Community Church of Elkhorn

Believers in our Lord and Savior often ask how they can know God's will for their life
What they are really saying is I want God to come down here and get things straightened out for me.

However I enjoyed a short explanation about God's will as found in the word Guidance.  Guidance is really what we need to be searching for and often we are so in control of our lives that we wouldn't recognize God's guidance if it hit us in the face.  Ok, so what am I getting at? 

1 Peter 2:4-6
4 As you come to him, the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him- 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.   NIV

Have you ever noticed that all families have certain spoken or unspoken requirements that when followed allow the members of the family relate to one another in an exceptable way.  Maybe the family has certain expectation based on gender or possibly there are certain expectation about family members being present at certain events.

There's light at the end of the tunnel of life when you place your life in God's hand.  While we might not always experience the joy of being in the sunshine because we going through a tunnel of trial and heartache, it's important to remember that in the end we win.  We often drove through a tunnel or two while traveling on the Pennsylvania turnpike.  when we entered the tunnel it might be sunny but by the time we exited it might be raining or snowing, we never knew what it would be like on the other side till we arrived.  the same is true in life. Who really knows what it will be like on the other side of trials and difficulty?

Quitting is not an option when one is fully committed to the Lord.  Jeremiah was a man just like you and me and Jeremiah had as much reason to quit on the Lord as any of us.  He was called by God to preach to the people of Judah and tell them that God was about to withdraw His protection. 

However the people pursecuted him and he found himself in jail or the stocks on several occassion.  At moments like that He felt torn between honoring God and giving up on serving Him.  But in the end he couldn't quit on God.  Hebrews 12:1 encourages us to run with endurance the race of life that is before us, by fixing our lives on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith.  Stay the course, serve the Lord. 

This was the emphasis of our sermon on Sunday.  James 5:13-20 has this theme as an emphasis in the Christian life.  We are confronted daily by all kinds of difficulty and all kinds of trials.  If left to ourself we often become depressed or angry because we feel so overwhelmed. But God continually tells us to draw near to Him. 

I challenged the congregation to re-read this text and write a reminder to themselves on a 3x5 card and place one on a mirror or microwave, One on the dash of their car, and one on there person in a pocket or pocketbook.  All week long remind yourself to draw near to God then on Sunday we'll see what happened as we share with one another what took place during the week as we Drew Near to God.

Where did we come from? Some say from random chance and others say we were created.  So whose right and how can we know for sure?

Well it really isn't as hard as it seems.  We can look at animals themselves and find such complexity that there must have been a designer.  We can see that a giraffe couldn't bend his neck down without having his brain explode unless there were some special mechanisms in it's brain to control blood flow.  These things argue for a creator. 

We live in a world that is full of evil.  We saw that evil explode in our living rooms as we watched the trade towers come crumbling down. The site left one speechless and caused many to return to churches to look for answers.  But as time went on the general public grew less and less concerned and many have relegated their fear to nothing more then a distant memory.

In Galatians we hear about the tension between the flesh and the spirit.  The two are in opposition to one another and at any one time they both are trying to get our attention and dominate our life.  However the fleshly part of us is concerned with self while the Spirit of the redeemed is concerned with honoring God with ones life.  The agenda of these two opposing forces tugs at us all day long.  So what is the sign post that reveals which one is dominating us at any one time? 

Words are powerful. With them we make friends and influence people. With them we communicate love, concern, compassion, fear, and a host of other feelings.  However we rarely think twice about the words we chose to use and how they affect others.  In James 5:12 we are told to let our yes be yes and our no, no. 

Human ideas developed by fall man are shaping our world today.  Since the fall in the garden mankind has been less then perfect.  This imperfection we call sin.  Since ideas are formulated in the mind of fallen men and women, they are doomed to be flawed in one way or another.

 Isn't it interesting that some claim that all wars were fought over religious bleiefs.  The 20c. was the blodiest century in all history.  However not one war in the 20c. was started over religion.  We could argue that some philosophy that substituted themselves for religion caused wars, like Marxism for example, but no religious organization is responsible in the 20c. for beginning a war.

Life is often like an endurance race.  We begin well enough but our culture seems to glorify instant everything which means we enjoy sprinting from one thing to another more then viewing life as a marathon.  But God reminds us in Hebrews 12:1  that life is more like a marathon race.  And our approach to that race must be long sited as opposed to being short sited and expecting success, comfort, and ease right now, this moment.

    Mankind was made in the image of God is tells us in the book of Genesis.  Isn't it interesting that the only created thing God forbid to eat of
the tree of good and evil was man.  This is because only man bears the
image of God in his soul.  Animals, the book of Genesis tells us, were made after their own kind.  Unlike mankind who was made in God's image.

Recently I received some terrible news of the accident that has temporarily left my cousin partially paralyzed and the near tragic accident that our daughters,  in-laws, were in.  These events left me pondering what place God has in our every day lives.  In the above cases, both are strong Christians who love the Lord with all their heart.  One was spared from a major tragedy and the other was not.  So let me ask you, Do we avoid accidents because God saves us from such tragedy or is His part something all together different in regards to the difficulties we face?