Tinney Chapel Today

MORNING SERVICE, 9:00 A.M.

Greeter: Betty Asbill & Roger Schneider

Sound: Bob Deitering

Ushers: Bob Deitering & Roger Schneider.

MUSIC

Pianist: Pat Hollingsworth.

Songleader for hymns: Angela Wylie.

Songs: Christ Arose, He Lives, Sanctuary, Because He Lives.

SPECIAL MUSIC by Tinney Chapel Choir, director Pat Hollingsworth:

A Lamb Will Lead Us Home/We Fall Down/Worthy! The Lamb

Choir singers today included: Alice Deitering, Angela Wylie, Bobbie Hollingsworth, Linda Hallman, Emmaline Hallman, Sadie Jordan, Stacey Stanley, Randy Stanley, Ronny Ellison, David Wylie, George Jordan, Clay Spears, Jami Smith, Marcella Salter, Angel Hensley, Christi Noble, Derrell Hollingsworth.

Call to Worship & Opening Prayer: Rev. Gene Miller.

Morning Prayer & Lord’s Prayer: Pastor Duncan Graham

LITURGY BY ASSOCIATE PASTOR GENE MILLER:

Offertory Prayer

Doxology

Gloria Patri

Apostles Creed

CHILDREN’S SERMON TODAY:

“Well, gang, this is The Day!” Thus did Senior Pastor Rev. Duncan Graham greet the Tinney Chapel Children today, followed by a discussion of the traditional Easter Egg Hunt, scheduled for inside the family life center today because of inclement weather. The Pastor told the Children about his own boyhood days when kids were limited to hen eggs which were boiled and colored by families. He described the various color processes of his day, including dye transfer paper designs and wax pencil technology. “We had a lot of fun doing it,” concluded the Pastor.

Today’s plastic eggs came up for discussion, and Pastor Graham was prepared with plastic eggs filled with visual aids for his Easter Lesson with the Children. “It’s not about the eggs; it’s about what’s inside,” he declared, as he and the Children opened the educational eggs to see just what was inside.

A cross came out first: “It’s a cross that was made by Associate Pastor Gene Miller and given to me,” explained Pastor Graham. “It reminds me that Jesus went to the cross to die for us, and suffered at Calvary that we might be redeemed.”

Next emerged three nails: “When Jesus went to the cross, he was nailed by his hands and feet to the cross,” said Pastor Graham. “These nails remind me of the anguish and pain that He suffered, and that our sins are forgiven.”

A rock was in the third egg: “This reminds me of the stone that was rolled in front of the grave,” explained the Pastor. “It was intended to keep Him there, but on the morning of the third day, He had risen.”

Nothing was in the fourth egg: “Why?” asked the Pastor. “What does that mean?” “That He was not there in the tomb anymore,” said the Children! “Yes,” said Pastor Graham. “So the meaning of the Easter Egg is that Jesus is not there in the tomb anymore. That’s the real story of Easter.”

In his closing prayer, the Pastor called on Our Gracious Heavenly Father: “We pray that this Easter will be a very special Easter for us and remind us of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. May we always proclaim the Glad Shout: Hallelujah, the grave is empty! He is risen! That all this be forever in the hearts of these Children, and that they have Everlasting Life forever. Amen.”

ADULT SERMON TODAY:

Senior Pastor Rev. Duncan Graham’s sermon title on this Easter Morning was “It Is Finished,” and was based on Matthew 28:1-ff (Click on the link to view Scripture.)

The Pastor began his sermon today by referring to the undraping of the sanctuary, which had been darkened, draped in black, since Maundy Thursday’s Service of Darkness. “This was symbolic of Jesus in the tomb,” explained the Pastor, who also mentioned Friday’s Christian Passover Seder, which included a video by Zola Leavitt. “The Passover Festival has been observed for 3,500 years, making it perhaps the world’s oldest ongoing Festival,” explained Pastor Graham. “During this Passover meal, we re-discovered some of Christianity’s basic roots of Easter.

“We gather to celebrate the Easter resurrection of Jesus Christ, but if we are to understand it, we need to go back a ways,” said the Pastor. “It’s actually a narrative of God working in history with His people. God began all this at least as far back as Abraham, and the people of His Promise with Abraham, when He began working for the atonement and salvation of all of humankind. Later, we see the culmination, when the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt. Moses was chosen by God to bring the Israelites out of bondage, and back into the Promised Land, which was to be a Land of Plenty, flowing with milk and honey.

“It was to be so wonderful that God’s people would forever praise Him for providing it,” said Pastor Graham. “So, in their bondage, they realized that God had not forgotten, but had wonderful plans for them. God told Moses what to do, and you recall all the plagues that were brought on Egypt in the Name of God. Yet, all failed to move the heart of Pharaoh, who remained steadfast in his determination to keep them in bondage.

“So, God visited death, and the angel of death passed through Egypt,” recalled the Pastor. “God told Moses what to tell the people to do to escape the angel of death. Take a lamb without spot or blemish, keep it in the house as a pet until the days are up, when you are to slaughter the lamb at twilight, cut the throat in a kind of Kosher method, and with a bunch of hyssop, put some of the blood on the top and both sides of the doorframes of the houses where you eat the lamb. In this way, the blood of the lamb formed the sign of the cross. He told them that when the angel of death passes through, he will not stop where he sees the blood, and it happened that way.

“So all the firstborn of Egypt died, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, to the firstborn of the prisoner, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well,” explained Pastor Graham. “Many died that night. It was a terrible calamity. But it took that to let God’s people go. So, we begin to see God’s redemption plan. The people of God, the Jews, have celebrated Passover from that day forward, by divine commandment, much as we did here on Friday.

“But, that lamb was not enough for all humankind,” added the Pastor. “For the rest of the history of the world, God sent His Firstborn, always important in family life then, to become the Paschal Lamb or Passover Lamb for the sins of mankind. When He went to the cross, His blood was shed on both horizontal sides of the cross, like both sides of the doorframes, and from His forehead on the Crown of Thorns, like the top of the doorframes. Thus, that Cross became a Doorway to our Redemption! Whoever takes His Blood can overcome the greatest enemy, which is death. As He said, ‘He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die’.

“For this cause, He shed His blood: The Firstborn became the Sacrifice for our sins,” added Pastor Graham. “But, wait, the narrative is not finished. Three days later, the Firstborn on the Festival of Firstfruits, bears the first fruit of Victory over death. He came back to believers, followers, even from the tomb.

“The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, for the Hebrews is in the fall of the year,” explained the Pastor. “It’s the day that all the sins of Israel for the year were atoned by the sacrifice of blood in the Holy of Holies, separated by a heavy curtain, perhaps up to 5” thick. There also was kept the Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat or Throne of God.

“Once a year, the High Priest went behind that curtain to offer the blood sacrifice for the sins of the past year,” said Pastor Graham. “Before doing so, he removed his ornate outer garments, which included bells that tinkled when the High Priest walked, and he entered the Holy of Holies wearing his plain white robe in which he would sprinkle the blood and offer up the prayers. If he came out, then his offerings had been accepted, and the sins were forgiven for another year. If not, there would be serious trouble, so they listened, intently, hoping to hear the sounds of the High Priest’s bells. If, for any reason, the blood was tainted, the High Priest would not have come out alive! Some reports suggest that they sometimes tied a rope around him to pull him out in case that happened.

“So, when the sound of the bells was heard, a great shout went up, said the Pastor. “On that resurrection morning, when Christ was raised, the Sacrifice of Blood by our High Priest was accepted by God the Father, and we have forgiveness. His offering was accepted, our sins are forgiven. We come out of a darkness that only God could illuminate. Today, we have possession of the Reason for a Great Shout, because Jesus is not in the grave: He is risen, indeed!”

CLASSES TODAY:

SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS TOPICS:

WISE ONES, Frankie Brewer: Power For Living.

LADIES BYKOTA CLASS, Peggy Boyd: The Risen Savior.

TINNEY CHAPEL MEN, Bill Knoop: The Case For Christ, a study by Lee Strobel.

OVERCOMERS, Jenna Nelson: The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

YOUTH, Ronny Ellison: Life Lessons from 1 & 2 Peter, a study by Max Lucado.

CHILDREN, Linda Hallman: Easter: The Stone Is Rolled Away.

REMNANT, Joe Dan Boyd: Proverbs Chapter 3.

The Remnant Righteousness handout # 260 is below:

Life lessons # 260 from studying Proverbs 3 and related Scripture:

1. The steps of the young man are now steps of responsibility, says commentator Vernon McGee: “The boy is coming in contact with reality and his steps need to be ordered according to the Word of God.

2. John Wesley summarizes this chapter: We are exhorted to be steadily religious, to trust God, to fear Him, to honor Him with our substance, to bear affliction well, to praise wisdom & its good effects, to guard against uncharitableness, strife and envy.

3. We learn not to cast away our confidence, and that our confidence is the Lord or is in the Lord, says commentator John Gill.

4. It is the Holy Spirit’s work to write Mercy and Truth on our hearts, and it is our work, under divine influence, to image both in our conduct and behavior, says Gill.

5. The Message translation cautions: Don’t try to figure out everything on your own, and Gill explains that doing so stands opposed to trusting in the Lord.

6. We are to listen for God’s voice in all that we do, or as Gill says, to know the Lord, set Him before us and always have Him in view.

7. We are to lay out our estate not to please ourselves, but to glorify God, reminds John Wesley, Methodism’s founder.

8. It’s the child He loves that God bothers to correct, so we are not to sulk under it, but rather we are to endure it with patience and cheerfulness.

9. Believers are Spiritual Merchants, believes commentator Gill, who views faith as a trading with and for Christ and for spiritual and heavenly things by Him.

10. The Tree of Life is the only restorer of that Life which we have lost by sin, reminds John Wesley.

11. We are to guard clear thinking and common sense with our lives.

12. We should never walk away from someone who deserves help because, to them, our hand is God’s Hand.

13. The Lord gives proud skeptics a cold shoulder, says The Message translation, but He gives grace to the lowly, says the King James translation.

TODAY’S DATE: 03-27-05

The Remnant

Sunday School Class

Tinney Chapel UMC

Winnsboro, Texas

ASSIGNMENT FOR NEXT SUNDAY: 04-03-05

REMNANT’S REGULAR FIRST SUNDAY HEALTHY CHURCHES LESSON.

READ OR REVIEW: Previous Healthy Church Assignments, plus Chapter 21, “Protecting Your Church,” in Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life. (Try to locate the book in the library or borrow a copy from a friend.)

Afterwards, reflect upon these things:

1. Let love guide your life, for then the whole church will stay together in perfect harmony.—Colossians 3:14 Living Bible translation.

2. Nothing on earth is more valuable to God than His church.—Rick Warren.

3. We must passionately love the church in spite of its imperfections.—Rick Warren.

4. Practice God’s method for conflict resolution: If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him---work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you’ve made a friend. If he won’t listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won’t listen, tell the church.-–Matthew 18:15-17a—The Message translation.

BIBLE READINGS TODAY:

Readings for Easter Sunday: Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10.