Join us sundays at 8:00 & 10:30 AM

From The Pastor

Pastor Matt Chandler tells how when he was in a college freshman class, he wound up sitting next to a 26 year old single mom. Now he and his Bible study group of guys befriended her, and prayed for her, showing her Christlike love, and hoping she would come to faith. They wanted her to come to know Jesus Christ. These freshman guys would even go over and play with her kids and babysit for her. She had no background in church, or a faith of any kind. She was constantly making poor choices in her life. 
 
A friend of theirs was in a Christian band that was playing at a church one night and they thought, “Here’s our chance,” so they invited her to come. The music was great! And then the preacher got up and the trouble started. He said, “Tonight I’m talking about s-e-x. But first, do you see this rose? I have this rose I want to pass around. I want you to smell the beautiful fragrance and notice these velvety petals.” He tossed it into the audience. He went on to preach an awful sermon, filled with guilt and judgment. 
 
The preacher railed at the people, “Do you want to get diseases? There are people out there having fun, and smiling now, — but just you wait.” Matt Chandler was sitting next to this woman thinking, “No, no, no!” Then the preacher asked, “Has anyone got the rose?” They brought it back to him and the petals were falling off and the stem broken. He held it up before them, and it was no longer pretty. He said, “Look! Who would ever want this now? Who would want this sorry looking thing?” And Matt Chandler says, “ . . . I almost stood up and yelled, ‘Jesus wants that rose. Jesus came for that rose. Jesus died for that rose. . .’” 
Friends, that is what we are going to be discussing in worship this Sunday, as I continue my sermon series on “The Gospel in Seven Words,” with the sermon title,
“Jesus Christ Offers Forgiveness to Everyone Everywhere.” The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God. His love is a sacrificial, perfect love, that only Christ can offer, and it’s a love and forgiveness that’s there for you and for me – for any of us everyday.
Pastor John
Quote of the Week
“The voice of sin is loud, but the voice of forgiveness is even louder.”  Dwight L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody, also known as D. L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher connected with the Holiness Movement, who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers.