Look again at the 63,000 connections in Scripture. This is no ordinary book. This is no ordinary story. All of this points to the story of God’s faithfulness. It is the story of God’s victory. It is the story of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for you. So today, let us proclaim the truth with joy: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul reminds us that love is like the unseen thread in the quilt of our lives. We might have impressive talents, big accomplishments, or flashy gifts, but without love, it all falls apart. Love is what holds it all together.
In the church, we are like the pieces of a quilt—different people, different backgrounds, different gifts. What binds us together isn’t how good we look or how much we know. It’s the love that God gives us through Jesus. That love is patient and kind, it doesn’t give up, and it holds fast even when things are hard.
(During the sermon at minute 17:17 the power went out at church and the sound system popped very loudly, that is the reason for the odd reactions.)
The reason communion is offered in a corporate setting is because God’s great desire for you is that you have a reunion with him, but that you’d have this reunion with Him in community.
“In him (all y’all) also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:22. Come, enjoy, and revel in the most beautiful reunion… us with Him and us with one another.
In the inevitable, uncontrollable storms of life, Jesus speaks and gibe you sudden peace. Peace be to you in Jesus’ name.
Today is Trinity Sunday, but note that this is first Sunday after Pentecost! We just celebrated the sending of the church to fulfill the mission of God and so this fits well. That the last things we engage in at the end of worship is a mini-Pentecost sending! To take the mission of the Church, because it doesn’t depend on your abilities either! This is your call story.
See how God has worked in your life and answer the question that God asks of you. “Whom shall I send on this mighty merciful mission, and who will go for us?” And we say, “thanks be to God for all of this… send me.”
St. Ignatius said, “pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on you.” This is what the disciples have done. They have done their work to the best of their ability and now they are trusting God to do the rest.
Life can be challenging. Relationship can hurt.
Read the scriptures,
Trust in God‘s ways,
Confess your sinful human will,
Turn to the Lord who is still risen and ruling.
Coming together in worship, God makes us a big-hearted church that extends His hand of love to everyone. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly.
God wants us to say with the most famous of all doubters made into believers "Come and see for yourself, God loves you."
One day, if we persevere in this “catholic faith” – the veil of our sin will be completely removed from our eyes and we too will “see Him as He is” – no longer incomprehensible – every Creed made obsolete – we will know God fully even as He fully knows us.
The really amazing thing about Pentecost was not the show. It was the gift of the Holy Spirit: the Comforter in each of us that believes. He was given then, and remains with us right up to the present moment, that God's people may be filled to overflow with faith and hope and love.
This is not the end. We have merely come to the close of Act 2 in God’s salvation story.
Struggle always has a purpose…and that purpose is typically beyond the eyes of the one enduring it. The bigger view beyond the suffering that you endure for the faith is God at work in a world to reveal the reign and rule of God.
These scenes from the life of Stephen, then, invite us not to sit in front of a movie but rather to enter into the world, knowing that God is at work in the mundane and the marvelous in our lives.
Know His voice and you know the One who “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:1-4. That is the abundant life!
Until then, we listen to His voice, we eat His food, and we follow Him as He leads us through this valley of the shadow of death into His paradise, His heaven, and experience the fullness of this ABUNDANT LIFE that has been ours all along.
Order of Worship - Click Here
A time has arrived for the Church of our Savior to be refined by the fire of COVID-19. “I have tried you in the furnace of affliction” Isaiah 48:10. The peripheral things are going to fall away during this time, because they are weak and can’t withstand the fire. What will remain will be pure. This things that we cling to will prove to be the most important to us. Through this time, the Lord will refine us, His people, for service to His glory.
“And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight” Luke 24:31, He vanished from their sight, but not from their hearing: for Paul says in Romans 10:17“faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ”.
Long before there was a Siri, Alexa, or Google, there was the risen Lord Jesus, speaking to and through people like you and me, so that all who are locked behind doors of fear, sin, sickness, and even death itself might hear his word: “Peace be with you.”
What does it look like for the Christian today to hear Jesus words and “go to Galilee” themselves? Did you notice that Jesus still refers to His disciples as family? Even after their betrayals and lack of faith. He calls them “brothers.” Easter is about welcoming others into the family of resurrection!
May God grant you true saving faith to see and hear the whole story of His almighty and ongoing presence in your daily life.
What we do every day is confess to God that we need a new heart and He does this every day, by His grace, He gives us a heart transplant.
Seeing His good work, hidden in the shame and scandal of the cross, give glory to our Father in heaven for our life – purified, preserved and glorified by the salt and the light of His Son who has called us and blessed us to point others to His good work, that they too might “give glory to your Father in heaven.”
