Good Morning Harvest South Bay!
I hope that this announcement is getting to you in your inbox: our “feedburner” (the thing that takes the announcements and emails it out to your email inboxes) has been buggy at best recently. If it continues in this vein of being inconsistent, we’ll look for another solution for communication since keeping everyone up to date is important for our experience of community!

Meanwhile, here are the notes from this last Sunday’s sermon!
Please pray for our family as we travel to Lake Tahoe via airplane; it will be Baby Asher’s first flight. Also, please pray for Samantha’s safety on the slopes during her first skiing experience!

byron

Harvest South Bay                March 29th, 2009

Anticipation
Great Expectations: Mark 13:1-27

Part 1: The Setting: In the context of Jesus’ condemnation of the temple leadership, He issues this judgment on the actual, physical structure of the temple.

Part 2: The Warning: Our day to day life as Christians is one of preaching the gospel and persecution. False Christ’s, natural disasters, and our own suffering are  not indications of end time fulfillment. Don’t be deceived!

Part 3: The Signs: The desecration of the temple and the darkening of the sky are all pretty good indicators that Christ’s coming is just around the corner.

Part 4: The Charge: Be ready!

3 New Perspectives from Knowing the Future

1. Be Discerning: Power does not validate a prophet or claimant of the mantle of Christ. Plenty of false prophets have had and will have power to do signs and wonders.

2. Be Fearless: Persecution is part and parcel of the Christian experience: it God’s plan. Therefore we can operate without fear, knowing that harsh circumstances are within the will of God.

3. Be Alert: Don’t fall asleep! This means looking for the signs mentioned, but even more, actively living the Christian life. Our nesting instincts are what lull us into spiritual sleep and inactivity!

Weekly Application Exercises
1. If the standard of the Christian life is to be persecuted and to be consistently sharing the gospel, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being inconsistent and 10 being perfectly consistent) how much does your life look like that standard?

2. Our outward actions might not betray us because comfort is found by different people in different circumstances: reflect on how often your motivation in life is comfortability and ease. What circumstances that are uncomfortable can you be placing yourself in?

Well, it seems like our family can go pretty low: please pray for us because almost every member of our family is sick right now. Christine and Samantha have confirmed eye infections (and the accompanying cold-type symptoms that come with it), I have a stomach bug of some sort, and both of the grandparents (who take care of the kids during the day) have come down with bad colds as well! Only little Baby Asher is sickness free! We appreciate your prayers as we rest and rehabilitate!

Here are the notes from this week’s sermon. The sermon itself didn’t get recorded so I’ll have to repost it sometime in the future!

Hope you are having a wonderful week full of God’s presence and blessings!

Byron

March 22nd, 2009
How Low Can You Go?
Great Expectations: Mark 12:38-44
Mark 12:38-44- Jesus’ Condemnation of the Scribes

Part 1: The Warning
Jesus warns His disciples concerning the hypocrisy of the Scribes; the depths of their sin is exhibited in the fact that they  “devour widow’s houses”.
Part 2: Example (the Widow’s Offering)
The widow’s offering is not so much a contrast to the offering of the Scribes as it is an exclamation point on Jesus’ condemnation of the Scribes: the widow was a living example of how the helpless were encouraged to give all that they had to live on to the corrupt temple system.

The place of widows:
Widows and all of the helpless like them have a special place in the heart of God.

3 Principles to Avoid Sinking in Sin

1. Focus on Us: The warning to the disciples to “Beware the Scribes” was not so much to beware the fact that the Scribes would take their fortunes or persecute them. The warning is to not become like the Scribes. So we are to look at our own sin and examine ourselves for hypocrisy.

2. Aviod the Sham.
So much of our spiritual life can be attributed to keeping up appearances for others. Avoiding the sham is making sure there is substance to our walk with God.

3. Return to God’s Heart.
Insure that your spiritual life does not simply consist of an outward shell of obligations and actions: attendance on Sundays and going to Bible study. Examine how you are fulfilling the most important priorities of God: charity toward the hurting, vitality in your relationship with Him, the evangelization of your sphere of influence.

Weekly Application Exercises
1. If you were to draw a Venn diagram where your heart priorities and God’s heart priorities intersect, what would you say are some of God’s priorities which you ignore? What parts of the diagram do not intersect?

2. Our lives are often in maintenance mode where we are simply trying to keep up with the onslaught of activities. How can you reset your priorities to seek first His kingdom and righteousness and seek what is important to Him? How are you keeping up a facade in order to preserve a good public face before others?

Hey Harvest South Bay!
Our subscription service has been hiccuping as of late, but I do hope you get these announcements since they’ll let you plan ahead for so many of our future activities!

Also attached, please find last Sunday’s notes for the sermon- we’re back on track hopefully!

Moving help this coming Sunday (3/22)
Please help us move furniture and other items from the Seaside Elementary area so that our church can begin some asbestos remediation. We need a work crew of about 8 people to join downstairs at 1:30 PM (after lunch).

Save the date for an awesome day at the Park! (SUNDAY 4/19/09 1:15-3:30 PM)
Most of our church members know that Harvest has been in talks to participate in more joint activities with South Bay Cornerstone Presbyterian Church. This is the first informal meet and greet with them so reserve the date: we will have a picnic together on April 19th at 1:15 PM. Let’s pray for a great time of fellowship together!

Coming together (5/17/09-6/21/09)
Our congregation will be conducting joint services with South Bay Cornerstone Presbyterian for the duration of 6 weeks beginning 5/17/09 and lasting until 6/21/09. During that time our service time will begin at 10:15 AM and end at 11:30 AM.

Begin Praying for Your Friend (6/7/09)
“Bring a Friend Sunday” is EVERY Sunday but Harvest is making an extra special effort Sunday, June 7th to reach out corporately. So begin praying for your co-workers, family members, fellow students, neighbors and acquaintances NOW so that God would open doors of opportunity!

OK and now for this last week’s sermon notes!

Harvest South Bay                March 15th, 2009

Good Question!
Great Expectations: Mark 12:13-37

Four Questions

1. A Question to Stop Jesus

2. A Question to Scoff at Jesus

3. A Sincere Question for Jesus

4. A Question to Center Us.

2 Prerequisites to Connecting with God

1. Look Inside. (our hearts and misplaced motives might be the blockage to communing with God)
2. Submit our Lives. (Submission is vital to knowing God and communing with Him)

Weekly Application Exercises
1. Identify the time in your life which you look back upon favorably as your spiritual “golden years”: a time where you felt emotionally in tune with God or at a spiritual apex. Do what degree is your current search for God and journey with Him influenced by a desire to recapture that emotional state or sense of spirituality?

2. Pray for our church, searching the Scriptures for guiding principles concerning the fundamentals of who we should be and what we ought to be doing. How must your life look different to contribute to that biblical portrait of the Body of Christ?

Sorry. testing the subscription service again!

Dear Harvest!
I’ll be OOO (Out of Office) today for half of the day (Tuesday, March 17th). If you need to reach me, you can still call the church phone and I’ll be picking up, albeit from home.

Byron

Just testing out the subscription service!

Hello Harvest!

Please pray tomorrow (Thursday) beginning at 9:00 AM. This is when the California Supreme Court decides whether or not to overturn Proposition 8 which won in last elections. Pray that God would sway the hearts of the justices to do His will: to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

Arguments will be heard both for and against until noon.

Hey Hey Harvest South Bay!
I hope you’ve been enjoying the current Sunday School series in World Religions! I know that I’ve learned a great deal and had my memory refreshed in my understanding of the distinctives of the religions we’ve studied so far. Danny Lee will be planning our section on Buddhism and he asked me to forward this email at the bottom: go ahead and send him your questions so that he can pass them on to our presenters; this section is especially relevent since most of us know someone who is at least marginally Buddhist.

Remember, the purpose of our series is to help us open meaningful conversations concerning the gospel with others!

Dear church members,
In several weeks, the members of a Buddhist temple will present Buddhism for Sunday
School.  They would like a list of questions we want to ask emailed to them in advance so they will have time to research them and be better prepared to answer them.

Thus, if you have a question you already know you would like to ask, please email me your question by this Sunday March 8.  I plan to email them next week.

Please send your Buddhism question to Danny Lee at   dtlee (AT SIGN) mednet.ucla.edu

Thanks,
Danny

Hey Everyone!
Good to have you back if you have re-signed up to getting the announcements again! A VITAL announcement for this coming week is that it is Daylight Savings Time! So set those clocks forward this coming Saturday night and we’ll see you all at service at 9:45 AM sharp!