4-28-2025

Good Morning All,

          Proverbs 25:11; “A word rightly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.    The right word at the right time; that is a gift truly worth its weight in gold.  Think of those times when the right word or even the wrong word comes out.  I remember when I was on the school board that the superintendent used to go on and on about how important it was for the bus drivers to be cheerful in the morning.  If the first voice a child hears in the morning is a cheerful bus driver, the student is more likely to have a positive day than if he faces a grumpy one.  That was his theory.  Granted, it doesn’t always work out but there are times when it does as well.

    Think about your own life.  Who would you rather face, a cheerful waiter/waitress or a grumpy one?  Who would you rather deal with, a cheerful checkout person or an angry one?  How about when you meet the receptionist at the doctor’s office?  A friendly face helps out a lot, doesn’t it?  This is true; some call it good business or proper etiquette but for a Christian it can, and should, go much farther.  It provides us with a golden opportunity to witness to our faith.

    The right word at the right time; that is a gift truly worth its weight in gold.  For us, this occurs for us and to us before anything else.  “At just the right time God sent Jesus to reconcile the world back to himself.”  As Jesus hung on the cross, he exclaimed, “It is finished!”  Just the right word at just the right time; this is a truly wonderful gift!  We hear God’s words of forgiveness at just the right time.  You may wonder when the right time is, and it is when we need it the most.  After the devil beats us up with his attacks God reminds us that we are his children and that he loves us, and he tells us that at just the right time.

     Now, he wants us to offer the right word at the right time.  God calls us to go to our neighbor and to offer the right word.  He calls us to offer the same words to them that he offers to us.  First it is important to forgive.  We need to forgive all the failures, both big and small, all the offenses, all the faults, real or imagined; that our neighbor has caused us.  We do this for two reasons.  First, because God calls us to reconcile with our neighbor, we need to reach out to them.  We cannot do this if we continue to hold onto the anger and the hurt.  This not only harms our neighbor, but it also harms us.  This is the second reason to forgive; it helps to heal you.  The right word at the right time; that is a gift truly worth its weight in gold. 

    That word may also be a word of compassion to a grieving friend, a hurt neighbor, a suffering brother, or sister.  Sometimes this word is the hardest to say; what should I say?  The truly amazing thing is that God often gives us the right word to say and sometimes that word is said with a hug or a shared tear.  The right word at the right time; that is a gift truly worth its weight in gold.

Dearest Father, your Word is spoken to us at just the right time, and you bring us to a new life in Christ and save us from death.  Help us to proclaim that same word to all those around us.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret     

4-27-2025

Good Morning All,

      Genesis 2:7; “then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”    

    There is always something interesting about making something for yourself.  It really doesn’t matter what it is; it might be a bookcase or a pie or a piece of pottery; we enjoy making things with our hands.  Some of us find it therapeutic and relaxing.  Making something with your hands gives you far more satisfaction that just going out and buying something like it instead.  Using your hands tends to bring out a sense of purpose and comfort.  It is like the carpenter.  You know that you are watching a true carpenter when they get to the end of the project.  Before they declare it done, they take their hand and gently run it up and down the finished project.

    As we look at our verse, I hope you notice how God is addressed in this passage.  Here, and in the rest of the Bible, when we see God called “the LORD God” this refers to God’s proper name as “YAHWEH.”  This is the name by which God introduced himself to Moses the “I AM the I AM.”   YAHWEH is the Redeemer of Israel; this is the Name by which God personally rescued the children of Israel from Egypt.  The thing that I want you to keep in mind is that by this name” YAHWEH” is the “hands on” God. 

    Notice how creation is described.  The LORD God formed the man and breathed into his nostrils.  YAHWEH got his hands dirty forming you.  He formed you out of the dirt and then placed his mouth on that dirt and breathed into a life, a living creature, a soul.  We can take so much comfort in this.  YAHWEH isn’t a distant God who is averse to being near us.  YAHWEH is a “hands on” God.  He gets into our dirty lives and breathes new life into them. 

    When we hurt or fear or are lost, YAHWEH is there.  He is there getting his hands dirty to redeem you.  Think of Jesus, God in the flesh.  He walked on dirty roads; he touched the skin of dirty people, looked into the heart and soul of dirty people, and made them whole; he made them clean.  God comes to you and picks you up out of the gutter and lifts you up with his loving arms into his bosom to hold us near and dear to him. 

   As we go through life, we will face a lot of unpleasant things.  We face the pain of broken marriages, lost children, angry parents, family dying way to soon or maybe watching one die way too late, but God gets his hands dirty for you to give you hope.  There is nothing dirtier than death on a cross; yet Jesus, our Redeemer, did just that.  He did it because he loves you and if getting dirty is what he had to do then getting dirty is what he did.  We do not have to think that God doesn’t understand my life; he truly does.  That is why Jesus became a “hands on” person who died a “hands on” death.  He did this so that you and I could keep our “hands on” eternal life.

Dearest Father, you reached down into my life at times when I felt that no one could or that no one cared.  You saved me from the wretched pain of the devil and his snares.  Continue to guard me with your Spirit and protect me this day.  In Jesus name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-26-2025

Good Morning All,

   Romans 8: 38-39; “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

   There is always a part of me that really wonders about our sports culture sometimes.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a very strong advocate of sports.  The values and life skills which young people can learn are invaluable.  Maybe it is the adults that I wonder about.  The true meaning of sports is to test yourself against yourself, but you use an opponent and usually some form of measured competitive format to accomplish this test; but at what point does the test lose its validity?

    There was a basketball team in Texas that lost 103-0.  There was a team in Indiana that lost 107-2.  There was a high school football team which lost 96-0 and the game was done by halftime.  Another school scored 238 points in one game.  I assume it wasn’t much of a match!!  These are somewhat beyond a loss; this would constitute a total beat down, complete defeat for the losing team.  If you are the coach, what do you say to these teams?

     If you are like me, there are days when it feels like I’ve been on the short end of an ugly game.  There are days when it feels like I am totally defeated.  A day like when it is muddy and rainy out and the big truck hits the big mud puddle just as you open your car door to get out and takes your door off and splashes mud and cold water on you and into your, now doorless, vehicle.  You and your spouse are in a struggle; one that, one or both of you, do not understand or can get a handle on.  Your children look at you like you are an alien life form.  Everyone from your boss to your friends to your co-workers see you as someone to step on and then over.

    This is why the death and resurrection of Jesus is so phenomenally valuable.  When Adam and Eve walked in the Garden of Eden with God, they walked hand in hand with God.  Sin pulled our hand from God’s hand, and we have spun out of control ever since.  But when Jesus died and then was raised again, we became reconciled back to God.  God took us by the hand again and better yet; he pulled us into a walk with his loving arm around our shoulder holding us close to him.  Through this we have eternal life and the hope of the resurrection which is great for someday.  But for now, we have the promise and the hope that God, with his arm around us, is caring for us.  God, who knows what is best for us, who knows sees our pain and brings us through it.  We may not enjoy it, that is a sinful world, but we never, ever go alone.  Nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Dearest Father, at times it feels like the world wins, and we are totally defeated; all our efforts are worthless.   It is at these times that your wonderful grace holds itself out to us as our only hope, our only comfort.  Continue to guard us and protect us from the arrows of the devil and bring to us that peace which only you can give to us.  We ask this in the name of our precious risen Savior, amen,

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-25-2025

Good Morning All,

       2 Timothy 1:5; “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” 

    I watched a movie not too many nights ago about a young man who was trying to come to grips with the death of his father.  The young man and his father had a strained relationship.  They had had an argument, and the young man stormed out of the house.  A few years later, his father had died, and he returned home to find some answers.

    As he rummaged through his father’s house, he found a whole trunk full of letters which the father had written to himself.  As the young man read the letters, he saw a side of his father which he had never seen.  In the letters, the father could only praise the young man and all his efforts.  Each letter ended with the father telling himself to be sure and tell the boy about this as well.  The son saw that his father truly loved him but couldn’t express himself in words, only in the letters which were hidden away.  The last ones told of only pain as the old man died alone and without his son.  It was a sad movie.  But it was about things that rarely happen anymore.  We rarely write real letters anymore.  We text or email or do Facebook, but we never write letters anymore; Letters which express in wondrous prose, the depth and intensity of human emotion.

    2 Timothy is one of those letters.  Paul writes this letter to his most beloved Timothy.  Timothy is a young man who became a preacher under Paul’s careful tutelage.  Paul fondness for Timothy grows until Paul considers him as his son.  In this letter, his last letter, Paul writes to Timothy.  Paul knows that he will soon be executed so he wrote Timothy with all the passion of a dying father to his son.

    He begins at the very beginning, noting that Timothy’s faith was begun out of the love for him by his grandmother and mother.  It was nurtured by their faith which in turn taught and fed his faith.  Timothy grew up and his faith was nurtured by his loving family, and he grew in faith and became one of the church’s earliest pastors.

   We all have a grandmother or a mother who was instrumental in our faith formation.  Those who filled those roles may not have been blood relatives but within the church; someone filled these roles.  It may have been a Sunday School teacher or a neighbor.  It may have been a kindly member who showed you the kind of love which Christ had for her or him.  It was this encouragement which God used to grow your faith.

    Now many of us have the chance to be the Eunice or Lois in a young person’s life.  Be sure to take that role.  God gives us the opportunity to witness our faith.  For some it is halfway around the world but for most of us; it is with the little boy or girl that sits behind you in church and kicks the pew that you sit in.  When God gives you opportunity; go ahead and try it.

Dearest Father, you have given us those people in our life who have formed and shaped our faith and we give you tremendous thanks.  We ask that you help us to serve in that same way for others around us.  In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-24-2025

Good Morning All,

    Luke 11:1; “Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

    One of the more entertaining parts of being the preacher is teaching junior high age confirmation class.  They really keep you on your toes.  I pretty much let almost any question be asked.  It used to be any question but this year “zombies” were put out of bounds.  One of the interesting discussions usually involves prayer. 

   It usually starts with the question, “what is the right way to pray?”  That brings lots of answers but usually they agree that it is with your hands folded and your head bowed.  What if I stand like this? (I have both arms extended upward with my head looking up) They all shake their head, no.  I tell them that this is how Solomon prayed to God in the Temple.  They looked perplexed.

    Then I ask, “what about this?”  I kneel down on the floor and stretch out on the floor. (This gets harder to do every year!!)  They all shake their heads again, a little more emphatically.  “This is how Joshua and Elijah and Jesus prayed; are you telling me that Joshua, Elijah and Jesus do not know how to pray?” (It’s a little mean but they really looked puzzled by now.)  So, the question is asked again “what is the right way to pray?

    This is where we talk about the different postures of prayer in the Bible.  The “right way to pray” is not about how you stand or hold your hands or even what, exactly, you say.  The right way to pray is to just do it.  Just pray.  Take time to speak to God and do it often throughout the day.  If you can get yourself to find a pattern of a short devotion during the day and then praying to God during the day; you can receive some real comfort from this.  It can help make a “crisis” more like a bump in the road.  The truly wonderful thing is that as we continue in a devotional time and then a prayerful life; the Holy Spirit will remind us of different verses or passages to help us remember what God truly wants for us. 

    If we feel fearful or anxious he can bring up “cast all your anxieties on him for he cares for you.”  If we feel burdened by stress we can remember “Come to me all who are burdened, and I will give you rest!” If we feel completely abandoned, we have “Lo, I am with you even to the end of the age.”  If we feel defeated, we have, “God is for us, who can be against us?”  These can all come to mind if we keep a rhythm of speaking to and listening to God in our lives.  This will provide us with the strength and comfort and hope to live this life.

Dearest Lord, you taught us to pray in the manner of being at one with the Father.  In this way we can come close to you and experience your grace and mercy.  We can live in a life of hope in you and never feel abandoned.  In your precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

4-23-2025

Good Morning All,

    Exodus 22:17b; “And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.”

    One of the hardest parts of being a parent is when your children are very young, too young to speak and communicate, and they are sick or hurt.  They cry and cry, but you just can’t figure out how to console them.  Are they hungry?  Are they over tired?  Do they have a stomachache?  It is painful to watch this as a parent; you want to fix the problem, but you don’t know how to fix it.

    As children grow and become adults, they still experience pain.  Some of it is physical, some emotional.  One of the hardest parts of being that parent or a friend to someone like that is that you can see their pain; you know it is there but if they don’t express it or can’t express it; you feel just like that infant’s parent.  You want to fix the problem, but you don’t know what is wrong.  Are they having health issues?  Are the under stress at work?  Do they feel unloved by their friends?  Has their spouse hurt them in some way?  How do we fix it?

    One of the greatest evils which have befallen the world is pain.  Not physical pain as much as emotional and spiritual pain.  We see it everywhere.  Just look at any bookstore or on Amazon and you see a myriad of self-help books on everything from dieting to surviving a divorce to surviving the loss of a child.  Now you may be able to read how to lose weight and actually have it work but I don’t know about reading how to cope with the death of a child.  Yet this points to a huge problem for us; too many people think that everything we deal with has to be internal.  We show little emotion, and we express it even less.  The British use the phrase “stiff upper lip” and for many in this country this is true as well.

     This is part of the reason that we have trouble understanding the tradition of sackcloth and using ashes and wailing in public like we read about in the Bible.  This is such a public outpouring that we see it almost as unfit and improper.  Yet they are expressing their pain to all around.  Now I am not advocating that you do this but at least express your fear or pain to someone.  It can be a neighbor or a friend.  It can be your pastor or a counselor but above all cry out to the Lord.

    God has made a great promise to us his people.  The first and foremost is the promise of redemption from sin.  Yet the next is of great value as well.  He has promised to be our God, our “hands on” God.  He has promised to listen to our cries and to answer them.  He will listen but we must cry.  This can be an actual physical cry, or it can be an emotional cry from the heart, but God will hear and answer you.  It may not be the answer we think we want at that time, but God’s will is always best for us.  So, cry out to God; He will hear you and answer because he has compassion.  His love for you knows no bounds.

Dear Father, we often suffer in silence when you tell us to pray and to call upon you.  Give us the wisdom to see you as our loving Father, as our “hands on God.”  Help us to see your tender mercy when we need it most.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret       

4-22-2025

 

Good Morning All,

      Isaiah 65; 23-24; “for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord, and their descendants with them.   Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

    Have you ever watched any of the movies about the earth after some form of nuclear catastrophe or some other cataclysm?  It is always fascinating that the world is so desolate and such a waste land.  There is always a scene where the wind is blowing so much dust or sand that you can’t see the characters of the film. 

    It is interesting how we view a post-apocalyptic world.  There are always destroyed buildings, broken up roads or streets.  There is very little if any vegetation; it always appears to be shot in a desert with little except for scrub brush plants.  There seems to be a lot of time when water is so precious that it may even be a commodity which is traded or fought over. 

     That is how we usually view a world that is destroyed. It is desiccated and void of greenery, of created life or existence.  There is rarely enough food, water, or other provisions to live much more than a subsistent existence.  This is the exact way which Isaiah describes the life of the children of Israel would live while in exile in Babylon.  They would not live in the “Land flowing with milk and honey” rather they would live in desolate conditions.

    This really refers to the way that their faith life would be.  They had experienced God’s grace and lived in the land flowing with milk and honey but now, with God’s grace withdrawn, they would live in a land of desolation.  They had lost out of God’s grace, for a little while but they never lost out on his mercy.  God’s love for them never stopped and he promised to restore them to an even greater life.  He will again hear their cries even before they are made.

    This is what God promises to us through Jesus.  He sees our pain; he knows our fear and he has compassion for us.  We know this because of the cross upon which Jesus died.  If God does not love us fully, beyond any measure or standard; why would he have allowed his Son to die such a horrific death?

     So, as we go through life, we may feel like we are in a wasteland, barren and hopeless.  Yet God comes to us with his Word, the word of forgiveness. He comes to us with his soul refreshing gift of Holy Communion to re-invigorate our spirit.  He gives us his Church where we experience flesh and blood expressions of His tender grace and mercy.  He gives us prayer to speak to him and to cry out to him in pain or in joy but even before we do; He knows us, and he answers us.

Dearest Father, we often see only the barren and the wasteland; yet it is only by your tender mercy that we can survive.  Guard us, sustain us and protect us from all that devil will throw at us.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret