Find Rest

Since the beginning of March, I’ve been to 3 funerals and a wake or visitation for a fourth. The ages of the deceased were 86, 63, 44, and 15 years old. One died of old age. One died in a tragic accident. Another died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack. And one was murdered. Only one of the four was expected to be near death. The other three were shocking and completely unexpected.

In one of the funerals, the pastor said a phrase in passing that really caught my attention. He said, “This is too real.” And so death appears to be when it comes unexpected. It is real because everyone dies. But it seems too real because we’re not prepared.

I share that because it is very important to consider the state of your soul today, right now. How much time any one of us has on this Earth is known only to God. If you were to die today, what would you say to God? If you were standing there before the Lord this very afternoon, and He asked you, “Why should I let you in to my heaven?” What would you say?

Jars of Clay

2 Corinthians 4:1-12Welcome! This is a special Sunday – following our time here we are going to have a picnic at Twelve-Mile Beach and also have a number of baptisms. I love baptisms. But you know, baptisms are kind of funny things. To children they are simple – they understand that it is simply something you do after you have come to have your own personal faith in Christ; they understand that you do it because Jesus said to do it, and of course you want to do what Jesus says to do. But for many adults they are more complicated; some people have been baptized as infants, before they had faith, and so they don’t quite know what to do when they come to faith.

Competence from God

2 Corinthians 3:1-18

Welcome! Today we are going to resume our series on 2 Corinthians, looking at Chapter 3. We are going week by week, line by line, through this entire letter. Since we took two weeks off, appropriately focusing in on the death and resurrection of Christ, I thought it would be good to give you a very quick overview of some of the things we have talked about.

This letter was written by Paul to the Corinthian church, a church that Paul had spent a year and a half founding and building into, a body of believers that Paul had come to love with a special love. After he left Corinth to continue on with his missionary journey, introducing other cities to Christ, the Corinthian church began to develop a number of problems. There were problems with immorality, and even in boasting in that immorality. There were problems with their meetings – people coming just for the food, people dominating the meetings, people being disrespectful with regards to speaking out of turn and then saying that the Spirit made them do it. And there were problems with false teachers and with factions. The people divided themselves, some saying they followed one person and others another.

...And He Rose

Christ is risen!

Praise God! What a beautiful and glorious day it is. Isn’t it interesting that for so many, Easter comes in spring? (A quick check on Wikipedia shows 90% of the world’s population lives in the northern hemisphere.) Do you wonder sometimes why God made the world just the way it is? Why do we even have seasons? I know that it’s because of the tilt of the earth. But isn’t it interesting that we get to experience this cycle of rebirth every year. Through creation, we are reminded that there is new life. In winter, trees are cold and grey. With some plants, the foliage dies completely above the ground. I’ve shown a picture of the bloom of a bleeding heart before. I'm including it again below.