Saying Grace: Hope!

Saying Grace:
Week #7 – Hope

All Christians Should Graduate from Hope College

Not the four-year liberal arts school in Holland, Michigan whose seal is shown here (although I highly recommend that place to students seeking a liberal arts experience in a Christian context); rather, living as Subjects in the Kingdom of the Author of Hope should produce in us an anchor of hope which steadies us through the storms of life.

The Hope College seal should encourage us. The Latin motto translates to “Hope in God” and comes from the cited, Scripture verse, Psalm 42:5. And then there is the symbol, the anchor. Having both emigrated to North America by sailing ship from the Netherlands and settling on the shores of Lake Michigan, founders of the school knew first hand the necessity of an anchor to steady and secure the ship. Their anchor, their hope, was – and is – Jesus Christ. True in 1866, True in 2013 and forever.

Hope in God. Make “hope” a verb; the noun will follow.

News & Announcements

• PRAYER GATHERING @ 7:00 p.m., Wednesday
• Advocate Healthcare Prayer Partner for May: Acute Rehab Unit @ Bromenn
• Financial class signup sheet in foyer.
• The Story ESV Bible: This is one of the fastest sellers in all of Christian publishing right now and a great way to introduce a friend or family member to The Story of God’s Love. $10 per copy; available in foyer. Profits to missions.
• An Interestingly Biblical Fundraiser
  Our friends at White Oak Vineyards, Rudi and Mary Hoffman, truly understand our mission to the Basque and the spiritual dryness of Europe. (Rudi,the vintner, hails from Bavaria.) They have designated and discounted two of their wines, a red and a white, to be specially labeled in support of our trip. Ask a Basque Team Member if you are interested in some Itzuli wine. Suggested donation: $20/bottle. (Donate responsibly!)
• Baptism Service Tonight
  Responding to the Spirit of God, Jenny Spencer has asked to be baptized. Come support our sister’s commitment to our Lord. Brief service begins @ 7:00.
• Save the dates for VBS 2013!
  Sunday, August 4 – Thursday, August 8
  Kelly and Crew Cooking Up a Great Plan.
  Ask her how you might help.

Saying Grace: Faith!

Saying Grace:
Week #6 – Faith
The Substance & Evidence that yield hope and love

It’s Plowing Time: Set the Eyes of Your Heart on Jesus, the Founder and Perfector of our Faith

“Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62

“So, you know what to do, right?” Jim asked, hoping he didn’t have to stop what he was doing to give me a lesson in how to moldboard plow a field. “Sure,” said I, hoping I could figure it out and not have to admit that I had lived 16 years in farm country and not learned how to perform this most fundamental act in farming. In the end, it took more time for post-mistake training than if I had merely swallowed my pride to begin with. Pride – the complete anti-God state of mind – kept me from humbling myself to learn from a master. Pride – the “Great Sin” – meant that I put my faith in my ignorance. Pride – the Dishonest Whisperer – put a crooked furrow in the field and scratches and dents on the new John Deere 4000.

How could I, someone who knew so little about operating a tractor and plow, be so hesitant to admit it? How could any of us – the clay of the Master Potter – decide that faith in ourselves, faith in other failed humans, faith in failed human institutions (including the church), faith in continually evolving hypotheses and revisionist histories, and even faith in faith – how could any of us decide that we know better than Jesus. He tells it like it is when he says that If we try to keep our lives, we will lose them; if we lose our lives for Him, we will gain them. It’s that easy. It’s that hard.

News & Announcements

• Welcome Back, Matt Owens! Matt is a former Jakester who just graduated from Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, AL and is headed to the Northeast to work in a church. Matt will share with us lessons learned while serving in Ireland and getting that M.Div. degree.
• PRAYER GATHERING @ 7:00 p.m., Wednesday
• Advocate Healthcare Prayer Partner for May: Acute Rehab Unit @ Bromenn
• The Story ESV Bible: This is one of the fastest sellers in all of Christian publishing right now and a great way to introduce a friend or family member to The Story of God’s Love. $10 per copy; available in foyer. Profits to missions.
• “Do”athlon: Registration starts @ 8:00 this Saturday at White Oak Vineyards, 8644 E 2100 North Rd Carlock, IL 61725, (309) 376-3027. Bicycle tour starts @ 9:00. If you aren’t biking or running, we would love to have you just hanging around and lunching with us. Tell Chelsea or M.C. if you want the lunch buffet.
• Financial class signup sheet in foyer.
• Save the dates for VBS 2013!
  Sunday, August 4 – Thursday, August 8
  Kelly and Crew Cooking Up a Great Plan.
  Ask her how you might help.

Saying Grace: Judgment!

Saying Grace:
Week #4 – Judgment

The Day of the Locust/The Day of the Lord

Yom yhwh

“Woe to you who desire the Day of the LORD! Why would you have the Day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light.” ~ Amos 5:18

Judgment; specifically, wishing that others would experience God’s judgment. It may happen when we are terribly frustrated… or angry… or fearful. It may happen if we see our loved ones wounded by another. It may happen when we see or hear the God we love being denied, discredited, or defamed. Or, it may happen when we see our society eroding in ways and by means which might have seemed unthinkable in the past.

Through all this, words have taken on meanings and/or nuances which heretofore could not have been. The very purpose of this “Saying Grace” series is to examine words we commonly use in the life of faith and to understand that these words should evoke awe and wonder, not a shrug of the shoulders. So far, we have discussed grace, mercy, forgiveness, and praise. Today we talk about judgment.

The prophet Amos gives us an insight which, if we are wise, we will adopt as our own: NEVER call for God’s judgment. If we do, we have usurped our humble estate. Rather, we should pray for mercy. For ourselves. For those we may despise. For ourselves that we may not despise.

The prophet Joel is going to show us a picture of God’s judgment… and His mercy. Be open to awe.

News & Announcements:

• PRAYER GATHERING @ 7:00 p.m., Wednesday
• Advocate Healthcare Prayer Partner for April: Acute Rehab Unit @ Bromenn
• The Story Bible: This is one of the fastest sellers in all of Christian publishing right now and a great way to introduce a friend or family member to The Story of God’s Love. $10 per copy; available in foyer. Profits to missions.
• And the 3 shall become 2! … May 18 “dualathlon” (brochures in foyer) … Take a ride… take a jog
• We prayed in the garden last Wednesday night… Much laughter, deep joy, heartrending concerns, love in abundance. All encouraged to deepen their ties to Christ and each other on Wednesday nights @ 7:00. Bring the stuff of your life and lay it on the altar with us.

Saying Grace: Praise!

Saying Grace:
Week # 4– Praise

Oops! Did Jesus misquote Scripture?

Read Matthew 21:16 and then the verse He references, Psalm 8:2.

To help us sort this out, let’s examine this verse from the Latin Vulgate version, an ancient manuscript which we can actually decipher somewhat, if we try:

Ex ore infantium et lactentium perfecisti laudem propter inimicos tuos, ut destruas inimicum et ultorem.

This is rich, for with even the most cursory reading we can see Latin words with direct English derivatives. Now, please consider these in particular: “perfecisti laudem.”

Writers learn that verbs enliven ideas. Think of “perfect” as a verb, not an adjective, and let this verse spring to life. Think of “laud” and recognize that it has become a rather lost word in our vernacular, but that it describes an elevation of praise beyond our normally weak and inadequate expressions. (I encourage us all to use “laud” in conversation this week as we speak of God. Let’s bring this word back!)

This verse – and Jesus’ reference to it – teach us something fundamental about our condition: as babes we were ordained to praise God. Kids get it and they get it from God. Jesus taught this over and over. Therefore, I ask this question:

Even though we were made for this from birth, why doesn’t praise flow from us more readily?

News & Announcements:

• PRAYER GATHERING @ 7:00 p.m., Wednesday
• Advocate Healthcare Prayer Partner for April: Same Day Services @ Eureka Hospital
• This is one of the fastest sellers in all of Christian publishing right now and a great way to introduce a friend or family member to The Story of God’s Love. $10 per copy; available in foyer. Profits to missions.
• Theology Pub Gathers Tonight … 7:00 @ Destihl … Bring your brain and your Bible to discuss justice, mercy and retribution as presented in the Scriptures.
• First ever Jake TRYathlon May 18 (brochures in foyer) … Take a dip… take a ride… take a jog

Saying Grace: Forgiveness!

Saying Grace:
Week #3 – Forgiveness!
(because The Cross is sufficient)

We must remember this:

A.) Christ became what we are, so that…

B.) … we might become what he is.

On the surface, this claim seems brash and bold and the opposite of humility. But, this is The Gospel, The Story. This is Forgiveness personified in Jesus, ordained by the Father, delivered by the Spirit to our neediness.

Consider the power of these verses according to the same twofold structure presented above:

A.) For our sake he (God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin,

B.) so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (II Corinthians 5:21)

A.) Though he (Jesus) was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor,

B.) so that by his poverty you might become rich. (II Corinthians 8:9)

This is immense. The Perfect GodMan forgives us all our shortcomings, intentional and unintentional. He does so by identifying with us in our lives. As John says, “He came in the likeness of sinful flesh and pitched his tent with ours.” But this is only the beginning, for we also learn that he substituted himself for us by taking on the punishment we deserve. Peter, whose sin against Jesus was so raw in his memory, teaches that Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross. Because of this, we participate in Christ’s new life and creation. “As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”

Immense. Forgiveness. Immense forgiveness. Enough.

News & Announcements

• PRAYER GATHERING @ 7:00 p.m., Wednesday
• Advocate Healthcare Prayer Partner for April: Same Day Services @ Eureka Hospital
• This is one of the fastest sellers in all of Christian publishing right now and a great way to introduce a friend or family member to The Story of God’s Love. $10 per copy; available in foyer. Profits to missions.
• First ever Jake TRYathlon May 18 (brochures in foyer) … Take a dip… take a ride… take a jog

Saying Grace: Mercy!

Saying Grace: Week #2 – Mercy!

Have you watched “Vikings”?

Sue is a proud Norwegian, I a proud Swede. Never the Scandinavian cousins shall agree on which heritage our kids and grandkids should claim over the other. As we settled in to watch the new History Channel series, “The Vikings,” we anticipated only a bit of roughness to barely cloud the exploits of our intrepid ancestors.

Sue watched for three minutes; I stuck it out for most of the first episode. It’s not that it was poorly made or even inaccurate; quite the opposite, it was graphically accurate and full of the truth about just how brutal these ancient tribes were.

You may not be of Viking descent, but in all probability there‘s a people group in your ancient past who pillaged and plagued other people. They did it to survive. They did it to prosper. They did it to exercise power over perceived weakness. Mostly, they did it because that’s what tribes and clans did.

Ruthless power. Hatred. Envy. Greed. Lust. Slander.

As old as time immemorial. As new as today.

Enter Jesus.

Enter Mercy.

Enter the Kingdom of God.

I submit that without Jesus, civilization would have grown increasingly barbaric and brutal. We would not have much in the way of education, medical care, or even travel for pleasure. And, yet, His was a Severe Mercy. We live Under that Mercy. Stay tuned…

News & Announcements:

• PRAYER GATHERING @ 7:00 p.m., Wednesday
• Advocate Healthcare Prayer Partner for April: Same Day Services @ Eureka Hospital
• Money = the #1 cause of marital strife (and a big problem for singles, too) We have the expertise in house to hold a series of financial classes on Sunday mornings. Please tell Josh Spencer, Chris Kaufman or Bill Matthews if you are interested. (Daycare will be provided – FREE – now that’s a good financial decision!)
• First ever Jake TRYathlon May 18 (brochures in foyer) … Take a dip… take a ride… take a jog
• One person’s rummage is another person’s treasure: Bless another person and the Basque people by rummaging through your stuff and bringing items to the church next Friday around 6:00. And because many hands make light work, how about pitching in to help on Friday evening or Sat. 8:00-2:00?