4-13-2016

       Good Morning All!!

        Psalm 31:24; “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!”

   Wait!? I can’t wait!  I do not wait well.  I tend to stand by the microwave and give it the “evil eye” so it will speed up; how long can it take to make oatmeal?  I have things to do.  I confess that waiting is not my strongest trait.  When I think about what I need or want to do; “how long will this take” always plays in the decision.  So when I read that it was faster to get on a ride at Disneyland than wait in line at the DMV; I dig out my driver’s license and see it is still good for a few years.  The average wait for your refund is greatly affected by how you file.  If you e-file, your return is processed in 7-12 days; if you mail it in it takes 2-3 months just to process your return.  Quicker processing time means quicker refunds!!  Yet you would think they could send the money out as quickly as they process the return.  Of course, if you need a kidney, that can be 3-5 years depending on your blood type.  What a wait!!

    We live in a time when we have little if any patience and waiting is just not an option.  We convince ourselves that we get more done by “multi-tasking” and that everything just can’t wait.  As I was thinking about this, I ran across a quote that all of us “hurryers” should remember: “If you do have time to do it right the first time; you really don’t have time to do it over again!”  Something about that phrase just really makes sense.  Yet in Scriptures, we are encouraged to, even commanded to “wait” for the Lord.

    To “wait” in the Bible has a different meaning then what we commonly ascribe to it.  When we think of waiting, we think of non-productive time.  When we wait, time is just slipping away and getting one more thing done goes out the window.  “Waiting” in the Bible means to seek after God and to look to Him for something good to happen.  In the Bible, it is God who will accomplish the event, not us.  This leads us to see that we wait, expectantly and with hope.  We wait for God because it is only God who can deliver us from our fears, sorrows, worries and pain.  We know he will; he has promised us life and abundantly.  He will not leave us stranded.

    So we wait, knowing that God will provide.  We wait, knowing that God’s love will carry us forward.  We wait, looking in faith to God to give us the good gifts which he has promised.  We wait because we know that God keeps his promises and is always faithful to His Word.  So we wait, not wasting time but knowing that God is active and at work sustaining, preserving and prospering his people; we wait for His healing and love.  We wait with hope for God always keeps his promise.

Father of all mercy, keep us in your loving arms that as we wait we may know your Spirit of comfort.  Help us to see your hand in our life that we may be certain of our hope.  Lead us to see all those whom you use to bring your healing into our life.  Lead us to give thanks for the grace that we receive from your loving hand.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret     

4-12-2016

       Good Morning All!!

            Genesis 2:18; “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

    Elvis Presley sang about being lonesome tonight.  In an episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye told Radar about how his father had no one after Hawkeye’s mother died.  He told him that “loneliness is everything it is cracked up to be.”  We are not meant to be alone.  This is what God is telling us in our verse, we should not be alone.  Yet this goes beyond the simple understanding that God instituted marriage at this point or even that humans are social creatures.  This reality goes to the point that, spiritually, we are not to be alone either.

    Originally, Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the morning.  They communed together constantly.  For Adam and Eve this meant incredible calm and perfect peace.  It meant that their day was always a day of comfort and peace.  Then when sin entered the world, man separated himself from God.  We chose to walk alone.  In that aloneness, the devil has a tremendous time of fun; fun for him not for us.  The devil loves to torment and to cause us all sorts of pain and sorrow.  The devil’s favorite time is at death.  Death is the devil’s best friend.  We are all going to die and the devil wants you to think that you die all alone and when you die everything else is over. 

     Fear of being alone and of making a new trip alone are two of the deepest fears that many people experience.  Loneliness is the experience of the entire weight of the struggle on one person’s shoulders.  These are what the devil want you to live, every single day.  Yet this is the very thing that Jesus came to destroy.  He came to destroy loneliness and the pain associated with it.  Jesus came that you would always have a companion, a friend, an advocate.  He told his disciples that he would send them one who would remind them of the promises that God has made to us.  He would send one who would always be with us in all of life events.  He sent the Holy Spirit to be our companion. 

    While most of us know and recognize that God is with us; sometimes we like to be able to touch our companion.  This is where God encourages us as brothers and sisters in Christ to reach out to the lonely.  Invite them for dinner; try to involve them in activities as best we can.  This is part of our fellowship, part of being of one body.  No one should ever have to feel alone, at any time, given the presence of the Spirit and the presence of the Church to offer comfort, hope, companionship, support and God’s love.  This is what our fellowship is about, walking the path of faith together.  If you are lonely, seek out your church they will help.  If you know someone who is lonely, reach out with comfort to them to help heal them.

Father of all grace, you have told us it is not good to be alone.  Send your comfort to the lonely and strengthen us by your Spirit to always know your presence.  Use us Father as the arms and voices to bring comfort to the hurting, the afflicted and the lonely.  Send your healing to the suffering.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret       

4-11-2016

       Good Morning All!!

          Matthew 3:13; “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.”

        One of the questions that the sharper confirmation kids will ask is, “Why did Jesus get baptized?”  They ask a logical question.  Since Jesus is without sin, why would he get baptized?  He had no sin to remove; there was no need for the “washing of sins”; “there was no need for the “cleansing of the soul.”  So why baptize?

    The common answer is that Jesus does this to show us it is the right and proper thing to do.  That is a good answer but it falls a little short.  We often speak of Jesus “sanctifying” events by participating in the human events.  You maybe have heard the phrase “sanctified the grave” at a funeral.  We say that Jesus sanctifies baptism by being baptized but what does that mean?

    If we look at this in terms of how Paul writes Romans chapter 6, it might be a little easier.  In Romans 6 Paul tells us that we are “baptized into Christ Jesus, baptized into his death” (v.2) and thus we are “united in a resurrection like his.” (v.5). so we are connected to Jesus through baptism; we are joined to Jesus through the waters of Baptism.  In Baptism, we take on Jesus’ righteousness.  In Baptism, we take on Jesus’ perfect holiness.  So if we look at Baptism as “taking on” or “assuming” the character of Jesus; perhaps we should see the Baptism of Jesus as this is when Jesus “took on” or “assumed” the character of us.  In Baptism, we take on Jesus’ holiness.  In his Baptism, Jesus took on our humanity; Jesus took on our full sinful nature.

   In his Baptism, Jesus took on all of our sinful nature and walked the walk of temptation that we walk each day.  Through his baptism, Jesus walked a life that was as filled with the same temptations that we walk in in our life.  He was tempted to the same anger, the same jealousy, the same lusts, and the same desire to elevate our wishes over God’s.  Jesus was tempted but he overcame them and defeated them.  So in Baptism, we experience this great trade or great exchange.  Jesus takes on our sins and we take on his righteousness and we do this in Baptism.  Jesus immerses himself in our sins and we immerse ourselves into his righteousness.  In his Baptism, Jesus shows he is what the writer of Hebrews “For we do not have a high priest (Jesus) who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (4:15)

   In all respects, God the Son became man so that, in all that he did and experienced, he would live our life.  He knew pain and sorrow; he knew the disappointment of broken relationships, of death, of the struggle of living a human life in a broken creation.  Jesus knew, and knows, your life and in this knowledge he calls to you to come to him for comfort and peace.  Jesus comes to you in Baptism to give you his righteousness that we would know and cling to the salvation that his righteousness gives to us.

Father of all grace, in the waters of Baptism you give us the righteousness of Christ as you gave Jesus our sins.  Keep us in your loving arms and protect us from all harm.  Bring the lost to your saving hope.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-10-2016

 Good Morning All!!

Philippians 3:20;” But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

    There is a story about an older couple who had spent their entire life working with the poor people of a foreign land.  After 40 years of tireless and anonymous work, they returned to the United States.  As luck would have it, they were on the same ship as a famous Hollywood couple.  As the ship docked, all the media went running up to the Hollywood couple, leaving the older couple to shuffle off the ship.  As they went, the husband turned to his wife and apologized for not making more of their lives.  “I never took you to any place exciting; we never did anything to be noted for.  If we had, maybe everyone would be excited when we got home.”  As he walked with his head down and dejected, his wife turned to him and said, “We aren’t home yet.”

    We are not home yet.  Heaven is our home.  It is where our welcome, our celebration waits.  This is why we do not worry about worldly accolades.  Jesus tells us that those who seek worldly fame already have their glory.  Our glory waits for us in heaven.  As we toil here on earth, doing the tasks that the Lord has given us; we can do them with joy knowing that the Father is glorified by them.  We don’t seek the awards from man; we only receive the love of the Father. 

    We are not home yet.  Heaven is our home.  This is why we do not need to let the cares or burdens of today get us down.  The struggles of this life are only a minor blip on the radar of our existence.  We have our hope, our home in eternity with Jesus.  We know that we are safe with Jesus.  There is nothing that the devil or the world can do to separate us from God’s love.  We can take comfort in his grace.

    So as we serve the Lord and look around, we don’t need to be jealous of others, envious of their notoriety.  We know that what we do is what the Lord wants us to do and while we do these tasks; we are witnessing to our faith in Jesus as our Savior.  We can take great joy in seeing that all those who we speak to we can speak of the love of Jesus.  This can be to hundreds of people or to your grandchild while reading a bedtime story.  This can be over the radio or through the internet or it can be over a cup of coffee with the neighbors.  There is never a time when witnessing the eternal love of Jesus is trivial or unimportant.  Every soul is to be reached; everybody is to hear the story that their sins are forgiven.  For in the end ours is not the accolades or the wonderful retirement here on this earth; our citizenship is in heaven.  Our hope, our future is assured with our Savior.

 Dearest Father, remind us that our hope is in you and our citizenship is in heaven.  Keep us from jealousy or envy for those around us.  Keep us mindful of our hope in Your magnificent grace.  Keep us safe in your saving arms.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret