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First Congregational Church Twinsburg

Oct 10

When You Feel Inadequate

1 Samuel 1 & 2

Messages are being screamed at us every day.  Messages that we are inadequate, unworthy, and even unlovable.  These not-so-subtle messages affect our fundamental image of our self.  “What good am I?  Something’s wrong with me?  I don’t measure up?” 

The story of God’s salvation all nations picks up an old refrain in the beginning of 1 Samuel.  Additional dissonant cords are in this story of Hanna and her plight with childlessness.  Even though her husband constantly affirmed his love to her, her culture and even elements in her home were mocking her for not having a child. 

There are many ways people choose to face their inadequacies.  Drugs, alcohol, radical cosmetic surgery, even suicide are just a few examples.  When we dwell on our inadequacies we are unable to receive love because of the lie that we are unlovable. 

Hanna went to the right place, and laid out her distress before the Lord.  “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.”  But she did not just wallow in her distress and anguish, she took on a purpose in her life.  She dedicated herself to doing the will of God and doing something vital for God.  Then Samuel was born, and through him David was anointed, and the Jesus Christ comes into the world. 

From our deepest despair can come hope.  Hope comes to us when we dedicate ourselves to doing the will of God and making the sacrifices that purpose calls us to do.  A sacrifice is giving up something of value today for a better tomorrow.  Hanna gave the sacrifice of her son, and from that comes the Messiah.  In despair, God brings hope; in distress and bitterness, God works to bring deliverance; and from our sacrifice, God blesses the entire world.

Pastor Greg

Oct 03

What’s Wrong with Worship

Exodus 32:1-14

What happens when worship goes wrong?  Is the hymn out or tune, the sermon going on too long, or the kid’s moments ends in some calamity?  But actually, the real way that worship goes horribly wrong, is not how in-tune we sing, or how smoothly things run, but by the orientation of our hearts.

In Exodus 32, Aaron makes an idol from gold and the Israelites begin to worship it.  There is a problem in Exodus 32, but it is not the golden calf.  The real problem with any idolatry is the heart.  The real problem is where is the True and Living God in our hearts.  An idol does not need to be a physical statue; it can be anything that causes us to put God second because we think that it is more important than God.  Anything we simply couldn’t face the future if it was taken away.  Anything that we devote our lives and values to rather than our Creating, Redeeming God.  That’s the real problem with idolatry.  That is the real reason worship goes wrong.

When the center of our worship, is no longer on the true and living God, we’ve exchanged the truth for a lie, and have ended up worshiping creation instead of the Creator.  Yes, we should strive for orderliness and the best we can do for worship, but when we get our attention off of the worship of our God that has been revealed through Jesus Christ, then we are falling into a trap of idolatry,

Jesus said “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (Jn 4:24)  The Israelites sinned in Exodus 32 because they substituted something for the God who is spirit and truth.

Pastor Greg

Sep 27

The Promise of Deliverance

Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8

The time between Exodus 1 and 12 is more than 80 years.  The people of Israel were groaning under the burden of their taskmasters.  Their cries were heard by God.  There was the hope in this special child that was taken from the Nile River by the princess.  But the slavery continued.  When Moses was 40, he thought he could do something to deliver his people, but he failed miserably.  And the oppression continued.  At age 80, Moses returned with the word of the Lord to “Let my people go!”  Then things even got worse.  Nine plagues had to be endured, and so did the harshness of the taskmasters.

Sometimes we feel God is not working because it does not meet our schedule.  As we look around, we see our troubles, our anxieties, our problems, yet so often fail to see God’s working behind the scenes to bring about his deliverance.

God delivers Israel with a mighty hand from the Egyptians.  This deliverance changes everything.  It also means going into the desert.  Our expectations are often very different than the reality of God’s deliverance.  Ultimately God’s promise of “a land flowing with milk and honey” is fulfilled, but in God’s own way and for God’s own purposes.

Pastor Greg

Sep 12

Outlandish Promises

Genesis 15:1-6

We have a term, “Hedge your bets.”  This term means that we must have a contingency if our plans do not work out the way we would like.  God does not hedge his bets.  Instead of couching his promises in “if’s” and “probably’s,” God makes his promises in the most outlandish of promises.

This week we take up God’s outlandish promise to Abram in Genesis 15.  It was not a promise couched in my grandmother’s favorite, “If the creek don’t rise,” but it was the biggest comparison in the mind of Abraham, the same number as the stars in the sky.  And God made sure that Abram understood that God was the only one responsible in fulfilling the promise, “since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.”

When we face the promises of God in the light of so many “realities” of our world, we are tempted to give up.  That’s why God tells Abram to “fear not.”  When we see that term in the Bible, we are about to be told good news.  Bad news comes after “woe unto you.” 

Don’t give up on the promises of God.  We have a God that delights in making outlandish promises to his people.  Abram, later renamed Abraham, confronted what he only saw as a hopeless situation, embraced God’s promise, and the Lord counted his faith in the promises as righteousness. 

Pastor Greg

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Next Meal 10/27/2024