Tag: God

OUR BLESSED ASSURANCE

Our human sinfulness alienates us from God our Creator, but the wonderful and amazing good news is that Jesus Christ gives us everlasting salvation from this self-imposed alienation, granting us reconciliation with God and eternal heavenly life. This is our blessed assurance in Christ! Thanks be to God!

This blessed assurance of God’s grace through Jesus Christ is not merely some broad, uncertain appeal to the generic mercy of God. Rather, through the compassionate life, sacrificial death and redemptive resurrection of Jesus our Lord, we have absolute assurance of our atonement and salvation with God. What good news indeed! What amazing grace this is!

Fully acknowledging and confessing that we are sinners who have alienated ourselves from God, we believe and trust that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised for our redemption. Therefore, by the power of his Holy Spirit, we profess him as our Savior who gives us renewal of life here and heavenly life hereafter. So now, in thanksgiving and praise for Christ’s gospel of salvation and eternal life, I would like to simply bless you with the following Bible quotations:

ROMANS 10:9-13

For if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

SECOND CORINTHIANS 4:16-17

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure…

Brothers and sisters, this life is so brief, and, compared to a heavenly eternity with God, this life is really a fleeting bubble in a stream or flash of lightning in a cloud. And in response to the faith and hope and eternal salvation we have received through Jesus Christ our Lord, we seek to live this present mortal life in light of these great gifts, looking forward to the ultimate fulfillment of God’s Kingdom at the great Second Advent of Christ. With that in mind, I conclude this brief article with the words of the timeless hymn, Blessed Assurance:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Happy & Blessed Eastertide!!!  Pastor Tim

AN ALL-INCLUSIVE PRAYER FOR 2021

Almighty and wonder-full God, we are thankful for your all-encompassing, all-pervading and eternal Presence.

Our thanks and praise belong to you alone, O God of all, because you are the One Source of all being and goodness. In you we live, move and have our being, and by your sovereign grace we receive salvation, wholeness and renewal.

We thank you for the birth, life, teachings, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank you for the redemptive suffering of Jesus, endured by him from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross of Golgotha (a suffering which exposed the total depravity of our sinful human condition every step of the way), and we thank you for Jesus’ sacrificial offering of himself for our everlasting atonement and reconciliation. Moreover, we thank and praise you for the empty tomb and ascension of Jesus which declare your Final Word of life, light and love eternal.

Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — you are in charge and you lead the way. You never leave us nor forsake us, and your steadfast love endures forever. Whether we live or die, we are yours. In this life and the next, we are secure in your hands.

By your sovereign grace and divine will, you call us, claim us and draw us to yourself. You lead us on paths we do not yet know. There is a tomorrow we cannot see, and there are bends in the road we cannot know. But we know you will faithfully lead us according to your plan and purpose, because you are the Faithful One.

By your amazing grace, we travel the journey of this life. By your grace, we keep our minds focused on you. By your grace, we live God-conscious lives, a daily relationship of moment-by-moment dialogue with you. By your grace, we trust in you, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen. And by your grace, we follow you and abide in you.

By your grace, what joy and peace you give to us!!!

And in response to your infinite grace and absolute love, we live lives of worship, prayer, Holy Scripture study, tenderheartedness, lovingkindness, faithfulness, justice, hospitality and charity.

O Lord God, we pray for the world, this diverse arena you have created to work out your infinite grace and purposes for us and all things. We know that destruction and rebirth are a part of your creative will for the natural world. We know that you are in all creation and all creation is in you. Help us to use times of crisis as opportunities for serving those in need and sharing your truth.

O God, we know that you establish, disestablish and reestablish your earthly community throughout the ages. Beginnings, endings and new beginnings all flow from your creative and redemptive activity. We pray that in times of adversity you will draw us closer to you all the more.

Help us to see your Unity in the diversity of our world, O God, and help us to see that we are all united in you through your Holy Spirit. Help us to see we are of One Love and One Heart in you.

O God, for your universal glory and for our eternal benefit, help us to see and understand all of this according to the faith, hope and love of your Living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord.

You are Love… You are Sovereign… You are True…

Wonder-full God, the great “I Am” of the Scriptures, we pray all these things in the saving name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The grace and peace of Christ be with you all in 2021! Pastor Tim

IN GOD WE TRUST

When we were little children, we viewed our parents through an almost entirely positive lens.  They could do nothing wrong in our eyes.  When we became adolescents, we viewed our parents through an almost entirely negative lens.  They could do virtually nothing right in our teenage eyes.  And periodically during adolescence, teenagers will slip in and out of a childlike orientation toward their parents as they grow.  However, if we had a loving set of parents, we matured to later realize as adults that our parents are basically good and decent people despite their various imperfections.

In a similar way, our United States of America has arguably been in its adolescent phase of development in recent decades as our national life has been marked by a great deal of adolescent-like negative angst about our national history and heritage.  So while some view our USA as virtually doing no wrong in the world, there are many who now view our USA through an almost entirely negative adolescent lens. 

Of course, the truth is that there is no such thing as a perfect nation.  All nations have negative aspects to their histories and present realities.  Yes our USA is not perfect, but our history and heritage are not a horrible travesty either.  The USA has been, by far, and continues to be, by far, a great blessing to our world.  Therefore, it is indeed right that we should have a healthy sense of patriotism for everything that is good and laudable about our national founding and history and heritage.  While acknowledging the bad historical aspects, and learning from them, we uplift and give thanks every Thanksgiving for the good historical aspects of our nation above all else, and it is these many good aspects of our nation that our national symbols (especially the US Flag) point toward and represent.

As we are on the brink of the yearlong Presidential campaigning season for 2020, I believe it is important to be mindful of the fact that our national inheritance is truly a great good — although we have at times failed to live up to our highest ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers.  I also believe it is important to remember that, as our two national mottos declare, “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum” (meaning “out of many, one”).

In his book Mere Christianity, the great Christian author and lay theologian C.S. Lewis wrote the following… “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.”

As the people of the Church of Jesus Christ, we know this wonderful statement by C.S. Lewis to be most certainly true of both individuals and entire nations.  So no matter what, we recognize that it is in God that we place our trust and hope, first and foremost, because our first citizenship is in God’s universal kingdom of grace and truth.  As it says in Philippians 3:18-20… “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And we also ought to recall the following biblical admonition from Psalm 146:3-5… “Do not put your trust in rulers, in mortals, in whom there is no salvation. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. Happy are those whose salvation is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”

The font of life and salvation is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Therefore, no matter the outcome of this next year within our national life together, let us always remember our first citizenship in God and our true salvation in, with and through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In God We Trust!  Thanks and Praise Be to God!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Together in Christ,  Pastor Tim

BORN TO ETERNAL LIFE

On the Fourth Sunday of Eastertime a few weeks ago, which also was Mother’s Day, I shared a story in my sermon that many people asked me for a copy. So, I thought I’d include it in my article for the June issue of our Olive Branch newsletter.

This wonderfully imaginative story is about fraternal twin babies in their mother’s womb discussing life after delivery, and while it’s originally attributed to the great Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen, there are many different variations of it. The following is the version I used for my sermon…

One of the twin babies asked the other, “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Of course. There has to be something after delivery. And maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.” “Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?” The second said, “I don’t know exactly, but I feel there will be more light there than here. Not that faint red glow we sometimes have here. Maybe we will be able to move around more freely and journey to places we just can’t understand right now. And maybe we will have other senses that we can’t yet understand.” The first replied, “That’s absurd! Ridiculous! This umbilical cord supplies everything we need. But the umbilical cord is too short, so life after delivery is to be logically excluded.” The second insisted, “Well I think there is something, and maybe it’s just different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this umbilical cord anymore.” The first replied, “Absolute nonsense, and furthermore, delivery is the end, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but oblivion. It takes us nowhere.” “Well” said the second, “I trust in Mother, and when we get to meet her in the after-delivery, she will show us all these amazing things.” The first replied, “A Mother? You actually believe in a Mother?! That’s laughable. If a Mother exists, then where is She right now?” The second said, “She’s all around us. We are surrounded by Her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live and move and have our being. Without Her this small confined existence of ours would not, and could not, exist.” And the first said, “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.” To which the second replied, “Well sometimes, when you’re in silence, and you focus and really listen, you can feel Her Presence.”

This ‘embryonic’ mortal existence we are journeying through is temporary, and one of my preferred terms for our physical death from this world is “Born to eternal life.” And you know it’s been said that we are spiritual beings having a human experience — an experience that is so very brief in the grand scheme of things.

However, the good news of the gospel of Christ our Good Shepherd leads us to the supreme joy and hope of heaven. Therefore, the reality of heaven (an eternal existence of true and never-ending happiness) is a central part of the honest-to-goodness gospel of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So simply because we live in a cynical and jaded time, we as Christians should not shy away from or downplay this great Easter truth and grace of eternal resurrection life. Rather we should embrace this heavenly faith, and then live lives of compassion and service in the name of Jesus. Because Christ is risen and because we too shall arise through him, we must live our lives right now according to the Word of the Lord in Micah chapter 6…

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

Jesus is risen beyond this impermanent existence, and we are his sheep who are to hear him and follow him for the sake of a better world for all people and for an eternal heavenly future by his grace.

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim