Bergfeld Church — January 3, 2021 Service

Happy new year, and welcome to a recording of the Bergfeld Church service for January 3, 2021.

You can also find a video version at BergfeldEMMC.com and on YouTube.

Program:
Opening/devotional — Mike P
Singing — Chris G & Dorothy H
Children's feature — Chris G & family
Special music — Abe & Regina G
Missions report — Llew P, WorldServe
Scripture readings — Llew & Mike
Message — Pastor James F (see notes below)

Read this week's bulletin here.


Sermon title: Holding on to the past will prevent you from receiving God's blessing.

Sermon notes:

Make room in your life by letting go of the past, so that you can receive God's richest blessings.
Luke 1:67-80
- God forgave Zacharias for his disobedience, for his unbelief of what God would do. 
- In the same way God forgave Zacharias, He will forgive you.
- We don’t have to hold on to our guilt, for God is willing to forgive us. We don’t have to let it influence our daily lives in a negative way.  
- Satan does not have to have that hold on us.
- No matter how big. No matter how cruel, or distasteful, or selfish, God is willing to forgive you. But only if we repent of our sins.

Exodus 3:16

Ruth 1:6

The word "redeem" is derived from the Latin root meaning “to buy back”. This context would include buying back such things as any possession, object, or person, by some form of payment. 

If we consider the Greek root word, it means to loose, in other words to set free. Examples of this is to be set free from chains, from slavery, from a prison sentence, from having been tied to something.  

The redeemer would free from slavery of sin, to set free the prisoner, not physical prisoner but spiritual prisoner, imprisoned by their own sinful desires.  

 Of which is indicated in the Gospels, He is the redeemer who paid the price to set God's people free.

 Christ came to give His life as a ransom for many, of which we can read about in Matthew 20:28, and Mark 10:45.

So Christ is the redeemer come to set His people free…

2 Samuel 22:3

Psalm 18:2

Psalm 148:14

Malachi 3:1

Malachi 4:1-3

Winter in the Hebrew language is “setav," which means the season of hiding or the time of darkness. The winter, is the cold, crisp, season of darkness, unfruitfulness, bareness, infertility, and death. We see it in the signs of nature.

Spring offers hope, new life, fertility, fruitfulness, a time of refreshing. A time to take action. A time to get out and move around. The animals come out of hiding all winter.

The time that follows or breaks the winter is called in Hebrew language “nisan”.

 Jesus was born in “setav”, in the darkness in the winter. But, He went to the cross in "nisan." 

Jesus chose to bring redemption in the month of Nisan, the month of spring, the month of new beginnings.  

God wants us to look to what could be. Not to concentrate on what we had, but on what could be.