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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14TH —
LENTEN SERVICES IN ADAIR U.M.C. @ 7 P.M.
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DEBORAH-MARY CIRCLE MEETS AT 2 P.M.
IN CASEY U.M.C.
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Many Irish Blessings have been composed.
Some have a beautiful sentiment:
• and some are just plain silly.
———————————————————————SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 17TH
WE WILL HAVE COMBINED WORSHIP SERVICES
IN THE — ADAIR COMMUNITY CENTER —
AT 6 P.M. —
SATURDAY @ 6 P.M. (FOR SUNDAY, MAR. 18TH)
FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT
COLOR: PURPLE
• ONE GREAT HOUR OF SHARING.
Special offerings collected today underwrite
administrative and programming expenses for
UMCOR and United Methodist Committee on
Relief.
SCRIPTURE READINGS ARE:
NUMBERS 21:4-9
(The Message)
The folks who were complaining against Moses
were no orderly delegation sent to Moses to
raise a question. This was a contagious,
hate-speech campaign. Negativity, bitterness,
and complaining had gone viral among all the
people. The people's complaining brought death
in the form of serpents. God offered healing from
the serpents' bite for all who would look upon a
bronze serpent Moses fashioned on a pole.
4 They set out from Mount Hor along the Red Sea
Road, a detour around the land of Edom. The people
became irritable and cross as they traveled.
5 They spoke out against God and Moses: "Why did
you drag us out of Egypt to die in this godforsaken
country? No decent food; no water - we can't
stomach this stuff any longer."
6 So God sent poisonous snakes among the people;
they bit them and many in Israel died.
7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinnedwhen we spoke out against God and you. Pray to
God; ask him to take these snakes from us." Moses
prayed for the people. 8 God said to Moses, "Make
a snake and put it on a flagpole: Whoever is bitten
and looks at it will live."
9 So Moses made a snake of fiery copper and put
it on top of a flagpole.
Anyone bitten by a snake who then looked atthe copper snake lived.
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PSALM 107:1-3, 17-22 (UMH 830)
(The Message)
A psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from
deadly disease.
PSALM 107:1-3
1 Oh, thank God - he's so good! His love never
runs out.
2 All of you set free by God, tell the world! Tell how
he freed you from oppression,
3 Then rounded you up from all over the place, from
the four winds, from the seven seas.
PSALM 107:17-22
17 Some of you were sick because you'd lived a bad
life, your bodies feeling the effects of your sin;
18 You couldn't stand the sight of food, so miserable
you thought you'd be better off dead.
19 Then you called out to God in your desperate
condition; he got you out in the nick of time.
20 He spoke the word that healed you, that pulled
you back from the brink of death.
21 So thank God for his marvelous love, for his
miracle mercy to the children he loves;
22 Offer thanksgiving sacrifices, tell the world what
he's done - sing it out!
———————————————————————
EPHESIANS 2:1-10
(The Message)
Paul proclaims the power of God's salvation,
delivering us from "the ruler of the power in the
air" and "the passions of our flesh," which were
killing us. God extends his salvation to humans
through grace - - not through our earning it in
any way. God's salvation not only breaks the
chains of powers that bind us, but empowers us
to live lives full of good works. "You were dead."
What made them dead? The fact that they were
"walking in" (a synonym for"being a disciple of")
trespasses and sins following the patterns being
set by the powers that be.
Worse, he says, "We were all, by nature, children
of uncontrollable passion." They had been
disciples of this world's powers, passion's
offspring.
1 It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that
old stagnant life of sin.
2 You let the world, which doesn't know the first
thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled
your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled
disobedience.
3 We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing,
when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat.
It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do
away with the whole lot of us.
4 Instead, immense in mercy and with
an incredible love,
5 he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and
made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own,
with no help from us!
6 Then he picked us up and set us down in highest
heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the
time in this world and the next to shower grace and
kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
8 Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do
is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift
from start to finish!
9 We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd
probably go around bragging that we'd done the
whole thing!
10 No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God
does both the making and saving. He creates each
of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does,
the good work he has gotten ready for us to do,
work we had better be doing.
———————————————————————
JOHN 3:14-21 (The Message)
Jesus offers two narratives to help Nicodemus
understand the meaning of God's salvation
through him - - Moses lifting up the serpent, and
God's free gift of eternal life to all who will
"believe in" Jesus.
When we acknowledge our sin and turn from it
to follow in the way of Jesus, God gives us new
birth and new, eternal life. This gift of new birth
is not the result of our approval to a set of
"facts" about Jesus. It is rather what God
actually does in us when we "face facts" about
ourselves and about God and God's mission.
The Greek does not say "believe in" (using a
preposition followed by the dative case, denoting
primarily intellectual assent) but rather "believe
into" (using a different preposition followed by
the accusative case, denoting "handing oneself
entirely over" to the other. John 3:16 is not
referring primarily to believing things about the
life, execution, and resurrection of Jesus, but
rather to following him in his way. It is a mercy
filled, and serious call to repentance and the
offer of new life in discipleship to Jesus.
"Penitence" is a word that comes from the Latin
word "poena," which means "punishment."
Penitence (or penance) is a kind of self
punishment or self-discipline. Repentance, on
the other hand, ("metanoia" in Greek) means a
"change of one's whole outlook." The Hebrew
verb often translated "repent" ("shuv") means
"to turn away from." Repentance means turning
one's back on a way of life to walk in a new one.
14 In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in
the desert so people could have something to see
and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man
to be lifted up -
15 and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and
expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.
16 "This is how much God loved the world: He gave
his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so
that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him,
anyone can have a whole and lasting life.
17 God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son
merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world
how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world
right again.
18 Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who
refuses to trust him has long since been under the
death sentence without knowing it. And why?
Because of that person's failure to believe in the
one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
19 "This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into
the world, but men and women everywhere ran for
the darkness. They went for the darkness because
they were not really interested in pleasing God.
20 Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil,
addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and
won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure.
21 But anyone working and living in truth and reality
welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for
the God-work it is."
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SUNDAY, MARCH 18TH —
SPRING CHICKEN DINNER STARTING @ 11A.M.
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EASTER IS ONLY THREE WEEKS AWAY.
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MONDAY, MARCH 19TH —
This is Pastor Bob's and Naomi's day off.
Office is closed today.
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DORCAS-RUTH CIRCLE WILL MEET IN
ADAIR U.M.C. AT 1:30 P.M.
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REV. ED KAIL WILL GIVE THE SERMON IN
ADAIR SUNDAY, MARCH 25TH.
HE WILL SHARE INFORMATION COLLECTED
IN THE CONGREGATION REPORT.
MONDAY, MARCH 26TH — BLOOD DRIVE WILL
BE HELD AT THE A-C HIGH SCHOOL —
FROM 1:30 P.M. TO 6 P.M.
God Bless and Keep You,
Pastor Bob
