Hillview Family and Friends!
Children’s Ministry will be with the Ministry leader during worship time starting in the fall. Pray with us in our transition. Sis Debbie.
Youth ministry will meet in the fellowship hall at 9:30 am. Youth Ministry will be meeting every 2nd Sunday of the month at 9:30 am.
Please add pocket change in the “Stones of Truth” jar in the foyer. All monies collected will go to offset cost to the Branson 2025 trip.
If you want to volunteer to be on the calling team, please contact LaTanya Dunn.
We will need volunteers to help with cleaning the Sanctuary, Foyer, and vacuuming. Contact LaTanya Dunn hillviewchurchofgod@gmail.com
Happy Birthday and Wedding Anniversary to all family and friends celebrating in the month of December.
Pastor Dexter will be having a 6 week study “Horizontal Jesus” by Tony Evans. If anyone is interested, contact Pastor Dexter White.
Dec 21st Board Management Meeting 9am.
Dec 22nd 4 Sunday of Advent -Hope.
Dec 22nd Christ Birthday Offering.
Dec 24th Christmas Eve.
Dec 24 Candlelight Service 6pm at Hillview.
Dec 25th Christmas Day.
Dec 29th Celebration of Life Service for Bro Edd Ussery here at Hillview. 1pm – 3pm.
Dec 31st New Years Eve.
Jan 1st New Years Day..
If anyone is interested in being part of the Management Board, Please contact Pastor Dexter.
Offering Envelopes are located on the wall outside of the sound booth.
Church of God News
Over 30 years ago I was driving to work listening to the radio and a song came on I had never heard before. The song was titled “He Decided To Die”. The song was written by Margaret P. Douroux.
When Jesus hung on Calvary,
People came from miles to see;
They said, if you be the Christ,
Come down and save your life.
Oh but Jesus, my sweet Jesus,
He never answered them,
For He knew that Satan was tempting Him.
If He had come down from the cross,
Then my soul would still be lost.
Chorus:
He would not come down from the cross to save himself; He decided to die just to save me.
How much does God love us? He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die to save us. When Dexter was a baby, one of the ministers at the church asked if he could use him as an object lesson for the children’s sermon. He didn’t tell me what he was going to do, but I said he could use him. I was an usher at the time, standing at the main entrance into the sanctuary as Herbert gave the children’s sermon. He asked the children, as he was holding Dexter up, if I would sacrifice my son to save them. I still remember the knot that formed in my throat and the tears I fought to hold in, just from hearing the question. The children in unison said, “No.”
Yet God said yes when it came to His Son.
Romans 5:6-11
6 You see at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Jesus knew the seriousness of what He was about to do.
Luke 22:39-44
39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.
40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”
41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed,
42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
To sweat blood is called hematidrosis. On the literal level, it appears that Jesus, suffering the extreme stress of the agony in the garden, began to suffer from hematidrosis. On the spiritual level, this event foreshadows the shedding of his blood for us on the cross.
John 10:17, 18 (Amplified)
17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my [own] life so that I may take it back.
18 No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down voluntarily. I am authorized and have power to lay it down and to give it up, and I am authorized and have power to take it back. This command I have received from my Father.”
I’ve been teaching from the book Horizontal Jesus, by Tony Evans, on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. The main idea of the book is as we strengthen our relationship with God, a vertical relationship, we are able to impact the lives of those God brings to us horizontally.
John 10:10-17
10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit– fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
17 This is my command: Love each other.
I shared a few weeks ago Jesus wasn’t making a request for us to love
one another, He commanded us to love one another. One definition of command says, “to act according to what you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority, or to behave according to a rule, law, or instructions.
I lack the authority to command you to do anything. The Word of God, on the other hand, commands those of us who call ourselves to be Christ followers, to do certain things. If we do them, we are blessed and if we refuse to do them, we are not.
“Jesus made it clear that the way people know His disciples is by their love.”
Biblical, selfless agape (unconditional) love is a command, not a request. How does God expect us to love our enemies? “Love is a decision, not just an emotion.”
God’s love for us doesn’t change. The Bible is full of verses that point out God’s love for us.
Romans 8:37-39
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 2:1-7
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions– it is by grace you have been saved.
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
1 John 4:9-12
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
God came after us to make us His own, despite our sinfulness. We were lost in sin, and God, because of His love for us, sent His Son to die in our place. His death set us free from the power of sin in our lives. When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are saved.
Topic: The Love of God
Text: John 3:16-21
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
20 Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
Support Hillview’s Greeting Card Ministry – We have anniversary, birthday, and get-well cards on the table by the front entrance for you to send to others to let them know you are thinking of them. A donation of $1.00 will help cover the cost of cards and postage.
Continue to pray for the sick and shut-ins and their caregivers. Prayer is needed for our entire congregation as we are all dealing with spoken and unspoken needs and requests.
Weekly Events
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