We will have a church dinner after the service today to celebrate the 10^th birthday of Sydney Kinnel. I hope everyone will plan to stay and celebrate Syndey and enjoy a time of fellowship together.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

We will have a church dinner after the service on Sunday, May 17^th to celebrate the high school graduation of Charity Collins.

The Lord has promised that all believers will be tried in the furnace of adversity… “Yea, and all that will live godlyin Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:2). These trials are always for the good of God’s saints and are the evidence of son-ship (Heb. 12:8). To behold with new eyes His mercy toward us in these afflictions is a work of God’s grace and in those trials, the believer desires that Christ always shall be honored. “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death”(Phil. 1:20).

Pastor Marvin Stalnaker

If you would honor the Father you must honor the Son. Men honor God’s Son when we believe Him to do what He said He would do and cast all of the burden of the salvation of our souls upon Him.

Luke 19: 5 And when Jesus came to the place

What place? Where Zacchaeus was. The whole time Zacchaeus thinks he is wanting to seek and find out who this man Christ is, Christ is coming to seek him. Christ knows who he is, he knows where he is, and it says Christ came to the place. The reason he went through Jericho, was to save blind Bartimaeus and this rich man, this rich publican, Zacchaeus. This did not happen by chance or by accident. Our Lord came to this place on purpose. I can see our Lord walking up to the bottom of that tree and he knows exactly who is in that tree. So our Lord and all the people around him walk right to this place and our Lord looks up and sees Zacchaeus. His desire was to seek Christ and Christ was coming to seek him. Our Lord saw Zacchaeus from all eternity. He always had his eye of mercy upon him. He knew who he was, he knew what he had done, he knew exactly who Zacchaeus was and he came to this man. Why to this man? Christ knows exactly where you are and if you are his he will find you. You may be just looking out of curiosity, you may not even be looking but he is looking for you. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. It doesn’t matter what tree you are up in. Our Lord saw Zacchaeus before Zacchaeus ever saw the Lord. He didn’t know which one was Jesus. They didn’t carry Jesus upon poles like you see a lot of men today who are in prominence; he is walking and doesn’t look any different than anybody else in the crowd. How does he know which one Jesus is? You can see him looking around saying surely he is going to stand out, surely he is going to have something on that everybody is going to recognize him. No, he looked like everybody else. I can see him looking around and go well where is he at? Christ is standing at the bottom of the tree looking at him. And that is how salvation is. You are looking to see something different. He’s the Godman, there is nothing about him that we were attracted to him physically. And before we know it, he is standing there looking at us. And we don’t know who he is until he speaks.