4-17-2016

Good Morning All!!                                                                                        

       1 John 3:1: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

     Many people take vacations in the summer.  They usually go to “see” something.  Perhaps we go see a professional baseball game or we go to a national park or perhaps we just go to an area of the country where we have not been to; just to see what it is like.  While what we are planning on seeing is important, for most of the way; what we see is out the window of our car.  That is why when I travel; I prefer to take the lesser roads and not the interstate.  Part of this was watching Charles Kuralt and his “On the Road” series as a kid and the desire to see what else is going on in the world.  We see the world go by and we see it as it is, warts and all.  We see the broken houses next to the new “Mcmansions” or the abandoned farm site with the leaning barn next to the multi-bin multi-shop immaculately kept farmsteads across the road.  It is how we see things, mostly through a window usually driving down the road somewhere.

    Our passage for this morning speaks of seeing.  We see what kind of love God has for us.  It is a love that the world does not understand nor can it reproduce it.  The world’s love is conditional.  It will love you as long as you behave and reciprocate.  It will love you as long as you have something to share or allow a gain for the other.  We see God’s love through a window; it is the window of the cross.  When we look into the window of the cross we see what kind of love the Father has given us.  We see God incarnate, Jesus, suffering and bearing the weight and the cost of our sins even as we were enemies with God.  Yet in His unfathomable grace, God made you his child.  He looked at you and claimed you just the way you were.  He washed you and fed you and clothed you with new clothes.  That is our God.  We see that by looking through the cross of Christ to see it. 

    As we travel through life we will pass by and through many events which we may or may not comprehend.  Those events may never add up.  Death, at times, makes no sense.  Life, at other times, makes no sense.  Suffering never makes sense.  We need to see the love of God, through the window of the cross, and then move to share that window seat with others who need it as well.  You and I cannot touch the whole world but we can touch one person and we need to do so.  Share the Gospel of Jesus with one person.  We are part of God’s solution; we are partners in the ministry of reconciliation.  Look through the window and see how much the Father loves us and then go and share that love with someone else.

Gracious Lord, your grace rolls over us like a river and carries us into your loving arms and presence.  Use us to bring others into your river of life and mercy that they too will be able to look through the window of the cross and see how much the Father loves us.  In our Savior’s precious name we pray, Amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-16-2016

       Good Morning All!!                                                                                  

       Isaiah 41: 9b-10; “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you” 

    Pick and choose.  We use that phrase often.  It is a phrase that we use in a frivolous manner.  We go to the fast food place and we pick what we want to eat and then choose how to order it “my way”.  It seems that we pick and choose on every whim.  This makes our picking and our choosing very shallow and without much thought or plan.

    When you are choosing pizza toppings, being shallow isn’t that big of a deal.  If you are picking which movie to go to, you can choose on a whim.  Yet we seem to carry this attitude over into our more personal and more important areas of our lives.  We seem to have made making choices something which has no bearing or consequences in or to our lives.

     We choose to be married and then unmarried.  We choose to love someone today but tomorrow we choose to not love someone.  Some days we choose to talk but others we choose to fight.  I think the one thing that amazes me the most is that we choose to not show respect for other people.  We choose to not show simple human decency.  With the election cycle getting hot and heavy, it seems the theory is to attack.  Why can’t we talk without calling each other idiots, morons, thugs, Nazis, communists and other names I won’t write?  When did we choose to hate? 

    For the most part, we have always elected to hate.  This fact is why so often, when we get to the end of the day, we look in the mirror and ask (or tweet or post) the question; why did I get up this morning?  Why do I go about this day only to be beaten down by the world whether the world took the form of a boss or a coworker, a spouse or a child, a teacher or a student?  Everyone chose to dump on me and then bale on me.  The devil loves for you to think this.

    Yet God tells us something completely different.  God chose you to be his child.  At the end of the day (and the start and the middle) you are God’s redeemed child and he will never forsake you.  When all the world chooses to walk all over you, God chooses to love you.  When we experience the painful events of our lives, it is when we feel that we can handle it by ourselves that we suffer the most pain.  The weight of the world is on our back and Jesus tells us to come to him and let him carry the load.  We don’t need to fear the worst for God promises his best; eternal life with him.

    As difficult as it is, this world and life is not all there is for us.  This time, our earthly life, is but a minor spot in a life that we will live.  We need to trust God and accept his ways as true.  God has chosen you; he has chosen to give you life; hold on to that promise for that is our hope.

Dear Father in heaven, we give you thanks for the gift of life.  Father you chose us and give us faith to choose you.  Show us the path by which we will choose to love one another and to hold onto one another and value one another with the love which you have for us.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen   

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-15-2016

Good Morning All!! 

 Psalm 94: For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage;

    A few years ago, I was watching a movie called “Sea Biscuit”.  It was about a racehorse as a huge underdog in a race.  I don’t remember a lot of the movie but for some reason a line from that movie has always stuck with me.  “You don’t throw away a whole life just because it is a little banged up.”

    That line is one of those lines that we should always remember.  As we go through life, we all get a “little banged up”.  Sin and the devil and the world do a great job of banging us up.  We all live with a few nicks and a few scars.  Some of it is things which we have done in our life, those sins which we committed against someone and we never confessed the, never really repented them; we just sort of held on to them and kept them in our heart, in our conscience, on our back weighing us down.

     Maybe that nick was caused by what someone did to you.  We have a little scar tissue as we nurse and hold onto the hurt.  We might not remember exactly what happened, or when or where; but we remember it was him and that he hurt me and I won’t forget it.  It doesn’t really matter which way causes the nicks and the scars.  The cruel comment that really hurt; the rejection; the forgotten promise; the broken relationships; there are a lot of things which give us nicks and dings and scars.  Most of us are a little banged up.

      The devil loves this world and this kind of life.  He can toy with us and use us for amusement with each little nick and each little ding.  The pain we feel is nothing which he cares about as long as he is amused.  Once he has beaten you up enough, he will throw you away and find a new one.

      Yet God never throws you away.  He sent Jesus into this world of nicks and scars to be nicked and scarred.  By his wounding we are healed.  The world doesn’t understand this.  It is hidden in secret places; it is a treasure of darkness.  It is that treasure that is hidden from sinful man yet God reveals to us as his children.  That treasure is that God doesn’t throw you away even if you are a little banged up.  He picks us up, cleans us off and loves us with the love of the Father which we cannot even measure.  Then he lets us in on this secret treasure.  When the time is right, you will be restored to the pristine condition which God created us to live.  We will live with no nicks and no scars.  Together we will share with him the life in glory with all the believers who have gone before us in faith. 

       God’s treasure for us is eternal life.  It is hidden from those who reject it.  By this great gift, God shows us his love for us.  There are no nicks which will cause him to reject us.  There are no scars which will drive him from us.  He keeps coming and coming to us with the love that only the Father will have.  

Gracious Father, we come to you with our nicks and our scars and you heal us and make us whole.  You open the treasures to us giving us the promise of eternal life.  Keep us in your arms and guard us from the devil and all his ways. Guide those who are still scarred and wounded that they may come to know your peace.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-14-2016

Good Morning All!! 

         Revelation 2:10; “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

    I always enjoyed when I got the opportunity to coach kids.  I loved coaching baseball.  I wasn’t that good at it.  My coaching advice was limited to about 5 sayings, “Head down”, “Elbow in”, “shoulders level”, “swing through the ball” and the one I probably used the most, “hang in there”.  That was pretty much it.  I once told one of the mothers that she could do just as good a job as I did.  I told her, when in doubt, tell the player to “hang in there.”

    For many of us that pretty much sums up life, “hang in there.”  It means that what you are facing may seem like an impossible challenge but you can get through it.  I remember when I was coaching; it was not uncommon to have a ten or eleven year old trying to bat against a much bigger thirteen year old pitcher.  It seemed like that ball was coming in at 200 miles an hour and it always looked like it was coming at your head.  Sometimes, those young players would stare at me with an incredulous look on their face.  “Hang in there” they thought I was crazy.  But I knew something that they didn’t.  A major part of batting is fear; if you overcome the fear you can hit the ball.  You have to overcome the fear of failure, of missing the ball, and of being hit.  Once you can control those fears, you can relax a little and get more comfort with what you are trying to do.  I also knew that as they grew; they would have greater success as they matured and developed.

    This is really the message of our verse and all of the Revelation to St. John is basically that, “hang in there”.  Even though it looks like the world and the devil is winning; they are not.  Jesus has already defeated them and given the victory to us.  We are the victors and the victory cannot and will not be taken away from us so we are to remain faithful, “hang in there” until Jesus returns.  It might look really scary; it might look like we haven’t got a chance but God knows that as we mature in our faith that our fears will lessen and as they do we will become more confident in God’s grace.  We will recognize that the noise of the world is just that: noise.  We will continue to cling to God’s Word and rely on the truth that Jesus has defeated everything and given this victory to us through faith.  We do not have to make any changes or additions to this victory; it is complete.  We just need to be ready when Jesu returns.  We just need to “hang in there.”

    This may sound simplistic but our faith is simple.  Believe that Jesus died for you and that in this death and resurrection he gives you the victory over sin, death, and the devil.  Hold onto this truth; no matter what lies are told to you.  Trust that Jesus is the king and victor and through Him you are saved.  “Hang in there!”

Father, give me the courage and wisdom to trust your great promise.  Keep us faithful to Your Word.  Lead me to bring hope to this world.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret