NO. LIVERMORE — At the North Livermore Baptist Church March 28 service the congregation was welcome in by Pastor Bonnie Higgins at 9:30 a.m. to begin the service.

The Call to Worship was read and the Invocation/Lord’s Prayer was recited.  The hymns that were sung was “All Glory, Laud and Honor”, “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna”, “They’ll Know We Are Christians”. We completed the service with “Go Now in Peace”.  Linda Lyman is the organist each week.

The sermon, titled “The Reality Who Jesus Is” reading the scripture from John 12:23-33.  Pastor Bonnie began speaking about how just a few months back we were celebrating the birth of Jesus, and now we are celebrating Jesus last week on earth.  The celebrations and the tragedies that unfolded on what we call the Holy Week. Many have asked, did Jesus have a choice, did He really have to die on a cross?  Yes, Jesus, had a choice, He could have said no and call out to the angels to come and take Him back to Heaven.  Because Jesus loved us so much, He chose to go to the cross and die, so He could resurrect on the third day to fulfill prophecy and to give us hope of eternal life.  Without Jesus’ resurrection we would not know that there is life after death.  There was no salvation in His birth, only in His death and resurrection.

Why did Jesus do it?  Jesus did it not only for us, He did it so He could glorify His Father.  Up until this time, many times actually, Jesus had said it wasn’t His time, His hour had not come yet.  Then this time came and He said it was His time to glorify His Father.  Jesus tells of a parable about a seed that will not produce fruit if it isn’t planted correctly.  If a seed just lays on the top of the soil, it will not grow and it will just stay a seed.  When it gets planted and watered it will grow and changes from a seed to a plant and will live.  Compare that with our lives, when Jesus died and rose, He overcame death and His death is leading many to a new life when they chose to follow and accept Jesus as their personal Savior.  Jesus knew from birth, that He needed to die for others to live and He chose that decision.

Jesus not only took on the burdens, the pain of the cross and our sins into His body, He took it for all of us.  We need to remember that God doesn’t love us because Jesus died for us, Jesus died for us because God loves us. If God didn’t love us, there would be no reason for the cross.  The cross was the only way that Jesus was to overcome death and put Satan in his place.

Jesus was born to die. Jesus came to save us. Jesus died to bring us salvation. Jesus will come back again for His people to live with Him forever. We are free from sin, because of the sacrifice of God’s Son to be willing to die on a cross and resurrected on the third day. Someday, we all will be united with Jesus.

Announcements listed in the bulletin was that the congregation will be collecting crackers for the food pantry in April. In the month of March, we are collecting for America For Christ offering.  Upcoming events in the church are: Maundy Thursday service at 6:00 p.m. on April 1, Deacons/Trustees meetings on April 3, Easter Service at 9:30 a.m. on April 4, West Association Spring Meeting at 2:15 p.m. at NLBC on April 11, and the Quarterly Business Meeting after morning services on April 18. The AA meetings are held on Friday nights at the church.

For information, check out the new website at northlivermorebaptistchurch.org.  Also, on the North Livermore Baptist Church’s Facebook page the sermon is posted and on their website is a link to YouTube for the sermon. You can email the church at nlbcmaine@gmail.com.  Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Monday and Tuesday from 9:00 a.m. to noon.  (If there is a no school day in the school district, Pastor Bonnie will not be in the church’s office that day)