The Greatest Rescue

 Psalm 27

Welcome! Today, in addition to a short teaching, we will spend time remembering the Lord with the bread and the cup, as He instructed His disciples to do, and we will also have a sharing time where everyone is invited to share what the Lord has been teaching them and working around and through them in the past month. First, as we have been doing this year on communion Sundays, we will go through a Psalm together. Today we will look at Psalm 27.

Psalm 27 was written by David. David most likely wrote it reflecting on recent experiences he had gone through or was going through, especially including dealing with enemies, and although you may not have any earthly enemies you are dealing with, one of the wonderful things about the Psalms is how they find express truths packed with emotion that can be expressed by anyone, no matter what they are or are not going through. The Psalms speak to our heads through our hearts, and since the Lord wants us to worship Him with our entire hearts, souls, minds, and strength, it is good for us to not only read the Psalms, but agree with them, to say, “Yes, Lord, me too!” And this is what I would like us to do with Psalm 27 this morning. You may find some verses resonate with you more than others. If so, that’s great! Just make a note of what verses do speak to you, and use these as a basis for how you pray before we take communion. Here is how the Psalm begins:

Love, Actually

Today, we reach the end of the relationship series we started back in February. It has been an encouragement to me, and I hope also to you. If you missed one of the messages, please go back and listen online. Right now, we will complete the series looking at Love Actually. Let’s pray:

Father God, you are love. We’re all seeking and searching for love. We all want to be filled. We don’t want loneliness. I pray that You would speak to us about love, real love. Show us actually what love is. May we not be tricked by counterfeits, may we not yield to deceitful things which may satisfy for a moment, but are burned up like chaff, making us feel even more empty and discouraged than before. We need you. Speak to us, fill us, and transform us, I pray. In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Did you know there was a movie with this title, Love Actually? It was released back in 2003, and it was billed as “the ultimate romantic comedy.” It had about a dozen main characters. If you can imagine a 2 hour movie with a dozen main characters, well the story can’t help but come across as muddled and shallow. Worse than a shallow story though, the writer and director’s treatment of love itself is disappointingly shallow.

Love in Dating (and Waiting)

Welcome to part 6 in our 7-part relationship series. The entire series has been a great time of focusing on God’s love for us and our relationship to Him. We’ve also focused in depth on our relationships with others. So far, we’ve talked about love in marriage, love in family, and love in friendship. If you’re interested in those earlier topics, I encourage you to go back and listen at the message center on the church website. They all are good messages, but in particular if you have family relationship issues or friend relationship issues, I strongly recommend those two messages. (And for those who are wondering: no I did not happen to give either of those messages.)

Today’s title is “Love in Dating (and Waiting).” There are some parallels with the Love in Marriage message. If today’s message speaks to you, I also encourage you to go back and listen to that message as well.

If we let it, this dating and waiting period of our lives has the possibility to become a very anxious time. Doesn’t it? Before I was married, I remember a lot of anxiety in this area. Both before I became a Christian and after I became Christian.

Love In Friendship

Welcome! Today, as we continue our series on relationships, we will focus on friendship. As I was preparing this message, my thoughts turned to the old comic strips by Charles Schultz, Peanuts. Schultz was a Christian, and he had a wonderful way of poking into topics that nobody else would ever touch. Today, as you can see, we have about 35 college students joining us on their spring break to reach out on campus, and if you are one of these students, we just want you to know that we so appreciate you and that we will be praying for you this week. We know that you will be doing a lot of different evangelism techniques, including so-called “cold turkey” evangelism, and so we thought the following comic strip from Peanuts would help by giving you some pointers, some tips on things to say when you are knocking on doors.

Here is a summary of the comic. It features Sally; Charlie Brown’s little sister, and a red-haired boy that is not a regular to the Peanuts universe. The boy has just knocked on the front door of the Browns’ house, and Sally has answered the door.