Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

How Soon We Forget

Pastor Sherry’s message for 10/11/2020, 

Scriptures: Ex 32:1-14; Ps 106: 1-14, 19-23; Phil 4:1-19; Matt22:1-14

I have a friend, a woman who is divorcing her husband of 35 years. She has had it with his emotional abuse, his put downs, and his neglect of her relational needs (He sees no need to change since what they have is working for him). She has left their marital home but has had some difficulty finding affordable and safe housing. Her two sons invited her to move to the city where they lived, which she did. Once there, however, she determined that her son with children has too much going on in too little space, and does not need her adding to their chaos. Her other son’s significant other has not welcomed her, despite her son’s reassurances to the contrary. She does not want to move into an assisted living facility. So she is looking into either renting an apartment in a safe neighborhood; or finding a reasonable duplex; or building a “tiny home”—either in one son’s back yard, or in a “co-housing community” where all residents have separate “lodges” with bedrooms and baths, but share dining and recreational facilities with other members of the community. (I had a professor at FSU who, with her Lutheran pastor husband, built a “lodge” in just such a community in the early 1990’s. Apparently this idea has resurfaced today.) In other words, my friend wants to maintain her independence while also experiencing a sense of community.

Fortunately, she is a follower of Christ Jesus and has not lost faith in Him even though her marriage has been a huge disappointment. She has had to make some tough decisions for herself, but she has not erred like the Ancient Israelites. In today’s Old Testament passage, Exodus 32:1-14, Moses had been up on Mt. Sinai, communing with God, for about 40 days. Some of the people assumed he’d been gone so long he must have died. He’d actually gotten the 10 Commandments–and additional instructions on living a life pleasing to the Lord–as well as God’s blueprint and particular specifications for the Tabernacle. With no paper and pencil, or no laptop, these things took time.

But the folks at the bottom of the mountain made the surprising decision that they needed a new (old) god, rather than just selecting a new leader. Where was their trust in the Lord? He had said He would be with them. Where was their faith? Didn’t they remember the miracles they had observed and experienced? Even more intriguing, where was their logic? How soon they forgot!

As Psalm 106 tells us, they abandoned and betrayed God, once they got scared, despite all He had done for them. They should have reminded themselves of God’ s past faithfulness and His provision. But instead, they came up with a crazy plan—which Aaron their apparently apostate minister agreed to—to fashion a golden calf to worship. Verses 19-20 report (NLT)-→The people made a calf at Mt. Sinai; they bowed before an image made of gold. They traded their glorious God for a statue of a grass-eating bull. They neglected to cry out to their their powerful Creator and instead decided to worship a statue they themselves had created. To me, this makes little sense.

Fortunately my friend has not abandoned God in her time of distress, and neither should we.  When we find ourselves in a terrible fix, that is exactly the time to call out to our God. When we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, that is exactly the time to trust that He is there and will hear us and respond to us. In God’s foresight and provision, my friend ran into a mutual friend at a church she was trying out. She had known this woman from Florida, but had forgotten she’d moved to this very city some years back. As our God would have it, this woman invited her to live in her basement apartment until such time as she could afford her own place.

In today’s Gospel,(Matthew 22:15-22), Jesus adds to His earlier condemnation of the religious rulers of His day: In the Parable of the Great Feast, Jesus gives them yet another warning–as well as a key lesson in abiding in faith: Special guests had been invited, but they (the Jewish leadership) made their excuses and did not come. These excuses were lame and indicated disinterest, disobedience, and lack of respect. As we saw last week, the King is enraged and punishes them by destroying them and their city—again a prophesy of the destruction in 70AD of Jerusalem by the Romans. Then the King dispatches His servants to bring in those the 1st guests would have considered undesirables (deplorables), like Gentiles and prostitutes and tax collectors. He supplies wedding clothes and is angry when a guest does not come dressed appropriately. This is not a concern with fashion; it is rather God’s concern for our cooperation and obedience. The king supplied the special clothes! All the new dude had to do was put them on (i.e., say yes to Jesus). But he would not! (Yes to coming, but No to complying with God’s requirements). The head-strong, stiff-necked, disobedient guy gets tossed from the banquet. Jesus goes on to say (v.33)…”Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This is the 3rd parable of judgment on the Pharisees, elders, and Scribes. They had neglected to teach how the people should approach God’s heart in love, and had substituted scrupulous adherence to His Laws. They had replaced having an intimate relationship with the Lord with ritually going through the motions—and missed out on having a deep abiding faith in Jesus, God’s Son.

In our New Testament reading today, the Apostle Paul provides 5 ideas for how to live a joyful, peaceful life, despite our troublesome circumstances: First, in verse 1 —Rather than worry about an unknown future—which could change in a New York minute–let’s set our minds on heavenly things and stand firm in the LORD. This includes setting aside our quarrels with others. Like Euodia and Syntyche, we should figure out a way to not take offense against another Christian. Remember, I have mentioned before John Bevere’s book, Bait of Satan, in which he states that choosing to take offense against another is taking Satan’t bait and it does not serve us well. As Christians, we should forgive insults or slights from others; we should grant grace to others as Jesus has to us.

Second, in verse 4 —We are to rejoice! i.e., to celebrate! Our joy comes from our relationship with Jesus. A good habit to have is to daily think of three things you can be and are grateful for and thank God for these. This practice will help you feel better. This practice will retrain your brain to focus on what is positive rather than the negative. Noting the negative may keep us safe; but it does not lead us into peace and joy. Developing this practice will help you better note and remember the good things that God is doing in your life. If they had daily repeated 3 miracles God had done for them since leaving Egypt, the Israelites would not have fallen so quickly (40 days) into idolatry. My friend has had some rough days, but her deep faith in Jesus has pulled her through them. She has not soon forgotten God’s goodness to her!

Third, verse 6 —Rather than be anxious (or rebellious), we should pray — Bring every concern we have to the Lord. No matter is too small; if it matters to us it matters to God. Then follow up the request with thanksgiving. Notice: We are not assuming God will do what we ask every time—the “name it and claim it gospel”; but we thank Him because we trust and appreciate that He always hears and pays attention to us, and intends to answer us in ways that benefit us.

Fourth, in verse 7 —When we pray and leave our worries to God, His peace, which transcends all understanding will descend upon us. In the place of stress, we will feel His deep shalom peace. This peace depends on our relationship with Jesus, not on our current circumstances.

Fifth, in verse 8, Paul asks us to put on the mind of Christ! J. Vernon McGee calls this list of characteristics, “the shortest biography of Christ.” 

(Through the Bible Commentary on Philippians, Thomas Nelson, 1991, p.98). 

Isn’t it accurate that Jesus is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy? When we focus on living out these attributes of Jesus, we really are putting on the mind of Christ. Our news media tend to emphasize whatever is scary, depressing, unexpected, or horrifying. This tends to lead us to believe their reports accurately depict reality. We have to remember, however, that the true, the good, the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely, and the admirable are not considered news. Some network news persons end their programs with an example of something good, but we do not hear enough of these things. If we are to live out lives that demonstrate peace and joy, we have to discipline ourselves to look for and celebrate the good! Paul saw the truth of this long ago. Secular Psychology has just recognized this truth in the past 25 years. In 1999, Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist famous for his research on depression, became the president of the American Psychological Association. In his first address to the profession, he said the field of psychology was “half-baked.” Psychology had spent its first 100 years trying to help people get from mentally ill to normal, from negative numbers to zero. He challenged the field to begin to research what it takes to help people become happy, and unleashed more than two decades of happiness research. The results are amazingly very Christian: forgive people who have harmed you; help someone else; practice gratitude; take care of your body, exercise, rest, and eat right; thank those who help you, etc. In a way, do those things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.  

God has given us, in His Scriptures, a pathway or the keys to a life of peace and joy. We don’t want to be like those faithless Israelites, forgetting God’s previous provenance every time they faced a crisis. This week, let’s be mindful of (1) keeping a heaven-mindset, standing firm in the Lord; (2) Rejoicing! Christians should not be grumpy! (3) Praying, the small and the big things, turning them all over to Jesus, leaving then in His care, and resisting the impulse to take them back. (4) We need to let go of worry while also being grateful to God for His many blessings. (5) We need to seek God’s peace and His continued blessing. And let’s remember that our retirement home is Heaven! Our invitation to the wedding supper of the Lamb came at a great price, the precious blood of Jesus Christ! AMEN!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

Rejecting Christ

Pastor Sherry’s message for October 4, 2026

Scriptures: Ex 20:1-21; Ps 19; Phil 3:4b-14; Matt 21:33-46

The story is told of Josef Stalin (horrendous dictator of Soviet Russia from 1924-1953, who killed between 6-9 million of his own countrymen), that……at one time [he] had been a seminary student, preparing for the ministry. At a later time it seems that he made a decisive change from his belief in God. This dramatic and complete reversal of conviction that resulted in his hatred for all religion is why Lenin choose Stalin and positioned him in authority-a choice Lenin too late regretted. (The name Stalin, which means “steel,” was not his real name, but was given to him by his contemporaries who fell under the steel-like determination of his will.) And as Stalin lay dying, his one last gesture was a clenched fist toward God, his heart as cold and hard as steel.”

(Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God, Word Publishing, 1994, p. 26).

How amazing to think Stalin had started out as a Christ-follower, only to defect to atheist communism. He came to believe that the Christian Church had helped oppress the people. And he perceived that the Eastern Orthodox Church held too much power—power that could be turned against the communists. So he killed and imprisoned many, many religious leaders.   In an incredible example of human pride, it would seem that he grew tired of waiting on God to change human behavior and irradicate human injustice, and took the job into his own hands.

That the Church still survives in Russia, despite decades of persecution, is a testimony to the fact that dictators can control our behaviors but not our minds. Furthermore, look at the oppressive tactics communist dictators use to coerce compliance (between Russia and China, in the 1900’s their leaders were responsible for 100 million deaths):

  • 1. Walls to keep people in, rather than out (the former Berlin Wall);
  • 2. Shooting people who try to escape;
  • 3. Imprisonment, executions, and brain-washing;
  • 4. Even starvation.

Communism and Socialism promise so much free stuff, but rarely deliver. In supressing motivation and free enterprise, they soon run out of money or the desire to provide even essential services. My son currently works with a naturalized Cuban woman whose parents are still living in Communist Havana. She reports that her folks are allotted 2 hours of electricity a day, at erratic times. If the current is on at 3:00am, they have to do their cooking and bathing then. We have all heard of bread lines that become the norm when food supplies run scarce. As Margaret Thatcher once said,“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Contrast this with our God Who wants us to live by a moral code, but never forces our compliance: 

A.   Psalm 19, written by David, reminds us of how God’s glory is on display in His creation (v.1 NLT) The heavens declare the Glory of God; the skies display His craftsmanship   His masterpieces are all available for all to see: oceans, sunsets, beautiful mountains. This is what theologians call “general revelation,” available to anyone to perceive, whereas Scripture and Jesus constitute “specific revelation.”

Beginning in verse 7, David extols or celebrates God’s specific revelation of Himself in His Law The Commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are clean, giving insight for living. From this side of the Cross, we know adhering to the Law alone cannot save us.   Actually, the Law proves to us that we are not perfect;   that is, it holds up for mirror in which we can see how much and how often we fall short of that high standard. God’s Law makes clear to us that we need a savior, a rescuer, a redeemer.   That famous verse 14 foreshadows Jesus May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to You, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Jesus is our Rock;   Jesus is our Redeemer.

B.   Our Exodus lesson (20:1-20) spells out the 10 Commandments. These 10 laws are the foundation of moral behavior. The first 4 tell how we are to behave toward God; the last 6 specify how we are to behave toward other people. The Chinese communist leader, Ji Jing Ping, has recently altered each of the 10 commandments to fit communist rhetoric—Woe be unto Him! Lord, please frustrate the ways of the wicked!

The 10 Commandments of the Bible are not meant to cramp our style, but rather to ensure that we live morally and peaceably with our neighbors;to ensure a sense of security and safety for all of us.

Consider how many of the commandments are broken daily in the United States today, and observe the results: Gangs of looters steal store goods without consequences in major cities (Commandment #8:Thous shalt not steal).   I saw an expose this week on Seattle, the city where I was born. The reporter showed a whole block downtown, adjacent to the famous Pike’s Place Market, where all of the storefronts are now vacant. Homeless encampments, drug dealing, shop-lifting, and vandalism have led businesses to close. This block used to be a vibrant tourist area, but the current Socialist mayor (and her predecessor) has done nothing to make it a safe environment for businesses, shoppers, or tourists.   It is true that if Mayors and DA’s don’t prosecute and punish those who are guilty, prices go up—so that we all pay—or stores and restaurants go out of business.

Similarly, Lying—(Commandment #9)–is so commonplace in Washington D.C. that we no longer have confidence in most of our governmental officials or agencies, or most news media. Truth-telling is essential in a democratic republic. People running for office make big promises, but we have to note how what they say today compares with what they said (captured on video or social media) before running for office.   Many lie to get elected, then do what they want.   We need to remember that—baring an encounter with Christ or some other life-altering event (jail time, surviving a bout with cancer or a car wreck)—the field of Psychology tells us that the single best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Don’t even get me started on #6, murder, or #7, adultery. If you know someone whose family member has been murdered, or whose parents, spouse, or sibling suffered through an adultery, you know the impacts are long-lasting and incredibly painful.

These are not kill-joy commandments, but rather the guardrails on the “mountain pass highway of life.” As I have told you before, we are like Ferraris or Rolls Royces. We are not meant for driving off the side of the road into the brush.   When we disregard any of the commandments, we run the risk of tearing ourselves up, spiritually, emotionally, and even physically.

Someone has said, “Grace is what God is, while Law captures God’s thinking with regard to what people out to be.)

(J. V. McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on Exodus, Thomas Nelson, 1991, pp.23-25.)

C. We might say that Paul is on a roll in our epistle lesson today, Philippians 3:4b-14.   He cites all his credentials:

1. He was raised by godly parents;

2. He was born into the tribe of Benjamin, Jacob’s favorite son in his old age, and thus a favored tribe. The first king of Israel, Saul, came from the tribe of Benjamin.

3. He was a leader of the Hebrews and a Pharisee, a teacher and protector of the law;

4. He was so zealous for God that he persecuted members of the infant Christian Church, believing they were heretics;

5. And he kept God’s Law scrupulously, always offering the designated sacrifices for his sins—not perfect, but perfectly compliant.

Despite all these glowing accomplishments, he—since coming to know Jesus—has discerned that they are as useless as scubala, human or animal waste products (often translated as filthy rags). None of our human successes earns us heaven. Neither our lineage nor our achievements can save us. So he implores us to realize this in our own lives and seek out Jesus. Like a runner in an Olympic relay race, we want to (v.12, NIV) …press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Additionally, he urges us to (v.14) Forget [ing] what is behind [us] and strain [ing] toward what is ahead, … [we] press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus.   

He wants us to recognize that nothing earthly is more important than our relationship with God.   He wants us to put God first in our lives.

D. Finally, our Matthew 21:33-46 passage, Jesus gives us a front row seat to a major confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders. Remember, last week we considered the Parable of the Two Sons.   That story immediately precedes this second condemning parable. In it, Jesus rightly accused them of having said “yes” to God’s call on their lives to serve Him, but then lived their lives as if they had said “no.”  He is even firmer in His judgments against them in this one, the Parable of the Tenants. The vineyard owner is God and the vineyard is Israel. The rebellious tenants are the Jewish religious leadership. The servants thrown out or killed were the prophets. The son is of course Jesus.

He asks the leaders what the owner of the vineyard will do to those rebellious tenants when he returns. They answer correctly (v.41)–>He [God the Father] will bring those wretches to a wretched end…and He will rent the vineyard to other tenants who will give Him His share of the crop at harvest time. Though they have studied Scripture, they have missed recognizing God’s Son, the Messiah. Notice, Jesus predicts His death at their hands; but He also exclaims (v.43)–>Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.   Jesus is straight out telling them that the leadership of God’s mission to save human kind will be transferred from them to the emerging Christian Church.This, of course, enrages them.   Five chapters later, in Matthew’s Gospel, they arrest and execute Him. Then in 70AD, a generation after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Romans descend on Jerusalem and raze it to the ground.They kill the disabled, small children, and the elderly, and take all the rest off to slavery.  Additionally, they tear down the Temple of God, burning the marble and plowing up the foundations.   

Though not believers, the dictators Josef Stalin and Xi Jinping are rebellious tenants. Similarly, the Jewish religious leadership of Jesus’ day were also rebellious tenants. Jesus stripped them of their leadership over God’s earthly kingdom with the Roman invasion under Titus in 70AD. Imagine what punishments await the communist leaders of this and the past century! It is a seriously critical mistake to reject Christ.   Our God has revealed Himself—and His heart–through His creation and His Law. His laws are meant for our good—to keep us from crashing and burning. Neither they nor our own excellent achievements can save us.But, in His mercy, our God has sent us His Son, Jesus to save and to redeem us.Let us thank Him, praise Him, accept Him, and obey Him. Amen!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

God is love

Pastor Sherry’s message for 9/6/26

Scriptures: Exodus 12:1-14; Ps 119:33-40; Ro 13:8-14; Matt 18:15-20

The story is told of an old grandmother who had decided that Christmas shopping had just gotten to be too much for her. Now she still wanted to do something nice for her kids, grands, nieces, nephews, etc., so she decided to send each a nice Christmas card with a $50 Visa card inside.  Granny selected the Christmas cards, addressed the envelopes, added stamps, and deposited them at the post office, innocently assuming she had taken care of Christmas gifts for all of her family in a way that could not help but please each one. The problem, however, was that–being a little forgetful–she had neglected to include the Visa cards (probably also forgot where she had put them), and had happily written next to her signature, “Merry Christmas! Go get your own presents.”  We laugh, but this could all too easily be any one of us!

Her intention was loving, but the result indicated neglect or even insult…until her oversight was discovered.

When I was in college, there was a foreign language requirement for graduation. There were 3 stipulations: (1) You had to be able to read it; (2) You had to know the grammar, vocabulary, and correct sentence structure; and (3) then you had to demonstrate you could speak it by passing an interview with the language Professors. I managed to make it through the first courses, but put the speaking part off until my Senior year…YIKES! The first day of class, a stereotypical French woman came into class—wearing a beret, fishnet stockings, a tight skirt with a slit up the side, and carrying her own ashtray (in 1967, professors could smoke in class as they lectured). She propped herself on the front of the teacher’s desk, told us we could not speak English for the rest of the semester, and asked us in French to respond to the question, “What is love? I knew my goose was cooked! Before I had even begun to formulate an answer in English, then laboriously translated it into French, she had gone on to the next deep question.

I survived conversational French, praise God, because I paid a very proficient underclassman to tutor me. Back in 1968, I was able offer a student a cup of coffee and a piece of pie to talk with me in French for an hour 2-3 times a week. By the end of the semester, this young man had me contributing to class discussion in French and also thinking and dreaming in French! It was, to me, a miracle for which I will always be grateful!

But I have never forgotten that French professor’s question, “What is love?”  Our Old Testament lesson, Exodus 12:1-14 gives us some good answers to a timeless question.

Let’s first consider the context: Back in Exodus 3:7+, God had told Moses:  

“I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go.” That was God’s promise. He would create the situation that would compel the stubborn Pharaoh to let His people go. The Hebrews had been in Egypt about 400 years—long enough for the Canaanites to have time to come to love the true God–which they refused to do. So God was ready to rescue the Israelites from Egyptian slavery with 10 plagues.

Each plague was actually a put down of some Egyptian god. Yahweh had declared war on the gods of Egypt: 

1st, He turned the Nile to blood—fish died and no one could drink from it. They so depended on the river for their water supply and commerce that they equated it with life. In rendering it fully polluted, God was essentially saying to them, “I, not your river god, Hapi, (the so called bringer of fertility) am the true source of all life.”

2nd, He sent a superabundance of frogs. Seven days later, millions of frogs leave the polluted river and invade Egyptian homes, businesses, and even Pharaoh’s palace. The frog-headed Egyptian goddess, Heqet, was equated with fruitfulness. God is saying, “I, not Heqet, can deploy millions of frogs at will.”To those who considered frogs to be demons, He declared, “And I also exercise control over demonic entities, even the entire supernatural realm.

Similiarly, out of dust Moses tossed into the air, God produced 3rd, a plague of lice (in opposition to Geb, god of the earth), and 4th of biting flies, the servants of Khepri, god of the morning sun. Again, God was asking, Why aren’t your gods powerful enough to counter Me and to destroy these pests?

5th, God sends disease on their cattle, rams, sheep, and goats, many of which die. The Egyptians had gods for each of these animals. But God is saying, “I have complete control over animal life, not Osirus, the bull or Apis the ram god, or Hathor, the cow-headed goddess of motherhood and childbirth. None of them can counter Me.”

6th, He afflicted the animals that remained—and this time, the people too—with boils. Even Pharaoh’s magicians couldn’t prevent them, nor could Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of healing, heal them.  God was saying, “Only I have power over physical health.”

7th, He sends hail—a form of ice clumps accompanied by fire. Egypt normally gets very little rain. God was essentially saying, “I—not Hephaistos, your god of fire or Porphry, your god of rain, or Nut, your god of the sky—have complete authority over forces of nature.”

8th, God sends locusts to eat up any vegetation left over, then sends them off to drown in the Red Sea. Egypt’s gods of nature were helpless, including Shu, their god of the wind. God was saying, “I can raise up hordes of any creature, deploy them, and then destroy them.”

By now, the Egyptian economy is in ruins, but still Pharaoh will not let his slave labor force go free. God then sends the 9th plague, 3 days of completedarkness—except over where the Israelites live. God was saying, Your sun god, Ra, is powerless before Me.

Finally, God sent the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn person and animal. The Egyptians believed their god, Horus, was the god of life, and Bes, another god, would protect their households. They also believed that Pharaoh was the divine author of life. With this final plague, God was saying, “Not so! Yahweh is the giver of life and He can take it away when it is in rebellion against Him.”

(New Living Translation of the Bible, Tyndale House, 2024, p.89.)

This brings us to the Passover: In the 10th plague, God intended to and did take the life of every 1st born. Those who loved Him, however, could and would be spared. They were to select a perfect male lamb around one year old; they were then to slaughter it on the 14th of Nisan, and paint their door frames with its blood. The blood of the lamb would signal the angel of death that they were true believers and their lives would be spared. They were to remain inside their homes all night, eating the roasted lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. This was a hasty meal. They were to be dressed for travel as they would soon be free to leave Egypt. The first born of those with no blood over their doors did in fact succumb to death, even Pharaoh’s son. By the next day, all of Egypt wanted the Israelites gone!

This series of plagues was tough on the Egyptians, but so effective for the Hebrew slaves! Look at how God manifested His love for them!

He provided a way for the angel of death to distinguish His Chosen People from Egyptians. While every Egyptian house contained at least one dead person, the blood of the Passover Lamb signaled to death, pass over, pass on by every Israelite. This final plague broke the back of Pharaoh’s resistance. He capitulated to Moses’ demands following this event. He finally let the people go. And the Egyptian people were so glad to see them leave that they gifted them with gold and silver coins and jewelry, what my Old Testament professor in seminary called “back pay.”

This is such a great, dramatic example of God’s love: He ground down the Egyptian resistance with 10 plagues, then rescued His people without a single military battle! The historic Jewish Passover finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus—it foreshadows pr predicts Jesus’ blood shed for us on the Cross. He too was a perfect male lamb. John the Baptist calls Him, in John 1:29  …the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.  Jesus was the only sinless human ever, which qualified Him to be our sinless Substitute, our Savior. He was also God–the only Son of God, so His blood–the blood of God–was a perfect satisfaction or atonement for our sins. Paul later tells the leaders of the Ephesian Church in Acts 20:28  Be shepherds of the church of God, which He [Jesus] bought with His own blood. No mere person would have been capable of atoning for our sins. Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf was totally acceptable to the Father. The writer to the Hebrews calls Jesus is the once and for all perfect sacrifice for our sins.  Peter, on trial before the Sanhedrin, testifies in Acts 4:12 (NLT) that  There is salvation in no one else [meaning Jesus]! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. John tells us in 1 John 3: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.

So what is love? The 10 plagues and the Passover were God’s strategies for motivating a despot to let go of a free labor force of 1-2 million people. The plagues and the Passover demonstrate how far God will go to redeem those He loves. Jesus’ death on the cross proves the same truth again: Our God has died an undeserved but agonizing penalty to obtain our freedom from sin and death; like His Father before Him, He has gone to extreme lengths to redeem us.

 As the apostle John tells us, (1 John4:10) This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. If I could go back in time, I would tell my French Conversation professor, “Your question can be answered a number of ways…

But the best and most complete answer to what love is is this: God is love!

Jesus Christ loving me (and you) so much that He died so you and I could have abundant life!

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory thru our Lord

Jesus Christ! Alleluia, alleluia!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman w/a Mary Jo Delaney

How Now Shall We Live?

Pastor Sherry’s message for 8/30/26 

Scriptures: Jer 2:1-13; Ps 81:1, 1-16; Heb 13:1-8, 15-16; Lk 14:1-14

Back in 1999, Chuck Colson (former President Nixon’s Special Counsel and considered an attack dog for Nixon against any of his enemies), having served time in prison for obstruction of justice, wrote a book titled, How Now Shall We Live, coauthored by Nancy Pearcey (Not to be confused with Francis Schaeffer’s How Then Shall We Live, 1976). Colson came into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ while serving his prison term.

The book reflects his resulting radical change of heart. In it, he attempted to answer 4 significant, essentially existential questions:

1a. Who or What do we come from? 

1b. Who are we?

2. What has gone wrong with the world?

3. What can we do to fix it?

4. And How should we live, based on these answers?

As I was praying this week about what the Lord would have me preach, the answer He gave me was Colson’s book title: How Now Shall We Live. I had not read it, so I downloaded it to my Kindle and checked it out. When I perused the readings appointed for today, I figured why. Please review this with me:

1a. Who or what do we come from? We come from a Who, not a what. We live because our God called each of us into being.

1b. Who are we? If we believe in Jesus, we are each, as a wonderful old prayer says…a sheep of His own fold, a lamb of His own flock…a sinner of His own redeeming.

(The Book of Common Prayer, Church Publishing, 1986, p.499.)

Through the saving work of Jesus on the Cross for us, we have been adopted into His line and are now children of God the Father. We know from the Bible that God choose the Jews to be a people set apart for Him, through whom He intended to bring about His plan for the redemption for the world. God chose them–and through their legacy and Jesus’ sacrifice–we have each chosen to follow Him.

2. What has gone wrong with the world? The short answer is that sin entered the world through Adam and Eve’s willful disobedience. And ever since, we have struggled between our spiritual nature that wants to please God and our fleshly or carnal nature that wants to please ourselves (Romans 7 and 8).

Let’s look to our readings to find deeper answers to this and Colson’s other two questions:

A. The Jeremiah 2:1-13 passage also provides answers to what has gone wrong with the world. In verses 1-5, God reminds His Chosen people of how much they loved Him and followed Him after He rescued them from slavery in Egypt. In verse 5, God asks His people through Jeremiah, What did your ancestors find wrong with Me that led them to stray so far from Me? The Lord sounds puzzled, but we know He knows all things! He wants them to think about it…They didn’t remain grateful to Him for having shepherded them through the wilderness for 40 years, protecting and providing for them the whole time. No, they wandered into idolatry. Even their priests, (false) prophets, and rulers ignored God and turned against Him. In verses11-12, the Lord expresses His disappointment and grief-→Yes my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols! The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay.

He boils their sins down to two: They have abandoned God (the living water), and they have taken up with false, evil, pagan gods, who are empty, broken cisterns that hold no water. I think we could make a very good case that America has done the same thing. Our founders gave our nation a solidly Christian foundation. But over our 250 years, we have pushed God away or ignored Him entirely. We, like the folks in Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s time, have settled for broken cisterns of money, power, fame, material things, riskier and more daring experiences, and more and more depraved sexual behaviors. We have embraced sin and called it good. Thank goodness, this was not God’s last word for the Jews or for us!

(J. Vernon McGee, Throgh the BibleCommentary on Jeremiah, Thomas Nelson, 1991, p.30.)

B. Our psalmist, Asaph (81:1, 10-16) reminds us all in verse 9 that our Lord never wanted us to pursue false gods. We were always meant to follow the Lord and Him alone. He rescued His people from bondage in Egypt and hoped to have deep fellowship with them. Through Jesus, He has rescued us from our bondage to sin, and He desires today to bless us abundantly! But we (and they) dismissed Him and did what we wanted; He, in response, said (v.12)-→So I let them follow their own stubborn desires, living according to their own ideas. (See Romans1 for a similar message.) Our willfulness, our pride, our insistence that “I know better than God,” brings us to low, painful, and discouraging places. And all the while, the Lord is ready to protect and bless us—if we will only turn back to Him.

C. Well, there’s the answer to the question about how we go about fixing the mess we are in: We turn back to Him. We admit, with AA, that we are powerless to turn our lives around by ourselves. Remember the caterpiller caught in the ring of fire? We cannot rescue ourselves. We need a divine rescuer, and we have one, Jesus! We confess that He is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and we are saved by faith in Christ. Then we go on to cooperate with the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. He molds and shapes us through our experiences, our prayers, our Bible reading, perhaps a sermon or two—and even our pain. Through it all, He helps us to become more and more like Jesus.

The writer to the Hebrews (13:1-8, 15-16) finishes out his/her book by sharing a list of recommended Christian practices. Remember, the 4th of Colson’s questions was how we should live. These suggestions all demonstrate love…we don’t just love other people as if they are brothers and sisters in Christ, but we love them because they are our brothers and sisters in Christ: So we show hospitality/kindness to strangers. We remember those in prison and those who are mistreated. When we can’t do this in person, we provide donations to ministries who do. If married, we remain faithful to our vows. We don’t love money, recalling that God cares for and provides for us. Since God is our helper, we don’t have to be afraid (His perfect love drives out all our fear). We respect and appreciate our spiritual leaders and mentors. And we hold fast to the truth that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We are to offer to God a sacrifice of praise. I could be wrong, but I believe this means we come to worship even if we would rather not. We offer the Lord our time. We also offer Him our gratitude, even if we are not feeling very grateful or happy or a given day. Again, it’s a sacrifice we offer to Him. And we continue to prompt ourselves to do good to others and to share with those in need.

D. Jesus Himself gives us some practical pointers on how to live the Christian life in today’s gospel, Luke 14:1-14. First He demonstrates that love trumps law by healing a man on the Sabbath. No doubt this was a set up, a trap on the part of the Pharisees to make Jesus look bad. But as usual, He demonstrates that their zeal is to have others strictly obey the Law, rather than to relate lovingly to God and to others. They won’t self-incriminate by answering His questions, but they clearly would do work to rescue a child or an animal that fell into a pit on the Sabbath. Then He rescues a man from “the pit” of a chronic illness, dropsy. The point is that the Lord desires mercy over strict adherence to their interpretations of the religious rules.

Next, He gives them a seminar in etiquette, in the “Parable of the Ambitious Guests.” Since they didn’t use place-cards in those days, as one commentator puts it, once dinner was announced, there would be a rush to commandeer the seats of honor. Younger, impolite pharisees might even push aside a slower, older cleric in their rush to be prestigiously seated. Jesus recommends each one take the least valued seat, then feel blessed when the host moves them to a better place. Imagine their chagrin when their rudeness and selfishness is pointed out by the honored guest, Jesus. What if one of them was publically asked to move and make way for Him? Our Lord was teaching humility—in God’s Kingdom, humility trumps arrogance and entitlement. (See Micah 6:8.)

(J.V. McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on Luke, Thomas Nelson, 1991, pp.176-177.)

Finally, in verses 12-14, and in a nod to our Hebrews lesson, He recommends they feed those who cannot repay them, the poor, the lame, the blind, instead of their successful, well-off peers.

So How Now Shall We Live? Like we know and acknowledge that the Lord created us, that we owe our lives to Him. Like we appreciate and follow Him, despite the fact that we all too often turn away from Him and follow the devices and desires of our own hearts. We want to follow Him, but we too often succumb to the pull of the world, our flesh, and the devil. As St. Paul states so eloquently (Romans 7:24-25, NLT)-→Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. We embark on the solution to our sin-problem, just as Chuck Colson recommends, when we turn our lives over to Jesus. He, and the lessons from His word, the Bible, show us How Now We Shall Live. 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

Sowing God’s Word

Pastor Sherry’s message for July 12, 2026

Scriptures: Gen 25:19-34; Ps 65, Ro 8:1-11; Matt 13:1-9, 18-23

The story is told of a pig farmer:

“A woman was visiting a farm and saw a pig hobbling around with a wooden peg for a hind leg. Intrigued, she asked the farmer what happened. The farmer beamed with pride: “That is an amazing pig! Last month, a fire broke out [in our home], and that pig ran into the burning house, woke up the sleeping family, and carried the baby to safety!” Shocked, the woman asked, “But what about the wooden leg?” The farmer shook his head and replied, “Well, a pig that special… you don’t eat him all at once!”

(Borrowed from www.sermonillustrations.com, 7/8/26)

I repeat this story because we live in an agricultural area, though none of our farmers would be this foolish. Jesus, too, lived in an agricultural area, and often told parables based on the experiences folks in a rural area might have found familiar. Our Gospel lesson (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23) presents one such story.

Now the context for this parable—The Farmer Scattering Seed”–is that Jesus has turned His attention away from Israel and is now focusing on drawing believers from among the gentiles who lived near the Jews. Matthew reports that He (v.1)-→left the house [of Israel] and sat beside the sea [symbolic of the Gentile nations]. Our Lord was turning toward the world, toward us. In His story, the sower is Jesus (or us), the seed is the Word of God, and the field is the world.

(J.Vernon McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on Matthew, Thomas Nelson, 1991, p.177.)

Jesus describes 4 environments into which the farmer’s seed lands:

(1) Some falls on the path, where the soil has been compacted over time so the seed does not germinate. Birds come along and eat it up. Later, Jesus will explain that the birds in this case represent Satan. People with hardened hearts will not take in, understand, or continue to respond to God’s Word. (2) Some seed will fall on rocky ground and not develop deep roots. These folks will drop out as Christ followers when they experience personal problems or persecution.

We could say their baby faith is choked out by the demands of their flesh. (3) Other seed lands in among weeds, competing for the same nourishment. Their spiritual development is stunted by the cares and concerns of the culture.

We could call this the seductions of the world. So the world, the flesh, and the devil pull many away from following Jesus. (4) The 4th environment is the best-→Hearers of God’s Word accept it, develop in their faith, and lead others to Jesus.

We want to be this 4th type of environment, having hearts in which the Gospel takes root. And we even bring others to Christ, through the word of our testimonies—that is, how knowing Jesus has changed our lives (and how we live our lives)–and by the blood of the Lamb. This is an active, resilient faith.

Our other passages this morning also speak to the need for a resilient, trusting faith in response to God’s Word.

A. In Romans 8:1-11, Paul continues to emphasize that we believers cannot overcome sin (the urges of our carnal bodies/minds) on our own. Remember last week, at the end of Chapter 7, he bemoans (v.24, NLT)-→Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Our old natures are carnal, riddled with and controlled by sinful impulses. And our new natures have no power to help us overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. He concludes that being yoked to Jesus will empower us, though the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. He uses the word sanctification 19 times in this chapter alone. He’s talking about becoming holy and more like Jesus. Now none of us but Jesus is perfect, so holy in this context means the opposite of carnal, set apart for God’s purposes. The Holy Spirit delivers us from the power of sin over us, And the Holy Spirit assists us to perform God’s will in us. The Holy Spirit acts like a booster rocket that helps us escape sin’s gravitational pull. 

(McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on Romans, 1991, p.141).

This is why Paul can exclaim in verse 1 (NLT)→So now there is now condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. There is no condemnation for believers because our sinless Lord Jesus became sin for us and atoned for all of our sins—past, present and future–on the Cross. The Holy Spirit wants to help us become the best we can be, this side of Heaven. The Holy Spirit wants us to develop a strong, unshakable faith in Jesus Christ so that we can sow God’s word by our deeds as well as with our speech.

B. Our Psalm (65) is a prophetic psalm of praise concerning Jesus’ majestic return at the end of time. At that time, He will restore Israel.

Thus, we should praise and revere God both for His almighty power and for His merciful care of the universe. Verses 1-4 focus on His forgiving nature; verses 5-8 extol His power; and verses 9-13 praise Him for His marvelous provision.

Recognizing these facts reiterated in this psalm, we can partner with God in sowing God’s Word among nonbelievers.

C. Finally, we have the examples, from Genesis 25:19-34, of several types of soil into which God’s word was sown: First we see that Isaac and Rebekah experienced infertility for 20 years! Rebekah, like Sarah, Isaac’s mother, was barren, which would have been very difficult for them for several reasons:

(1) Remember, before Rebekah had left her home to marry Isaac, her parents had prayed that she would be “the mother of thousands” (Gen. 24:60).

No doubt the couple had great expectations, which made her barrenness all the more disappointing. They probably thought, “If we’re going to fulfill God’s plan of forming a great nation, we need to start popping out kids yesterday!” Additionally, women in that culture were expected to birth children in order to preserve the family name; develop a workforce; and provide for the care of elderly grandparents and parents (they had no nursing homes!).

But notice Isaac’s response to their disappointment: He prayed for his wife to conceive. Isaac is a man of faith—he had been good soil. Similarly, Rebekah conceives, then when she becomes alarmed over the turbulence in her womb, she takes her concerns to the Lord as well. God speaks to her and tells her she is carrying twins who will be very different from one another, fraternal twins. We know from modern research that identical twins—even if raised separately– often think the same way, like the same things, and dress the same way—but not these two! The firstborn, ESAU’s name meant hairy; he later was called EDOM=red due to his lusting after red stew. He became the father of the Arabs. God said his descendants would be more numerous., and that he would be a skillful hunter, an athletic outdoorsman. He also become Isaac’s favorite.

The 2nd twin, JACOB was named heel-grabber; another accurate but unfortunate meaning of his name was deceiver. He would become a quiet, contemplative man, his mother’s favorite, and God will have his elder brother serve him because the Lord determined that Jesus will be descended from Jacob’s line.

As the boys grow and develop, we see their characters diverge as well. 

Esau proves to be a man driven by his fleshly appetites and the seductions of the evil one. We could equate him with rocky ground. He gives little thought to God. Trading his birthright for one meal proves his lack of spiritual depth and wisdom—short term gain for long term pain. His birthright would have entitled him to the inheritance of the first born (twice what Jacob would have received).

It also would have made him head and priest of his family.

Jacob seems the more godly of the two—until he defrauds his brother. He must have coveted the birthright, but was unwilling to wait on God to provide it for him. He takes the matter into his own hands, ripping off his own brother (Rev. Jack Miller would have termed this pernicious self-reliance).

It would seem he resembles the weedy, worldly ground in that whatever faith he had was choked out by worry and ambition, and Satan’s seductions.

These twin brothers represent a lesson/example in how not to respond to God’s Word. As we shall see in the Jacob narratives in the weeks to come, Jacob does go on to develop a deep, abiding faith in the Lord, but only after he has suffered for his deceit and his willfulness. His mother’s brother, Uncle Laban, is one of the means God uses to accomplish this transformation. A night spent wrestling with the pre-incarnate Jesus will bring him to his knees. And his grief over losing his beloved Rachel and his favorite son, Joseph, will complete his surrender to God.

Let’s hope that each of us will come to Jesus with less trauma and drama. Let’s save ourselves a lot of heartache, and behave like we are good soil, that we know to praise God for His grace and provision; that we cooperate with all attempts of the Holy Spirit to bring us into step with Jesus; and that like Isaac and Rebekah we take all our concerns to Christ, trusting in Him to act of our behalf.

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 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