8-13-2018

Good Morning All,

                         Acts 8:35; “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.”

     So how do you respond when you hear good news?  Most of us get very excited.  We can hardly contain our excitement.  Think of a time when you got good news.  When our son and his wife were expecting their first child, we could hardly wait to tell everyone.  We were sitting together at the table and we agreed that this good news belonged to our son and to our daughter-in-law so we were going to let them tell everyone.  So we sat but then my wife said, “I have to tell someone!”  So we thought of someone who probably wouldn’t be on the call list and then we told them.  We had good news to share and couldn’t wait to do so.

    Maybe you have had a similar situation.  When you have good news, who do you tell first?  Do you tell your family or your co-workers?  Do you do the Facebook thing or do you call them on the telephone the old fashioned way?  When you have good news, you share it.  When we have good news we tell the people around us.  We might start with our family, then our close friends and then our acquaintances and then anyone who we have contact with.  It might be the waitress at the diner we eat at, it might be the mail man or the guy we see every day at the mall.  When we have good news we share it or do we?

     The best news we have is the news about Jesus.  The best news we have is that we have Jesus as our savior.  The best news we have is that we will have eternal life with Jesus in paradise.  We have God’s promise of salvation, of comfort, of being sustained by his grace, of being free from the guilt of sin.  It is placed in our hearts and given to us to hold onto whenever things look bad or we feel sad.  We are the redeemed children of God, held safely in his loving arms protected from all that the devil throws at us.  We literally have everything that we could ever need; so why are we quiet?

     We should be telling everyone our good news!  We should be telling our family and closest friends about the wonder of what we have.  We should be telling everyone but why don’t we?  It may be because we have had the news so long that it isn’t exciting anymore and that is too bad.  Our salvation and God’s grace is a breath of incredible life-giving newness every day.  Every day we are brought back into God’s family.  Every day we receive the forgiveness of sins and the life affirming words of salvation.  We are renewed and redeemed every moment of every day; we receive this wondrous mercy every day.  This is god news for us and it is good news for us to share!

Gracious Father, we give you thanks for the good news which you give us.  We give you thanks for the gift of salvation that you give us.  Lead us to be voices heard that proclaim your praise.  Be with those who do not know the peace that this wonderful news gives us.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret