The Bethany Bullet Sermon Message - Week of September 13, 2020

 

 

 

 

Link to Worship Video for 9/13/20 – HERE

*If unable to open link copy/paste this into your browser:

http://www.bethanylutheran.org/worship-service-resources/

*Direct link to Vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/457101680

 

 

 

Link for printing Sunday’s Bulletin for 9/13/20 – HERE

*If unable to open link copy/paste this into your browser:

http://216716c740411890a61b-baadebb03584b8c460640ee327586b9d.r93.cf2.rackcdn.com/uploaded/b/0e10917698_1599922230_bulletin-september-13-2020.pdf

 

 

 

Link to Bible Discovery Resources for 9/13/20 – HERE

*If unable to open link copy/paste this into your browser:

http://www.bethanylutheran.org/bible-discovery-resources/

 

 

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Sermon Message: “Praying for Others”

Text: Philippians 1:3-6, 9-14

 

Last week we kicked off our fall worship series in St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians entitled: “Growing Through What We Are Going Through.”  We confessed and agreed that we are going through uncertain times.  That was a revelation that did not require a trained and ordained minister, let alone an angel from heaven.  These are uncertain days!  Will our union ever be united again?  Will a vaccine be found in 2020?  2021? And when available will it make a difference?  When will students return to in-class instruction?  Diners to indoor dining?  Worshippers to the inside of sanctuaries?  Yes, these are days fraught with uncertainty.

 

The author to this letter to Californians, as well as Philippians, assured us there is one thing of which we can be certain, and it is the only certainty we need, it is that the Lord is near.  How near?  He is in your mouth and in your heart.  The Word that Jesus is Lord and God has raised Him for the dead.  Of this we can be certain:  The Lord is with us and He is for us.   And thus we don’t only hope to get through that we go through; we hope and even expect to grow through that which we go through. 

 

Paul, in the first few verses of the first chapter mentions on several occasions that even in the midst of his trials and imprisonment how he is praying for his readers.  One thing we can take away from this is the truth that, one way we grow through that which we are going through is by praying for others. 

 

When our prayers focus more on the needs, issues, well-being and concerns of others (those who know or don’t know, those who are in harmony with and those with whom we are out of tune so to speak, those we love as well as those who don’t like, those we agree with and those with whom we disagree, those who are partners with us in the Gospel and those who have yet to receive the Gospel, those who speak the truth boldly and those who boldly and even shamelessly speak untruth) when we devotedly pray for others we will grow through what we go through because such prayers free us from the myopia that simply focuses on self.  Such prayers not only free us from myopia they provide with an expansive view and an eternal perspective.

- Pastor Kevin Kritzer

 

 

 

Worship Resources for Sunday, September 20^th will be up on Bethany’s website by midday Saturday, September 19^th.