12-26-2015

Good Morning All!!   

        Luke 2:9; “And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.”

   I would have been afraid as well.  If I was sitting out in a field late at night, just minding my own business, and an angel began to talk to me, I would have been frightened.  Most people I know probably would have been frightened.  It might help to have a handful there and not just me by myself but I think we would be afraid.  Most people are just plain ordinary people.  We have mortgages, student loans, car loans.  We have a handful of real friends and a family that sometimes works and sometimes is out of balance.  When we are in the paper, for a wedding or funeral, a few people will notice and a few more will recognize your name but that is pretty much it.  We will quietly go and most of the world will never know.

    The shepherds were about as plain and ordinary as one could get.  Many times, the shepherds were people trying to get lost in the shuffle.  They maybe ran out on a debt owed; they may have been in trouble with the Romans; they may have had a fall out with their family.  If they disappeared, only their fellow shepherds would have noticed.  Yet the angel appeared to the shepherds.  Yet this is part of the story.  The Christmas story, in all its grandeur, is made up of plain, ordinary things.  A manger, a baby, a first time young mother, a carpenter father, a small town, a few shepherds all are the integral human elements.  Nothing particularly special, we don’t know the names of the shepherds or even how many there were.  We just know they were people doing their job and, for whatever, God chose them to be the first to hear the wonderful news of the birth of the Savior.

     We can take comfort, even joy, in the fact that God chose the ordinary person to tell the Gospel to.  These were people who had fears and worries, concerns and the weight of being the excluded.  These were people who needed to hear the good news of Jesus.  These were people who were in need of the healing and the restoration into God’s family.  These were people who were in need of being released from the oppression of the world.  These were people a lot like you and me.  People who are often marginalized by the rich and the powerful; people who are in need but are often powerless are the people that Jesus came to give hope to.  Jesus came to bring healing and hope to all people in need.  He came for the ordinary and he came for the rich; he came for those whose spirits were broken to bring them the certainty of hope in the salvation given to them by the sacrifice to come.  Jesus comes for all people who are hurting, lost, confused or suffering.  Jesus comes for you, to give you hope.

Gracious Lord Jesus, you came down from all your glory to come and bring us hope.  You came to release us from the terror of the devil.  Because of your great love we now have peace that only comes from God.  Enlighten our hearts and enliven our faith.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret       

12-25-2015

Good Morning All!!   Merry Christmas!!         

        John 1:14; “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

     Have you ever met someone famous, someone that you were in awe of?  How did you do?  Were you tongue tied, did you stumble and stammer, did you hide or run away?  These are often the responses, especially if the meeting is unexpected.  All of a sudden there they are and now what do you do?  We get that way around famous or even people who we view as powerful.  That might just be the president of the company that you work for or maybe a Lt. Colonel when you are a buck private.  In any event, we tend to tremble and stammer our way through.  These people often seem unapproachable to us, as if they live on a different plane or socio-status level.  We feel unworthy and ill at ease when they are around.

    The Bible has some of the same stories.  In almost every case of an angel visiting a human, they start ever visit with the phrase,” Fear not!” I supposed that helped but an angel showing up would tend to frighten anyone and cause them to fall to the floor in terror.  Seeing God is even more fearsome.  No one who sees God will live.  Even when Moses was on Mount Sinai, God shielded Moses’ eyes when God passed by so Moses only saw God’s backside as he passed.  You couldn’t even be in God’s presence.  When the Ark of the Covenant was being moved, it started to fall; a man caught it and died right there on the spot for touching the Ark.  The Altar of God was hidden by a thick cloth curtain that was only entered by the high priest once a year.

    Yet God changed all that.  God wanted to return man back to the walks in the cool of the morning like God and Adam had before the fall into sin.  In order for this to happen, we have to be sinless. So God sent Jesus, in the nature and being of a man, to take our place and pay our debt so we could walk with God in the cool of the morning and have that sacred conversation like Adam did.  Jesus became flesh and lived among us.  We saw his face, his hair, and his dirty feet from walking; all this we saw and it was God whom we saw.  God became approachable and still is today.  Because he loves us, he made it so we could approach him.  In Jesus, we are holy and righteous and can stand before him in his presence.  We are his children.  

    That is why Jesus came in flesh, in human form, so that we can be holy and now call upon God as our father.  We can come to him anytime of any day with our fears and our joys, our sorrows and our laughter, our burdens and our delights.  God is our Father who loves us and calls his own.  He restores us with his sacrifice which is complete for us.  Jesus came in humility to pay our debt.  When he returns it will be in majesty to rule over all.

 Father, we come to you Abba, seeking your mercy which already overwhelms us.  Keep us safe in your protective arms as we behold your glory through the grace we receive.  Guard us this day so that we may go forth in your name.  Be with those who are suffering or hurting.  Give them your comfort.  Bring peace to all.  In the Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

12-24-2015

 Good Morning All!!        

        Genesis 3:10; “And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

   “Go and hide.”  We were playing a game of hide and seek with my grandson a while back.  He looked in earnest for a good spot to hide while we counted to ten.  As we got to eight he kind of panicked and when we hit ten; he tried to plaster himself up against the door.  If he had been a chameleon it might have worked but his blue jeans and green shirt against a light oak door didn’t blend in.  He thought he was hidden but in reality, everyone could see him. 

    There were other times when he hid behind a window blind but his shoes stuck out. He put a blanket over his head and sat in the middle of the floor.  Even when he does find a good spot; he giggles and laughs so you can hear him.  Someday, he will be good at hide and seek but not today.  We too try and play hide and seek.  We try to hide from God but we are as successful as my grandson is.

    In our verse, Adam tried to hide from God after he and Eve had sinned.  They hid from God, not as a game, but out of fear.  They had broken their loving relationship with God and they had replaced it with one that was filled with selfishness and self-righteousness.  They had attempted to replace God with themselves.  They tried to elevate themselves to be God and when the true God came, they tried to hide.  Of course God knew where they always were and what they had already committed. 

    Often times we try to hide from God as well.  We deny his existence in an attempt to hide.  We deny the severity of our actions in an attempt to hide from him.  We hide but in our hiding; we are only fooling and hurting ourselves.  God seeks us out, not to punish but to restore.  God seeks us out because of his love for us.  God comes to us to bring us hope.

    This is why Jesus came into the world.  This is why God became man; in order that he might seek us out and find us where we are.  God seeks us out and gathers us in.  He accepts us as we are but in his love, does not leave us there but draws us to himself because of his great love for us.  He comes to make his blessings flow to everyone.  His blessings are poured out on all.  This he does because he loves us and he wants us to spend all of eternity with him in eternal bliss. 

    God seeks you out and finds you, wherever you are, to bring you home into his loving family.  He seeks you out so that you don’t have to live in fear.  He seeks you out to keep you safe.  He seeks you out so that you may know his comfort and peace.  May you always know the peace of God in your heart and in your life.

Gracious Father, we give you thanks for the blessings of life and salvation.  Keep us in your loving arms.  Be with those who continue to hide from your love.  Bring them safely under your wing.  Deliver them we pray.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

12-23-2015

Good Morning All!!        

          1Samuel 3:10; “And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.”

     We were engaged in a discussion the other day about prayer, specifically the prayers that we used in church.  The background of the discussion was about how many Christians in America seem to view God as an ATM or a personal vending machine.  This then went to our prayers.  Someone asked if we were doing it any differently.  When we pray, we usually state the petition which is usually a request.  We ask God to bring healing to the sick.  We pray for the nation, for travelers, for missionaries, and so on and so forth.  We often end these with a phrase such as “Hear our prayer.”

    The question was as to whether we were engage in the same practice.  Do we pray to God with the attitude, “here is the issue, solve it now God?”   Are we asking in the ATM fashion?  It was agreed that this was not the intent but could be viewed in that fashion.  One suggestion was to change the response to “we ask you to hear us.”  Even then the question went to the response of Samuel.  Should we, at some point in the service, pray like Samuel, “Speak, for your servant hears?”

   Jesus tells us to pray.  He tells us to “ask and we will receive.”  We are to engage in prayer and we are to engage in where we ask God for his forbearance, his supply and his blessings.  Yet do we fall into a rut where we assume that our relationship with God is always asking (demanding) that God do something for us?  Sometime, should we simply say, “Speak Lord, for your servants is listening.”  Should our prayer be one of asking God to not just do something but to use us in the process?  Should we ask God to use us to resolve the problems we see? 

     When we ask God to being about healing, comforting, supplying; maybe at the end we should then say “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”  Use us Lord to achieve the bringing of the kingdom of God to the world.  Perhaps, our prayers are too much about demanding God act and they should be prayers about God guiding us to be his hands, his voice and the working, moving parts here in this world.  When we ask God to act, we should then ask that we be the agents that he acts through.

    “Speak, for your servant listens.”  We are asking God to actively use us.  We are asking God to involve us, even when it hurts us to watch or be there.  Even when we are pained as we aid those whom God has led us to comfort those who are suffering, heal those in pain, feed those who are hungry.  “Speak, for your servant listens.”             

Father, we come before you seeking your grace.  We ask of you and we receive your mercy.  Speak Lord; lead us to listen to your Word.  Lead us to be your agents of mercy.  Guide us to those people who are in need of your comfort.  Lead us to bring healing and hope.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret