6-7-2023

 Good Morning All,

       Genesis 16:13-14; “So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”   Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi;”

     Isn’t it kind of amazing how there are times in our lives when we want everyone to see us and there are times when we hope no even notices us?  When we graduate or when we get married, we feel on top of the world and wish all could see us and how happy we are.  Then there are times when we hope no one will ever notice us and then there are those times when we wish someone would see us, but we fear that they don’t.

    It is this last thought that comes from our verses for today.  This is from the story of Hagar.  She was a young maid to Sara.  Sara and Abram used her to produce an heir for Abram as he and Sara were barren.  Hagar became pregnant and Sara resented it and drove her away.  So here we have this poor young slave girl being driven away from the only life she knows.  You know a young pregnant gal with nowhere to turn; a story that happens too often even today.

     As she runs the angel of the LORD speaks to her and calms her fears.  She calls him “the God who sees me” and the well where the angel spoke to her as “the well of the Living One who sees me.”

    As we struggle through life, always remember that God sees you.  This isn’t meant to be a lecture on our sinful ways; rather I want you to take comfort in the fact that God always sees us.  He sees us when we want someone to see that we are hurting but sometimes no one notices.  We don’t have to face all of the trials and troubles and garbage out there on our own; God sees it and hears us as we cry to him in anguish and pain.  As we fear the report from the doctor or our job is on the line or the rain hasn’t fallen or our spouse seems distant or our children rebellious, we are not alone.

    God is a God who sees us and more than that he has compassion on us.  He sees our hurts and heals them.  He has compassion for us and repairs the damage, even damage we cause ourselves.  It can be painful, but God is a God who sees and heals.  We have to be aware of the way god works in our lives.  God uses created things to bring joy and comfort to his people.  When we are hurting, he places people in our lives to bring us comfort and hope.  Listen to his words of comfort; experience the comfort of your brothers and sisters in Christ and above all; pray speak to God with all your pain, all your fear and all your desire.  Call upon him and he will see your affliction and bring you peace.

Dearest Father, in many ways we are distressed and in pain.  The world is filled with it, and we cannot avoid it.  See us, Lord; see our pain and our fear and our sorrow.  Send your Spirit of healing and comfort.  Bring us safely home to you.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.         

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-6-2023

Good Morning All,

       John 19:30; “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

    “It is finished!”  Have you ever used this phrase?  How did you use it?  Was it from exasperation and frustration?  Sometimes this is the way a despondent couple responds as they watch their marriage crumble, or a parent when the problem child has to be bailed out of jail for the fourth time.  We feel the weight of the world crushing in on us.  We see no answer; we see no hope so we just throw up our hands and walk away.  We are beaten, battered, bloodied, and defeated by all that we face.

    Perhaps you exclaimed this as a big project has been completed.  You feel the exhilaration of getting it done.  It is over; I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.  All the work is done and it is all downhill from here; I can coast to the end.  I’ve felt this each time I finish a class.  The load of the class is lifted and I can breathe easier, for a couple of weeks anyway.  Maybe you feel that when the harvest is done, or when the graduation ceremony is done and the guests have all gone home.

     Most people would probably evenly divide into these two camps when they look at the words of Jesus, “It is finished!”  Some see it as Jesus the man finally being broken and just giving up on life.  It is finished; I am broken, beaten, defeated.  At least that is how the devil wants you to see it.  “Jesus died, get over it” The world and the devil will scoff at us and continually try to cast doubt into our lives.

      Others will see this as the victory whoop of Jesus.  It is finally over; I am out of here.  This job is done, never to worry about it again.  The same response a graduate might have, “school’s out no more books no more teacher’s dirty looks.” Yet this isn’t quite right either.  We are missing the important part of this phrase.

    It is finished.  It is complete, concluded, paid off.  This is a better way to hear this.  It is paid off.  The debt of sin which we owe is concluded; it has been paid off!  What a wondrous gift!  What a phrase to hear; imagine going into your lender to try and figure out a way to pay off a debt that you can’t pay only to hear him say,” It has been paid off!”  How would you react?  How would you feel?  We would probably jump for joy and hug whoever was standing there.  It is finished; your debt is gone.  It is finished; we no longer have to fear God’s wrath and punishment.  It is finished; we can come before the throne of grace and receive the blessings which God has for us.  It is finished; we can come to the Altar and be fed and nourished by his precious body and blood.  It is finished; thanks be to God!!

Dearest Father, in your wondrous mercy our debt of sin is paid.  We give you thanks and honor and praise for this amazing gift.  Keep us in your precious arms and hold us tight to you.  Guard us and protect us from the devil’s darts.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

6-5-2023

 Good Morning All,

       Genesis 21:19; “Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.” 

    Are you like me?  I can’t tell you the number of times I have to look for something or other in my office.  I know I put it right over there and the next time I want it, it isn’t there.  Then I start looking all over the place and then don’t find it.  Then a few days later, there it is right where I put it.  I must confess that, at times, I think someone is messing with me, but I have no proof. (Yet)

    Most of us have these moments and, for the most part, we can laugh them off.  A moment of forgetfulness and we pass it off.  But have you ever felt it more deeply in your heart and in your soul?  In our verse, this is a continuation of Hagar’s story.  She went back to Abraham and Sarah, and it was ok for a while but then Sarah gave birth to Isaac and then they kicked Hagar and her son out again.  She took her son and a jug of water and left.  Soon the water was gone, and her son was listless from thirst.  She laid him under a bush and walked away because she couldn’t watch her son die.

    I don’t know if any of us have felt like this.  There have been times and there will be times when I have felt like I was searching for an answer from God and just couldn’t seem to find it.  Maybe you have as well.  Perhaps you have felt the sting of an angry remark or comment from a loved one.  Perhaps you felt the stinging rebuke of an employer.  Perhaps the doctor’s report wasn’t what you expected.  So, you are left wondering where everything is.

    Hagar went to look for water and couldn’t find any, so she cried to the Lord, and he answered her.  Then he “opened her eyes.”  Isn’t that what we really need more than anything?  We need God to open our eyes to the truth of his grace.  We can search and search, but we never look in the right place.  Too often, we turn to the “experts” in the world and listen closely to their advice and yet we receive no comfort or hope.  The “experts” never address the root problem.  Our sin costs us our ability to truly see God’s grace around us.  It is there, just like the well that Hagar didn’t see; is there right in front of us.  God pours his love out on us every minute of every day.  Many times, we just don’t see it.

    That is what Easter is all about, God opening our eyes to see the well, or the river, of his love and grace.  We will still face the sinful world and its trials and troubles of this life, but we do not face them alone and we do not face them without hope for we have the everlasting hope of our salvation.

Dearest Father, your mercy overflows us like a river, yet we do not see it.  We focus too much on our troubles and not on our salvation; we see our failures instead of your grace.  Lead us to see the waters of your wondrous grace and mercy.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-4-2023

Good Morning All,

       Mark 3:5; “And he (Jesus) looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”

    When my sons were in high school, there was a foreign exchange student in the senior class.  Everyone really got a charge out of him.  He was very likable and good natured about just about everything.  He tried to play football and on one play where he was going to make a touchdown, his only chance, a teammate was called for a penalty.  The penalty was away from the play and should not have happened.  When everyone got home from the football game, I asked them how he took it, they just started to laugh.  He told them that, “He was so mawd (Mad) at the player who had the penalty.”  Ever since then, in our house, you are “so mawd” not just mad.

     We all get “mawd” sometimes.  If the newspaper comes late; if the mail isn’t delivered; if the guy in front of us is going just under the speed limit and balling up traffic; or it is being in the checkout line when the guy in front of you really fouls the checkout line up; something gets us “mawd.”  Yet there are times when we should not be mad, we should, like Jesus, look around in anger and be grieved by the hardness of the heart.  We need to feel and express God’s holy anger.

    Far too often, we sit back as Christians.  We fail to take up the cause of the poor, the widows and orphans and the aliens in the land.  These are the classes of people whom God continually lists when He addresses the sins of Israel in the Old Testament.  God looks to how the Israelites treated those who were unable to fend for themselves or were able to do anything for the Israelites.  God told the Israelites, “You were once aliens and slaves in a foreign land;” thus, they were expected to have compassion on these people and to share God’s compassion with them.

    So why do we sit back and watch?  What do we fear?  We have God’s blessings.  He has redeemed us from sin and death.  He has called us out of the world to be his holy (separate) people.  He is OUR God; we can call upon him whenever we want, and he wants us to live the good life in the good land.  We are like Israel in that we had nothing, but God gives us everything.  We don’t earn any of it; everything is a gift from God; so why are we slow to share? 

     God wants us to burn with anger at the injustice in the world and be grieved by the hardness of the heart of sinful man.  We can begin by praying that God would end this tragedy.  We can pray for courage to speak and to act.  God calls us to be different from the world.  If the world exploits the underprivileged, what must we do to be different?

Dear Jesus, You were angry at the hardness of the Pharisee’s heart.  Move us to soften ours and to grieve over the hardness of man’s heart.  Move us by your Spirit to act, to speak, and to have compassion to make a difference.  In your precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-3-2023

Good Morning All,

            Romans 12:2; “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

     Have you ever heard the phrase “I believe in individuality…as long as we all do the same thing?”  It is alright to be yourself as long as you conform to the norms that are set out.  Even as this may sound like a safe idea, it is the devil and the world that wants you to conform to the world.  It can occur in very subtle ways.

    It can start when we are much younger and in school.  The devil wants you to believe that you are never good enough; you are never smart enough so just sit back and fit in like everyone else does.  As this occurs, our sinful nature not only feeds our lowered self-esteem, but it also speaks to our guilt.  Not only are we not good enough to win the prize; we are told that we are not fit for God’s kingdom either.  So, a vicious cycle begins its downward spiral of guilt, self-doubt, and self-loathing. 

     Jesus came into the world to transform you.  He came into this world, into your life in a way that would completely change us from what we were to what we are.  We went from “lost and condemned creatures” to “redeemed children of the most High God.”  That is a change!  Our status is completely different.  We are no longer conformed to or by the world; we are formed by God through Jesus

    Yet the devil continues his whispers against us.  He continually whispers in our ear; you are handsome enough for her; you are not pretty enough for him.  They will look for someone else very soon.  You are not smart enough for that job; you lack the charisma for people to truly like you; it is all an act.  The devil will hammer you over and over to destroy the confidence in God’s promise that we have.  Faith is as much a mental act as much as anything.  We don’t “feel” we are saved; we “KNOW” we are saved.  God made a promise, and we need only to cling to that promise.  

     So now we don’t have to conform to the world and its view of us.  Jesus has freed us from all that the devil will try to twist us into.  We are free to be the disciples which Jesus sets out to make us.  We can trust, by faith, that God’s will is pure and good for us.  This is part of the promise that God made to his people long ago; a promise that you and I experience.  He wants to redeem us, to be our God and to let us live our life in full confidence of our salvation.  He wants us to enjoy our redeemed life as long as we live it here.  This is part of the “already but not yet” part of the story.  We are already saved but we are not yet glorified.  We live by grace and grace is God’s glory not yet finished. 

    Do not conform to the world; let Christ total transformation give you hope and comfort until life eternal.

Dearest Father, you sent Jesus to transform us into his disciples.  Guard us as your dear children.  Be with those whom the devil is attacking with all those painful salvoes and give them the strength and courage to stand tall in Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-2-2023

Good Morning All,

   1 Peter 5:6 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”

    It struck me as I was working on next Sunday’s sermon that many websites were touting “Pride month.” Apparently, June is “Pride month.” Pride in what, our power, our skill, our choices, our sinfulness? What are we proud of? Injustice and oppression which occurs throughout the world and in our neighborhood, is this what we are proud of? Maybe you got a new car/truck or a pay raise or a good deal on whatever you were dealing with and now you are proud, but of what?

    What is most striking is how the world’s view is 180 degrees different than the Bible’s view. The world tells us to “be proud” but Scriptures says, “be humble.” We are to be humble before God and our fellow man is what the Bible tells us; pride is always associated with sinfulness. “Pride goes before destruction.” (Proverbs 16:18) “God opposes the proud but exalts the humble.” (James 4:6) God desires that we are humble, not ashamed, but humble.

    It is ironic that our verse comes from Peter. During Jesus’s earthly ministry, Peter was anything but humble. He was brash and arrogant, assuming he was capable of anything, yet he, of all the disciples, denied Jesus the harshest. Peter knows the pain of pride; he learned it the hard way. So now he writes, “be humble.”

    To be humble does not mean that we demean ourselves or that we are ashamed of who we are. To be humble does not mean that we think less of ourselves; it means that we think of ourselves less often. For a Christian, humility is asking the question, “how do I serve my neighbor in this situation?” How do I help my neighbor in his need, this is humility.

    So as the world and the devil call for “Pride” Christ seeks humility. While the world says, “look at me” Jesus says, “look at your neighbor.” While the world tells us to demand what is ours and take what is not, Jesus says “love one another, by this people will know that you are my disciples.” Love is the desire to help your neighbor. Humility is thinking about the needs of your neighbor over your own. Notice the life of a Christian is looking outward, in service to his neighbor. It is not one of pride, haughtiness, or lording over others. It is meek, not out of weakness or timidity but because “all authority” rests in Jesus.

    We serve the needs of others because Christ has already met our needs in his death and resurrection. We serve because we have already obtained the object of our faith, life eternal with Jesus. We now walk with Jesus; we now have eternal life in his kingdom, and He has called us to serve Him, and we do this by praising His name and serving our fellow man. Pride is for the sinner; humility is for those who are redeemed by Jesus. Walk in His ways!

Father of grace, lead me by your Spirit to walk the humble servant’s path. Teach me your ways so that I may always serve you in joy and gladness. Lead me to find contentment in the salvation that is mine because of your great mercy. In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen!

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-1-2023

Good Morning All,

    Philippians 3:13; “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, “

    A great aim or desire of this nation is to improve ourselves.  We are always trying to make it better next time.  We make resolutions every New Year and what are they about?  We usually want to lose weight, quit smoking, exercise more, spend more time with our family; these are all fine and laudable goals.  We seek to improve our lives, our skills, and our future.

    We view life as one long process of getting better.  Many people see staying the same as really falling behind.  So, if our goal is to get better, why is it so difficult?  Probably the biggest reason is that we have so much difficulty letting go of the past.  We look back too much, and we don’t let go.

    This can happen in our faith walk as well.  When Jesus first called his disciples, he told them that he would make them fishers of men.  He would make them; this shows that it is a lifelong process.  Each day, we are molded and shaped a little bit more.  Each day is different from the last.  Each day we can grow closer to God; our faith being strengthened and nourished. This is done best when we look with our “faith eyes” and see God’s hand in our lives and see His active will for us. We can strive to live as He desires us to live; that is, to love our neighbor, to be compassionate to his needs and willing to sacrifice for our neighbor. 

    So why do we fail?  Many times, it is because we only see with our “physical eyes” which can lead us to look at only our wants, needs and desires. When we do not completely satisfy our selfish wants, we lash out in anger, bitterness, and hatred. We “keep score” with a desire to “settle accounts.” Often, we do not forgive.  Jesus tells us to forgive and then we are to move on.  We are to strain forward.  It is when we are too busy looking back that we fall down.  We need to forgive.  We need to forgive our family and friends for sleights that really mean nothing.  We need to forgive people we don’t even know whose actions are directed elsewhere but hit us.  Above all, we need to forgive ourselves.  It is when we fail to forgive ourselves that the devil keeps a toe hold in our life reminding us of those sins that we won’t let go of.  God’s mercy moves him to forgive our sins; it is only our guilt and the devil’s traps that keep us looking back.  Strive to look forward, going forth in God’s wonderful grace.

    Through God’s forgiveness, he empowers us and enables us to live the life that we were created for; to be the caretakers of His creation and children of our heavenly Father.  God created mankind to grow and live a full life in His care and in His service. Strive to look forward.

Dear Father, lead us forward keeping our eyes looking only to you.  Move us to let the past be past and that we only see what is good looking forward.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace

Pastor Bret