02 Aug Sometimes there just isn’t room…
Sometimes there just isn’t room in a sermon for all you want to say. Lord knows I try to fit it all in!
I’ll come back to that…
Happy Tuesday y’all or more likely Wednesday since I’m getting to this later in the evening than I thought I would…computer had a bit of an issue earlier & needed a good re-booting.
- I promised I’d get this out to everyone…so here it is.
Zoom Bible Study Catch-Up
5th August 2022 @ 1:00 PM
Click the link to Join Zoom Meeting – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88022194499 — Meeting ID: 880 2219 4499
These are tremendously fun times to get with a few people on-line, check out Sunday’s texts & ask questions we don’t always have time for on Sunday.
- This coming Sunday (7th August) is our Soup & Bread Lunch after worship. Please brave the weather and hang out with your Christian family for a bit. Sample all the soups!
- Giving Beyond Ourselves is also this coming week: the Mulaamu Children’s Centre in Uganda.
Generous gifts can help with a range of needs, especially Bible for the children. So…as always let’s be generous!
About a week ago I suggested you take some time reading Isaiah 40:28-31
28 Have you never heard? Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
29 He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.
30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.
31 But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
I intended to incorporate that text into the conversation & learning about “gospel endurance”…but I had too much & didn’t really want to preach for 45 minutes, so I cut that bit out so I can share it here.
We endure in following Jesus, obeying God’s will, living the life of the redeemed…not because we are strong but because the God who claims us as His own is inexhaustible & he empowers us with his strength. He also anchors our lives in Christ’s victory, grants us residence among his people the church, & pours his joy, hope & selfless love into us in overflowing abundance…but look at verse 31.
“…those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.” Some translations will use the word “hope” instead of “trust.” But the English fails to grasp the fullness of the Hebrew.
Try it like this: Picture a family lounge room & Dad (or Mum) is sitting on the sofa reading the paper or a book, knitting, or doing that day’s Wordle on their phone. One of their children is standing directly in front of them, but they’re busy so they can’t “see” them. The child is wearing a bicycle helmet & holding another one in their hands.
Quietly, but loudly enough to be heard, the child says, “Will you come ride bikes with me?”
That’s the image Isaiah lays before us…the confident expectant hope of a child standing ready for the joy of sharing an afternoon’s fun with Mum or Dad.
That’s not just wishful thinking, it’s where enduring hope & persevering faith meet real life. The child is ready & has prepared for “Yes,” & may in fact get more than a simple ride around the block. That’s the place where relationships are strengthened and the unavoidable “No-s” can be understood.
Trusting in the Lord is not a passive thing. Enduring faith is always engaged in making life in Christ real & visible before the world. And in that engagement, we find God’s inexhaustible strength welling up in us, like a river flowing all the way to eternal life.
See…I needed to share that here or we’d have needed lunch last Sunday too!
Be richly blessed this week. Try hard not to get swamped by the wet weather…and exercise some of that gospel endurance & share it with someone you know.
Peace
John
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