9-7-2025

Good Morning All,

        Psalm 35:22; “You have seen, O Lord; be not silent!  O Lord, be not far from me!”  

    For as much as we claim to crave silence, it is difficult to experience.  Silence can make us very uncomfortable.  If you have ever heard a sermon where the preacher just stops and says nothing for a minute, it can seem like an eternity.  When I teach confirmation class, I will sit and just wait silently; it doesn’t take long for the kids to begin to fidget and soon talk.

    Silence can be a very painful thing to experience.  If you have ever had a medical test and waited for the results, you know what that is.  If you have ever been in a hospital bed waiting for the doctor to come speak to you, you know the excruciating silence of the wait.  If you have ever gone to the emergency room, you know what that is like.  You can sit there and watch the clock as it slowly ticks and nothing happens.  We know that time isn’t standing still and we know that everyone is doing the best that they can but the silence seems to destroy us.  Where is the answer?  What is going on?

    For some of us, we have sat and poured out our heart, relayed all of our fears to God and then listened and heard nothing.  We cry to God and then listen and it is silent.  Why do I have cancer?  Why did I lose my job?  Why did my partner have to leave me?  Why did my child die?  Those are some painful questions and often, as we ask them, there is only silence.  We call to God and experience only deafening silence and our pain continues to grow.

    Yet God is never far from us and even though we don’t hear; he continues to speak to us.  Often times it is because we are too busy speaking that we do not really listen.  We do not hear his words of comfort.  We do not hear his words of hope.  Yet he speaks them.

     Sometimes we don’t hear God because we don’t want to hear what he is saying.  We pray to God; we cry out to God but it is not a prayer to him it is a list of demands for him.  We want these things to happen; we will not be happy unless these occur, so we don’t hear.  We experience self-imposed silence.  God speaks to us but we don’t hear his words of comfort because we don’t want them.  We have our desires and God had better provide for them. 

     Yet through all of this God is always near us.  He never leaves us and always speaks to us with his voice of hope, his voice of comfort, his voice of consolation.  He is our only shelter in this broken world.  He gives us that hope that no one else can.  He is our salvation.

Father of all mercies, we cry and cry and we find only silence.  Give us the understanding and the wisdom to see that we are only not listening.  Give us the faith that we may trust to hear you in all of the grace that pours out from you.  Guide us as we live the life that you give us by your mercy.  Be with those who have sat in silence for too long.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret        

9-6-2025

Good Morning All,

           Mark 14:37; “And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour?” 

     Gentlemen, have you ever noticed how when your mother, then your wife, get upset with you that your name gets longer?  For example, if your name is William Robert Smith, everyone will call you Bill or Will or Smitty.  But leave the toilet seat up once and you will hear, “WILLIAM ROBERT what did you do?”  It happens every time.

     Our verse has an element of that.  Peter starts out as Simon; actually, he is Simon bar-Jonah.  This means Simon, the son of Jonah.  Now if you look at Scriptures there are a lot of Simons.  There is another disciple who is Simon.  There was a Simon who was a leper, Simon of Cyrene carried the cross, there is a Simon the magician.  There are lots of Simon.  But after a profession of faith, Jesus begins to call Simon Peter.  Sometimes he is Peter, sometimes he is Simon and sometimes he is Simon Peter.  What gives?

     The name Simon is used when they speak of his secular life like his fishing business or his house.  He is called Peter when he is professing faith in Jesus most elegantly.  Then there are times when we aren’t quite sure which Peter is there so he is called Simon Peter.  So, it would appear that when Peter is faithful and living his life according to God’s will, he is called Peter.  When he lapses back into his sinful, pre-disciple nature, he is called Simon.  When he is kind of both, he is Simon Peter.  Notice in our verse he starts as Peter but when Jesus rebukes him it is as Simon.

    The thing about Peter is that despite his stature in the Bible as the leader of the church for most of the early years, despite the fact that he is among the closest of Jesus’ disciples, he stills falls back every once and a while and reverts to Simon.  Just like you and I do.  That is one thing I hope you see as you read the Bible, even the “heroes” of the bible are human; they still fall into sin.  They still have their “Simon” moments.  In fact, all of us are really the “Simon Peter” we are sinners and yet the same time we are justified saints. 

    God calls us to be Peter to boldly proclaim Jesus’ death and resurrection and the saving grace we receive because of it.  Sometimes we do a decent job but sometimes we fail.  Sometimes we fall flat on our face.  There have been times in our lives when we have failed miserably yet God calls us back just like he did Peter.  God continually calls us back by his grace.  Even as we slip back into our “Simon” mode from time to time, we are still God’s children; he still holds us as Peter.  He still holds as his beloved.

Gracious Father, we continually fall back into our old sinful nature yet through your grace you call us back into your family.  Give us the strength to remain faithful to you.  Lead us to boldly proclaim your message of forgiveness and reconciliation to a broken world.  This we ask in Jesus’ precious name, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret          

9-5-2025

Good Morning All,

       Matthew 6:33; “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

    Do you remember the movie “City Slickers”? It starred Billy Crystal and Jack Palance among others and came out in 1991. I really liked the movie; the interaction between Billy Crystal’s character (Mitch) and Jack Palance’s character (Curly) was great.  (Mitch to Curly: Hi Curly, kill anyone today? Curly answers: Day ain’t over yet.) The movie was about some men going through life crises so they go on a two-week vacation to a working ranch.  They learn about life while learning about some real work.

    One of the best parts is when Mitch and Curly are talking about life in general.  Curly tells Mitch that there is only one thing that is important everything else is garbage (my word not his).  Mitch asks him what that one thing is and Curly tells him that is what you have to find out.  So, what is that one thing?  What is the “one thing” that is important in your life?

    For many in this world, there is no one thing.  It is about having all things and when we fail at that, we have nothing.  Some think it is money or fame or power or notoriety.  Some think it is having others look to you as smart or wise or funny.  Some think knowledge is the answer, some think it is just plain working hard.  Sometimes we fool ourselves by thinking that everything will fall apart if we don’t do it.  So, we stress about everything and soon it all comes tumbling down around us.  So, what do we do?  Jesus addresses this in our verse for today.

    Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  That is our number one thing.  So how do we seek it?  First, we must realize that God has already given it to us through Jesus.  Yet too often we live like he hasn’t.  God gives us the power through the Gospel of forgiveness to seek him out.  Through Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice, God is recreating us into the creatures that he created us to be.  We were created to live in his holy presence with thanksgiving and praise, we are to care for each other and we are to take care of God’s creation.  That is God’s kingdom.  So, through his grace, we should seek it.

    Take the time to be part of God’s holy rhythm for us, the listening to God’s Word and the speaking to God in prayer.  This leads us into the living in praise and thanksgiving part of the kingdom.  Show God’s love to your family, your brothers and sisters in Christ, your neighbors and all those around you; that is the next part. Finally enjoy the world that God has given to you.  Don’t spoil it or waste it or foul it but enjoy it and share it with others; that is the last part. 

    God is a relational being.  He created us to be in a worshipful relationship with him, in a caring and loving relationship with each other and a caretaking relationship with the rest of creation.  This is the kingdom of God.  We are given the freedom form sin so that we can seek this out.  Everything else will work itself out.  Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Gracious Father, too often we are focused on the wrong thing.  Direct us to your holy will and to seek out you and your righteousness.  Bless us as we serve you in your kingdom.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray.  Amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

9-4-2025

Good Morning All,

       Matthew 11: 28-30; “Come to me, all who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.  Place my yoke over your shoulders, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble. Then you will find rest for yourselves because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

     I have always been interested in how a team of oxen work together.  They wear a heavy wooden yoke that hooks them together as they pull the weight.  The interesting thing is that one of the oxen actually does most of the work.  This one is called the lead ox.  The other one is just sort of there, kind of an ox in training.  This one is often referred to as the “oft ox.”  The lead ox was usually named while the oft ox usually wasn’t.  It was the primary job of the lead ox to follow the furrow, going straight, and to keep the oft ox pulling the same direction.

    This is what Jesus is referring to with the phrase “place my yoke over your shoulders, learn from me.  Because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.  The yoke belongs to Jesus and he does all the heavy lifting, all the work.  The “work” is the job of obtaining our salvation.  Christ’s death on the cross was the “work;” the fact that he gives this to us freely makes the yoke “light and easy.”  So why do we so often feel like that yoke is weighing us down?  If the yoke is light and easy life should be a breeze, why isn’t it?

    The problem is that we are the “oft ox.”  The oft ox tends to stray from the path and try to go in a different direction.  The oft ox tries to go on its own path and doesn’t care if it is right or not.  When the oft ox heads in its own direction, it strains against the yoke and tries to pull away.  This is when the yoke gets heavy.  This is when the yoke stops being easy and it begins to be hard; it begins to chafe and causes us to stumble.  But it is not the yoke that makes us stumble; it is our desire to follow our own path. 

     Now many may think that many decisions in life cause us angst and make the yoke heavy.  How do I know if this is the right path?  The answer is in the question; does the path you choose go against Scripture and faith?  If it does, it’s the wrong path.  So as a young person, you can choose to be a teacher or a banker or a farmer.  But if you desire to be a crooked banker or a cheating farmer or a lying teacher, the yoke will be heavy.  You can choose to marry whomever you love but if you desire to be selfish and only concerned with your own happiness and pleasure, the yoke will not be light.

    The yoke is light when we follow the path of faith that God lays out before us, when we live according to his will.  This gives us the hope for salvation but also a life of contentment that God desires us to have.  The yoke can be light but only if we follow the lead of Jesus and live in his grace.

Dearest Father, you place our yoke upon Jesus and give to us peace and rest.  Give us the faith to trust in your grace to lead us in your path.  Guard us, guide us to the path of your holy contentment.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret   

9-3-2025

Good Morning All,

       1 Corinthians 1:18; “The message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved.”

     Do you ever fall for those jokes that have an obvious answer but you miss them?  For example, if an airplane crashes exactly on the border between the United States and Mexico, exactly dead center on the border line, where do you bury the survivors? (You don’t bury survivors!) Or if an EEG is an electroencephalogram and an EKG is an electrocardiogram, then what is an EGG? (Breakfast!)

   These kinds of jokes are infuriating because they are really simple if you pay attention.  Yet we don’t pay as close attention as we should so it slips by us. It is so obvious that we miss it.  Even when we see how ridiculously obvious the answer it, we feel it is almost nonsense.  Something so simple that when you overthink it, you miss it.

     God does the same thing with faith.  God took the most heinous symbol of torture and punishment, the cross, and made it the symbol of hope.  Then he took that hope and gave it to us as a gift.  Then he entrusted the delivery of this message of hope to you and to me.  Talk about a plan that is as foolish as it gets, this isn’t a business plan to take to your bank for a loan on!  But that is the point; there is no human way that this will work.  This plan requires that you and I trust God fully to work.

     That is why God does it this way.  There is absolutely no doubt that for this plan to work God has to make it work.  We are only the conduit that He chooses to use to make it work.  That is the beauty of God’s plan; it doesn’t rely on us.  Nothing we do makes our salvation work, only God makes it work.

     The beauty of this is that we don’t have to look at our life and try to make it so that we are earning brownie points with God.  God loves us as we are, warts and all.  There is no sin that we committed that God has not or will not forgive.  God’s grace outweighs our sin!  His amazing love moves everything for us to be his child.  His plan is simple enough that it won’t fail us.  All we do is cling to his promise.  All we do is hold on tight.  No amount of works on our part matter.  So, we can never be beyond help.  We are never so bad that things are hopeless; we always have hope because everything depends on God and not on us.  His promise, as simple as it is, is all we need.

Gracious Father, in you we have hope, in you we have salvation.  You make it simple so that we may receive from you our promise of eternal life.  Give us the courage to trust and the strength to hold onto your promise.  Move in our lives that we may come to those who are hurting and in need of your grace especially at this time.  Use us to bring your kingdom to those who are desperate and in pain that they may know your peace.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret       

9-2-2025

Good Morning All,

            Mark 16:15; “Then Jesus said to them, “So wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News.”

    238 minutes, almost 4 full hours.  That is how long the movie “Gone With the Wind” is.  Even “The Birth of a Nation” isn’t that long.  The movie “Gone With the Wind” is an epic.  It goes into great detail as it tells the story of Scarlett O’Hara and her tumultuous life around the time of the Civil War. 

    I remember the first time I watched it.  I thought it was dragging along.  Then it came to the part where Scarlett says, “I’ll never go hungry again” and everything went dark on the screen; I thought that this was a strange way for a movie, especially one so highly acclaimed, would end like this.  Then the screen said “intermission.”  Two hours, longer than most other movies, and it is only intermission??  Wow, I had to make more popcorn; good thing it was a video so I could stop it for a bathroom break.  At a time when I expected it to be over, it was only half over and really, a major part of the story was still to be told!

    We often have expectations of when something is over.  There have been more than a few times when I quit listening to or watching a ballgame only to find out it ended completely different that when I stopped listening.  Our life is a lot like that. At times when we think the end is in sight; it may really only be the intermission.  We might spend weeks, months, even years trying to witness to a neighbor or a friend.  We think that it is over and they aren’t listening when they ask to hear more about Jesus.  It was only the intermission!

    Sometimes we feel we are at our wit’s end and ready to give up but we always need to remember that it is God who is truly in control.  So, if we struggle with life, we know that this is only part of the whole story.  We need to remember that God’s whole story for us is all about his amazing love for us.  Before the story is over, we will experience it in its fullness.  But until we do, we continue on in faith.  Faith in the certainty of his love and grace.  At times it will be tough, it might be the toughest thing we do but it is only part of the story not the whole story.

    The whole story is about how the sacrifice of Jesus has paid our debt and gave to us eternal life and the hope for tomorrow and the comfort and the consolation for today.  The problem is that we are always in the middle of the story when we think it is over but God knows how and when the story ends; we know how it ends just not when.  So, we continue, each day, going about our life, witnessing to those around us.  We go about following the path that God has laid out for us.  Your story isn’t over until the final credits run; live the life that God gives you secure in the knowledge of your salvation.

Dearest Father, you know the path that lies ahead of us.  Give us the faith to trust you, to keep us in your loving arms and to know for certain that we are safe with you.  Be with those who are especially feeling lost and hurt.  Guard them with your love.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret      

9-1-2025

Good Morning All,

        Luke 17:21; “They can’t say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ You see, the kingdom of God is within you.”

    We like to play a lot of games that involve searching for something.  From “Hide and Seek” to board games that involve hidden treasures, we like to look for things.  There aren’t many people who aren’t fascinated by treasure hunting or wonder about buying a metal detector and finding some valuable coin or trinket.  We are an inquisitive species.

    We seek answers to problems; we seek information for the sake of knowing what is going on.  We are always on the lookout for new ideas, new theories, or new thoughts which make us wonder about tomorrow.  We tend to think that we can find the answers to everything and then solve every problem.  But what happens when we can’t?  What happens when events go unexplained or unanswered?  Many people, at this time, decide to blame God or the people who believe in God.

    Do you ever notice, when there is a catastrophe, people often blame God and then go looking for answers in all the wrong places?  When people face struggles in their lives, they often seek out answers from any source they can find.  Then they shout out that they have found the answer, “Here it is!”  We have found the answer to life’s problems; only they haven’t.

    But that doesn’t answer the question that many have and that is “Where is God?”  When there is pain, trouble, or sadness, where is God?  Have you ever asked, or heard someone ask that question, “where is God?”  Where was He when the flooding was going on?  Where was he when the forest fires were burning? Where was he when the gunman opened fire?  Where is God?

    We often struggle with this because when we read the Bible, we see all the extraordinary times that God intervened in man’s existence.  We want that type of experience, we want to say, “Here it is.”  The thing is that God has chosen not to work that way.  He has chosen to work through his Church at this time.  Jesus empowered his Church to forgive sins, to preach repentance, to bring reconciliation to the world; God is in you and has chosen that way to work in the world.  So next time we wonder where God is, he is in us wanting to use us to work his love throughout the world.  Maybe we cannot stop everything that is bad in this world, a sinful and broken creation will exist until Christ will return, but we can offer God’s grace to one person, right now.  It might be your spouse, your child, your neighbor, or even someone you don’t even know.

    God has chosen to dwell in you and to use you as the method that He touches the world.  Next time you think “Where is God?”  He is in you seeking to work his love and grace in this broken world.

Father, we see pain all around us.  Use us as your hands and ears to deliver your love.  Give us the courage to show that you live in us and we are your people.  Give us the wisdom to reach out to those who hurt the most and give them your grace.  In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,  

Pastor Bret