Seize the Moment – Day 993
Embrace God’s Grace!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, December 5.
Apart from God’s grace, not a one of us could call Heaven our eternal home. It is God’s grace that provides the solution to sin – “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
Ezra described Israel’s return from exile as “a brief moment grace” (Ezra 9:8). When he was confronted with the remnant’s sin of intermarriage with the Canaanites, he wasted no time to entreat God, and the people gathered around him in a large assembly weeping bitterly over their sin (Ezra 9:5-10:1). After three days, all the men of Israel gathered to Ezra the priest, who said to them in Ezra 10:10-12:
“You have been unfaithful and have married foreign wives adding to the guilt of Israel. Now therefore, make confession to the Lord God of your fathers and do His will; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” Then all the assembly replied with a loud voice, “That’s right! As you have said, so it is our duty to do.”
Their confession of sin came with their willingness to repent. God’s grace to the people of Israel is the same call to us today, as commanded by Paul in Titus 2:11-14:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
The grace of God always comes with a reward – “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23b). Ezra embraced grace, so should we in our lives.
Seize the moment and embrace the grace of God by walking closely with Jesus!
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
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Advent 2022 – Week 2
Welcome Home: Inviting Jesus to Make My Heart His Home!
A Home of Love
Kevin Stonerock to share about and play special song: Black Diamonds.
This song speaks to a situation that has been playing out for generations, in many shapes and sizes. There are the lost stories of the Civil War and World War I veterans who came home. There are the whispered stories of the World War II & Korea War veterans who came home. There are the loud stories that I grew up with of the Vietnam veterans who were homeless and struggling with substance abuse. There are the sensational stories of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans coming home lost to themselves and their families, with devastating suicide rates.
These stories of veterans coming home from war and struggling to transition back into their families and communities have a theme – the soldier may have left the war to come home, but the war didn’t leave them just because they came home. We’ve said, “Welcome home!” Now let’s welcome soldiers home from war in a way that invites them to experience the qualities of a home of faith that will be healing to them and to all our families. A home characterized by the four virtues of the Advent season – hope, love, joy, and peace.
There is a lot of preparation that goes into a homecoming, for both those at home and the soldier who is returning. The home itself must be actively prepared to be a home of hope, love, joy, and peace, just as the soldier must intentionally work on transforming his mind and heart from a posture of hyper-vigilance (called “Battle Mind”) to being in a posture of rest. Jesus wants to make His home in each of our hearts and in all our homes, and it is His presence in our hearts and homes that transforms us.
This Christmas, I am inviting you to surrender your heart to be Christ’s home so that your home may become a home of hope, love, joy, and peace – a place where the weary of mind and body, a place where the heavy-burdened of heart and soul, can come and find rest (Matthew 11:28-30). If you want to transform your home, you must start with your own heart – you must become a person of hope, love, joy, and peace.
Last week we focused on transforming our hearts into homes of hope, today, the message will focus how our faith invites Jesus Christ to transform our hearts into homes of love. Our Scripture for this message is Ephesians 3:14-19:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Let us pray and ask the Holy Spirit to fill us to all the fullness of God so that we may know the love of Christ and be transformed by it, so that we, and our homes, may be homes of love.
The love of God is transformational. When Jesus Christ makes your heart His home through faith, then you become rooted and grounded in love. In other words, the love of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, transforms your story – God changes you and begins the process of changing your life, your marriage, your parenting style, your motivations for work, and your inspirations for living. Our entire life becomes a dialogue about the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love because we are supposed to bring the love of God into every area of our life.
Here’s the secret to all of this, you don’t know something until you put it into practice. Teachers know that you haven’t learned the material until you can teach it. By the same principle, you can’t know the love of God until you express it, share it, give it in each circumstance of your life. The transformative quality of God’s love is a positive feedback loop. As you grow in spiritual maturity and learn more about God’s character and His love, you can ‘teach’ or demonstrate His love more and more through your actions. God transforms your understanding of His love as you grow in Christ, and that doesn’t mean that God or His love has changed because He is constant. Rather, it demonstrates the importance of our progressive sanctification. We must pursue the relationship to experience the fullness of the transformation so that we “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.”
You are transformed by the love of Christ because the Holy Spirit fills you to the fullness of God. This is when your home becomes a space of grace for returning soldiers, when you are a person in an ongoing conversation with God about His life and what His love looks like in every situation of your life. You are transformed by love by practicing the love you were first given, and, in doing so, you become a loving person. It’s kind of like this, if you are looking for friends, be one. If you are looking for good people, be one. Love transforms you through the giving and receiving of love. It’s not a theory, it’s an action that is constantly explored, a way that is walked, a life that is lived. If you don’t know how to react to a situation or person – love! It’s the golden rule at work, as Jesus taught us in Matthew 7:12, “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
The love of God is not transactional – it is freely given! The motivation for the Christmas gift of Jesus Christ is explained in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Our salvation is an action of love. You could not be saved today, if God had not taken His essence of love and expressed it in action. You are transformed because God first acted toward you, as Paul explained in Ephesians 2:1-10:
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Therefore, because of God’s love, you are to walk in the good works of love – the activity of our salvation should be an expression of that same love He first gave you. Just like we give gifts at Christmas because God for gave to us on that first Christmas, our lives become love because we are transformed by His first love! The beloved of Jesus said in 1 John 4:7-5:4:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.
The love we are to fill our homes with is the love that overcomes the world; it is the love of God that comes through faith, not the love of the world that comes through the flesh; it is a fruit of the Spirit’s work in you, bringing God’s fullness into your life (Galatians 5:22-23). If you want to make your home a safe place for the soldiers to come and find rest for their heavy hearts and weary minds, then don’t give them a counterfeit love for which they must perform. Rather, give them the love that flows from the throne of grace.
When we give this to one another, then we proclaim the gospel of peace for all the world to see, as Jesus taught in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Welcome home our soldiers by giving them a soft place to land, a space for grace to experience the security of love that will help them transform from being in a hyper-vigilant battle mind, always looking for the worst in other people, watchful for attacks and ambushes. Help them be restful at home, always looking to be their very best for other people, as they experience the peace and rest of a love that cannot be earned, and one that will never end because of that first Christmas gift. As the song O Holy Night teaches us, “Truly He taught us to love one another / His law is love and His gospel is peace / Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother / And in His name all oppression shall cease / Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, / Let all within us praise His holy name.”
Never forget, we can’t love with God’s love until we experience God’s love personally. I pray that you will accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and begin to experience the love of God for yourself personally; that’s where it all begins for each of us. For those who have already experienced God’s love, I pray that your home may become a great laboratory of learning to love as God first loved you. May you be transformed as you put into practice God’s Christmas gift to you and to me, and to all of humanity.
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Seize the Moment – Day 991
Today’s hymn focus will be
Angels We Have Heard On High
Luke 2:13-14 (NASB95)
“ And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
Inspired by the French Christmas Carol “Les Anges dans nos campagnes” (translated means ‘the angels in our countryside’) James Chadwick did not specifically translate, but rather drafted a new set of lyrics that stay true in reflecting the original theme. The new version was shared in 1862 and quickly became popular in Western England. He did maintain the music of the original French song.
The hymn’s theme is a Nativity narrative taken from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, starting with the moment the angels appeared to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem and the instructions on how they will find the Christ Child.
Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains
And the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strains
During this advent season, we need to wake up and purpose in our hearts that each and every day we will proclaim glory to God in the highest and allow our lives to reflect His light and love in everything we do and say.
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Ken reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
If you would like to listen to this song, click on this link:
Angels We Have Heard On High
sweetly singing o’er the plains,
and the mountains in reply
echoing their joyous strains.
Gloria in excelsis Deo,
gloria in excelsis Deo.
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be
which inspire your heav’nly song? [Refrain]
him whose birth the angels sing;
come, adore on bended knee
Christ the Lord, the newborn King. [Refrain]
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Seize the Moment – Day 990
Live a Holy Life!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, December 2.
Throughout the Bible, God calls His people to be holy – set apart from the impurities of the world for His divine purposes (1 John 2:15-17). God is not wanting to rain on your parade, He is desiring to reign over your life. The sacrifices you are asked to make may not make sense at the time, but it comes down to trusting God and that His ways are right and true, every time.
It is hard for us to understand why Ezra was so upset upon his discovery of these intermarriages, but it is important to understand that this was about Israel’s religious purity, not the wives’ ethnicity. It was Israel’s disobedience that led them into captivity and caused the destruction of Jerusalem and the first temple, in the first place, so this was not a minor issue; this was life or death. Disobedience to God always comes with consequences – “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). Ezra could not let sin slide, nor should we in our lives.
Seize the moment and live a holy life by walking closely with Jesus – “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6; cf. 1 Peter 2:19).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
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Seize the Moment – Day 989
Boast in the Lord!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, December 1.
Does God get glory from your success? That all depends on whom you boast! Ezra was caught in a catch-22 as he prepared to make the four-month journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, which covered approximately nine hundred miles of dangerous terrain. The priest describes his predicament in Ezra 8:21-23:
Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him.” So we fasted and sought our God concerning this matter, and He listened to our entreaty.
Ezra was an expert in God’s Word, so, in doing what he did, he was doing more than trying to save face with Artaxerxes the king of Persia. He was exercising his faith in God’s promise from Deuteronomy 20:1-4, which had been invoked previously by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 31:1-3). Ezra knew that the victory belonged to God, not in horses or chariots. Ezra 8:31 records the fulfillment of the promise in Ezra’s decision to entreat the Lord rather than the king for the caravan’s safety, “Then we journeyed from the river Ahava on the twelfth of the first month to go to Jerusalem; and the hand of our God was over us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambushes by the way.”
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
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Seize the Moment – Day 988
The Hand of God is Upon Me!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, November 30.
What does it mean that the hand of God is upon a person? The Bible teaches us that God is spirit (John 4:24), so when the Bible states that the hand of God is upon someone it is not talking about a literal body part. Rather, it is using anthropomorphic imagery to illustrate God being on the side of His people to guide them and to bring about success in their work.
The following three verses emphasize how the hand of God was upon Ezra as he led the second wave of exiles back to Jerusalem:
- Ezra 7:6, “This Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given; and the king granted him all he requested because the hand of the Lord his God was upon him.”
- Ezra 7:9, “For on the first of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, because the good hand of his God was upon him.”
- Ezra 7:28b, “Thus I was strengthened according to the hand of the Lord my God upon me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.”
Ezra was essential to the plans of God, but apart from God’s hand being upon him no amount of support from King Artaxerxes (11-25) or his family lineage as a priest (1-5) would have brought about such success. The key to Ezra’s success was his faith, as emphasized in Ezra 7:10, “For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” Ezra walked hand in hand with God so it’s no wonder that God’s hand was upon him!
Seize the moment and put your hand into the hand of God almighty (Isaiah 41:13; 42:6).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
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Seize the Moment – Day 987
Pray for those in Authority!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, November 29.
Are you actively praying for the leaders of your community, state, and nation? Paul exhorts his protégé in 1 Timothy 1:1-2, “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.”
Ezra 6 concludes the first half of the book as the temple was completed in 516 BC, seventy years to the date of its destruction – “This temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar; it was the sixth year of the reign of King Darius” (Ezra 6:15). Whereas Solomon’s temple stood for nearly four hundred years (959-586 BC), the second temple would stand for nearly six hundred years, until its destruction by the Romans in AD 70.
Just as in any major building project, the rebuilding of the temple was a coordinated effort of many involved parties and key players (Ezra 6:13-14). In Ezra 5, Tattenai, the governor of the province, wrote a letter to King Darius to know how the Persian Empire wanted him to handle the Israelites in Jerusalem. Because “the eye of their God” was upon them (Ezra 5:5), Darius wrote a decree to Tattenai to stop opposing their efforts, but rather to support the work in significant ways (Ezra 6:1-12).
The remnant knew that this was a miraculous answer to prayer (22), which protected their lives and provided the remnant with everything they needed to finish the temple. Upon doing so, they “celebrated the dedication of this house of God” (16-18). This chapter of Israel’s history closes with the exiles celebrating Passover to the glory of God (19-22).
Seize the moment and pray for all who are in authority! You never know how God will answer your prayers. This is our greatest civic responsibility.
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
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Seize the Moment – Day 986
The Eye of the Lord Watches Over Me!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, November 28.
You’ve heard parents say, “I’m keeping an eye on my children.” You can feel the love and concern for their children’s safety in this statement. This nurturing image is used in the Bible to express God’s concern for His people.
After the previous chapter’s broad stroke of time, Ezra 5 details a specific moment of history – approximately forty years since the proclamation of Cyrus the king of Persia (Ezra 1:1), a time of political upheaval in the Persian Empire. The remnant no longer had a copy of the decree that authorized their work in Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, so a letter had to be written from Tattenai, the governor of the province, to the new king of Persia, Darius (3-17).
Ezra 5:5 demonstrates the remnant’s faith in God, “But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until a report could come to Darius, and then a written reply be returned concerning it.” They kept working because they believed God was watching over them. The anthropomorphic phrase, “the eye of their God” is also found in Deuteronomy 11:12 regarding God’s protection of the Promised Land; in 1 Kings 9:3 regarding God’s care for Solomon’s Temple; and in Psalm 33:18 of God’s love for His children (cf. Job 36:7).
What a beautiful truth that God is watching over us to protect and provide for us. I recently heard a man declare this truth in song at a funeral for his beloved family member, “For His eye, His eye is on the sparrow, and I know, I know He watches over me” (based on Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 6:26). That comforts me!
Seize the moment and rest in God’s watchful gaze – He has His eye on you because He cares about you, so cast all your anxiety on Him (1 Peter 5:7).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
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Advent 2022 – Week 1
Welcome Home: Inviting Jesus to Make My Heart His Home!
“A Home of Hope”
He was fresh out of the military and multiple deployments oversees. He saw ghosts during the day and fought them in his sleep. He saw the eyes. The eyes that never blinked. The eyes he would never forget. The eyes that looked back at him every time he shaved. They weren’t his own, but they were the eyes through which he experienced the world. The drinking helped, but it was never enough. He was desperate for peace but found none. He told himself he was unforgiveable for what he had done; what those eyes saw him do. What he knew he was guilty of. His buddy told him that he had found some peace after becoming a part of a group that met a couple times a week. He said they talked about real life, prayed about real struggles, read from the Bible, and found real answers, helped each other out in real ways. He was happy for his buddy. God knows everyone needs a little peace in this hell of a world we live in. But they weren’t him and they hadn’t done what he did. He had to be cursed because it sure did feel like his demons were getting the best of him. He called up his buddy, not knowing where else to turn. It was late, really late, he couldn’t sleep, he didn’t want to sleep. Nights were hard. His buddy answered the phone. They were going to meet at Steak-n-Shake in 30 minutes. His buddy told him that he had been praying for him and that he had been waiting for this moment. He told him that he had some good news to share with him. God knows he needed some good news. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take of this hopeless existence. He walked out the door to go meet with his buddy, hoping to feel hope for the future again.[1]
This is a situation that has been playing out for generations, in many shapes and sizes. There are the lost stories of the Civil War and World War I veterans who came home. There are the whispered stories of the World War II & Korea War veterans who came home. There are the loud stories that I grew up with of the Vietnam veterans who were homeless and struggling with substance abuse. There are the sensational stories of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans coming home lost to themselves and their families, with devastating suicide rates.
These stories of veterans coming home from war and struggling to transition back into their families and communities have a theme – the soldier may have left the war to come home, but the war didn’t leave them just because they came home. We’ve said, “Welcome home!” Now let’s welcome soldiers home from war in a way that invites them to experience the qualities of a home of faith that will be healing to them and to all our families – a home, which is characterized by hope, love, joy, and peace.
There is a lot of preparation that goes into a homecoming, for both those at home and the soldier who is returning. The home itself must be actively prepared to be a home of hope, love, joy, and peace, just as the soldier must intentionally work on transforming his mind and heart from a posture of hyper-vigilance (called “Battle Mind”) to being in a posture of rest. Jesus wants to make His home in each of our hearts and in all our homes, and it is His presence in our hearts and homes that transforms us.
This Christmas, I am inviting you to surrender your heart to be Christ’s home so that your home may become a home of hope, love, joy, and peace – a place where the weary of mind and body, and heavy-burdened of heart and soul, can come and find rest (Matthew 11:28-30). If you want to transform your home, you must start with your own heart – you must become a person of hope, love, joy, and peace.
Today, the message will focus how our faith invites Jesus Christ to transform our hearts into a home of hope. Our Scripture for this message is Psalm 62:5-8:
My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah.
Selah invites us to take a breath, pause, and pray. So let us do that. Let us be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). Let us pray.
As we see in our passage today, a home of hope is a place of patience – a people who have learned to be still, to wait in silence, to trust God in the uncertainty and unknowing. We create a safe place for soldiers to come home when we are a patient presence for them and create space for grace amid the struggle and turmoil of stress, uncertainty, insecurity, and fear.
We come to know that God is our refuge only after we have learned how to hide ourselves in Him. It is easy to hide yourself behind a façade of success, a busy schedule, a nice appearance. But hiding in anything but God only leads to a loneliness that seeps into our souls. We hide in God so that we can risk being seen by others.
We come to know that God is the rock of my strength only after we have learned to build our lives firmly upon Him – the rock, the only secure foundation. It is tempting to build our lives on our jobs and reputations, our volunteer efforts and good works, and our pleasures and hobbies. When we build our lives on anything other than God, we are building our lives on shifting sands. We build on the rock so that we can risk being involved in real ways in real life.
We come to know that God is our salvation when we learn to put our trust in Him alone. It is preferable to keep ourselves as the center of our lives, to fight for control, to carry the full weight of responsibility for our own destinies, but when we do so we never learn to trust anyone else, and we end up crushed by our inability to carry the load to the finish line. We trust God alone for our salvation so that we can risk loving and trusting others in everyday life.
We must wait upon God so that this hope gets in our bones, so that our faith is a truth that transcends a propositional statement. Faith is meant to be what upholds us as we learn to hope in what we believe is true and wait upon the God who promises to deliver on our faith. A home of faith gives us the hope we need to be a soft place to land and a space of grace for living.
Hope is a right expectation in God – I wait upon Him knowing that He will show up in my situation. As the prince of prophets taught us in Isaiah 40:28-31:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.
Hope is not wishful thinking – it is the certainty of Immanuel, God is with us! The Christmas miracle provides you stability during the trials and tribulations of your everyday life. Today, the first Sunday of Advent, we are invited to remember the first coming of Jesus Christ, which was awaited for a thousand years, from the time of God’s promise to King David, and for four hundred years since the faithful remnant of Jewish people received the promise of God in Malachi 3:1, “‘Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,’ says the Lord of hosts.”
The Jewish people were forged in a long season of waiting. When Jesus Christ came, the messengers of God proclaimed the fulfillment of their waiting in Luke 2:8-14:
In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
It’s as if they were saying, “The wait is over! God has delivered on His promises! Your hope has been fulfilled. The victory has been won, and bestowed upon you, through faith in Jesus Christ! Don’t miss it!”
And I say to you, “DON’T MISS IT!” As those who believe in the Christmas miracle, hope is our superpower because hope never disappoints. God’s promises are worth waiting for, no matter how long you must wait for their fulfillment. As Paul promises in Romans 5:1-5:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Hope is a mindset – a mental perspective that anchors your everyday life and situations in the reality of God and His victory over the devil, death, and sin through His Son Jesus Christ. Hope is an “anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19), which allows us make space for grace in our hearts and homes. If we want to welcome home the soldiers, then we need hope to be an essential quality of our lives. This hope is forged into our lives as wait for the Lord’s second coming. We conclude with the declaration of this hope from 1 Thessalonians 5:8-11:
But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] I found this story in my files. I’m not sure if I originally wrote it or if someone else did, but either way I modified it for this sermon. I am happy to give credit where credit is due, if I knew, all glory to God!
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Seize the Moment – Day 984
Today’s hymn focus will be
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
Haggai 2:7 (KJV)
“And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.”
In 1744, Charles Wesley was pondering Haggai 2:7 while riding aboard a train coach. As he was looking at the class divide in Great Britain and what was happening with the orphans in the areas around him, he first wrote “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” as a Nativity prayer.
In 1855, Charles Spurgeon made a Christmas sermon noting that Jesus was born a King, not a prince, and was sent to rule our hearts and lives. This song appeared in both the Methodist and the Baptist hymn books ever since.
But it is important to realize that Wesley was also looking further towards the Second Coming of Christ, echoing the words that illustrate the believer’s hope and longing for His return. This is why we sing this song today.
Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring.
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YOUTUBE:
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Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.
born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thine own eternal spirit
rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.
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