Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Faith and Glory

Pastor Larry’s message for June 14, 2026

Our appointed reading today begins with the word, “therefore.” 

Now, if you walk into a lecture hall and the first word that you hear from the speaker is the word, “therefore,” you know you missed something important, something that was said before you got into the room. So, in a few minutes, I am going to back up and read just a few verses before our appointed reading.

But I first want to talk about Abraham, because those verses are about Abraham, about his faith, and about his trust in God. Abraham was a remarkable man. He was a genuine man of faith. God told him to leave his city. 

To leave his culture. 

To leave his extended family.

God told him to just start walking out into the wilderness…. in obedience to Him:

Genesis 12:1-2 NIV  The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.  (2)  “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

And Abraham, or Abram as he was called then, obeyed God – and he went. He went in trust, without knowing his destination! (So often we say that we will only obey God if He shows us the whole picture in advance.)

Have you ever noticed that there is a direct link in Scripture, and a link in logic, between faith and obedience? Consider this Scripture:

Acts 6:7 NIV  So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.   Obedient to Faith???? 

We only obey whom or what we believe has authority or power over our lives. When we don’t believe that someone or something has authority or power over our lives, then we are not likely to obey.

Abraham left almost everything behind and went in the direction God told him to go. That was obedience, and that was faith!

Then when Abraham and his wife Sarah were far too old to even fear having children, God told Abraham, an elderly and childless man, married to an elderly and childless woman, that he would be the father of nations. 

A pivotal moment in the account of Abraham is this one:

Genesis 15:3-6 NIV  And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”  (4)  Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”  (5)  He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  (6)  Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Now, Abraham was still a flawed man. Twice Scripture records that, in a possible fear for his life, Abraham lied instead of trusting God with his fate. Yet, the overall track of Abraham’s life, his trajectory, was to trust God, and therefore to obey God.

Regarding Abraham’s faith, in the verses just before our appointed reading from Romans today, the Apostle Paul writes this:

Romans 4:20-22 NIV  Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,  (21)  being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.  (22)  This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”

God desires our obedience because He is God, and also because our lives will be markedly better when you and I obey God. But what God keys in on in the life of Abraham, is the faith that lies at the root of Abraham’s obedience. We might say that “faith is the root, and obedience the fruit.”

And because of that faith God declares Abraham – a flawed man – to actually be righteous!

St. Paul, looking back to Abraham says that this is the same thing that God does with us. To make his point, Paul writes:

Romans 4:23-25 NIV  The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone,  (24)  but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  (25)  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Abraham believed God – he believed that he, a very old man, would become the father of nations – and God credited his faith to him as righteousness. 

So, what is it that we, that you and I, are to believe? 

Paul says it’s to “believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” 

What Paul is saying is that if we choose to believe that Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins, and that Jesus was raised to life, that God will declare us, as flawed individuals, to be righteous!

The very next verse begins our appointed reading today. It is the conclusion that St. Paul draws from all we just read… 

Romans 5:1-2 NIV  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  (2)  through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Paul is writing to a church, to believers, and he tells them that because of their faith, because of their belief that Jesus died for their sins, through that faith they have been justified – they have been declared righteous by a Holy God.

Paul then talks about 

  • the past, 
  • the present, 
  • and the future benefits of their faith.

About the past, Paul says that they have been justified through faith. He assures them that in Christ and because of Christ, and because of their faith, it is an accomplished fact.

Then, because of that past event of faith and justification – their being declared righteous… Because of that past event, the Roman believers now have peace with God in the present.

Now, this Peace with God is a really big thing! In his other writings, Paul makes it clear that until we know Christ we will not have peace with God. This is not about a feeling, but about a spiritual reality. To the believers in Colossae, Paul writes:

Colossians 1:21-22 NIV  Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  (22)  But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—

They now stand in a relationship of grace – a relationship of blessing and of access to God that they do not deserve and could never experience apart from Christ.

And now because of their faith, because God has already justified them, because they have access to grace and access to God they have a future participation in the glory of God!

In Scripture, “glory” has a broad meaning. It can mean an acknowledgement of status. or of importance, of gravitas. It can mean the radiance, the evidence of the very presence of God. Always it the mark of significance, of meaning!

Earlier in Romans Paul has described the human state without Christ in these words:

Romans 3:23 NIV  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  

Among other things, people outside of Christ lack any spiritual significance or meaning in the world to come. 

No matter who we may be in this world, no matter what we have in this world, without Christ, in the spiritual realm and in the world to come, we are…

  • Without status
  • Without standing
  • And without significance.

Without Christ, we are without ultimate meaning or purpose! 

And that matters very deeply.

In 1963, Victor Frankyl, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, who became a psychiatrist, wrote a book entitled, Man’s Search for Meaning.

The book was based, in part, on his reflections on who lived and who died in the concentration camps. Frankyl observed that those who had or who found a sense of meaning, a sense of significance or purpose were more likely to survive than were those who had no sense of meaning, significance, or purpose. We indeed search for meaning!

We tend to gloss over it, but the New Testament tells us that, even in this world, believers actually begin to experience glory!  To the church in Corinth, Paul writes this:

2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV  And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

And in Chapter 8 of this book of Romans, Paul will develop this idea of glory further:

Romans 8:17-21 NIV  Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.  (18)  I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  (19)  For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. (20)  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope (21) that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

As believers we have a present, a now, of increasing glory, of increasing meaning, of increasing significance. 

And we have a future destiny that includes:

  • Participation in an ultimate meaning
  • Participation in an ultimate significance
  • And participation in a future glory that we cannot even begin to imagine!

…Because of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice.

And I wish I could stop right here and say, “and everyone lived happily ever after. Amen!” But next Paul talks about suffering – both in Romans chapter 8 that we just read from, and in our appointed reading today, Romans chapter 5. And Paul ties this present and future glory with suffering.

Romans 5:3-5 NIV  Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; (4)  perseverance, character; and character, hope. (5)  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Don’t you cringe at the phrase, “character development?” I do. But as God develops our character through what we suffer, we begin to see the changes, and we are encouraged. 

We see that we persevere in faith, and we see that as we persevere in faith we are being changed: We are becoming more like our Savior – we are growing in the hope of glory! We are growing in meaning, in significance, growing in status, we are growing in gravitas in the spiritual realm!

And so Paul says that because of this, we learn to glory in our suffering. And I am again reminded of Paul’s words later in this letter to the Romans:

Romans 8:17-18 NIV  Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.  (18)  I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

There are things in this Christian walk that you and I cannot do: 

  • We cannot be good enough to make the cut on our own. 
  • We cannot save ourselves.

But like Abraham, we can believe what God has done and what God has promised. 

And if we really do believe, like Abraham believed, we will obey!

  • And we can keep on pressing forward 
  • and we can persevere through all the “character development,” 
  • and we can persevere on into the increasing glory as we behold Him, as His Spirit sustains and transforms us!

And we can remember. We can remember that, because we have believed, we have access to Grace, and we have access to the Father.

And we can remember that because we have access to Grace and access to the Father, we have 

  • a future of meaning, 
  • a future of ultimate significance, 
  • a future of spiritual gravitas, 
  • a future of glory!

And we can remember that Scripture promises that this future glory will far outweigh all our earthly suffering!

©️2026 Rev. Lawrence O’Connell

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

The Power of Faith

Pastor Sherry’s message for June 7, 2026

Scriptures: Hosea 5:15-6:6; Ps 50:7-15; Ro 4:13-25; Matt 9:9-13, 18-26

The story is told of a man who walked too close to the edge of a cliff…The ground gave way and he fell. He grabbed frantically for anything to break his flight to the bottom. He was able to grasp a thorn bush and hang on for dear life. Happy to be alive, he surveyed his situation: He was too high and it was too steep to climb to safety; yet it was also too far yet to fall and land safely.

So, looking up, he called out, “Is anyone there?” To his delight he heard, “Yes, I the Lord your God, am here.” “Lord, what should I do?” The Lord replied, “Let Go!” After a pause, the man called out again, “Is anyone else up there?”

Doesn’t this give new meaning to the AA slogan, “Let go and let God?” 

(Graham Twelftree, Your Point Being, Concorde House, 1988, p.116.)

Contrast that story to this one:

“Paul Harvey told about a 3-year-old boy who went to the grocery store with his mother. Before they entered the grocery store she said to him, “Now you’re not going to get any chocolate chip cookies, so don’t even ask.”

“She put him up in the cart & he sat in the little child’s seat while she wheeled down the aisles. He was doing just fine until they came to the cookie section. He saw the chocolate chip cookies & he stood up in the seat & said, “Mom, can I have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you not even to ask. You’re not going to get any at all.” So he sat back down.

“They continued down the aisles, but in their search for certain items they ended up back in the cookie aisle. “Mom, can I please have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you that you can’t have any. Now sit down & be quiet.”

“Finally, they were approaching the checkout lane. The little boy sensed that this may be his last chance. So just before they got to the line, he stood up on the seat of the cart & shouted in his loudest voice, “In the name of Jesus, may I have some chocolate chip cookies?” And everybody round about just laughed. Some even applauded. And, according to Paul Harvey, due to the generosity of the other shoppers, the little boy & his mother left with 23 boxes of chocolate chip cookies.”

(Located at and borrowed from http://www.ChristianForumSite, 5/9/2006). 

Isn’t it interesting that the child had more faith than the grown-up? These are just stories—I don’t even know if the first one is true—but they illustrate the power of faith (and the dire consequences of having none).

All of our Scripture lessons today focus on the power of faith:

A. In Hosea 5:15-6:6, we find the prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel issue one of God’s final warnings the people that God is not happy with them and that they need to repent. Hosea reminds them in Verse 1 that they need to…return to the Lord. In other words, they need to stop going through the motions of worship They had the festivals down, they assembled choirs, they sang their hearts out, and they sacrificed animals on the alter…doing all the rituals just right. But they were just giving it all lip service. It would be like a present day politician claiming he/she does all they can do for the people, while also fraudulently wasting (or stealing) tax payer money. Hosea wants them to honestly (v.6)…show love [to God]; to repent of their sins and rebellion; and to develop a real relationship with the Lord. He is warning them that they lack faith in the Lord. He doesn’t use this image, but they are like caterpillars in a ring of fire. God’s judgment is coming and they cannot save themselves if they trust in their own power. As with us, our rescue from God’s judgment comes from trusting in Jesus and His divine rescue of us on the Cross.

Our Psalm (50:7-15) repeats the same theme. This psalm was written by Asaph as a hymn of judgment. Asaph emphasizes the fact that God needs nothing from us. Our God is totally self-sufficient. In their worship services, the Israelites sacrificed an animal to compensate or atone for their sins. They brought their animal to the priest, laid their hand on its head, signifying passing all of their sins onto the animal. Then the priest slit the animal’s throat and placed some of its blood on the horns at the 4 corners of the altar. This was to signify that it took the death, the blood, of something to obliterate their sins (a foreshadowing of Jesus on the Cross.), and was called the “whole burnt offering.” None of it could be eaten by the priests. The entire barbecued animal was dedicated to God.

However, as Asaph makes clear, all animals are God’s (vv.9-12, NLT)-→But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens. For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and everything in it. Later, the prophet Jeremiah will say essentially the same thing to the Southern Kingdom (7:22-23-→When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not not burnt offerings and sacrifices I wanted from them. This is what I told them: “Obey Me and I will be your God and you will be My people. Do everything as I say and all will be well.”

Next Asaph asserts that God wants three things from them: (1) Their gratitude and (2) their obedience to Him, and (3) the evidence that they would be faithful to Him (no idolatry). Finally, He (using Asaph as a propphet) says that if the people do these things (remain grateful obedient, and hold on to their faith in Him), God will rescue them from their troubles when they call out to Him. He will pull us out of the ring of fire. Our faith leads to God blessing us and rescuing us.

C. What follows in our readings today are 4 examples of people who demonstrated faith, despite their circumstances, and how God rewarded them.

First, Paul (Romans 4:12-25)cites Abraham as a man whose faith in God led to two miracles. We already know that God rewarded him for leaving his home and family to follow the Lord. Because of his obedience to the Lord’s call, God made him rich and influential. God also protected him and his wife, Sarah. But the Lord had also promised him a son, The first miracle was that Abraham continued to believe the Lord, even though he was 100YO and, as Paul states, (v.19) …his body was as good as dead. I’m sure Abraham didn’t know how God would pull it off, but he maintained faith that the Lord could and would do it. Abraham did not focus on his circumstances (like his old age), but he believed when he had no logical reason for hope.

In a sense, we could say the second miracle was that God raised up a son from two almost dead bodies (foreshadowing Jesus’ resurrection).

Next, our Gospel lesson (Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26) provides the examples of Matthew himself, Jairus’ daughter, and the bleeding woman.

Matthew, a hated tax collector for the Romans, immediately left his tax booth and answered Jesus’ call to follow him. Matthew does not comment on it too much, but he had to have been sufficiently dissatisfied with his life to leave a lucrative profession and follow the as yet unknown, itinerant rabbi, Jesus.  Not only that, but he then hosts a banquet and invites his fellow outcast tax collectors to meet the man who has given him hope and a new purpose for living. Matthew experienced firsthand the power of faith, as he began to live out a radically transformed life. I would bet that he felt he had been lifted out of a ring of fire.

Jairus, the president of the synagogue in Caesarea, sought Jesus out when his only child—a 12YO daughter—lay dying. He’d obviously known Jesus’ reputation for healing. Like Abraham, Jairus’ faith helped him to hang on even when there was no human reason to hope. After all, the professional mourners were already there at his house, wailing over the child’s death. When Jesus entered his home, the mourners laughed at Him. The word for “laughed” in the Greek is kategalon, which literally means, they laughed down on Him. The mourners were contemptuous; they mocked Him (the King of Glory). But Jairus’ lived experience was that there was power in his faith. As a preview of His own resurrection, Jesus Christ brought Jairus’ precious child back from the dead. And I think it would be OK to suggest that Jesus had the last laugh.

The woman who had hemorrhaged for 12 years was not laughing, though.

She was desperate for a healing. Luke (8:43-48) and Mark (5:25-29) both tell us she had tried everything to be healed. She knew she had no standing from which to approach Jesus, so she just planned to touch the edge of His garment. Women, in those days, could not touch a Jewish rabbi. Additionally, by Law an due to her hemorrhaging, He would have been made ritually unclean at her touch. If He hadn’t been God, He would have had to undergo a cleansing ritual.

But her faith compelled her to approach Him. Jesus tells her (v.23)-→Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well. Again, she was like that caterpillar in the ring of fire—no power to save or heal herself. But she had faith in the One Who could!

Do you see the power inherent in our faith? It is our faith that activates or motivates God to work on our behalf. If we are waiting on God to act, we want to be sure to hold on to our faith. (i.e., be like Abraham, Matthew, Jairus, and the unnamed hemorrhaging woman). It also helps to be obedient and grateful. It also helps to remain faithful to God (not an idolator), despite our circumstances. Our faith in Jesus might not get us a bag of chocolate chip cookies, but it will take us out of any ring of fire. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Alleluia! Alleluia!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

The Great Three in One

Pastor Sherry’s message for May 31, 2026

Scriptures: Gen 1:1—2:4a; Ps 8; 2 Cor 13:11-14; Matt 28:16-20

The story is told of a Jewish father who was concerned about his son’s lack of a spiritual life.: The father had never demonstrated what it was to be a practicing Jew.: So, he felt guilty.: As a result, he sent his son to Israel to experience his Jewish heritage, and hopefully to help him develop a lively faith.: The son returned after a year.: He thanked his father for the opportunity to visit the Holy Land and he reported that living in Israel had been both wonderful and enlightening. Then he confessed that while there, he had encountered some Christ-followers and had decided to become a Christian. 

The Jewish father was terribly upset, and in the tradition of the patriarchs, he sought advice and comfort from his best friend. “It is amazing that you should come to me,” said his best friend. “I too sent my son to Israel and he returned a Christian!”: So, again according to long standing tradition, the two friends sought out the wisdom and counsel of a rabbi.: “It is amazing that you should come to me,” stated the rabbi.: ”I also sent my son to Israel and he too developed faith in Jesus of Nazareth.: “What is happening to our sons?”

All three lifted their hands to God and began to wail and pour out their grief.: As they prayed, the heavens opened and a mighty voice exclaimed, Amazing that you should come to Me.: I, too, sent My son to Israel….

(Source unknown)

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day the Christian Church celebrates one of its most central beliefs. We believe in One God in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.: You may recall having sung the hymn, “Come Thou Almighty King” (c.1757), which extols all three persons of the Trinity:

Come thou Almighty King, help us Thy name to sing,

Help us to praise, Father whose love unknown 

All things created own,

Build in our hearts Thy throne, Ancient of Days.

Come thou Incarnate Word, by heaven & earth adored;

Our prayer attend:: Come, and Thy people bless;

Come, give Thy Word success; 

Stablish Thy righteousness, Savior and Friend.

Come, Holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness bear

In this glad hour:: Thou, who almighty art, 

Now rule in every heart, 

And ne’re from us depart, Spirit of Power.

To Thee, great One in Three, the highest praises be,

Hence evermore; 

Thy sovereign majesty may we in glory see, 

And to eternity love and adore.

We believe the Trinity is One Divine God with 3 personalities or 3 roles.: This foundational truth is hard to explain.: We call it a “holy mystery.”

We know that St. Augustine of Hippo took nearly 30 years to write 15 volumes called About the Trinity.: He continued for years to update and revise it.: It is said that he was walking the beach one day, struggling to understand this profound mystery, when he saw a little boy digging a hole in the sand with a seashell. The boy would run to the ocean, fill his shell, and rush back to pour the contents into the hole. St. Augustine said to him, “What are you doing, my little man?”: The boy replied, “I am trying to put the ocean into this hole.” Augustine later wrote that this experience helped him to see that this was what he had been trying to do with his 15 volumes: fit the vastness of the Trinity into the limited container of his mind.

(Source unknown)

The word Trinity appears nowhere in the Bible, but it is implied:: In our Old Testament lesson:Genesis 1:1-2:4:We read the Creation Account: Verses 1-2, In the beginning [time], God created the heavens [space] and the earth [matter]…and the Spirit of God [His creative force] was hovering/moved/brooded [in motion] over the waters. John 1 further informs us: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.: All 3 members of the Trinity were involved in Creation.: Notice, the Bible doesn’t try to prove the existence of God. It just states that HE IS.: Psalm 14:1 declares:The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”: Psalm 19:1:The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

Our Psalm for today is a creation hymn. It is quoted 3 times in the New Testament, including once by Jesus (v.6:You made Him [Jesus] ruler over the works of Your hands; You put everything under His feet.) These words testify to God’s great creative power and His accomplishments.: King David asserts (v.1) O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. In other words, God the Father is the creator of all the earth.: He came up with the idea of Creation. But according to John 1, Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, spoke creation into existence.: In the 1st chapter of Genesis, God [the Son] says, Let there be…10 times, and whatever the Father has envisioned or planned comes into being. Even more fantastic than speaking creation into existence, He (the Son) creates it out of nothing. The Hebrew word for this is bara; in Latin it is called ex nihilo. Only God can create something out of nothing. The rest of us must start with raw materials.

Chapter 1 of Genesis also reveals that the Father is a God of order:

Day 1, He creates light; Day 2, He creates “air spaces” between the waters on earth and the waters in the sky (vertical division); Day 3, He separates dry ground from the seas (horizontal division); Day 4, He creates vegetation, plant life; Day 5, He creates living creatures in the seas and birds of all kinds; Day 6, (vv.24-25), He creates livestock and wild animals.

Then in verses 26-31, He creates humans. Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.: This means we have personality; that we are conscious of ourselves, we can think about ourselves (Psychology calls this “metacognition”), and about our actions; and that we are free moral agents. In other words, we get to decide things for ourselves. Notice how God the Father references the other members of the Trinity in this creative act (let us…our), implying there are more than one divine person involved. 

Continuing, in Chapter 2, God establishes the Sabbath principle our need for rest following work.: This is also evidence that our God is a: God of compassion.: John Wesley reportedly summarized God’s creative acts in Genesis 1 & 2 by stating, “God created the heavens and the earth and didn’t half try.”

Paul provides us with a Trinitarian blessing in our New Testament lesson today (2 Corinthians 13:11-14):May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ [the Son] and the love of God [the Father], and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Without calling it the Trinity, Paul presumes its existence. Like a good pastor, he wants believers to experience the blessings of the entire Godhead: grace, love, and the communion/fellowship/family unity of the Trinity.

Jesus, in our Gospel, sends us out to do the work of the Church in the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20):…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.: Jesus invokes the names of all three divine persons.

So what do we learn about the Trinity from our passages this morning?: Again, all 3 members of the Trinity existed prior to and were active in the Creation of the world. They are distinct entities but eternally connected in love and community and communication with each other.

God the Father is Immortal, Invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes….Creation was His idea.: He is spirit, therefore lacking a gender but reveals Himself as our Father.: He is also completely transcendent, wholly other; enthroned in Heaven; compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.: Clearly the Father is in command but never dominates or abuses the other two persons. We pray to Him, in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. As you may remember, my earthly father was killed when I was 5 years old. My mother remarried, 3 years later, a man who unfortunately was verbally and physically abusive to me. Because of this, I initially had difficulty seeing God the Father as anything other than a remote, critical, punishing, and disapproving God. It is only as I developed further in my faith that I have come to realize He is instead the loving, accepting, generous Father I always wished I had known growing up. 

God the Son, Jesus, is our Brother, Savior, Redeemer, and Friend. He came to earth, God-in-the-flesh, as a vulnerable baby. He demonstrated God’s love by teaching, healing, casting out demons, forgiving, modeling how to live, and by dying for our sins.: He demonstrated God’s power by performing miracles, rising from the dead, and ascending into heaven. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. We sing, What a friend we have in Jesus…and it is the truth, isn’t it!

God the Holy Spirit is the immanence (everywhere-ness) of God, the “with us” God who is always available to us. He is how we experience the Trinity today. He leads, guides, and directs us now; He intercedes for us when all we can do is groan; He sanctifies us and empowers us for ministry.

Our calling today is not to try to figure out the holy mystery of the Trinity—how 3 persons form 1 God—but rather to live out the attributes, the characteristics the Trinity models for us.: As we progress through life, can we demonstrate the love of God for us and for others? Can we reach out to those who need to know the grace, love, and forgiveness of our God? Can we continue to pray for God’s will to be done on this earth, at this time, and in all hearts? Can we echo the great hymn, “To Thee, great One in Three, the highest praises be, hence evermore; Thy sovereign majesty may we in glory see, and to eternity love and adore!: 

Amen!: May it be so!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Get Busy!

Pastor Sherry’s message for May. 24, 2926

Scriptures: Acts 2:1-21; Ps 104:24-35; 1 Cor 12:3b-13; Jn 20:19-23

An older pastor friend I know from North Carolina grew up on a small family tobacco farm. To make ends meet, his folks both worked in a cotton mill by day. When his mother left for work each day in the summer, she left the future pastor and his 3 siblings a list of things to do in the house and outside in the tobacco patch. Mom and Dad left each day at 6:30 a.m. and returned by 3:30 p.m. In the way of most kids, the crew of 4 would try to figure out how long it would take them to complete the job-list, and then they would play around until they knew they had to get busy with their assigned tasks.

One day, at about 11:00a.m., they were lounging around—eating sandwiches and watching TV, having done not one thing on the list—when their mother showed up! She had gotten sick at work and had come home early.

Rather dramatically, the future pastor said he recalled hearing…

“…a sound like the rush of a violent wind and it filled the entire room in which were were sitting…and the name of the wind was Mama and she was some kind of mad….instead of finding her children busy about the business she had left them to do, she found them sitting around, eating peanut butter sandwiches, and doing nothing. Mama roared into the den, the fly swatter she had grabbed off the hook by the kitchen stove in hand. She drove us out of the house, across the yard and up the hill, into the fields where were were supposed to be hoeing tobacco. We danced into that field. Mama’ s hand on the back of my neck, swatting at my legs and behind, while I stretched my feet and bottom as far away from her as I could get.” What a memory!

This pastor went on to make the point that he believes the behavior of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was more “like my Mama on a bad day than any sweet, sweet spirit [or] any gentle breath of God we might conjure up.”

(Fairless & Chilton, The Lectionary Lab, Year A, 2013, p.141.)

Let’s look at our Acts reading (Acts 2:1-21) and see if he is right. Today we celebrate Pentecost, the birthday of the (large “C”) Christian Church. It’s the anniversary of the day the Holy Spirit was given to all those who believe in Jesus;

It also marks an ancient Jewish religious feast day which commemorated the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest—the Spring Harvest season. Thus it was one of the 3 times per year a Jewish man was expected to journey to Jerusalem (Passover and Tabernacles were the other two) to thank God for all He had provided for them.

The Holy Spirit was given to the 120 disciples on this day to equip them with wisdom, energy, and power for ministry. We don’t see the Holy Spirit—He’s a spirit—but they and we are often given signs of His presence: (1) There was the sound of wind rushing. In this case, it was like the sound of a tornado, but minus the wind damage. People who live through tornadoes report the sound of the wind is like that of 5-6 train engines rushing by at top speed. (2) There was also the curious sight of a larger flame in the air separating into smaller flames.

Stranger still, the smaller flames come to rest over the heads of the 120 disciples gathered in that place. Like the bush Moses saw aflame in Exodus 3 while shepherding sheep, these flames did not burn anything. (3) There was also the sudden, unexplained ability of all 120 to speak in tongues/languages they had never been taught. Some biblical scholars believe the disciples were speaking Aramaic but the members of the crowd heard them in their own native tongue, with the Holy Spirit doing the simultaneous translation. Most other scholars believe they were actually empowered to speak words in sentences they had never learned nor ever expected they would be able to do. I wish the Lord had gifted me this way when I had to learn New Testament Greek in seminary, but alas, He did not! (4) Additionally, Peter was emboldened to preach to the Jews (vv.14-36) about Jesus and 3,000 were baptized that day (v.41). 

I think my pastor friend is correct: Holy Spirit power is authoritative and convincing, and like his mama with a fly-swatter, seems to carry with Him the message, Get Busy! 

Now what are we to get busy doing? I preached on this last Sunday, and our other readings today spell it out:

A. Psalm 104:24-34 is a song of praise to the God of Creation. We are to praise God for having created us and the universe in which we dwell. If we were to have read it in its entirety, we might have noticed that it follows the Genesis account of creation. First, God created light and darkness and separated them. Second, He separated the waters of the heavens (sky) from those on earth.

Third, He set the oceans into place and gathered together dry land, upon which he placed vegetation. Fourth, He then set the stars, sun and moon in place, creating night and day. Fifth, He populated the seas with life forms and the earth with all sorts of animals; and sixth, He created us, breathing into humans and every other creature the breath of life!

Verse 30 is especially precious: (NIV) When You send Your Spirit, they [meaning humankind and all animal life] are created, and You renew the face of the earth—which He did! This psalm is a tribute to the creative power of God the Father and God the Son. It is the Holy Spirit who manifests this divine creative power. It’s important for us to get busy expressing to God our gratitude for Creating and Sustaining us.

B. In our 1 Corinthians 12:3-13 passage, Paul makes it clear that it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can even say, “Jesus is Lord!” The Spirit leads us into all Truth, and leads us to accept the Truth. He also reminds us of all that Jesus taught, and helps us rightly discern the meaning of Scripture.

Paul also goes on to list 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are each supernatural abilities bestowed on certain believers—not for their own entertainment or to exalt their pride—but (v.7)–>for the common good. They are meant to build up the body of Christ, His Church. They include (vv.8-10) gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, the power to work miracles, prophesy, distinguishing spirits (evil ones from good; angels from demons), speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Each of us believers is given at least one spiritual gift; some are given more than one.

Each of us is also given unique skills and talents. We are not to hoard these for ourselves, but again, the purpose of the gifts is to edify the Church, not the person. However, when we are walking out our gifting, our talents, we feel pleasure, even joy—“in the zone”—it doesn’t feel like work. If we haven‘t already, we want to get busy working in our gifting.

C. Finally, in John 20:18-23, Jesus makes one of His post-Resurrection visits to His Apostles. Now He is in His glorified body, a body that is not subject to the laws of the material world. He is able to teleport, appear suddenly in one space or another. Realizing that would be startling, He offers them peace, indicating that His appearance is in no way threatening. He still bears the scars of His Crucifixion–helping them to recognize it is Him and He is alive; but also demonstrating that He bore our scars so we won’t ever have to! 

Then He breathes on them, conferring Holy Spirit empowerment for the 50 day interim from Easter Day until Pentecost. He was ensuring their safety and sustaining them; and He was also preparing them to preach and teach. Now we know that no one can forgive sins except God. But we also know our sins are forgiven when we confess them to God and ask for His forgiveness-→1 John 1:8-9 (NLT)-→If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

We are cleansed from our sins buy the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. But how would anyone know this unless they hear it (the Good News of the Gospel) from someone? Jesus is reminding them and us that we are to get busy! We’ re not to sit around eating peanut butter sandwiches and watching TV. We are not even to judge other people for their sinfulness. We are to do the work He has given us to do…telling people about Him and saving souls.

Friday night, I attended a worship service to commemorate my Pentecostal Friend’s 12th year as pastor of the Apostolic Lighthouse Church. He started the church with 12 members 12 years ago. Now it’s grown to 140 members; and they have baptized more than 100 adults in that time. He has the gift of evangelism (I am less an evangelist and more a teacher, counselor, and preacher.) But can’t we all consider what knowing Jesus has meant to us?Can we think of how the love of Christ has changed us? Can we recall how—in cooperating with the Holy Spirit, and trusting in God’s grace and His answers to our prayers–He has actually freed us, transformed us from how we used to be?

That’s what we share with others. That’s our job, Church. As my pastor friend puts it: “[On Pentecost] that wind gave [the disciples] a job, and the ability to do the job, and then He drove them out into the street so that they would get busy doing that job. Which is why the Holy Spirit, the mighty and powerful wind of God, is more like an angry Mama than any sweet baby or gentle lover. And on this Pentecost Sunday that Holy Spirit is after us. He’s after us to get out into the world with the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ….He’s after us to look around us and see who it is that we know or know about who needs to know about the love and grace and forgiveness of God in Christ (Fairless and Chilton., p.142).

You heard the man, and you heard the Spirit: Let’s Get Busy!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams 

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Prayer

Pastor Sherry’s message for May 17, 2926

Scriptures: Acts 1:6-14; Ps 68:1-10, 32-35; 1 Pet 4:12-14; 5:6-11; Jn 17:1-11

A number of my clergy friends don’t like Joel Osteen. They say he preaches an unrealistic “Prosperity Gospel,” or a Gospel-lite.” But I like that he is cheerful and encouraging, and really does set out the Good News of life in Christ. Each Sunday he begins his sermon with a joke which often has nothing to do with the rest of his sermon. Taking a cue from him, I have decided to do the same:The story is told that…

“A Christian [horse breeder] supposedly taught his horse to start and to stop, using words from the Bible. When he wanted the horse to go, he would shout, ‘Praise the Lord.’ When he wanted the horse to stop, he would shout, ‘Hallelujah.’ All went well until one day a thunderbolt caused the horse to take off galloping at full speed. Realizing he had lost control, the [breeder] panicked and forgot the words he had trained the horse to respond to. Up ahead was a cliff, and they were headed towards it at full speed. Desperately he tried to recall every religious word he’d ever heard of. He shouted, ‘Amen! Jesus saves! Worthy is the Lamb! Holy!’ Nothing worked. Just as the horse approached the precipice, he remembered and shouted, ‘Hallelujah!’ The horse stopped right there on the edge. Relieved, he wiped the sweat off his brow and said, ‘Whew, praise the Lord!’

(Source: The UCB Word For Today, 2/01/2018.)

I hope the guy knew how to pray. That was the time for what I call an “arrow prayer.” An arrow prayer is brief and intense, like, “Help!” If you were loading an arrow into a bow and shot it into the air, the prayer is the arrow to heaven. It’s all you have time for in an emergency. When I was in seminary in Pittsburgh, I came around a curve, on a dual highway in the winter time, only to confront a collision all over the road in front of me. There were concrete barriers on both sides of the highway, so I saw there was no way for me to avoid the wreck. I downshifted and applied the brakes—on black ice (I was from Florida. What did I know about black ice?) My car spun 180 degrees, only for me to see a large utility van headed straight for me. I figured I was going to die and sent up an arrow prayer: “Lord, who will raise Meredith?” (My daughter was 13-14 at the time.) The van hit me and my front end compressed like an accordion. I was bruised by the air bag, but otherwise unharmed as the third in a collision of about 8-9 cars. Like me, the guy on the horse needed an arrow prayer.

“On the subject of prayer, there’s a funny story told about a family who had the minister over for dinner, and when he got there and sat at the table the Mother asked her five-year-old to say grace. Puzzled, the child asked, ‘What should I say?’ Her mom replied, ‘Just say what you’ve heard me say, dear.’ So, bowing her head, the little girl prayed, ‘Dear God, why on earth did I invite the minister over for dinner?’ Amen.”

(www.accessinspiration.com 5/12/26)

The point is that prayer is simply a conversation with our Lord. We tend to think it’s about asking Him for things, but it can also be an expression of our gratitude/thanks; or even just observations about our day.

Our Scripture passages today all reference the importance of prayer.

A. In John 17:1-11, we are invited by Jesus to listen in as He prays to His Heavenly Father, perhaps better known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” We call the “Our Father,” “The Lord’s Prayer,” but it’s really Jesus’ model for how we should pray to the Father: We begin with praise and a recognition of who God is. Next, we ask for His divine will to be done in our lives and on earth; then we ask for daily provision and protection from evil; we then ask for divine assistance in forgiving others. Now notice, Jesus never sinned. He did not need to request this for Himself. This is what tells us that we normally think of as “the Lord’s Prayer” is actually our Lord sharing a way for us to pray. Finally, we close with praise for God. Effective, reverential prayer is what I call a praise sandwich.

In John’s version of “the Lord’s Prayer,” Jesus is actually bringing His own concerns to His Father. He is reporting to the Father that He had fulfilled His assignment on earth and is asking Him to restore to Him all the kingly prerogatives (His glory) He had left behind in Heaven. He had demonstrated God’s love to His people—teaching, healing, and delivering them from demons. Now He was on His way to Cross to complete His final demonstration of self-sacrificial love for us.

But next, He turns His attention to us—His disciples then and we, His followers, today. Think about this, now: He is on His way to be captured, tortured, and crucified, and He is concerned about us! He asks the Father to keep us safe from the evil one. Jesus intercedes with the Father for us—Our Lord’s prayer for us is a precious gift!

B. He follows this up in His post-resurrection appearances, just as He is about to jet off to Heaven (Acts 1:8-14). In verse 8, He reminds us it is our business to get the Word of God out to the rest of the world, starting with Jerusalem, then to Judea, then Samaria, and eventually to the whole wide world. This is an addendum to The Great Commission from Matthew 28:19-20-→Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. Jesus wants people to be saved. He left this task to us. We are privileged to join with Him in this great enterprise. We start in Wellborn, talking to our neighbors about Jesus. Then we move out to the surrounding county, Judea. From there, we begin to impact what would be our Samaria, Lake City, but don’t tell them I called them that. Then it’s on to the ends of the earth. Very few of us will venture out as long term missionaries—that’s a particular call. But we can partner with the ones who do go abroad, by praying for them and by supporting them financially.

Jesus has called all of us to do the work of evangelism, but not in our own power. We need to pray for the Holy Spirit to empower us and to give us the opportunity and the words with which to tell others about Jesus. We need also to pray for encouragement and stamina to do this work when we experience frustratingly small results. Finally, we need to pray for revival in our country.

C. Psalm 68 was written by King David. It is a hymn of praise for deliverance from enemies and victory over them, something David the warrior would have been very familiar with. Verse 1 actually quotes the prayer Moses used every time he urged the Children of Israel to set out on the next phase of their wilderness march (Numbers 10:35)-→Rise up, Lord, and let your enemies be scattered. Let those who hate You flee before You. Imagine what might happen if we were to say this prayer—or any prayer–upon rising in the morning! It’s a prayer for the start of our day. It’s a prayer expressing confidence that God will be with us throughout our day and in all that we encounter.

Consider the example of our first American President, George Washington.

In the winter of 1777, he and his army were encamped at Valley Forge, PA. It was bitterly cold, with snow on the ground. Valley Forge is now a beautiful park outside Philadelphia. The cold is a damp rather than a dry cold, as in Colorado or Utah. It seeps right through whatever you have on. Washington’s troops were in a world of hurt back then. Their supply lines had diminished to almost nothing so even food was scarce. Some of our troops lacked shoes—can you imagine living barefoot in the snow? Many others were sick or wounded. Morale was bad and some talked of mutiny. We were out manned and outgunned by the British army, one of the best in the world in those days. The outlook was grim.

One day, a Quaker man, Isaac Potts, was out walking in the woods, when he sighted General George Washington some yards away. He reported later that he saw the General on his knees in the snow. Washington’s head was bowed; his hands were folded; and his hat and sword rested nearby on the ground. Potts recognized Washington was praying and later wrote. “If there is anyone on this earth whom the Lord would listen to, it is George Washington. And I feel a presentiment that under such a commander there can be no doubt of our eventually establishing independence.”

Valley Forge was the turning point in our revolutionary war. Supply lines were reestablished, morale improved, and our ragtag army went on to win. It has been said, “Prayer didn’t change the weather. It didn’t instantly solve every hardship. But it changed a man. And that man changed a nation. When Washington prayed in the snow, something moved in Heaven—and the course of history began to shift.”

(Darrell Stetler, II, www.newstartdiscipleship.com. 5/15/2025.)

D. Finally, Peter reminds us (1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11) of two important prayer needs: As J. Vernon McGee summarizes Peter, in chapter four, he writes-→”The word of God makes it very clear that suffering is a part of the Christian life. Suffering is what develops you.” There are no shortcuts to living the Christian life, no easy ways. We are to suffer for Jesus and with Jesus. So there is meaning to our suffering. Our Lord is with us through it and uses it to transform us by smoothing off our crusty edges.

(Mcgee, Through the Bible Commentary on 1st Peter, Thomas Nelson, 1991, pp.91-92.)

Peter assures us in verse 6-→So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God and at the right time He will lift you up in honor. This is a Scriptural promise-→If we humbly undergo times of trials and testings, keeping rather than abandoning our faith, God will raise us up after we have endured the test.

Peter also wants us to be aware that Satan is after us…again, Peter speaks from experience. He refers to the evil one as a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (5:8). So, we need to pray for strength and resilience to withstand trials, as well as to recognize when the evil one and his minions are after us.

Some dear person gave me a devotional at Christmas, and I don’t know who it was but I have truly enjoyed the gift. It’s called The One Year Book of Hymns, published by Tyndale in 2024. The hymn for Friday, May 18th (p.135) is entitled, “Prayer is the Soul’s Sincere Desire.” It was written by a fellow named James Montgomery (1771-1854). Consider these lyrics in the light of our Scripture passages today:

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,

Unuttered or expressed.

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,

The falling of a tear,

The upward glancing of an eye,

When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try;

Prayer the sublimest strains that reach

The Majesty on High.

Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice,

Returning from his ways,

While angels in their songs rejoice

And cry, “Behold, he prays!”

Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,

The Christian’s native air,

His watchword at the gates of death,

He enters heaven with prayer.

Oh Thou, by whom we come to God,

The Life, the Truth, the Way;

The path of prayer Thyself hast trod;

Lord, teach us how to pray!

Our God is only a prayer away. Whether it’s an arrow prayer, or something lengthier, we can trust that prayer changes things. Jesus modeled consistent, daily prayer and taught us a way to go about it.  This week, let’s practice turning all of our joys and concerns over to the Lord in prayer. AMEN!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Let God Be God

Pastor Sherry’s message for May 10, 2026

Scriptures: Acts 17:22-34; Ps 66:8-20; 1 Pet 3:13-22; Jn 14:15-21

I came across the following list on the internet this week:

“Why God Will Never Get Tenure At Any University:

1. Only published one book.

2. It was in Hebrew.

3. It had no references [footnotes or citations from other sources].

4. He did not publish it in referenced journals.

5. Some doubt He even wrote it Himself.

6. He is not known for His cooperative work.

7. Sure, He created the world, but what has He done lately?

8. He did not get permission from any review board to work with human subjects.

9. When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it up by drowning all the subjects.

10. When sample subjects do not behave as predicted, He deletes the whole sample.

11. He rarely comes to class and just tells His students to read the Book.

12. It is rumored that He sometimes lets His Son teach the class.

13. Although He only has 10 requirements, His students often fail His tests.

14. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountain top.”

(Source unknown)

I wonder if the author of this list was a believer. It doesn’t seem like it, does it? If the list is meant to be tongue-in-cheek humor, it puts us in the position of negatively judging the Great High God of the Universe! Speaking humbly, who are we to do that? What would make any human bold enough to believe we are justified in thinking we know better than our Creator and our Redeemer? Frankly, as Job learned, judging God is above our pay grade, isn’t it?

If we are going to let God be God, without our interference–which is hard for many to do—we have to allow Him to reveal Himself to us as He is, not as we might like Him to be. We have to take Him at His Word (made flesh, Jesus—the face of God the Father–and written, the Bible). My daughter and I had a friend in Pittsburgh named Mrs. Wilson. She told me that she was a Christian but she also believed in reincarnation. Like many, she thought she could pick the most appealing aspects of the world religions and decide what she liked best, thus fashioning her own religion. But if we make up our own god, and the rules through which he operates, then who is god? Reincarnation is a Hindu concept whereby if we don’t learn in one lifetime what the multitude of gods want from us, we come back after death as another life form to try again. This goes on and on until we finally get it right. She thought this idea was delightful until I asked her what she would do if she were reincarnated as a rat or a cockroach. Hinduism is a “works’ righteousness” religion, in which believers are responsible for their own salvation. She was a non-practicing Catholic who didn’t realize we can’t save ourselves—we all need a Savior to do it for us. So I gently asked her, “Mrs. Wilson, why would you want to go through all that risk and all that work when Jesus Christ has already won salvation for you?”

I think this is what Paul was getting at in our Acts 17:22-31 lesson.

He’s in Athens, at the Parthenon on the highest hill in the city, and he notices all the altars the Greeks have to their many gods. Built in 500 BC, it was originally dedicated to Athena (after whom the city was named), the goddess of wisdom, the arts, literature, and war. In Paul’s day, it contained altars to all the gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon. It was also the place to which Greek philosophers came to debate and discuss the great ideas of their day. Paul noticed they had also included one altar to “An Unknown God.” Were they hedging their bets? Trying to appeal to any god they hadn’t yet discovered? Paul wisely went on to tell them they were “too religious”—too caught up in their own ideas about god without knowing the One True God. He identified their unknown God as Jesus Christ and tells them he both knows of Him and knows Him. He tells them, essentially, that when he came to believe in Christ, he lost many of his ideas about religion.

He wants them (and us) to let Jesus Christ be the One and Only God in their lives. He tells them that God created everything (v.24); that He meets all of His own needs and does not live in man-made temples (v.25); that, in fact, He gave us life and we are His children. He asserts that In Him we live and move and have our being (v.28). He means that we should all have a relationship with Him, as He is, as He has revealed Himself to us. He cautions them to realize that prior to Jesus’ incarnation, God(v.30)…overlooked peoples’ ignorance…but now He commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to Him [meaning Jesus, the One He raised from the dead].

And He warns them that this God, Jesus, (v.28) is not an idol—He is real! He want us to repent of our sins and turn to Him. As the judge of all humans, He will one day return to earth to evaluate how well they (and we) have obeyed Him.

The Greeks of Paul’s day did not believe in a resurrection—this was a critical tenet of their religion. So some of them laughed at Paul, rejecting what did not agree with their religious notions. But others, including Dionysius, an influential man, and Damaris, a woman, believed him, and accepted Jesus then and there as their Lord and Savior. These two, and hopefully others, were willing to let God be God. This means letting go of what they (and we) may have held as treasured human concepts (like Mrs. Wilson’s fascination with reincarnation), and taking our God as He is, as He has revealed Himself to be.

Our Psalm (66:8-20) is one of thanksgiving, both as a community of faith and as individual believers. We thank God for historically protecting His people, testing us, purifying us, ransoming us from slavery in Egypt (or bondage to sin), and for showing us the way forward. We also individually thank Him for hearing our prayers and for answering us.

Even in Old Testament times, this psalmist knew God answers the prayers of those who confess their sins. If we don’t experience God answering our prayers, it could be because we come to Him as unrepentant sinners. I was in my early 40’s before I realized that the Lord had answered one of my prayers. He had not saved a baby I lost at 5.5 months into the pregnancy; nor did He put my damaged marriage back together. But as my mother lay dying in the ICU from cirrhosis of the liver (she had been a long term alcoholic), I began to pray at her bedside that the Lord would forgive her of her sins and take her home to be with Him. I asked the nursing staff if a Catholic priest had been called, as she had converted to Catholicism back when I was a teen. They called for an anonymous fellow from the Orlando phone book. When he arrived and began to ready himself to pray over her and anoint her, he asked me where I lived (Tallahassee, Florida, at the time), and shocked me when he said he had daughters who lived there. It turns out he was an Episcopal priest who had been accepted into the Roman Catholic religion and was able to remain married to his wife and connected to his children. He said at that time (1988), he was one of only 7 such priests in the country! I realized shortly thereafter that the Lord had sent an Episcopalian for me (my denomination then) who was a Catholic for my mother. She died about 45 minutes after he ministered to her. Prior to 1988, I had not lived a very Christian life style. I was not in the habit of keeping short sin accounts with the Lord. But I had learned to do so by then. If we are going to let God be God, we might want to preface all our prayers with an admission of and repentance for the ways we have offended God.

The Gospel lesson this morning is from John 14:15-21. In this particular passage, Jesus teaches His disciples about the Holy Spirit. (V.16) He is our Advocate, like a defense attorney who will always be there for us. (V.17) Another of His jobs is to lead us into all truth. If you don’t know how to interpret a passage of Scripture, ask the Holy Spirit to open up its meaning for you. If you don’t know who to believe when the news differs from reporter to reporter, ask the Holy Spirit to help you discern who is speaking the truth. The Holy Spirit is God’s still, small voice, speaking wisdom to us in any situation. Jesus wants us to know, however, that our ability to hear from the Holy Spirit depends on our being obedient to His commandments. Just as with Psalm 66, if we are letting God be God, we demonstrate our love for Him by our obedience to Him.

Finally, in our New Testament reading from 1 Peter 3:13-22, the Apostle wants us to remember our Christian lives will not always be smooth—and he should know! As with Peter, the Lord tests us through trials and hard times. He is present with us during our suffering, but He never agrees to always protect us from it-→someone has wisely said, “He invites us to a banquet, not a picnic.”

(J. Vernon McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on 1st Peter, Thomas Nelson, 1991, p.16.)

Peter wants us to (v.15)-→worship Christ as Lord of your life….if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. Remember It is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, then to suffer for doing wrong! Someone else has opined, “The answer is yes, Lord; now what’s the question?”.

(J. Fairless and D. Chilton, The Lectionary Lab Commentary, Year A, 2013, p.120.)

May we always let God be God, and trust in Him, even when things are not going well in our lives. May we also frequently confess our sins and remain in right relationship with Him. Amen, may it be so!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

The Sweet, Sweet Love of God

Pastor Sherry’s message for May 3, 2026

Scriptures: Acts 7:54-60; Ps 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Pet 2:2-10; Jn 14:1-14

The Lord has used my dear, long-term friend, Dr. Cheryl, to disciple me over the years. She lives in the Florida Panhandle, so I don’t see her much.

But we call each other every so often and we talk for hours, often about spiritual things.This week she called me and we talked from 9:30pm until 3:00am!

She has taught me much about the love and grace of God. Now I was brought up in the pre-2003 Episcopal tradition with four years of Catholic girls’ school sprinkled in. Both traditions emphasize the majesty, the holiness, the “otherness” of God. Cheryl, however, is always talking about how sweet God is!

She had one Jewish parent and one Baptist, and was raised as a Christ-believer. She is the one the Lord used to help me become aware of God’s daily gifts to us:

1.) A view of wild-flowers along the interstate;

2.) The sight of a graceful bird on the wing, or a cardinal on a fence;

3.) The humorous or tender animal slides our projectionists show us at the end of our worship services (today they will display a cat in a rain-cape, celebrating the rain we enjoyed this week after a long drought);

4.) Kind, unsolicited comments from friends and even strangers.

For all of these things we need to give God the glory and our praise!

I found the following music video this week that I think does a really good job of conveying to us “The Sweet, Sweet Love of God.” (www.youtube.com, “Christian Kids’ Music, motions and lyrics, Rob Biagi, 3:42.) It looks to me like a dad and his two daughters recorded this on their phone for social media. It’s got a nice beat, doesn’t it? While it’s apparently directed at kids, doesn’t it do a good job of revealing the sweet, loving heart of our God for us?

So too do our Scripture lessons today:

A. In our Psalm (31:1-5, 15-16), King David pleads with God to come to his rescue, and trusts the Lord to do so. In verses 1-2 He writes (NLT)-→Oh Lord, I come to You for protection; don’t let me be disgraced. Hear me, rescue me. Be my Rock of protection, a Fortress where I will be safe. I picture in my mind a huge, immovable rock that we can stand upon and feel safe. J. Vernon McGee cites a Scottish lady who would say, “There are times when I am frightened and I tremble on the Rock, but the Rock never trembles under me” (J. Vernon McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on the Psalms, Thomas Nelson, 1991, p.172).

This psalm predates Jesus, but remember, Jesus is the Rock of our salvation, the firm foundation of our faith. Can’t we also visualize a fortress in which we are protected from enemies? In verse 3, David calls God his Rock and his Fortress-→He is also our Rock and our Fortress. In verse 5, David says-→I entrust my spirit into Your hand. Rescue me, Lord, for You are a faithful God. Where else do we read this statement in Scripture? Jesus on the Cross cries out (KJV)-→Into Thine hand I commit my spirit, just as He dies. Taking a page from Jesus, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, says as he is being stoned, (Acts 7:59)-→Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Actually, many Christian martyrs through the ages have said the same thing.

(J. Vernon McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on Acts, Thomas Nelson, 1991,p.173)

If we are confronted with a similar end, may we be as faith-filled! Our psalm reading concludes today with the lines, Rescue me; My future is [my times are] in Your hands

B. It is exactly this fact that would help each of us face martyrdom.

Our Acts 7:54-60 lesson recounts the murder of deacon Stephen. The Jewish religious leadership stone him for what they consider the sin of blasphemy.

Earlier, he lets them have it (vv.51-53, NLT)-→You stubborn people! You are heathens at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels. No wonder they were so enraged with him. Stephen boldly called them out! So even though he spoke God’s own truth, they proceeded to permanently shut up his prophetic mouth.

But look at Jesus’ sweet, sweet love for him! He fills him with the Holy Spirit, to give him the words to say and to provide him with courage. Then He opens Heaven so Stephen can be encouraged. Stephen sees (v.55)-→…the glory of God [the Father], and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. What Christian would be paralyzed with fear if they saw this? No one! Our culture is becoming increasingly anti-Christian. I hate to say it but we could be arrested and—God forbid!–killed for our faith. Let us pray to God that He helps us, like He helped Stephen, to face our death with unshakable faith in Christ!

C. This too is the faith and trust that Jesus is speaking of in our Gospel lesson, John 14:1-14. He makes it clear to the apostles that He is the face of God the Father (vv.9b-11)-→Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father…Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but My Father who lives in Me does His work through Me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.

Just prior to this, He has declared (v.6)-→I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me. Simply trying to demonstrate our faith by doing good works will not take us to heaven. Without our belief in Jesus, Scripture tells us that our good works are like filthy rags to God. It takes the active, born again trust or faith–true faith–in Jesus.

Jesus is the only route to our Father in heaven.

The sweet, sweet of love of Jesus in this is that He has made it easy for us. When I was in seminary, we had a visit from an indigenous missionary to India, the Rev. Andrew Swamidos. He told a story of having been at a street corner in his city when a bus jumped the curb and killed a pedestrian waiting there. By the next day, a monument had been erected to “the god of the bus-stop,” and already food offerings and money had begun to be placed there to placate that vicious god. The great Good News of the Gospel is that we don’t have to undergo a lot of efforts or manipulations to get God to notice us favorably. No because, praise God, we are covered with the righteousness of Jesus.

D. This is why St. Peter (1 Peter 2:2-10) is justified in calling us (v.5)-→…living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple.

Because of the sweet, sweet love of God for us, Jesus died on the Cross to take upon Himself the penalty for our sins! Because of the sweet, sweet love of God for us, Peter can accurately call us (vv. 9-10)-→… chosen people…royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you [we] can show others the goodness of God, for He called you [us] out of the darkness into His wonderful light. In other words, God has plans for us in this world and the next. We are to function like people who know and who love Jesus and God the Father. By the ways we live our lives, and by the words we speak, we are intended by God to draw other people to Christ. Priests in Jesus’ day taught and showed people how to relate to God; they also taught and showed people what God wants from us. This is what we are to do and sometimes we might even use words.

Did you notice that a young Saul was in the crowd that stoned Stephen? Biblical scholars believe Stephen was an older, more experienced follower of Jesus: “Stephen is filled with the Spirit, while Saul is filled with rage and zeal for what he thought was right, like everyone else in the crowd that day. Stephen gets a straight-shot view through to heaven, where he can see Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Saul, of course, has yet to gain his spiritual eyes. He is blind to these details, just as he will become blind on the road to Damascus….”—until a loving, forgiving Jesus redirects him to true sight.

(John Fairless & Delmer Chilton, The Lectionary Lab Commentary, Year A, 2013, p.123)..

Saul/Paul was meant by God to become an outstanding teacher, preacher, and church planter. We too are called by God to do the work of God—not just me, a preacher, but you too, as Christ’s followers. Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message, as well as of a book titled The Jesus Way, writes, “To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the One Who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that are often unsaid but always derivative from Jesus, formed by the influence of Jesus. To follow Jesus means that we can’t separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing and the way that He is doing it. To follow Jesus is as much, or maybe even more, about feet as it is about ears and eyes. (Peterson, Eerdmans, 2011, p.22)

The sweet, sweet love of God calls us to be the agents, or rather the messengers (like angels) “through whom God touches and changes the lives of those around us.” (Fairless & Chilton, p.127). Our culture needs the Good News of the Gospel! Time’s awasting! Let’s get to it, Church!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Sheep Who Listen

Pastor Sherry’s message for 04/26/26 

Scriptures: Acts 2:42-27; Ps 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; Jn 10:1-10

The following story is told of President Franklin D. Roosevelt:

“President Franklin D. Roosevelt got tired of smiling that big smile and saying the usual things at all those White House receptions. So, one evening he decided to find out whether anybody was paying attention to what he was saying. As each person came up to him with extended hand, he flashed that big smile and said, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.” People would automatically respond with comments such as “How lovely!”

“Nobody listened to what he was saying, except one foreign diplomat. When the president said, “I murdered my grandmother this morning,” the diplomat responded softly, “I’m sure she had it coming to her.”

“The problem today is not that God is not speaking but rather we are not listening for Him. It’s not the Lord who is not speaking, but it’s us who are not hearing.”

(Borrowed from a sermon by Jimmy Chapman, “I Lay Me Down to Sleep” 7/3/08 www.SermonCentral.com)

Our Psalm and Gospel readings both refer to us as sheep and the Lord as our shepherd. Truthfully, the fact that God thinks of us as sheep is not a compliment. One writer I remember from years ago–sorry but I can’t recall who it was in order to give the person credit–claimed sheep are “Dumb, directionless, and defenseless.” Sheep need a shepherd to guide them because they are have a “herd” or a “flock mentality” and will follow their leader. Since they are also prone to over-eating, they have been known to follow their flock leader–while pursing edible grass–right off a cliff. They also have a tendency to wander off and get lost. The people of Jesus’ day understood that a competent shepherd would leave the 99 under the care of an associate and seek out his 1 lost sheep (each one represents money on the hoof). They knew that sheep don’t always look where they are going, and probably don’t assess the risks of going there. Finally, they are notoriously skittish, running in a tight knit circle (with lambs to the inside and rams on the edge) when frightened. They need a shepherd to keep them safe from predators. They also need a shepherd to keep them safe from their instincts.

However, on the plus side, they do recognize the voice of their particular shepherd. In Biblical times, several herds of sheep might be housed at night in a common sheepfold, with shepherds rotating nights they each would stand watch while the others went home to sleep in their own beds. In the morning, each shepherd would approach the fold and call his own herd out by name. He would walk ahead, and his particular sheep would follow him.

Now let’s consider the image of the “Shepherd” in Scripture. In the Old Testament, this term generally refers to God the Father, but it can also mean the Jewish leaders, kings, pastors, or teachers. King David wrote in the 23rd Psalm–>The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. It says in Psalm 100–>…we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. The prophet Isaiah writes in chapter 40, verse 11–>[God] tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young. God, in Ezekiel 34, lambastes the kings, prophets, and priests of Israel, calling them bad shepherds. He accuses them of abusing, neglecting, and even preying upon His sheep. He promises to save His flock, saying in verse 23–>I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and He will tend them and be their shepherd. Now Ezekiel lived about 400 years after David; so this is a prophesy of Jesus, not King David, as our shepherd-king.

In the New Testament, Revelation 7:17 provides yet another sheep/shepherd prophesy: For the Lamb at the center of the throne [the risen Lord Jesus] will be their shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. The Gospel of John, Chapter #10 outlines how Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Scholars say this is the climax of John’s Gospel because Jesus identifies Himself as The Good Shepherd (v. 11), thus equating Himself with God the Father: Verse 14–>I am the Good Shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know Me. In today’s passage (vv.3-5), Jesus says, “The watchman opens the gate for him [the shepherd], and the sheep listen to His voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When He has brought out all of His own, He goes on ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him because they know His voice. But they will never follow a stranger, in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.

How do we know if we are the sheep of the Good Shepherd? 1st, we’re baptized into His flock. 2nd, we learn to hear His voice by developing our spiritual ears. Our God communicates with us! He speaks to us through His written Word, the Bible; through the Holy Spirit. that still, small voice; sometimes through other people; and often through our circumstances. He wants us to communicate back to Him which we do through prayer; through our thoughts, when we meditate on Scripture passages; and through our worship. 3rd, we come to realize that we are each known by Him. It’s such a paradox: We’re members of His flock, but He doesn’t just view us as a herd. He sees us each in all of our individuality. Consider the lessons conveyed in Psalm 139: O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord…for You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb…When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body.

God knows us intimately, better than we know ourselves. He knows our every action; our every plan; our thoughts, even before they are fully developed; our words, even before we utter them. He has known us since before we were born. Jesus says, in Luke 12:7–>Indeed, the very hairs of your head are numbered. What comfort! He knows us as we are and loves us anyway! 

Psalm 23 spells out the wonderful life benefits that come to us if we listen to and follow Jesus: J. Vernon McGee says the 23rd Psalm is the song of an old, experienced shepherd (King David), looking back over his life. McGee writes, “Life had beaten, battered, baffled, and bludgeoned this man,” and yet…in looking back over his long life, David–also one of God’s sheep–recognizes all the ways that God had intervened for and shepherded him. And he is exceedingly grateful!

1. He provides for us (green pastures, still waters);

2. He renews our strength when we are weak or weary;

3. He guides us along the right paths, encouraging us to avoid pain and destruction;

4. He protects us from being afraid (of threats, of death) and comforts us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death;

5. He honors and blesses us;

6. And His love and goodness draw us to Himself, now and for eternity.  

( J. V. McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on the Psalms, Thomas Nelson, 1991, p.134.)

In John 10:1-10, the Apostle John wants us to realize that “Christianity is not so much a matter of believing certain things as it is of hearing that voice [Jesus] and trusting it with your life.” Have you heard Him call to you from the Scriptures? I have, on a number of occasions. One very meaningful time to me was when I tried to withdraw from the ordination process. I felt I was too old and had had too much schooling and could surely serve God as a Christian psychologist. I opened Scripture and the words of Psalm 110 leaped off the page at me: The Sovereign Lord has decided and will not change His mind. That wasn’t just a coincidence; it was an answer to my prayer from the lips of the Lord Himself. Perhaps passages like the following have really spoken to you: Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28). I came that they might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me (John 14:1). The Holy Spirit will take you to a place in God’s word that truly speaks to your prayer need.

Do you realize that when you hear me preaching (or read my sermons), it is not just me that you hear or read. Please know that I preach what I hear, what I believe God is directing me to preach. I’m not saying this to puff myself up as some great and holy example, because I am flawed and a sinner like all of us. What I hope you hear in my sermons is the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking through me–and sometimes in spite of me. It’s the same voice we hear in the Scriptures. It’s the same voice we hear in the patterned way we worship on Sundays. It’s the same voice we hear in our hymns-→today, we have twice sung hymns asking Jesus to lead us (See Our Great Redeemer’s Praise, p.150 and p.130). As we leave worship this morning, we will remind ourselves in song that He leads us (p.73). It’s the same voice we hear through the lovely weekly anthem our soloists sing for us. “It’s the voice of deep crying out to deep, of Christ’s Spirit seeking out our spirits and calling us to come into the presence of the lover of our souls.”

 (J. Fearless and D. Chilton, The Lectionary Lab Commentary, Year A, 2013, p.122.)

Our God is speaking. Are we listening? We want to be sheep who listen. Our God loves us-→enough to die on a cruel cross to save us. Jesus is calling to each of us. It’s hard to believe that President FDR would have spoken to people who did not take in what he was actually saying. How sad that he could say something so outrageous that only one person picked up on it and responded to him—and that person was a foreigner. Let’s pray now to ask God to help us hear Him (to develop our spiritual ears) and to respond to Him daily.

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Important Questions

Pastor Sherry’s message for 4/19/26

Scriptures: Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Ps 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Pet 1:17-23; Lk 254:13-35

Those of you who have had children probably remember the stall tactics they used to delay their bedtime. They would need another story; a drink of water; one more trip to the bathroom; their favorite plush toy (Heaven forbid if it has been misplaced!); one more hug and kiss; maybe another person or thing to pray for….When my now 51 year old son was a little guy, he had to ask one more “questing,” meaning he had one more question for me to answer before he would close his eyes. It worked pretty well until I caught on that it was less about a need to understand the world than to delay sleep. At this point I began to say, “One more questing,” or “No more questings tonight.”

All of our Scripture readings today present important questions and their answers. Let’s search them out together:

A. I have always loved today’s Gospel lesson from Luke 24:13-25.

These two sad and disappointed followers of Jesus are walking home from Jerusalem, so distressed about the fact that their Lord has been crucified.

Without realizing His identity, they encounter the risen Christ on the road and He asks them, (v.17)-→What are you discussing so intently as you walk along? In other words, What are you talking about? (or What are you worrying about?) Now, Jesus is God, right? As the Omniscient One, He would of course know they are skeptically talking about the claims that He has been resurrected. They have not seen Him for themselves so they don’t yet believe that He is alive.

Then they essentially ask Him this humorous question: Are You the only one in all of Jerusalem who has not heard the improbable stories that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead? Poor folks! They don’t realize Who they are talking to. So then He takes them on a trip though all the Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah’s death and resurrection. What a Bible Study that must have been! Wouldn’t you have loved to have been there to hear Jesus explain how He fulfilled all that had been prophesied about Him.

Notice when they finally discern Who He is: It was when He blessed and broke the bread at supper….He, the Lamb of God, the Bread of Heaven, was showing them that He had to be broken on the Cross to redeem us from our sins.

The Important Question, for them was, What (or Who) are you talking about? They were skeptical about the reports that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. And He proved to them that He had. Christ asked the important question and He answered it. Blaize Pascal, the French philosopher and mathematician (1623 – 1662) once said, “Human knowledge must be understood to be believed, but divine knowledge must be believed to be understood” (McGee, Luke, p.300)

B. A second very important question is asked by Holy Spirit inspired new believers and answered by Peter in Acts 2:36-41. In this continuation of his famous sermon on Pentecost morning–when 3,000 were led to Christ—Peter proclaims v. 36, NLT)-→So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, Whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah! The minds and spirits of many in his audience were convinced by his testimony. Scripture says (v.37)-→Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”

What a great question! If we believe Jesus is Who He said He was—God Almighty—what should be our answer? Peter spells it out: First, repent of all your sins; second, be baptized; and, third, receive the Holy Spirit, Hopefully, each one of us here has done exactly that. If not, please speak to me after the service so we can remedy that.)  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the people ask the important question and Peter answers it.

C. Then Peter goes on to add in his letter (1 Peter 1:17-23) the following–as if he is still answering, “What should we do? He said we should live reverently, daily, hourly, keeping in our minds on the fact that Jesus sacrificed Himself for us. In v.19, he coins the phrase-→…the precious blood of Christ—we are washed clean of our sins by Jesus’ precious blood. We tend not to think of blood cleaning up anything. But God set it up such that our sins could only be washed away by the death, the blood of some animal—like a lamb, a calf, a bull, or even some birds. Something had to die to atone for our sins.

Peter proclaims that Jesus was and is (vv.19-20) …the sinless, spotless, Lamb of God…God chose Him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days He has been revealed for your sake. He goes on to say that because of Christ’s great love for us, we should pass that love on to others; and we should spend time in God’s word, the Bible, getting to know our Lord more intimately.

What should we do? is obviously in Peter’s mind a very important question. So he asks it and answers it.

D. Finally, our Psalm (116:1-4, 12-19) asks the question, What can I offer the Lord for all He has done for me?” In verses 1-2 the composer writes🡪I love the Lord, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy. Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live. Whoever wrote this psalm was a person in distress who chose to call upon the Lord for help. He or she believed the Lord did hear and did help. So this psalmist composed this love song to God—it is actually a hymn of Thanksgiving.

As the psalmist teaches us, we respond to God with praise; by keeping our promises to Him; by submitting to His will for us; and by offering to Him gifts of thanksgiving (like tithes and acts of service). We respond with love for Him because He replies to our heartfelt prayers.

The truth is that God needs nothing from us. He has created the universe. He lives in constant loving fellowship with the other two members of the Trinity. He meets His own needs! The best gifts we can give God are our love for and our faith in Him. Other great gifts we can offer Him are our gratitude and praise.

So, the important questions/”questings” in our passages today are the following:

1.) Who are we talking about? Do we really know Jesus? Would we have believed He had risen back then? Do we today?

2.) Realizing He has risen and is alive, What should we do? St. Peter advises us to repent, be baptized, and receive the Holy Spirit. He also says we should live into Easter, allowing the knowledge that He died and rose again lead us into lives that are transformed/changed, becoming more Christlike. Love others, even if they aren’t very likable—because Christ died for them too. And work on drawing closer to Jesus through Bible reading.

3.) And What can we offer the Lord for all that He has done for us?

Consider the following story:

A man dialed a wrong number and got the following recording: “I am not available right now, but I thank you for caring enough to call. I am making some changes in my life. Please leave a message after the beep. If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes.”

(Borrowed from www.Ministry127.com, 4/16/27)

The truth is that all these important questions invite us to change. Isn’t it true that we often think of important questions we want to ask God? I have a whole list of questions I want to ask Jesus, St. Paul, King David, Old Testament Joseph, and Mary, Jesus’ mother when I get settled into heaven. If you are like me, we tend to think of what we want to ask the Lord rather than the questions the Lord wants to ask us. Because we believers are covered by Christ’s righteousness, God the Father, at the judgment seat is probably going to ask us how well we did at loving others and how we used the gifts He gave us in service to Him and humankind.

What other important questions might God ask of us? Our lectionary editors today chose several passages for us in which our God—through followers inspired by Him—asks important question of us. How do you intend to respond?

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams 

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

In Christ Alone

Pastor Sherry’s message for April 13, 2026

Scriptures: Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Ps 16; 1 Pet 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

We are a people who believe in Christ’s Resurrection. Do we live today—post Easter—as though we really do? If we aren’t sure, our God has shown us how. Our readings today give us 4 vital ways. Let’s unpack them using the verses of (another) contemporary Christian song; It was written in 2002 by Adrienne Liesching and Geoff Moore, ”In Christ Alone.”

Verse 1: In Christ alone my hope is found.

He is my light, my strength, my song.

This cornerstone, this solid ground

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease.

My comforter, my all in all.

Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In our Acts lesson, 2:14a, 22-32, it’s 9:00 am on the Day of Pentecost and the people think the apostles are drunk. Peter, who has recently stumbled in his faith, is powerfully energized! He’d been afraid that he too might be crucified. But now, he preaches the first sermon in what is known as “the Church Age”—leading to the conversion of 3,000 Jews. Obviously, both he and his fellow apostles are Fired Up! They know Jesus is Who He said He was! That He is their light, their strength, their song; that He is the Chief Cornerstone, their solid ground, the source of their (and our) salvation. They therefore trust that He will see them through every problem that threatens them.

If we are living into Easter, we too should be fired up! We, too, can trust that our God is Who He says He is. God did what is impossible for people; He raised Jesus Christ from the grave. So, we too can see Him as our strength and our salvation. Because of Him, we, too, have nothing to fear. Like them, we can affirm, Here in the love of Christ we stand!

Verse 2: In Christ alone who took on flesh-

Fullness of God in helpless babe—

This gift of love and righteousness

Scorned by the ones He came to save.

Til on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied,

For every sin on Him was laid.

Here in the death of Christ I live.

Our Gospel lesson is from John 20:19-31. St. John details two Post-Resurrection appearances to the frightened apostles: Everyone but Thomas is present for the first visit. The 10 see and believe that Jesus is alive! They realize anew that He must be Who He claimed to be: God. They see that He really did accomplish what He said He would: overcoming the power of sin and death over humankind. And they receive from Him (1) His deep shalom peace—not dependent on our circumstances but on our relationship with Jesus; (2) A mission or purpose: As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you (v.21). He was ordaining them for ministry; telling them they would need to pick up their cross, like Him and follow Him; and to be ready to lose their life so as to gain it. (3) Finally, He gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit-→God’s empowerment to do all that He was asking them to do, and God’s discernment for forgiving people their sins, in Jesus’ name.

If we are living into Easter, we too believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection. If we believe, we too are born to eternal life! As St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NLT)–>God made Him who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. If we believe, we too receive Christ’s peace; life purpose, mission, or ministry; and the powerful assistance of His Holy Spirit. We also realize that, Here in the death of Christ we live.

Verse 3: There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the World by darkness slain.

Then bursting forth in glorious day,

Up from the grave He rose again.

And as He stands in victory,

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,

For I am His and He is mine…

Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

Thomas misses out and does not believe their reports. A week later Jesus returns so Thomas can see for himself. How gracious of the Lord to be patient with our unbelief! How sweet of Him to come back for the one (lost sheep) who still didn’t get it. Then look at the lengths to which Jesus goes to prove to practical Thomas what the others already accept. Finally convinced, Thomas confesses, “My Lord & My God!” You see, Jesus doesn’t expect us to park our intellect at the church door. He meets us where we are, and if our hearts are willing, and our eyes are open, He shows us He is alive, living, victorious!

If we are living into Easter, we too share in His victory over sin and death! We, too, can believe that He has defeated Satan’s power over us. We, too, can celebrate our freedom in and through Christ! As St. John tells us, (Jn 3:16, NIV)–>For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ has ransomed us with His life. We, too, can rest assured that We are His and He is ours…bought with the precious blood of Christ.

Verse 4: No guilt in life, no fear in death—

This is the power of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath,

Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man

Can ever pluck me from His hand.

Til He returns or calls me home,

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Psalm 16 is a prophesy from King David, also known as “The Song of the resurrection.” In it, David foretells of (verses 8-9), Jesus’ life and death. In verse 10, he predicts Jesus’ resurrection (NLT)-→For You [meaning God the Father] will not leave My soul [meaning that of Jesus] among the dead or allow Your Holy One [Jesus] to rot in the grave. Jesus, and David, both put their whole trust in God, and so should we.

In 1 Peter 1:3-9, the never-again-wavering Peter both celebrates Christ’s resurrection and warns us of trials to come. In verses 3-5, He practically dances with joy because of what the resurrection means for us all (NLT)-→All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by His great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.

But he also warns us—and he should know—to anticipate that we will experience trials that will test our faith, (verses 6-7, NLT)-→So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold….We have all suffered tests of our faith, haven’t we? It’s so tempting to bail on God when things in our lives get rough. But here is Peter exhorting us not to abandon Jesus when we experience times of trial. And difficulties. Remembering this, realizing our hope is “in Christ,” Here in the power of Christ we’ll stand.

Because of Jesus’ death on the Cross and Resurrection from the dead, we believers can live into new Easter attitudes and new, improved Easter behaviors: We can live life fearlessly, trusting in the love and protection of our Lord. We can rely upon the fact that He has paid the price for our sins so we too will be resurrected and live with Him, eternally, in heaven. We can relax in His love, knowing He has redeemed us with His blood. And, we can rest assured that He has the power to help us overcome the worst Satan and the world can throw at us.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, Alleluia, Alleluia!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams