Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Keep Your Eyes on the Lord

Pastor Sherry’s message for August 9, 2026 

Scriptures: Gen 37:1-35; Ps 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b; Ro 10:5-15; Matt 14:22-33

Have you ever noticed that Scripture gives us about as many lessons on how not to live as it points us to the best ways to live? Our Old Testament lesson is a prime example of how not to manage a family. Genesis 37:1-35 reads like a daytime soap opera or a reality TV show. We’ve got a family that that’s a hot mess . Let’s count the ways:

(1) First, there is the matter of choosing favorites: Jacob, the favorite of his mother, has to run for his life to escape the murderous wrath of his twin Esau, the favorite of his father. You would think Jacob would learn from his experience and not repeat it with his own family . But no . He breeds jealousy and discord by favoring one wife over another—the beautiful Rachel over the prolific Leah. And he compounds his trouble by favoring Rachel’s son, Joseph, over all 10 of his other, older sons. To make matters even worse, he gives Joseph a costly and gorgeous coat, fit for a prince, thereby indicating that Joseph is a prince in his father’s eyes. I just want to talk to Jacob and ask him, “Did you not take Developmental or Child Psych in college? Did you never learn to treat your children as equally as possible? (similar clothes, shoes, backpacks, the same amount of money spent on birthdays and Christmas, and the same size cookies or pieces of cake?) They often tend to think you favor one over the other anyway, but you don’t ever want to be as overt as you were .

(2) Then there is the really odious behavior of his eldest sons: Reuben, the first born, carries on an affair with Bilhah, Jacob’s concubine, and the mother of his half-brothers, Dan and Naphtali. Yuck! Even if she was a lovely “cougar,” he let his carnal instincts short-circuit his brain. His behavior implied he wished his father, Jacob, were dead. Next, Simeon and Levi are so incensed that Jacob would not punish their sister’s rapist, the Prince of Shechem, but rather have her marry him, that they slaughter the men of Shechem while they are laid up, recovering from adult circumcision. I’ve known some guys in the Navy who had to undergo circumcision as adults and they tell me the recovery period is pretty rough. These Canaanite men were willing to endure this procedure as a condition of the marriage contract Jacob had put to them. In other words, these pagans were converting to the One, True God . Perhaps Jacob intended to make things right through the marriage, but Leah’s sons are furious and want revenge for their sister Dinah’s rape. (This all foreshadows King David’s family issues, in the rape of Tamar by her half-brother Amnon.) Jacob is furious with his sons and also ashamed of them, believing they went too far and made God and their family look bad among their Canaanite pagan neighbors.

(3) Finally there is Joseph’s naivete regarding sharing his dreams openly with his brothers, and their father’s using him as a snitch. Joseph, at 17 years old is not yet sophisticated enough to realize how he added to his brothers’ enmity toward him, but Jacob should have been wiser than to pit his favorite against his jealous and embittered other sons. Unfortunately, the stage is set for horrendous sin and grief . Joseph had already told Jacob that 4 of his brothers had barbequed some of the sheep they were supposed to watch over, thus defrauding their father. In today’s passage, Jacob unwisely sends Joseph to again report what they are up to, and the 10 brothers are now so angry and enraged that they plot to kill him. Reuben apparently hoped to regain his father’s regard by saving Joseph, gathering materials to rescue him from the pit. But Judah, in Reuben’s absence, convinces the others to sell him to Ishmaelite and Midianite traders heading to Egypt. They sell him for 20 pieces of silver, and assume he will die as a slave—but not directly by their hands. Now they also have to lie to their father, Jacob, leading him to believe Joseph was killed by a wild animal. And they have to live with Jacob’s resulting, unrelenting grief. In Chapter 38, Judah becomes so distressed by his father’s grief (and his own guilt) that he leaves the family and goes to live among the Canaanites. Having learned nothing about the dangers of favoritism, Jacob now treasures Benjamin, his last child by the beloved Rachel who died while giving him birth.

This family is in a world of hurt . Last week we considered how God had been working on Jacob: Jacob had learned to love someone beyond himself, Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin. He had developed perseverance, grit, and a good work ethic. He had also become grateful to God for his protection and his acquired wealth. But he was still a work in progress. He had not yet learned to turn to God in every circumstance (Dinah’s rape; his sons’ perfidy). I have to wonder what kind of example of faith he set out for those 10 bitter, resentful, and murderous sons. None of them checked with the Lord before selling their own flesh and blood into slavery. None of them appeared to consider the effect of Joseph’s death on them, their consciences, or on their father–or even Benjamin. They each had to go through a personal hell on earth before they would learn to keep their eyes on the Lord.

Nevertheless, the Good News is that even though they have created an ungodly mess, our God is in the business of redeeming our messes—if we will let Him. God had given to Joseph two dreams that were very similar to each other: In one, his brother’s sheaves of wheat bowed to his sheaf; in the other, the sun, moon, and 11 stars bowed before him. None of them realizes this yet, but Joseph will be elevated by Pharaoh to command of all the resources of Egypt. His brothers will indeed bow before him. God will eventually use him to save his entire family, and many others, from a 7 year famine. Our Psalm 105:16-22 recalls God’s purposes behind Joseph’s sojourn in Egypt. The remaining chapters of Genesis deal with Joseph’s trials while enslaved; his rise to power through keeping his eyes on God; and his brothers’ journeys to repentance, reconciliation and faith.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the two lessons that teach us how to live:

A. Paul wants us to be sure we understand that is not by following the rules of religion that we are saved—but rather by having a personal relationship with Jesus. He famously states in verses 9-10 (NLT)-→If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. And he further adds in verse 13-→For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. We are saved by our faith in Christ. We are saved by keeping our eyes on Jesus and His Cross.

B. And this precious and exceedingly important fact is demonstrated by Peter in today’s Gospel text, Matthew 14:22-33. Recall that Jesus wanted to go away somewhere private to pray, but was prevented from doing so by the crowds following Him. Now He has healed all the sick, taught them the wisdom of God, and even miraculously fed them. Then he sends the crowds away and the disciples to their boat, and he goes up into the hills to pray most of the night. The disciples encounter heavy seas in a storm, just as Jesus returns to them on the water. Peter wants to walk on water too, so he asks Jesus to allow this, which he does. Peter does fine as long as he keeps his eyes on the Lord. He starts to sink as soon as he puts his eyes on his circumstances. Perhaps the heavy winds had not yet diminished; perhaps the huge waves had not yet calmed. Once Peter takes his eyes off Jesus, he sinks. But he is saved from drowning when Jesus reaches out and clasps his hand.

This is such a great reminder for all of us: Keep our eyes on the Lord, not on the circumstances that either frighten us or frustrate us. We are safe in His hands. We are safe in His care. No circumstance in which we dwell is too great for Him . He heals; He provides (jobs, peace, financial well-being, family unity, etc.); He saves; He blesses; He either helps us overcome adversity, or He helps us persevere through it. God saved Jacob, and his unruly sons, so they might see and be reunited once again with Joseph. In the meantime, he molded and reformed their characters. Jacob drew closer to the Lord in his faith. Joseph’s brothers grieved their sins and experienced being forgiven—a lesson for next week. Again, the life lesson is for us to keep our eyes on the Lord.

When I was in seminary, my best buddy and I—a woman named Amanda from Chicago—heard about a church south of Sarasota with a powerful healing ministry led by the Rev. Sharon Lewis. Our field worksite church paid for us to attend a weekend healing conference there to learn what they were doing. After having met up with my brother (who lived near there), I had come back to the room we shared on Saturday night to find Amanda asleep. At about 4am, I awoke to hear her weeping. When I asked what was wrong, she told me she was sure she would never be ordained. Now I knew her pretty well, and had observed her over time, so I was clear she was called to be a pastor. But I think the Holy Spirit must have inspired me to tell her to not pay any attention to what men or women said to her about it, but to keep her eyes on the Cross of Jesus. I said she should not look to the left or to the right, but to look to Jesus alone. She calmed down and we were able to get back to sleep. The next day, we attended the Sunday communion service. When Amanda stepped up to receive the bread, Pastor Lewis said to her, “You are not to look to the left or to the right, but to keep your eyes on Christ .”—almost verbatim what I had said earlier that morning. We both took that to mean she would eventually be ordained (and she was).

I attended a wedding in Gainesville, Florida, yesterday that was just awesome. The precious daughter of my son’s best male friend (from age 3 to college), Kaiti, had taken a gap year between high school and college. She worked with a youth missions agency that sent her to Jerusalem. While there, she met a fellow named Sterling from Colorado. They became friends and talked for hours about their faith in Christ. During this time, she came down with covid and was quarantined. Sterling brought her snacks and notes daily. They continued to correspond when he returned to Colorado and she went off to begin college in Pittsburgh. Their friendship grew into love during their four year, long-distance relationship, culminating in yesterday’s lovely and deeply heart-felt ceremony. The church was packed. Their precious relationship is truly a testimony to what can happen when God provides the foundation for a marriage. They both kept their eyes on the Lord and their example ministered to each of us who attended.

In the days ahead, and always, let us keep our eyes on the Lord. Watch and see what He will do. Amen.

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Don’t You Forget It!

Pastor Sherry’s message for August 2, 2026

Scriptures: Gen 32:22-32; Ps 17:1-7, 15; Ro 9:1-5; Matt 14:13-21

Recently, including this morning at the Church door, I’ve heard a number of folks—and not just those of a certain age—bemoan the fact that they forget a lot. People worry they are showing signs of dementia because they forget the time or date; their phone; their keys; the day a certain bill or a library book is due; people’s names; or the vocabulary of a foreign language, etc. At one point, when I was in college, I began to think in French and I even dreamed a few times in French. Now I can hardly remember any of it due to rarely having ever used it since. 

Back in 1885, A German psychologist named Herman Ebbinghouse (1850-1909) studied the phenomenon of forgetting. He experimented on himself, testing his ability to remember a series of words and also a series of nonsense syllables. He quickly decided we remember meaningful things like words much better than random syllables that convey nothing but sound. In 1885, he came up with what became known as “The Forgetting Curve,” which has been authenticated numerous times since. He determined that when we are trying to learn/remember a body of content or a number of facts, we tend to forget about 58% of it within the first hour! Within a day, we have lost about 68%; and after 5 days (a work week) we have lost 75% (3/4ths)! He discovered that if we review the material at repeated intervals–spaced out over time–we can hold things in memory longer than the Forgetting Curve predicts. We still forget some, but the rate of forgetting decreases. In other words, material stays with us longer if we practice remembering it over several time periods.

Interestingly, our God never forgets anything—unless it is our confessed sins. Corrie Ten Boom would say He drops our forgiven sins in the deepest part of the ocean and plants there a “No Fishing” sign. He does not intend to revisit them, and neither should we. We tend to easily remember very significant events (joyful or traumatic ones) without much rehearsal, practice, or repetition, as though they have been burned onto the retina of our mind. But for most other things—grocery lists, where I put my keys, the day my neighbors go on vacation and want me to water their plants, the Bill of Rights, a code of ethics–we need to either write it down or say it over and over in our heads, several different times.

I bring this forgetting phenomena up because I want us all to remember that our God does not forget us. This is an important and a comforting concept for us all to keep at the forefront of our minds.

A. Consider this morning’s Gospel, Matt 14:13-21. Jesus hoped to get away to mourn the death of His cousin, John the Baptist. He set out to sea, but the crowds followed Him around the Lake and caught up to Him. Scripture says He had compassion on them and healed them. Since the place was far from a town, He also multiplied food, in a miraculous way, to feed them (5,000 men plus women and children). He didn’t forget or overlook their needs. His compassion for them led to His healing, teaching, and feeding them, physically, cognitively, and spiritually. This reminds me of a praise song (based on Psalm 78:23-29) from the early 2000’s: “My God shall supply all my needs, according to His riches in glory. He will give His angels charge over me, Jehovah Jireh [The Lord will provide] cares for me.”

B. Speaking of psalms, our Psalm this morning (17:1-7) appears to be a prayer from David during those days when jealous King Saul and his army chased David in the wilderness. David knew he was being pursued to his death, yet he trusted God both to hear him and to answer him. He was asking for protection; he was counting on God’s mercy; he knew that God had anointed him to become king one day, and that his coronation hadn’t happened yet. He must have figured that that meant that God had not forgotten him or given up on him. Instead, believing God was not finished with him, David could trust that God would not allow Saul to kill him. When I was in seminary, my school sent me and two others to represent them at a Preaching Conference in Jackson, Mississippi. As we intended to fly back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, our place was forced to wait on the tarmac during a deluge of rain and lightening. Even once we were airborne, the plane bounced around during the less intense but still terrifying storm. We would suddenly drop who knows how many feet and many passengers would scream. My seatmate, a woman who frequently flew for work, grabbed onto the bag supplied for vomiting. She was worried and said she had never experienced a flight so rough. I had been praying all that time, but looked at her and told her we would get through the storm and land safely because I was midway through seminary and God wasn’t finished with me yet. I wasn’t bragging because I had the same blessed assurance that David did.

C. We meet the Apostle Paul again in Romans 9:1-5 today. After having asserted in Chapter 8 that nothing can separate us from God’s love, he begins Chapter 9 by bemoaning the fact that his Jewish brothers and sisters have rejected Christ. Now, let’s be clear that in the early years of the 1st century Christ’s newly founded Church was mainly composed of Jewish believers. Most of the Apostles, but particularly Paul, then turned their attention on bringing Gentiles into the fold. Paul was zealous about his mission, as we all know, but also brokenhearted that so many sons and daughters of Israel rejected Jesus. As we will see as he continues beyond today’s passage, he reassures himself that the Lord has not forgotten Paul’s countrymen. Perhaps he exaggerates for effect when he says he would gladly trade his relationship with Jesus to have all Jewish people come to Christ. That’s a very pastoral and a loving thing for him to say, but he knows that would never be necessary, that God will never forget them because… 

1.) Verse 4–>They are God’s Chosen People (we gentiles are grafted into their line as children of God).

2.) They have seen God’s glory (fire, cloud) while on the wilderness wanderings, received His Law from Mount Sinai, were recipients of His Covenant Promises, and built a huge and glorious Temple in which to worship Him.

3.) And he goes on to assert in verse 5 (NLT)-→ Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are their ancestors and Christ Himself was an Israelite as far as His human nature is concerned. Paul will spend subsequent chapters in Romans assuring us that God has not forgotten the Jewish people and will bring many of them to Christ before all is said and done.

D. Let’s think through how the Lord works on Jacob in today’s Old Testament lesson, Genesis 32:22-31. Our passage today sees Jacob and his huge family (two wives, two concubines, eleven sons, one daughter, and a huge number of servants and livestock, slowly making their way back home. He has essentially been indentured to wily Uncle Laban for 20 years, but leaves him as a wealthy man. We remember he had to work 14 years to be allowed to marry his true love, Rachel. But meanwhile, Leah, the less favored wife, bears him six sons and a daughter; then two more sons by her servant surrogate. Leah is the mother of 8 sons who will become the leaders of eight of the 12 tribes of Israel. Rachel, on the other hand, is beloved by Jacob but barren. Mightily frustrated, she has two sons by a surrogate; then finally—when the Lord takes pity on her– she gives birth to Joseph, his father’s favorite. (Once back in the Promised Land, She will die giving birth to Benjamin, her fourth son.) The ladies then retire from childbearing, with Leah credited with 8 sons and a daughter, and Rachel with 4 sons by the time of her death.

Jacob has been out of the Promised Land for 20 years. The trickster or fraudster has been conned by a greater trickster, a master fraudster. We have to credit Jacob, however, for having been a hard worker, and for persisting through his time of testing (We could say that Jacob has developed “grit.”) The Lord has called him to return, but he’s not yet home free: Just prior to this passage, he had to contend with a jealous and angry Laban who pursued him. They work things out by agreeing not to venture into each other’s territory again. But next he knows he also has to deal with his vengeful brother, Esau. He’s no doubt exhausted, harried, and burnt out.

Having deepened his faith during the twenty years, he prays a powerful prayer to the Lord: (1) He acknowledges how God has blessed him; (2) He reminds God that it is the Lord who has called him to return home; (3) And he asks God to save him from his brother’s wrath. He then sends his wives and children to safety, across the Jabbok River, intending to bed down for the night. Suddenly, though, he is grabbed by the Lord Himself (the preincarnate Jesus), Who wrestles with him. The prophet Hosea later wrote about this event: (Hosea 12:3-4)-→Even in the womb, Jacob struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won. He pleaded for a blessing from Him. There at Bethel he met God face to face and God spoke to him! Weary and worried Jacob wrestled with Jesus all night! At the conclusion of this encounter, the Lord changes his name to Israel-→He who contends with God and men and overcomes. Jacob has learned to persevere. And he has also learned he cannot bend God to his will; rather he must yield his will to the Lord

Jesus leaves him with a reminder of this: a dislocated hip. Jesus is letting Jacob know that He will not let Esau overcome or kill him. He does not need to fear because the Lord has not forgotten him. Uncle Laban has worked most of the deceptiveness out of him; but Jesus will protect him.

Lord, please give us all the faith and trust in You that Jesus, David, and Paul had, and that Jacob developed over time. It can be argued that since Jesus knows the Father intimately, He doesn’t really require faith—He just knows! But He always models obedience for us. And He Himself is never forgotten by God. Even when He became sin for us on the Cross, God turned His back on Him, but was no doubt very grieved for and aware of Him.

David and Paul both demonstrate the fact that the Lord is with them, hears them, and responds to them. Neither of them believes—even while running for his life or when being beaten or imprisoned—that the Lord ever forgets them! Neither one is perfect, either, but they both do an exceptional job of modeling for us unfailing faith and trust in our Lord.

Jacob has come a long way, but he is still—like us—a work in progress. God did not abandon him in Haran. God told him to leave Uncle Laban and return to his father Isaac’s land in the area of Mamre and Hebron. The Lord goes on to engineer Esau’s forgiveness. However, Jacob does still try to manipulate his brother by buying his forgiveness with very generous gifts.

  Let me leave you with one final point: I have probably preached today’s lesson about Jacob 4 or 5 times over the years of my tenure here at Wellborn Methodist Church. Ebbinhause would predict we should all know the story (and the morals of the story) well by now—repeated reviews over several different time periods. That’s one of the points of preaching through the Bible. The Lord wants us to learn what He has to say in it, and to remember, not forget it. It is as though He is saying to us, This is My Word for you: Don’t you forget it!” Amen!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Don’t forget!
Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Puzzling it Out

Pastor Sherry’s message for July 19, 2026

Scriptures: Gen 28:10-19a; Ps 139:1-2, 23-24; Ro 8:12-25; Matt 13:24-30, 3543

Like a number of folks in our congregation, I like to work jigsaw puzzles. I’ve found a site on line that I like and visit it daily to work a puzzle or two. Friday I worked on a picture of a large whale flipping. You may remember those insurance ads on TV that featured huge whales coming up out of the water and flipping over before descending back into the sea. This behavior is called “breaching.” I find it fascinating. Scientists aren’t sure why they do it: It might be a form of play—they do look like they enjoy it. Or it could be a tactic to remove parasites. It could also be a means of communicating with other whales, in order to rejoin or collect their pod, or for purposes of breeding. Or perhaps it’s a signal the breaching whale has located a food source. Whatever its purpose, it is surely a spectacular sight!

And it puts me in mind of what Paul has to tell us in Romans 8:12-25: We were not the only creatures affected negatively by the Fall in Genesis. Paul says (in verses 20-22, NLT)-→Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Our lives have been redeemed by Jesus Christ. Paul is teaching us that if we allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, we are sons and daughters of God. This allows us into intimate fellowship with God the Father—so intimate that we may call Him Abba or Daddy (Remembering that He is omnipotent, we probably don’t want to act too casually with Him). Apparently, the Lord is giving all humans the chance to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior before ushering in the end of times (very patient!). It is then that Jesus will come to earth again, defeat evil, and return all living beings to the state of the Garden of Eden–a perfect world. Could it be that the whales who breach are checking to see—or puzzling it out—whether we humans have yet sufficiently submitted ourselves to God’s Kingdom rule so they can be released from the effects of human sin on them? Searching for food would not be necessary in a perfect world. Barnacles and other pests would not bedevil critters in a perfect world—no more mosquitoes, gnats, or roaches! Whales would not misplace their pods in a perfect world. And they might be able to perform other gymnastic feats (like a triple axle?) in a perfect world.

I think our other scripture passages today also present us with several encouragements to fall into line with Jesus:

A. Psalm 139 really eases any worries we might have about our relationship with God! David wrote it as a theological hymn, reminding us of God’s character traits of omniscience (He knows everything), omnipresence (He is everywhere), and omnipotence (He is all powerful). We are always on His radar and can neither get away from Him nor hide from Him. He sees us. He knows our every thought, and loves us anyway! There’s no problem confronting us that He cannot handle. If you attempt to puzzle this out, you can only end up feeling caught up in God’s love, known by Him, and comforted. Praise God!

B. That theme is expanded in our Old Testament story of Jacob’s flight from Esau. Esau realizes Jacob has stolen the blessing Esau thought was his. He erupts in murderous rage, so Jacob must flee for his life. Isaac and Rebekah tell him to head to Haran (Present-day Northern Syria), find a wife from among Rebekah’s extended family; and lay low until Esau calms down. In other words, they get him out of Dodge, thinking it wouldn’t take long. (It took about 20 years, during which time Jacob’s beloved mother dies, having never seen Jacob again.)

Actually, Jacob seems to have run 52 miles that first day! From 40 miles south of Jerusalem–Beersheba–he made it 12 miles north of the city by sundown. Fear was driving him and he was hoofing it! Jacob then falls into what was no doubt a sleep of exhaustion, and dreams of a ladder from earth to Heaven. He sees angels moving up and down the ladder, implying that heavenly beings do visit earth. He also views God (the Preincarnate Jesus) at the top of the ladder, Who identifies Himself by saying, (v.13, NLT)-→I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. Jesus identifies Himself then goes on to reiterate the covenant promises the Father had made to Abraham and Isaac: (1) Property, including where he laid his head; (2) Progeny, innumerable descendants, spreading all over the earth; (3) Presence (I will be with you; I will not leave you); (4) and Protection.

So, Jacob is running away from home to escape his brother’s wrath, and he encounters Jesus! He’s a scammer and a deceiver, but our Lord sees great promise in him! As I puzzle this out, I believe it means that our God does not allow our sinful tendencies to deter Him from loving us and even blessing us and using us in Kingdom building (Remember, Jacob is the ancestor of Jesus!).

With Jesus, there’s always hope! Secondly, Jacob experiences the fact that he can run from Esau but he cannot outrun the Psalm 139 omnipresence of God.

And, Jacob is humbled—for the moment—and renames the place Bethel, meaning house of God. He sets up a memorial to the dream and his encounter.

He should have been encouraged by the extension of the covenant promises,

but I doubt he had any inkling of what God had in store for him with Uncle Laban, poor soul!

C. But let’s leave Jacob to his future and take a look at our Gospel lesson, Matthew 1324-30, 36-43: And first, let me share a story of a man who owned a parrot.

“Every day at 5:00pm, the man took the parrot and walked down the street to the corner bar where he had a few drinks and talked with his friends. He had taught the parrot to order for him, yelling out, “Gimme a beer, gimme a beer” every time he entered the bar.

“Every Sunday the man and his wife went to church, locking the bird in its cage before they left the house.  One Sunday the door on the cage did not lock well and the bird got out. It flew out an open window and found its way into the church. It flew in and sat down on its master’s shoulder, crying out for all to hear, “gimme a beer, gimme a beer.” The man was embarrassed and told the bird to hush, saying, “Shut up! This ain’t the bar; its the church.” The bird looked around and said, “AWWK, Same old crowd, same old crowd.”

(Fairless and Chilton, The Lectionary Lab Commentary, Year A, 2013, pp.182-183.)

The point of the story is that often it’s hard to tell who are “saints” and who are sinners, or who are the good seed and who are the tares or the weeds, isn’t it? We can deceptively look the same, for a time anyway–“same old crowd!” We want to be wheat or the good seed, but the truth, as Martin Luther put it, is that, “We are all Saint and Sinner at the same time.” (Ibid.) Unfortunately, that is all too true, isn’t it?! Often we do measure up, we do try our best to be like Jesus.

And if the harvest came at a bad time for us—if we were caught doing what we don’t want to do, or neglecting to do what we know God would want us to do–we would, at the least be ashamed wouldn’t we? But fortunately, it is not up to us to judge! Jesus suggests that, at the end of time, the angels will know our true hearts, and they will select out who of us are wheat (good seed) and who of us are tares (the seed of the Devil).

The wheat will go on to (v.43, NLT)-→…shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom, while the tares/weeds will be thrown (v.42)… into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, as we puzzle this out, it becomes clear there is a severe penalty for not choosing to align ourselves with Jesus, isn’t there? Heaven is the end of the journey for the good seed. It’s what we can expect as committed Christ-followers. However, it’s not up to us to judge who gets there and who doesn’t. There’s a little poem that expresses this well:

When you get to heaven, you will likely view

Many folks there who’ll be a shock to you.

But don’t act surprised, or even show a care,

For they might be a little shocked to see you there.

(Anonymous, cited by J. Vernon McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on Mathew, Thomas Nelson, 1991, p,180.)

Jesus is telling us that saints and sinners are all mixed up down here for now. Our gracious God waits patiently for everyone who is willing to come to Him. He doesn’t want even one repentant soul to be lost, the message of the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost (prodigal) Son in Luke’s Gospel. Nevertheless, the eternal clock is ticking. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow. We don’t know when our end is coming. We learned to our distress that a 44 year old former member of this congregation died suddenly on Wednesday. I’m sure when she went to bed Tuesday night, she never expected that Wednesday was her day to wake up and see Jesus. It’s not something we need to puzzle out: We need to have made our decision to follow Jesus this side of the grave. And just think, the more of us who choose Jesus, the quicker the rest of creation can also be freed from its bondage. It gives new meaning to the slogan from the 90’s, “Free the Whales.”

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

Transformed by Love

 Pastor Sherry’s message for July 5, 2026

Scriptures: Gen 24:34-67; Ps 45:10-17; Ro 7:14-25a; Matt 11:16-19, 25-30

I read the following story the other day and was pretty amazed by its content:

“A couple of weeks ago [in 1977] Eldridge Cleaver was telling me about his days as a Black Panther. He said that while he was a Black Panther, he was filled with a terrible, roiling feeling of hatred and violence against any law enforcement agency [and against Whites].. He couldn’t help himself. Every time he would get with them he would feel this terrible sense of anger and murderous rage within him. It made him the leader of the Black Panthers, the violent militants of the early 60s.

“But a year or so ago [around 1976] , in the south of France, in a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, he had a vision, an inner view of the face of Jesus Christ, coming out of his boyhood to him. It drove him to reading the scriptures. He read Psalm 23 over and over again. He said that ever since that time on the balcony, he never had a feeling of hatred again. He has looked for it and expected it but instead there has been a feeling of love for everyone he meets.”

(Sermon by Ray C.Stedman, “The Night is Nearly Over,” 4/10/77, as cited in www,ThePastor’sWorkshop.com, 7/2/26.)

How many of you remember the Black Panthers? I was a newly minted high school social studies teacher when I first encountered a Black Panther in 1970. I was entertaining a small group of seniors at my home, serving them sodas and cookies. One of my favorites, an African American named Valerie, brought her older brother, Kenneth along. Kenneth told me he was a member of the Black Panthers, so I asked him what they were about. He told me they hated white people and had sworn to kill them. Now I was only 22 at the time—so I cannot claim I had developed much wisdom and discernment—but I sat there digesting what he said and wondered, “What’s wrong with this picture?” So, I said to him, “Kenneth, do you mean to tell me you are in my home, eating refreshments I have set out for you, and enjoying my hospitality, but you intend to murder me?” I was asking him to help me understand because that just made no sense to me. He thought it through and admitted he had no animosity towards me personally (praise God!). His sister, my student, later told me he had dropped out of the movement shortly after our dialogue. In a similar vein, I was heartened to hear that Eldridge Clever encountered Christ 20 years before he died in 1998.

Our Scripture lessons today all comment on the transformational power of love:

A. In our OT passage, Genesis 24:34-67, we read of the love story between Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac, Abraham’s “child of promise,” born to him when Abe was 100YO, is now about 40. It’s almost beyond time for him to marry. Abraham calls forth his loyal and trusted steward, Eliazar, and sends him to Haran to locate a bride from his extended family.

Eliazar, arriving in Haran, prays to Abraham’s God to ask for a sign so that he might recognize God’s choice of a bride for Isaac. The sign is that the young woman will give him water and offer to water his camels. Watering the live stock (and the household) was a task delegated to women in those days. We know that camels are uniquely qualified for that arid climate in that they can go long distances without requiring additional water. Apparently each one can take in about 200-300 gallons of water at a time (weighing about 2085 pounds!) (See New Living Translation of the Bible, p.38.) Imagine how long this would take and how many times a young woman would have to dip up buckets full of water to fill up 10 camels. It’s a “big ask,” but Rebekah takes it on.

Eliazar goes home with her to ask for her hand in marriage for Isaac. She probably overhears the wedding negotiations—they lived in tents, so eavesdropping was pretty easy–and is intrigued by Isaac’s miraculous birth, the fact that God saved him from being sacrificed, and that the family is very wealthy. Her brother Laban (the same one who will eventually cheat her son, Jacob) tries to forestall her departure, but she is willing to leave immediately (Smart girl! No telling what that wiley man was up to!). After days on the road, she sees Isaac at a distance, and literally falls for him (the Hebrew implies she fell off her camel at the sight of him). And Isaac falls in love with her as well-→beautiful love story!

She becomes a beloved bride, and Isaac is comforted by her when his mother, Sarah, dies.

B. Our Psalm (45:10-17) describes the love of the princess bride (Rebekah) for her prince (Isaac). It’s actually a maschil [instruction] psalm, and a love song, predicting the love of Christ’s bride, the Church, for our Messiah, Jesus. Verses 1-9 deal with Jesus’ person and kingly power at His 2nd Coming.

But the portion we read this morning deals with the Bride: Verses 10-11 read-→Listen to me, O royal daughter, take to heart what I say. Forget your people and your family far away [Rebekah]. For your royal husband delights in your beauty; honor him, for he is your Lord. It also predicts Jesus’ delight in His bride, the Church, but the “nearer fulfillment” probably refers to Rebekah and Isaac. Nevertheless, both the near and the far fulfillments speak to the transformational power of love.

C. I don’t know about you, but I feel a great sense of relief to know Christ’s love is transformational! As Paul points out in Romans 7:14-25a, we appear to caught in a horrible dilemma: We love Jesus and want to please/obey him, but our old fleshly natures keep on dragging us/clawing us back into sinful behaviors. YIKES! It’s true, isn’t it?!! We do the very thing we really don’t want to do, and we don’t do the thing we want to do, the thing we know would please Jesus. Paul writes, (NIV v.24)-→What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Poor Paul and poor us! Then, knowing the answer, he goes on to say (v.25)-→But thanks be to God Who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

D. Jesus provides us with the antidote to our sinful natures in the Gospel lesson from Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. First, though, He points out that we are doubled-minded, exactly as Paul contends in Romans 7. We don’t know what to do—weddings vs. funerals—and we don’t know how to discern properly, both with regard to John the Baptist, nor to Jesus. As Jesus’ half-brother, James will go on to write (NIV,1:8)-→…[a double-minded man is] unstable in all he does. Again, we do what we don’t want to do and can’t seem to make ourselves do what we know we should do.

Jesus’ loving solution for us begins in verse 28 (NLT)-→Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. That’s where our transformation begins. We have to stop trying to do things in our own power and take our burdens to Jesus. He goes on to say (v.29)–>Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. We are to surrender to Jesus, becoming yoked to Him. He then promises us to teach us (He’s currently in Heaven, but He will teach us through His Holy Spirit.) If we can take in His lessons for us, we will find rest, because (v.30)-→…My yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. When we pull in the same direction He is going, the going is both easy and light.  He is our burden-bearer. His help and His love make what frustrates both us and Paul less difficult and more doable.

It all really comes down to obedience, doesn’t it? But we are not being obedient to Someone who will abuse us. Nor are we capitulating to a cosmic killjoy! We are allowing ourselves to be mentored or tutored by the Lover of our Souls! Because of His great, transforming love for us, He will truly bless us!

Jesus’ great love for Him transformed Eldridge Cleaver’s murderous hatred into love. If we are yoked to Christ, we can let go of hatred, rage, jealousy, a desire for revenge, the need to gossip, addictions of all sorts, and that carnal body of flesh that Paul bemoans. The love of Jesus truly transforms people if we will allow Him to work in each of our hearts.

Consider the example of Fred Stallard:

“Turned off by school. Very sloppy in appearance. Expressionless. Unattractive. Even his teacher, Miss Thompson, enjoyed bearing down her red pen — as she placed Xs beside his many wrong answers. If only she had studied his records more carefully. They read:

1st grade: Ted shows promise with his work and attitude, but (has) poor home situation.

2nd grade: Ted could do better. Mother seriously ill. Receives little help from home.

3rd grade: Ted is good boy but too serious. He is a slow learner. His mother died this year.

4th grade: Ted is very slow, but well-behaved. His father shows no interest whatsoever.

“Christmas arrived. The children piled elaborately wrapped gifts on their teacher’s desk. Ted brought one too. It was wrapped in brown paper and held together with Scotch Tape. Miss Thompson opened each gift, as the children crowded around to watch. Out of Ted’s package fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet, with half of the stones missing, and a bottle of cheap perfume. The children began to snicker. But she silenced them by splashing some of the perfume on her wrist, and letting them smell it. She put the bracelet on too.

“At day’s end, after the other children had left, Ted came by the teacher’s desk and said, “Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother. And the bracelet looks real pretty on you. I’m glad you like my presents.” He left. Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her and to change her attitude.

“The next day, the children were greeted by a reformed teacher — one committed to loving each of them. Especially the slow ones. Especially Ted. Surprisingly — or maybe, not surprisingly, Ted began to show great improvement. He actually caught up with most of the students and even passed a few.

“Time came and went. Miss Thompson heard nothing from Ted for a long time. Then, one day, she received this note:

Dear Miss Thompson:

I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating second in my [high school] class.

Love, Ted

Four years later, another note arrived:

Dear Miss Thompson:

They just told me I will be graduating first in my [college] class. I wanted you to be first to know. The university has not been easy, but I liked it.

Love, Ted

And four years later:

Dear Miss Thompson:

As of today, I am Theodore Stallard, M.D. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact. I want you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You are the only family I have now; Dad died last year.

“Miss Thompson attended that wedding, and sat where Ted’s mother would have sat. The compassion she had shown that young man entitled her to that privilege.”

(Jon Johnston, Courage – You Can Stand Strong in the Face of Fear, 1990, SP Publications, pp. 111-113..)

This lovely story demonstrates so clearly the transformative power of Christ-like love. This week, let us be mindful of seeing others through the eyes of Jesus and loving others as Christ loves us. Amen! 

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

It Should be Obvious

Pastor Sherry’s message for June 28, 2026

Scriptures: Jer 28:5-9; Ps 89:1-4, 15-18; Ro 6:12-23;Matt 10:40-42

Chuck Swindoll tells the following story:

“Imagine, if you will, that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad. So he says to you and the other trusted employees, ‘Look, I’m going to leave. And while I’m gone, I want you to pay close attention to the business. You manage things while I’m away. I will write you regularly. When I do, I will instruct you in what you should do from now until I return from this trip.’ Everyone agrees. 

“He leaves and stays gone for a couple of years. During that time he writes often, communicating his desires and concerns. Finally he returns. He walks up to the front door of the company and immediately discovers everything is in a mess–weeds flourishing in the flower beds, windows broken across the front of the building, the gal at the front desk dozing, loud music roaring from several offices, two or three people engaged in horseplay in the back room. Instead of making a profit, the business has suffered a great loss. Without hesitation he calls everyone together and with a frown asks, ‘What happened? Didn’t you get my letters?’

“You say, ‘Oh, yeah, sure. We got all your letters. We’ve even bound them in a book. And some of us have memorized them. In fact, we have ‘letter study’ every Sunday. You know, those were really great letters.’ I think the president would then ask, ‘But what did you do about my instructions?’ And, no doubt the employees would respond, ‘Do? Well, nothing. But we read every one!’”

(Chuck Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, Thomas Nelson, 1987, p. 242.)

I wonder if God ever considers us and thinks that way. After all, He has left us the Bible for our instruction and edification. Do you ever wonder what He thinks when He observes you or me? The employees in the Swindoll story would all have been fired, right? But our God continues to offer us grace—chance after chance after chance. (Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, says our God is the God of the first and last chances, the fat chance, the slim chance, and the no chance—meaning His love for and patience with us is inexhaustible.)

Now compare that to this true story about the Dallas Cowboy quarterback, Roger Staubach:

“Roger Staubach who led the Dallas Cowboys to the World Championship in ’71 admitted that his position as a quarterback who didn’t call his own signals was a source of trial for him. Coach Landry sent in every play. He told Roger when to pass, when to run and only in emergency situations could he change the play (and he had better be right!). Even though Roger considered coach Landry to have a “genius mind” when it came to football strategy, pride said that he should be able to run his own team.

“Roger later said, “I faced up to the issue of obedience. Once I learned to obey there was harmony, fulfillment, and victory.”

      (Source Unknown, but quoted in www,Sermons.com., 6/18/26)

I saw Stauback play quarterback, in person, and beat Army, his senior year at the US Naval Academy (I was a college freshman). If you know anything about the service academies, their training to do whatever they are commanded to do is very rigorous. They, without question, learn how to obey a superior, or endure some pretty painful consequences. Since Coach Landry preferred to call all the plays, it’s a good thing for him that Coach had a quarterback who had been trained to follow orders. Staubach had been a Heisman Trophy winner for being a superb quarterback. But, even so, he obediently submitted to his couch’s will during 11 seasons in the NFL.

Our Scripture passages today all touch on the topic of obedience. Let see what each has to tell us:

A. Our Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 28:5-9) contains a stern warning. The prophet Jeremiah has a competitor for the people’s trust—a false prophet named Hananiah.  Earlier in the chapter, Hananiah has told the king and the citizens of Jerusalem that the people and the loot stolen by Babylon will be returned to the land very shortly (Their return came 70 years later!). The false prophet is selling them lies to improve their morale. Jeremiah, the true prophet of God, was at that time imprisoned with a wooden yoke about his neck, knows this is not so and says, “Not so fast my friend!”

To speak for God, a prophet must actually hear from God! Furthermore, what he relates as God’s words must actually come true—this is the mark of a valid prophet. Jeremiah is later told by the Lord to tell the false prophet that he will die that very year (which did happen 7 months later). The warning is not to speak for God unless the words you speak actually come from God Himself. Like Stauback’s pro coach, God calls the plays and even prophets must be obedient.

That should be obvious, shouldn’t it?

B. Psalm 89 is a maschil psalm, or a hymn of instruction. The psalmist, identified as Ethan the Ezrahite, is a Levite who worked in the Temple.

In verses 1-4, he begins with praise to God for His faithfulness and love, and he also reminds us of God’s Covenant Promises to King David that a descendant of his would always sit on the throne of Israel. This side of the Cross, we know this descendant to be Jesus. In verses 15-18, we are taught that God is our strength and our protector.

In the entire psalm, the faithfulness of God is mentioned 10 times! Remember, in those days they had no bold key on the computer, no emoji’s and no exclamation points, so to demonstrate that something was important, it was repeated time and again. Ethan the psalmist is teaching us that we can and should trust in God, and we can and should obey Him, because He is completely trustworthy. I suspect this fact was very obvious to Ethan the Ezrahite.

C. St. Paul, in Romans 6:12-23, makes a similar point but comes at it from a different angle. Because we live and move and have our being due to God’s love and grace, we are not to think—or act—like we can still live sinful lives!No, we owe God our obedience. Jesus said in John14:15-→If you love Me, obey My commandments. The Christian life is not about living according to a bunch of rules and regulations. We can probably all think of people we have known who live according to what they consider the rules—don’t smoke or drink, or cuss, or wear short skirts, or attend movies, or dance, put on too much make- up—but do not really behave like Jesus. In their private lives, they explode with anger, or they gossip destructively, or they behave immorally, etc.  They have missed the important point—which should be obvious–that to be a Christian is to behave like Jesus did. The word, Christian, after all means little Christs. 

However, we can’t do this in our own strength—our fleshly natures, the culture, and the devil are all too persuasive. We need the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. And we need to be obedient to His nudges. Paul makes the point that we are all obedient to some kind of master. We could subject ourselves to the tyranny of pleasing other people, or to pleasing ourselves! But Jesus set us free from all of these influences. As Paul writes, (vv.22-23, NLT)-→But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are saved by faith and we are to live by faith—not so obvious, but true!

D. Finally, in the Gospel (Matthew 10: 40-42), Jesus teaches us 4 ways to reap a reward in Heaven. Now to my mind, going to Heaven is enough reward in itself, but apparently there are other rewards given out once one is there. Jesus says some rewards are given out based upon whether or not we were (1) kind and generous toward children or others without much influence; (2) we recognized and were hospitable to righteous persons; (3) we welcomed and were loving and grace-filled toward a prophet; and (4) welcomed anyone who came in Jesus’ name. We will somehow be rewarded in Heaven for exhibiting these behaviors—all Christ-like behaviors. They involve our being obedient to Jesus, not to our own wills, to our self-interest, or to the demands of the world or of the devil.

During my vacation, I read a book by the Messianic Jewish Rabbi, Johnathan Cahn, entitled The Dragon’s Prophesy. He maintains that the terrorists of Hamas are the new descendants of the Philistines, perennial enemies of God’s Chosen People (and by adoption, all Christians). Their very name, in the Hebrew, means “violence, evil, destruction…brutality, immorality, falsehood, lawlessness, injustice, and acts of cruelty, plunder, murder, slaughter, and terror”—all of which we saw carried out on October 7th, 2023, against civilian Israeli’s (p.139). Cahn makes the point that the terrorist organization, Hamas, is a tool of the Dragon, or the Devil, in his fight against everyone who loves God. This of course includes the Jews, but also we Christians. As Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12-→For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

And he concludes that all Christians (and Jews) must become “dragon fighters”—not in our own strength, but by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimonies. If you read pages 259-260, you see and remember that all the great world powers who have come against the Jewish people have dropped out of human history. The Jews, targets of tyranny across the millennia, continue to exist because they are still loved (and protected from extinction) by God. We know the final outcome as it is told to us in Revelation. We are on the victorious side! 

Becoming dragon fighters will require our obedience to Christ and our belief and trust in His power and His faithfulness. Amen. May it be so!

©️ 2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

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

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