"Pure Gospel" - Beginning Wednesday night, you are invited to a new adult offering.  In addition to the life group and Prayer Force, you might consider attending "pure gospel" in the sanctuary.  Ken Begg has been putting this together.  Beginning this Wednesday (7-8pm), we will have a presentation of the gospel along with some singing.   We have various guys scheduled to give the gospel each Wednesday night through the remainder of the year.   Thus, you can come for encouragement, or evangelism training, or possibly outreach (invite a friend).  

We opened with a plea for us to vote.  Pastor Tim especially highlighted the two murderous propositions:  Measures 434 and 439.    434 will provide more protections for unborn children after 13 weeks.  439 will provide women a fundamental right to abortion and will allow for abortion up to the moment of birth.  (suggestion: vote YES for 434 and NO for 439).  This does not close the door on future abortion considerations.  SSB would suggest that all abortion should be illegal and we will continue to pray and work for this to happen.

Garrett N shared on the new sanctuary lights.   It has greatly improved our lighting up-front in the sanctuary.  Several men were involved in setting up the lights (we did all of the work in-house).   Thank you men!  

The music spoke about our souls and breaths given to praising God... this directly connected to our message out of Luke chapter 12.  Jesus is interrupted by a man asking him to tell his brother to give him his inheritance.   Jesus tells the parable of a foolish rich man who desired to build new barns to store his great bounty not realizing that his life would end that night.   Three mistakes:  He mistakenly thought that the wealth belonged to him and had true long-term value.  It's all God's!   And what more "wealth" might we want than to have God's Word (our Bible).  The man mistakenly thought his body and soul belonged to him.  It is God breathed and God breathed life into us so that we might breath glory back to Him (Ps. 103:1).  We should value other relationships over our personal life.  Finally, the man mistakenly thought he had plenty of time and failed to consider eternal things.  He should have considered not laying up treasure for himself but being rich towards God (Luke 12:21).  We ended by discussing the foolishness of worry.  Let us be rich towards God!  

This is one of the most important questions to ask of God.  In this passage, a rich man is asking what he must DO to get eternal life.  Jesus puts to rest pretty quickly the idea that any of us can be “good” enough by saying there is “no one good.”  This is a rebuke to the man’s inquiry.  Further, the man doesn't ask “how must I live?” but “what good thing must I do?”  It seems pretty obvious this was a man who wanted to give some money in exchange for a ticket to heaven…  that would surely be a “good thing.”  

Jesus’s response:   Keep the commandments.  All of them.  The man claimed he had kept them but a true look at his heart by the One who made that heart showed that the man valued his stuff more than God.   None can keep the commandments.  “There is none who does good, not even one” (Ps. 14:3).  The “good” that we do is tainted with bad.  Jesus told the disciples after this that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (impossible) than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  They were shocked!  “Who can be saved?” they asked.   “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).  We can't “do” it; but through the cross of Jesus it was “done.”