NO. LIVERMORE — At the July 16 North Livermore Baptist Church service, Pastor Bonnie Higgins welcomed the congregation to begin the service. The Invocation/Lord’s Prayer were recited. The hymns that were sung were “When We All Get to Heaven”, “Jesus Loves Even Me” and “Our God Reigns”.

The service ended with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda is the organist and Janet Diaz is the pianist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.

The sermon, titled “In a Little While…” the scripture from John 16:16-33. Pastor Bonnie began telling the congregation that Jesus’ last words to His disciples were also meant for us today. As He is with them, Jesus says “in a little while” He would not be with them. The disciples were confused as Jesus was talking with them.

Here are twelve men who left their families and their jobs to follow Him and now He is saying He is leaving them. As human beings, sometimes we feel that Jesus isn’t always with us, even though He is. Jesus is just waiting for the right time to show us His power in our lives.

Jesus wants us to understand that His resurrection was meant for us to learn something. First, Jesus wants us to know that the world hated Him during His time on earth and that we too, as His followers would be hated. We need to stay focused on Him and His mission to stay on the path Jesus has for each of us. Second, Jesus wants us to know that there will be a time we will grieve, but joy will come in the morning.

Because of His resurrection, the disciples were upset when they thought He had died, but turned it into joy when Jesus walked out of the tomb, to show He had overcome death and showed us that we can too through Him. Because of Jesus, no matter what trial we are going through, Jesus is always with us and will never leave us. Once through it, we come out stronger in Him.

Because of the resurrection, we have a closer relationship with God. Jesus wants us to have a closer relationship with His Father. The Holy Spirit in us will show us to Jesus and Jesus will show us God. Why does this happen? Cause God loves us and wants us to be closer to Him.

The resurrection shows us who God really is, a loving God. He is compassionate, patiently waiting on us, a giving God, also showing us that God has showed us a way for salvation through His Son.

Jesus told His disciples, “In a little while…” what did it mean? That they would mourn for what they thought would be the end of Jesus instead of a beginning of something exciting to come.

In a little while, the disciples and us will see God in a new light. As believers, our eyes were opened to see and experience God the way Jesus does. In a little while, any time of sorrow will go as fast as it came, through Jesus and joy will come back to your life. All we need to do is to place our trust in Jesus and our relationship with God will happen to each of us.

Announcements listed in the bulletin are that the congregation will be collecting Dry Pasta for the Food Pantry in the month of July. Bible Study each Tuesday at 1 p.m. The AA meetings are held on Friday nights at the church. Pastor Bonnie will be on vacation from July 23 – August 5.

For information, check out our website at northlivermorebaptistchurch.org. You can email the church at nlbcmaine@gmail.com. Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. to noon.