Jun 09

Hoping against Hope

Romans 4:13-25

 
Often, we face some difficulty or opposition and lose all hope for anything to get better.  Abraham faced the deadness of his own body.  Death is surely the end of all hope.  How can we hope when we face all our dreams and desires are dead?
Abraham had faith, and today I want us to think about the Christian faith and our reason for hope.  Our faith has at its author and completer of our faith through his resurrection and ascension to heaven.  Because we have a living Redeemer, death is not the final “can’t” to our expectations and dreams.  Death is not the ultimate barrier to the realization of the promises of God.

Death in Romans 4 is not the death marked by the grave, but the death that says impossibility to the fulfillment.  This is the death-like reality that seems to us greater than the promises of God.  How do we deal with the death of our confidence in God and hope in God’s promises?

This is when we must quit focusing on the circumstances and look to the one that conquered death and the grave.  We have to root out the distrust that is taking a hold of us, we have to confront the fear that something is impossible for God and reaffirm our resurrection faith that God is able to do what he promised. 

Our faith is a resurrection faith.  This is not just for the last day when the graves will be opened but is for each day we face the death-environment in this existence.  The Resurrected-Redeemer has gone through the trials before us, the Resurrected-Redeemer has shown us that death is not the final “can’t”, and that a life lived with confidence in God’s promises is truly “hoping against hope.”
 

Pastor Greg

Jun 02

Trinity Sunday

Genesis 1:1-4, John 1:1-4

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday.  While Trinity is a foundational theological concept, the purpose of this day is not to rehearse the theology of the Trinity.  The passages highlighting the Trinity show us the relationship that is within the Godhead.  In creation we see God creating heaven and earth, but there was a void or chaos.  Even though it is chaos, does not mean God is not there, and the Spirit of God is moving across the water.  Then God speaks, uses the Logos (the Word) and the creation becomes organized, differentiated, and a world that is fit for human kind. 

The Gospel of John tells us that this Word, without which nothing could be made, is the One that was made flesh and dwelt among us, the one that gives light to each person that comes into this world.  The Second Person of the Trinity, the Son is the Word made flesh to dwell among us. 

The Trinity is not mechanical, with each person fulfilling a function.  The Triune God is a relationship, and the members of the Godhead active in the work of creation.  The Triune God is also in redemption.  The Father sends the Son to be the sacrifice for our sins; but since the Son is God, the Father and the Spirit are also being sacrificed. 

Yes, we should seek to be familiar with the theology of the Trinity.  But the Triune God is not just an academic pursuit.  The Triune God is the basis of our relationship as children of God redeemed through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.


Pastor Greg

May 18

Is There a Purpose in Suffering?

But that’s not all! We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure.  And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love. (Romans 5:3-5 CEV) God’s power and presence is with us in all our life and all our situations.  That is true, but some have taken these verses from this Sunday’s text and applied them carelessly.  I have heard some counsel those going through cancer or the loss of a loved one or suffering a very painful end of life journey, that these verses tell us God is building our character through these sufferings. This misses the point the Apostle Paul is teaching us.  Paul is building on his previous phrase “And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”  Paul is telling us that even when the hope of the glory of God brings suffering to us, we can rejoice because God is forming within us his character. In 1 Peter 2, Peter gives us an insight on the suffering that God uses for our character: “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps (2:21)”  The God of redemption is with us in the sufferings or trials that come when do the right thing and follow the example of Christ Jesus.

May 05

The Lord Goes Before Us

Acts 14:8-18

As I have been thinking about the book of Acts, the progress of the Great Commission, and the preaching of the gospel, I have noticed an interesting idea.  The idea appears in our text this week that begins with Barnabas and Paul preaching in Lystra.  Paul sees a lame man; knows that the man has faith to be healed.  Paul heals him.  Then a very lavish and comic chain of events begins to happen.
The fact that the faith was already there before Barnabas and Paul began to preach.  The Lord Jesus was already there before the apostles even came to the city.  The announcements at the resurrection are that Jesus is going before the disciples to Galilee.  The promise of the Great Commission is “I am with you always.”  God is not just with us, God is leading us, the Holy Spirit is preparing hearts and situations for us to minister.  And the success of our efforts is dependent on what God has already done.
This brings encouragement to me.  God is already in the world, God is already bringing faith to those that we are going to encounter, and that God is in places that we may never be able to reach.  This is not to encourage laziness in us because it is all up to God.  It is to comfort us as we work because we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord.