WORSHIP SERVICES
11:00 am and 6:00 pm
Sermon Title
"From Temptation to Deliverance"
Scripture
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
and
Isaiah 55:1-3a, 6-9
Fellowship Cafe
Please join us downstairs for a light snack and fellowship after each
service.
ALL ARE
WELCOME!
Forever, I will sing of your love, Your love of rainbow voices, of all people the whole world over.
From Our Pastor...
We are all familiar with the practice of giving Christmas gifts. Even those who attach no religious significance to the holiday often participate in the ritual of giving and receiving presents. At MCC Winston-Salem this past Christmas, like at many churches, we provided gifts to a family in our community who would not have received Christmas presents otherwise.
Most of us do not worry much about Easter gifts. Unless we have children in our home, once we reached the age where the Easter Bunny stopped delivering baskets of goodies many of us abandoned any real thought of Easter gifts. Yet, it seems to me, on that first Easter we were given the greatest gift of all. Doesn't it seem appropriate that we remember the gift of the resurrection by giving gifts of our own to those in need?
As we ready ourselves for Easter, we invite you to give of yourself by donating items to Senior Services, Inc., a local non-profit which provides services to some of the most vulnerable people in our community. Every Sunday between now and Easter we are accepting donations of specific items to help serve their clients. You can find out more about the items requested in the announcement below entitled "Lenten Mission Project." If you would like to donate but will not be at church, you can always send a check to the church office marked "Lenten Donation" and we will use those funds to purchase the items for you.
Let us come together during this holy season to show our appreciation for the great gift we have been given by giving our own gifts to others.
Peace and grace,
Ron
Scripture
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.
Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play." We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing God will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Isaiah 55:1-3a, 6-9
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.
Seek the Lord while the Lord may be found; while the Lord is near, call upon God's name; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord who has mercy upon them, and to our God who abundantly pardons. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.