Pastor's Corner: WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

  Pilgrim Living in a Fallen World: The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness I Peter 5:1-7 Introduction :   Our study last week in I Peter was entitled   “Joy under Fire!” Joy in times of trial can only be explained by a sure hope that goes beyond this world. We can live as a pilgrim in this fallen world only if our hope is to be with God and to enjoy Him forever. We believe that we were created for eternity, and that even now, we are citizens of Heaven.   The world has sin problem. That means separation from God. But God made a way. He was, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself .   If you believe that, you face suffering differently than those who have no hope. You have a “ peace that passes understanding .” Our hope passes understanding because it makes no sense to the world, to those who don’t have it. They want peace, they want hope, but they don’t have it. Peter said our response to suffering can bring God glory and draw others to Him. It testifies to ...

Pilgrim Living in a Fallen World: Joy under Fire! I Peter 4:12-19 Introduction : It is hard for us, Americans in the 21 st century, to grasp the context in which Peter was writing his letter to exiles. In fact, the experiences of the church in its first decades, actually its first centuries, was marked by persecution, trials and tribulations. Peter himself would be martyred not too long after he wrote the letters that bear his name. Christians were under fire in the early years of the church. And the violence of emperors like Nero has been replicated in different contexts through the ages. Even today, we read the reports of Christians suffering in different parts of the world, but it seems so detached from our reality. Listen to some prayers of Ukrainian evangelical leaders in recent days as reported online by Christianity Today …        First, from Taras Dyatlik, engagement director for  ScholarLeaders International . He identified …three s...

  Pilgrim Living in a Fallen World : Body Life, Spiritual Gifts, and the Glory of God I Peter 4:9 - 11 Introduction: In his popular book from twenty years ago,  The Purpose Driven Life , Rick Warren introduced the acrostic “S.H.A.P.E.” to describe God’s sovereign work in “shaping us” purposefully into the person we are. S.H.A.P.E. refers to our  S piritual gifts, our  H eart’s desire, our  A bilities, our  P ersonality, and our  E xperiences being uniquely planned, providentially guided, and sovereignly bestowed by God to make us into exactly the person that we are, the person He designed us to be. The psalmist said a thousand years before Christ, “ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well ...” (Ps 139:14).   The psalmist may have been primarily talking about his physical body being knit together in his mother’s womb, but the principle applies to every aspect of our being . G...