COMMUNITYFREE CHURCH WEEKLY

What a blessing it continues to be to have the kids in service with us in opening worship and then to share in the Advent lesson with them. One of the kids told me today, “I really feel special that we get to be a part of the “big” worship service.”

We need 3-4 people willing to man the table and help pass out gospel bracelets, cookies and share the love of Christ!

Christmas Concert!The Concert Choral Union (formerly the Parkland Chorus) is performing: “The Very Best Time of the Year”, Monday December 14th, 7:00pm, at First UMC, Champaign, 210 W. Church Street, Champaign, Illinois.This free one and a half hour concert will feature special guests: The Champaign Central Madrigals and The Accidentals. Music will include: Vivaldiʼs Gloria, Korean Folksong, John Rutter, Joseph Martin, and the music of Lennon and McCartney.

All-Church

Everyone is Invited!December 19th at 5:00pm

Prizes!

Soup Dinner!

GamesCaroling

Bring a Treat to Share!

We need 6-8 family nativities to share at tables during the party and people to bring soup dishes to share..See Gretchen Eichstedt to help!

1st Sunday of Advent, Nov 29th, 10:45am! ! 2nd Sunday of Advent, Dec 6th, 10:45amIsaiah 52: “Awake, Awake...”! ! ! ! ! Isaiah 53: “Who Has Believed...”

3rd Sunday of Advent, Dec 13th, 10:45am! ! 4th Sunday of Advent, Dec 20th, 10:45amIsaiah 53: “He Was Oppressed...We are Delivered”! ! Family Sunday. “In This Way Jesus Came...”

Christmas Eve, Dec 24th, 6:30pm! ! ! New Years, December 27th, 10:45am Simple Worship Service. “Not So Silent...”! ! ! Elder David Eichstedt shares a message!

Christmas Message ScheduleThis Christmas we will be looking at Isaiah 53 to help us to be ever mindful that the cross wasn’t a later plan of God in reaction to the fallenness of man. Beyond the incarnation was always the crucifixion because God came not to experience humanity, but to rescue it.

On December 20th we will have Family Worship with the Kid’s Church 1st through 6th grade joining us for the entire service.

It is our hope that this helps you in reflection on the work that God did through his Word during the sermon.

Monday ! 12/7! Church Office Closed

" " " " Martial Arts 6:00pm" " " " Menʼs Bible Study Fellowship " " " " 6:45pm FBC, Savoy

Tuesday ! 12/8! Church Office open 9-5:00pm! ! ! ! Womenʼs Bible Study Fellowship! ! ! ! 9:10am First Christian Church, Champaign! ! ! !! ! ! ! Youth Computer Classes 3:30pm

Adults Serve at Salt and Light 6:00-8:00pm ! ! ! !Wednesday 12/9! Church Office Open 12-5:00pm

! ! ! ! Students Serve at Salt and Light 6:00-8:00pm" " " "Thursday ! 12/10" Church Office Open 12-5:00pm

! ! ! ! Worship Practice 7:30pm! ! !

Friday! 12/11 Church Office Open 11-4:00pmSaturday ! 12/12! Act Like Men Coffee 7:00am" " "" " " " Basketball 8:30am! ! ! !Sunday ! 12/13! Christian Education 9:30-10:30am" " " " Adult Christian Education! ! ! ! Sr. High School Jake Barrett! ! ! ! Jr. High School Tamara Llano! ! ! !! ! ! ! Childrenʼs Church 10:45am" " " " Worship Gathering 10:45am" " " " Pastor Jason: Isaiah 53 part 2

" " " " AWANA Clubs 6:00pm" " " " " Awana Store Night!

What is Expository Preaching and Teaching?At CEFCM we gather on Sunday morning around expository teaching. This involves reading the text, understanding the text, proclaiming the Text and not just preaching it, but explaining why the text matters to us as believers.We do this because we believe that the Bible has something greater to say over and above what we may want to say.

Isaiah the King and His Glory“Humility” Isaiah 5312/6/2015 Pastor Jason SchifoIntroduction: DL Moody quote 1 Cor 15:9, Eph 3:8, 1 Tim 1:15 Tim Challies quote Philippians 2:6-10

Exposition:Isaiah 52:13 Isaiah 41:8, 49:5 1 Peter 1:11, 2:24 Hudson Taylor 1 Peter 5:6Isaiah 52:13-15 Luke 2:34 Isaiah 54:10, 55:3 Romans 4:5 Isaiah 53 is not a part of Synagogue liturgyIsaiah 53:1 Isaiah 65:2 Romans 10 (v. 17 specifically) Romans 11:14 1 Corinthians 1:18 Zechariah 12:10 Psalm 44:3

Thank you for working with us as we strive to create an enjoyable, safe, purposeful learning area for our children. The great amount of prayer, thought, love and time that have gone into this project by so many in our church and community is appreciated. God is doing great things! The nursery/kidʼs area will focus on the Gospel and sharing the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ through play and a structured schedule on Sunday mornings. Many have asked how they can help! The first way is to volunteer to be on the youth team. We will be happy to plug you in to a level where you can learn, be challenged, share your gifts and love. Let Michelle or Tasha know you are interested.The second way is to browse the registries below. We have very specific needs for our nursery/kidʼs church areas and these lists will be your guide. A variety of items are listed. You will find everything from general supplies, baby equipment, books, and toys.You donʼt have to buy from Target or Amazon but please...try to stick to the list.

http://www.target.com/gift-registry/giftgiver?registryId=GlA3BVAd6NPhEuSSsUCyVw&lnk=copiedLink

https://www.amazon.com/gp/baby-reg/ref=cm_sw_em_r_brg_5V-rwb2JXEWWP_wb?ie=UTF8&lid=2YSDLZSOF07BZ

NEEDS REGISTRIES

Starting in 2015 we will be setting every 5th Sunday aside as a time for Family Worship. We will still have our Kidʼs Church Nursery Ministry for children littles through 1st grade, but Kidʼs Church 1-6th grade will join us and share in singing, the message, as well as share a special Kidʼs Church moment that will be connected to the message Pastor Jason will share. This is a part of our ongoing commitment to helping families share in worship together.

Every week we are going to highlight the sacrificial efforts of one of our many many GREAT volunteers.

This weekʼs volunteer is: Liz Gonzalez. How do those weekly bulletins we have every Sunday get done? Liz Gonzalez comes in after work every Friday and makes sure that everything is copied, stuffed, and ready to go for worship on Sunday. It is a HUGE blessing to everyone who is informed and encouraged by the bulletins! Tell Liz “Thanks!” the next time you see her!Praise God for great volunteers like Liz who glorify Jesus and bless us! Do you want to help? Just ask!

Remembering that Jesus Christ is God, it now behooves us to remember that His manhood was none the less real and substantial. It differed from our own humanity in the absence of sin, but it differed in no other respect. It is idle to speculate upon a heavenly manhood, as some have done, who have, by their very attempt at accuracy, been borne down by whirlpools of error. It is enough for us to know that the Lord was born of a woman, wrapped in swaddling bands, laid in a manger, and needed to be nursed by His mother as any other little child.

He grew in stature like any other human being, and as a man we know that He ate and drank, that He hungered and thirsted, rejoiced and sorrowed. His body could be touched and handled, wounded, and made to bleed. He was no phantom, but a man of flesh and blood even as we are. He was a man needing sleep, requiring food, and subject to pain, and a man who, in the end yielded up His life to death.

There may have been some distinction between His body and ours, for inasmuch as it was never defiled by sin, it was not capable of corruption. Otherwise in body and in soul, the Lord Jesus was perfect man after the order of our manhood, “Made in the likeness of sinful flesh,” and we must think of Him under that aspect. Our

temptation is to regard the Lord’s humanity as some- thing quite different from our own. We are apt to spiritualize it away, and not to think of Him as really bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. All this is akin to grievous error; we may fancy that we are honoring Christ by such conceptions, but Christ is never honored by that which is not true.

He was a man, a real man, a man of our race, the Son of Man. Indeed, He was a representative man, the second Adam—“As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same.” “He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”

Now this condescending participation in our nature brings the Lord Jesus very near to us in relationship. Inasmuch as He was man, though also God, He was, according to Hebrew law, our goel—our kinsman, next of kin. Now it was according to the law that if an inheritance had been lost, it was the right of the next of kin to redeem it. Our Lord Jesus exercised His legal right—seeing us sold into bondage, and our inheritance taken from us, He came forward to redeem both us and all our lost estate.

Charles Spurgeon

What is Humility?Many of us wake up wanting to be someone weʼre not.We’re bombarded with opportunities to be a better me. Diets and workouts for weight loss. Websites and books for better dating. Apps for better productivity. Degrees and conferences and workshops to get a better job and more pay. Do-it-yourself videos for home improvement. There’s no wonder we live with a constant restlessness that there’s more to do, more to have, and more to become.It’s like we’re watching our own biopic on Netflix and terrified we’ll get bored.

Many of us spend much of our lives aspiring to be more than what we are. More money, more exercise, more job satisfaction, more followers on social media, more children. And that means we’re often left looking for someone else as the goal or standard — the person with more than us. We want to be them. We may not say it that way, or even consciously think about it that way. But we’ll spend our time and energy striving to become that better, more respected, more loved me.

And that desire in us can make it hard to watch others, even other Christians, continue to succeed or acquire more than us.

The Famous Friend of JesusAt least one man in history worthy of his own movie settled happily into the background of another story. John was born at the most pivotal point in history, and was chosen to pave the way for the most important person in history.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. (John 1:6–8)

These verses come right on the heels of one world-changing sentence (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John 1:1) and right before another (“And the Word became flesh and dwelt

among us,” John 1:14). John, the Gospel writer, interrupts his account of the infinite, almighty God coming to earth to become human like any other human to introduce a guy like any other guy, John the Baptist. Put your name in for John’s in verses 6–8 and then read John 1:1–14. Jarring, right?

Why would John, the writer, do that?

I Must DecreaseHe introduced John the Baptist because he might just be the second most important human to ever live. Jesus himself said, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11). Not Moses. Not David. Not Peter. John was the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy (seven hundred years before),A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. . . . And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3–5)

Matthew writes, “John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, . . . ‘For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’”’” (Matthew 3:1–3, see also John 1:23).

John came to fulfill hundreds of years of waiting and watching. He came as the chosen one to prepare and present the coming of the Messiah, the promised Savior of the world. There hasn’t been anyone else like him before him or after him. In the greatest story ever told, he was perhaps the greatest character not named Jesus Christ.

Trading Fame for FidelityStanding center stage at the highest moment in history, privileged with unprecedented anointing and authority, John launched his personal campaign with these seven words, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Jesus must be put forward and followed, and I must fade further into the background, into Jesusʼs shadow.

(continued on next page)

The people acknowledged Johnʼs amazing gifts and his crowds of followers, and they wanted to promote him and his platform (John 1:19–22; 3:26). John rejected all their acclaim and advances. “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him” (John 3:28). John came alive as the nobody next to Jesus. Even before he was born, he loved who he was not (Luke 1:41), because his life was Godʼs and not his own. His life was about Christ, not himself.Once Jesus came on the scene, John received a lesser role before going to prison (Matthew 11:2), and then dying a seemingly meaningless death at a party (Matthew 14:10). John the Baptist wasnʼt chasing the award for best supporting actor in a Gospel. If he was found with Jesus, as part of Godʼs plan to save the world, he was happy to be forgotten, happy to live and serve and even die in the shadows. He joyfully accepted a role with less worldly comfort, acclaim, and success in order to highlight how truly great Jesus was.

All from Grace, All for ChristWhat we learn from John the Baptist is that the greatest glories in this life are not in receiving attention or fame, but in funneling it all to Jesus. The biggest, longest lasting statement John could make to the world was not in the number of his followers, but in how he

responded when his followers fled to Jesus (John 3:25–29).The key for the Christian life is to rejoice in whatever ministry weʼve been given. We never deserved to be a part of this story in the first place, and itʼs the greatest story ever told. Any part we play is all from grace (1 Corinthians 15:10), and it is all for Jesus (Galatians 6:14).John saw what God was doing in the world, even if he wasnʼt at the center of it, and he loved it. The same calling is now on all of us, to rejoice in what God is doing in the world, whatever our individual role is — for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, until death brings us to God.In the Shadow of a SaviorOur relationship to Jesus, surrendering our own fame and our own interests, also transforms our relationships with those around us who have more. It frees us to joyfully accept who God has made and called us to be. And it frees us to love and celebrate how heʼs gifted, called, and placed other believers in our lives.This kind of humility and joy isnʼt the end of all ambition in the Christian life. The same Paul who says itʼs all of grace and all for Christ also says, “I worked harder than any of them” (1 Corinthians 15:10). True humility is the end of all ambition not aimed at the fame of Christ, and all ambition that cannot gladly celebrate the success and flourishing of others, especially other Christians — the friend with more followers, the neighbor with the better yard, the colleague with the better title, the pastor with the bigger church, the mom with more kids.John the Baptist knew the joy and freedom of being found in Godʼs hands and Jesusʼs shadow. We must learn how to trust in God and love who weʼre not, even when someone else is living our better story now.

Article © 2015 Marshall Segal, Desiring God

Did you know we have a Faith Community Nurse here at CEFC?Hi—my name is Lois Reed and I am the Faith Community Nurse here at CEFCM! What is that, you say? I am specially trained through a nationally recognized program and here to be a resource and support to you, yes, YOU! In all the stages of life there are challenges that come upon us; they can be financial, relational, spiritual and related to our physical and emotional health.  God has given me the privilege to have access to resources to help our congregation and community—to pray for you, to direct you to supports that can help. So far I have been blessed to give out resources to parents navigating adolescence, people facing new diagnoses, found resources for families who are impacted by substance or domestic abuse, sources of free health care for those without insurance…these are just a few things that can possibly help. Please, if I can aid you or your family in anyway, email me at LReedtj@aol.com. And PLEASE come up and say “Hi” on any given Sunday! I am excited to serve you and your family.

There are regularly scheduled Elderʼs Meeting every month. If you need prayer or an opportunity to discuss an issue with the Eldership please feel free to attend this meeting by emailing the Elders at: communityfreechurchofmahomet@gmail.com

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WED THURS FRIDAY SATURDAY

29 30 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 26

27 28 29 30 31

ADVENT

ADVENT

ADVENT

ADVENT Christmas EveService 6:30pmSchifo Family Open House

7:30pm

AWANA 6pm

10:45am

No AWANA

10:45am

10:45am

10:45am

AWANA 6pm

Marketplace Mall 11am

Family Service

Share the Gospel

All Church Christmas Party

5:00pm

Salt and LightAdult Serve5-8:00pm

Salt and LightStudent Serve

5-8:00pm

Isaiah 53

Isaiah 53

Isaiah 52 Gifts Due Back

If you have a cellphone that accepts text messages we have a system in place that will notify you of weather cancellations and major alerts via text messaging.

Donʼt forget to start the Advent

Readings!

Helping Hands

Blessing Tree

ChurchOffice Closed

Christmas Bash

6-8:00pm

6-8:00pm

6-8:00pm

6-8:00pm

PRAY to prepare Him

room this season.

PRAY that you can be a light

at family gatherings.

PRAY for your family

members that donʼt know

Jesus.

PRAY for ways you can serve others.

PRAY for the new things

God will do in this New Year!

PRAY for how God used your

witness to touch people.

ChurchOffice Closed

New Years Bash

6-8:00pm

No AWANA

No AWANA Menʼs Coffee 7am

Menʼs Coffee 7am

Menʼs Coffee 7am

Worship 7:30pm

Worship 7:30pm

Worship 7:30pm

New Years Eve