This Weekend

With Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning coming up this week here are nine ways that you can be of help to us as you come to Immanuel this weekend. Pray as you enter the property. Pray for the guests. Pray for the services. Pray for the worship team. Pray for the message. Pray for those who will be working with the children. Park at the most distant spot available. Save the closer parking places for guests and park as far from the building as you are physically able. Make finding a good parking spot an unexpected bonus for our guests. Greet people. They may be guests. They may be members. It's okay to introduce yourself to either. Don't just leave this to the "professionals" at the door. Look for people to help. You know the place well. Many others will not. Be a guide. Help someone who looks like he or she needs help. Sit as close as possible to the front of the room. Save the back rows for guests and late entrants, so they don't have to walk past so many people. Sit in the middle. Don't claim that aisle seat where people have to walk over you or past you. Sit close. As you invite your guests (and others do as well) leave plenty of seats around you so that others can find a spot quickly and easily. Be sure you say hi to those who sit near you. Volunteer to serve. Don't wait to be asked. If you see something that needs to be done, do it. Pray as you leave. The Holy Spirit is likely working in many people who attended. Pray for His continual work of conviction and comfort. Friday night and Sunday morning are going to be special, especially as you jump in to help. Copyright © 2016 Immanuel Church, All rights reserved. . Our mailing address is: Immanuel Church 325 104th Avenue Holland, MI 49423 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

John 18

John 18:1-40 (Message)   Jesus, having prayed this prayer, left with his disciples and crossed over the brook Kidron at a place where there was a garden. He and his disciples entered it.   Judas, his betrayer, knew the place because Jesus and his disciples went there often. So Judas led the way to the garden, and the Roman soldiers and police sent by the high priests and Pharisees followed. They arrived there with lanterns and torches and swords. Jesus, knowing by now everything that was coming down on him, went out and met them. He said, "Who are you after?"   They answered, "Jesus the Nazarene."   He said, "That's me." The soldiers recoiled, totally taken aback. Judas, his betrayer, stood out like a sore thumb.   Jesus asked again, "Who are you after?"   They answered, "Jesus the Nazarene."   "I told you," said Jesus, "that's me. I'm the one. So if it's me you're after, let these others go." (This validated the words in his prayer, "I didn't lose one of those you gave.")   Just then Simon Peter, who was carrying a sword, pulled it from its sheath and struck the Chief Priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. Malchus was the servant's name.   Jesus ordered Peter, "Put back your sword. Do you think for a minute I'm not going to drink this cup the Father gave me?"   Then the Roman soldiers under their commander, joined by the Jewish police, seized Jesus and tied him up. They took him first to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Chief Priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people.   Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. That other disciple was known to the Chief Priest, and so he went in with Jesus to the Chief Priest's courtyard. Peter had to stay outside. Then the other disciple went out, spoke to the doorkeeper, and got Peter in.   The young woman who was the doorkeeper said to Peter, "Aren't you one of this man's disciples?"   He said, "No, I'm not."   The servants and police had made a fire because of the cold and were huddled there warming themselves. Peter stood with them, trying to get warm.   Annas interrogated Jesus regarding his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered, "I've spoken openly in public. I've taught regularly in meeting places and the Temple, where the Jews all come together. Everything has been out in the open. I've said nothing in secret. So why are you treating me like a conspirator? Question those who have been listening to me. They know well what I have said. My teachings have all been aboveboard."   When he said this, one of the policemen standing there slapped Jesus across the face, saying, "How dare you speak to the Chief Priest like that!"   Jesus replied, "If I've said something wrong, prove it. But if I've spoken the plain truth, why this slapping around?"   Then Annas sent him, still tied up, to the Chief Priest Caiaphas.   Meanwhile, Simon Peter was back at the fire, still trying to get warm. The others there said to him, "Aren't you one of his disciples?"   He denied it, "Not me."   One of the Chief Priest's servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, "Didn't I see you in the garden with him?"   Again, Peter denied it. Just then a rooster crowed.   They led Jesus then from Caiaphas to the Roman governor's palace. It was early morning. They themselves didn't enter the palace because they didn't want to be disqualified from eating the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and spoke. "What charge do you bring against this man?"   They said, "If he hadn't been doing something evil, do you think we'd be here bothering you?"   Pilate said, "You take him. Judge him by your law."   The Jews said, "We're not allowed to kill anyone." (This would confirm Jesus' word indicating the way he would die.)   Pilate went back into the palace and called for Jesus. He said, "Are you the 'King of the Jews'?"   Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you this about me?"   Pilate said, "Do I look like a Jew? Your people and your high priests turned you over to me. What did you do?"   "My kingdom," said Jesus, "doesn't consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn't be handed over to the Jews. But I'm not that kind of king, not the world's kind of king."   Then Pilate said, "So, are you a king or not?"   Jesus answered, "You tell me. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth. Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice."   Pilate said, "What is truth?"   Then he went back out to the Jews and told them, "I find nothing wrong in this man. It's your custom that I pardon one prisoner at Passover. Do you want me to pardon the 'King of the Jews'?"   They shouted back, "Not this one, but Barabbas!" Barabbas was a Jewish freedom fighter.   Copyright © 2016 Immanuel Church, All rights reserved. . Our mailing address is: Immanuel Church 325 104th Avenue Holland, MI 49423 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

John 17

John 17:1-26 (Message)   Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said: Father, it's time. Display the bright splendor of your Son So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor. You put him in charge of everything human So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge. And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, The one and only true God, And Jesus Christ, whom you sent. I glorified you on earth By completing down to the last detail What you assigned me to do. And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendor, The very splendor I had in your presence Before there was a world.   I spelled out your character in detail To the men and women you gave me. They were yours in the first place; Then you gave them to me, And they have now done what you said. They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, That everything you gave me is firsthand from you, For the message you gave me, I gave them; And they took it, and were convinced That I came from you. They believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I'm not praying for the God-rejecting world But for those you gave me, For they are yours by right. Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, And my life is on display in them. For I'm no longer going to be visible in the world; They'll continue in the world While I return to you. Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life That you conferred as a gift through me, So they can be one heart and mind As we are one heart and mind. As long as I was with them, I guarded them In the pursuit of the life you gave through me; I even posted a night watch. And not one of them got away, Except for the rebel bent on destruction (the exception that proved the rule of Scripture).   Now I'm returning to you. I'm saying these things in the world's hearing So my people can experience My joy completed in them. I gave them your word; The godless world hated them because of it, Because they didn't join the world's ways, Just as I didn't join the world's ways. I'm not asking that you take them out of the world But that you guard them from the Evil One. They are no more defined by the world Than I am defined by the world. Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth. In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world. I'm consecrating myself for their sakes So they'll be truth-consecrated in their mission.   I'm praying not only for them But also for those who will believe in me Because of them and their witness about me. The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same glory you gave me, I gave them, So they'll be as unified and together as we are— I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, And give the godless world evidence That you've sent me and loved them In the same way you've loved me.   Father, I want those you gave me To be with me, right where I am, So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, Having loved me Long before there ever was a world. Righteous Father, the world has never known you, But I have known you, and these disciples know That you sent me on this mission. I have made your very being known to them— Who you are and what you do— And continue to make it known, So that your love for me Might be in them Exactly as I am in them.   Copyright © 2016 Immanuel Church, All rights reserved. . Our mailing address is: Immanuel Church 325 104th Avenue Holland, MI 49423 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences