North Main Street Church of God
Sunday Service - Pressed but not Crushed
1201 North Main Street Ext Butler, PA 16001 Sunday, July 19th, 2020 10:30 AM
Locations & Times
North Main Street Church of God
1201 N Main St Ext, Butler, PA 16001, USA
Sunday 10:30 AM
Welcome
We are so glad that you joined us today at North Main Street Church of God. At North Main we exists to develop completely committed followers of Christ who... <br> Know Christ intimately, <br> Grow in Christ continually, and <br> Go for Christ daily
Events this week
Our Sundays are LIVE now but will still be broadcasted on our Facebook or Youtube pages. You can access them on our website as well. Please contact ChristyP@northmaincog.org about group options or individual opportunities.<br><br>Sunday: <br>10:30am LIVE and online Worship & Message <br>(check our website www.northmaincog.org/events)<br><br>Tuesday:<br>1:00pm Bible Study with Pastor Brandon on Facebook<br><br>Thursday:<br>10:00am Preschoolers & Kindergarteners Online<br>6:47pm Youth
Giving
We have several ways to give securely: by mailing your check to the church or texting <amount> to 724 313 2211. You can also go to our website link below
https://www.northmaincog.org/giveCommunity Partnerships
Renovation project with our partner Fishbone Ministries!!!<br>Interested? Need more information?<br>Contact Lisa Caldwell at <br>lisac@northmaincog or 724-285-4214
New Groups
New Groups will be starting up soon! We have a list at the Welcome Center if you're interested. If you have any questions, please, contact Christy Pittman at ChristyP@northmaincog.org or by calling the office at 724-285-4214.
Baptisms
We will be having Baptisms on August 9th, if you would like to be baptized, please sign up at the Welcome Center or call the church office. A mandatory class is required which will be held on August 2nd at 9am in the Life Center.
Cardboard Testimonies
Our first Sunday in August, August 2nd, we will be doing Cardboard Testimonies. We would love it if you would participate! Please sign up at the Welcome Center, and plan on coming to the church Thursday, July 30th at 6:30pm to write out your testimonies in the Sanctuary with Angela Kupas.
Annual Congregational Meeting
Please plan on staying after church on July 26th for the Annual Congregational Meeting directly following the Sunday Morning Service.
Kid's Ministry opening!
The last Sunday, July 26th, we will open up the upstairs for our 1-6th graders. The next week, August 2nd, our classrooms downstairs from birth – Kindergarten as well as the upstairs 1-6th grade will be open.
Follow us on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeuApCyP3BFPQgSwdhAFSdg/videosFollow us on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/northmaincogTitle: "Pressed but not Crushed"
Pressed but not Crushed<br>(Jeremiah 38; 2 Corinthians 4:8-17)<br>Yearly Theme: “Joy is…”<br>Series Title: “Joy through Loss”<br>July 12th, 2020
Being a person of integrity requires stick-to-itiveness when the odds are stacked against you. It requires standing your ground when pressures rise. It requires doing the right thing even when everyone else is doing the wrong thing. And, it requires a cool head when standing in the face of persecution and severe opposition.
The prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament is one of these types of people. Though he did lose his cool a time or two, and though he did question God when times got tough, Jeremiah faithfully followed God’s directives even when the whole world was against him.
For our purposes today, we come upon the scene when Jeremiah has been imprisoned by the political leaders under Zedekiah’s rule by being placed in an empty cistern. However, after learning of this one of the royal officers sympathetic to Jeremiah reports to the king and Zedekiah has him brought to the palace for questioning. This is where we pick up the story…
“Jeremiah often withstood the political and religious establishment of his day, and, as with many others in the succession of prophets in Israel, he would suffer for it. He was persecuted for his message, whipped, and put in stocks by a temple overseer, accused of treason, sedition, and desertion, plotted against, imprisoned in a cistern, and held under arrest in the courtyard of the guard. The prophet’s own suffering may be in part the background for the intensely personal outcries and prayers commonly called Jeremiah’s ‘confessions.’ The prophet gives expression to feeling abandoned by God or prays that God will take vengeance on his enemies or questions the goodness and constancy of God in the face of his suffering.”[1]
Key Point: “Standing with God will not make you popular with the world, but it will save you from the world.”
In Jeremiah 38, there are two different characters that we should look at in more detail: Jeremiah and Zedekiah. Contrasting the two, there are also two different responses to God. Let’s take a closer look…
· Zedekiah: A man of compromise.
Jeremiah 38:19 (NLT), “But I am afraid to surrender,” the king said, “for the Babylonians may hand me over to the Judeans who have defected to them. And who knows what they will do to me!”
· Jeremiah: A man of integrity.
Jeremiah 38:17-18 (NLT), 17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the Babylonian officers, you and your family will live, and the city will not be burned down. 18 But if you refuse to surrender, you will not escape! This city will be handed over to the Babylonians, and they will burn it to the ground.’”
[1] Raymond B. Dillard and Tremper Longman III, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan; 1994), 289.
Key Point: “Standing with God will not make you popular with the world, but it will save you from the world.”
Great or small, there are things in life that push us to the breaking point. However, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus is the remedy that keeps us from completely breaking in to. Integrity isn’t something that comes easy. It’s something that’s tested time and time again in our lives. Will we do the right thing, or won’t we? Will we stand for God’s will and purposes, or will we buckle under the weight of opposition and pressure? Are we willing to stand alone when the world is against us, knowing that we stand for Christ above all else, or will we take the easy road of compromise and follow the crowd of popular opinion?
We do well to remember the Apostle Paul’s words in his letter to the Corinthian church as words of encouragement for us today:
North Main Street Church of God
1201 North Main Street Ext.Butler, PA 16001 (724) 285-4214 info@northmaincog.org
http://northmaincog.org/