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This week’s final thought gives us some input on what happens when we have questions about Jesus.

Hear the whole message here.

Have you ever felt that you were misunderstood? If so, you’re in good company, as there was probably no one who was more misunderstood than Jesus. Check out this final thought to learn a little more.

and if you’d like to hear the whole message, click here.

In this week’s message we looked at Matthew 18 starting with verse 15. In this passage Jesus deals with two things every Christian will be tested on many times: forgiveness and dealing with conflict. Here is the final thought video for the message.

If you’d like to hear the whole message, click here!

Each week as part of our prerecorded service, I make a short video with a take away from the week’s message. This week’s message was called A Different Kingdom. Here is the Final Thought.

If you want to see the whole message, click here.

Announcements and Pastoral Prayer

Suggested Worship Music
I Need Thee Every Hour

Suggested Worship Music
In The Garden

Intercessory Prayer
Contact Pastor Dave with any prayer requests

Suggested Worship Music
Lord Listen to Your Children Praying

Suggested Worship Music
Sweet Hour of Prayer

Scripture Reading
Isaiah 55

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
    listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.
⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.
⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendor.”

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
¹² You will go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.
¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
    and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
    for an everlasting sign,
    that will endure forever.”

Sermon God’s Eye View

Suggested Worship Music
What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Final Thought

Here is the sermonette Pastor Dave preached at our Thanksgiving Eve service.

It seems every day I see something online at one point or another that makes me want to fight. Not physically, that’s never been my style, but I want to whip out the poison pen (keyboard) and start throwing rhetoric missiles and logic bombs and overriding that impulse can bring me a lot of stress—occasionally so much stress that I give in to it. Other days I wonder why am I holding back?

The thing is I am a Christian and a church leader. My Lord and master tells me people will know I belong to Him by the way I love, and love probably doesn’t include rhetoric missiles and logic bombs. It’s times like this, that I realize it’s probably best to stay in my lane and share the Gospel, after all, that’s what I am called to, right? 

But wait. I don’t just get fired up for no reason. I get fired up because my heart breaks over situations and things I see happening that need to stop and stop yesterday. Isn’t righting wrongs in the lane of someone who follows Jesus? The Bible tells us to speak the truth in love. Of course the issue is when I do speak truth, there is always someone who wants to denigrate it. Truth has gotten really skewed in our world in recent years, and I suspect, barring divine intervention, this will not get better. Am I sinning by not contradicting some of this stuff? After all the Bible says if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, it’s a sin. Is what I call staying in my lane really just me copping out and staying silent when I should speak? 

I wish I had easy answers to all of this. I know sometimes what makes me want to lash out is not righteous indignation, it’s pride. “If I don’t defend this position, people will think I can’t, and I can, and they will think they beat me…” You know the drill. Sure there are a lot of hurtful people out there, that probably have a few logic bombs coming, but Jesus told me to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me. To be clear, I don’t necessarily feel persecuted, but there are a lot of times when I can see the people who would stand against me when that time comes. Should I be trying to knock some of this stuff down, and will there come a time when I wish I had, if I don’t?

I think I’ve come to the point of believing very few minds will ever be changed on social media, and very few people are argued into life change. Is my hesitance to speak out, cowardice or pragmatic? Even as I write this another thought comes to mind. Do I believe the Gospel is enough? I know it was enough to change me and my whole perspective on life and I know it still works. Maybe rather than building rhetoric missiles and logic bombs, I should be more actively sharing the truth that sets men free, knowing full well that not everyone will except it, but realizing some will and they are worth the effort. Maybe I’m not so conflicted after all. 

We still have free speech and freedom of religion, we’re still a democracy (yes I know it’s really a constitutional republic), and we still have the right to vote, at least for today, so the best way to change things is still to change the populace. Changing the populace requires changing hearts and minds and I have already established, at least in my own mind, that that won’t happen with online rhetoric and logic. That happens when the Lord Jesus comes into your heart. This then is the direction I will choose, to lay down my weapons and take up my cross. 

Feeling conflicted? Maybe this is your path too. 

Here is a new video message I made for our church. It deals with the gifts God has given us and how we can use them to serve others.

The other day when I was out on my prayer walk, I saw all these acorns laying on the road. I had just read Jesus’ Parable of the Sower and before I know it, this whole story came together on my mind. I came back, wrote it down and spent a couple of days worth of spare time illustrating it and animating it. This is a parable about the church and our part in it as believers. It’s a simple story to help explain something more complicated. I pray it blesses you.

Lately I have been thinking about my childhood quite a bit. I have marveled at how the things I dreamed of as a child have become my life’s work in a way I never would have predicted back then. You see, I’m a pastor and when I was a child that wasn’t even on the radar. As a matter of fact for most of my life, that was one of the last things I ever thought I would be. Growing up we weren’t church folks. A friend of mine growing up played the piano for her church on a regular basis. As a result she was at church every Sunday, which to my preadolescent mind seemed like cruel and unusual punishment.

My earliest memories of church were pretty disjointed. I have a vivid memory of creating a craft by pressing leaves between two sheets of wax paper with an iron (don’t worry, the teacher used the iron), and of a little boy who had a few odd bald spots on his head because he didn’t sit still while the barber was giving him a buzz cut. I remember going to vacation Bible school more because of making friends with people from other schools who didn’t know I was a bullying target than anything spiritual. More than anything, I remember the song. You know the one. The first one they teach you. The one even the most marginally churched kids (like me) learned.

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong.
Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me,
Yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.

It’s the first song you learn in Sunday school, I probably knew it by the time I was three and we didn’t even go to church regularly) and here I am, a pastor, life transformed by Jesus, Masters of Divinity Degree, working on my doctorate, and after all of that, I am struck by an inescapable conclusion.

The first thing I learned is the most important. More than anything else in the whole world, the most important thing you can learn is this song and the facts that inspired it. Jesus loves me, I know this because the God of the universe gave us a book that all points to that very fact. I was made by Him and I am His, and in this world I have nothing to fear if He is with me, because He is more powerful than all things. I can place my faith and trust in Him, and live forever and the Bible shows me the way. Jesus loves me. It’s the most important thing I can know.

And He loves you too!

God bless you,
Pastor Dave