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Published November 29, 2011

Dealing with Suffering

For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about living as aliens and if you’re just joining today for the first time – that might seem like a slightly odd sermon topic. But the reality is, as Christians, we ARE aliens. We are foreigners, strangers, short-term visitors on planet earth. We will spend maybe 60/80/100 years here and then woosh – we’re off to our eternal home – a place called Heaven. A place where there is no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears, and no more sorrow – Just life as God intended it.

But as you know, we’re not there yet. We are still in a place where there is pain, there is suffering, there are tears and there are sorrows. And as Christians we are not immune from all that.

There are no promises in the Bible that tell us that Christians will be free from pain and suffering. If anything, the Bible promises us the opposite – that there certainly will be pain and suffering for anyone who wishes to follow Christ. Jesus says in John 16:33…

 “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.” John 16:33

So how do we deal with that? How do we deal with pain and suffering, not just in the world in general, but in our own lives? Does God have a purpose for our pain (for our trials and sorrows) or is it just part of living in a sin-filled world? I mean, everyone experiences pain and suffering, but as Christians, as aliens in this world, how are we supposed to respond when we go through those dark, difficult times in life?

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Published November 29, 2011

The Role of Aliens

Two weeks ago, we were faced with the fact that we are aliens. We read in Hebrews 13:14 that, as Christians, as followers of Christ, this world is not our home. Our real home is heaven and we are eagerly waiting for the day that God takes us to be with Him in our eternal, Heavenly home – where there are no more tears, no more sickness, no more pain, no more death. It will truly be home sweet home.

But that day hasn’t come yet. We are still living here as aliens in this sin-filled world. So what do we do in the meantime? How do we live as aliens in this world until Christ takes us home? That’s the question we set out to answer two week ago as we began looking at the books of first and second Peter.

Now the first thing we discovered, as we looked at 1 Peter chapter 1 was that God wants us to be holy. In other words, God wants us to be different. Why? Because when you’re different, you can make a difference. When we live in the awesome power of God, we will be very different from the world, (we’re gonna stick out like sore thumbs) but that’s exactly what will give us opportunity to make a difference in the world.

So this morning I want to pick up where we left off two weeks ago – kinda on that theme of being different in order to make a difference, because Peter talks a little bit more about this in chapters two and three.

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Published November 7, 2011

Living As Aliens

I want to start with a little game this morning. I’m going to show you the pictures of three people, and I want you to try to figure out what they have in common. Why would they be grouped together? Let’s start with an easy one…

Answer: They are all cowboys. (Dallas Cowboys , John Wayne, Woody from Toy Story)

Let’s try another one:

Answer: They are all Prime Ministers of Canada (Kim Campbell, Wilfred Laurier, Paul Martin)

And one more…

This one might be a bit tricky for those who don’t know my buddy Dustin, but the answer is, they are all aliens!

And I’m sure some of you know exactly where I’m going with this, but for others of you – this might seem like an odd way to start to a sermon. So maybe I’d better explain a little bit before we get too far.

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Published September 26, 2011

Samson

Well, today we want to conclude our series on the heroes and the zeros of the book of Judges – and the character that we want to look at today is probably the most famous of all the judges. Today we’re going to look at the life of Samson. Now the Bible gives us more information about Samson than any of the other judges we’ve looked at. A couple of Judges that we didn’t look at  in this study – Tola and Jair – both have only two verse each about their lives – but Samson has four entire chapters.

So there must be something important for us to learn from the life of Samson. Which is almost surprising considering what a wreck his life was. Most of us remember Samson for his great strength – how he killed a lion with this bare hands – or how He torn the city gates right off their hinges – or how he killed a 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. These are the acts that made Samson famous – but what do you know about his character? What kind of a person was He? What was his relationship with God like? What was his relationship with others like? You see, these are the kind of issues that determine whether someone is truly a hero or a zero…

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Published September 26, 2011

Gideon – Part Two

As most of you know we have been exploring the book of Judges over the past several weeks – looking at some of the great heros and the great zeros of that book. And so far it’s been quite a colorful journey for us. We’ve had Ehud & the fat King, Deborah the only female judge, Barak with his conditional obedience, Jael & her weapon of choice – the tent peg, and then last week we started looking at Gideon – the least in his clan, the weakest in his family hiding out in the bottom of the winepress. And yet, God was able to use every single one of these people for His glory. Sometimes in-spite of their weaknesses, and sometime because of their weaknesses.

And so today we are going to continue looking at the life of Gideon. We never got a chance to finish the story last week, and actually, we’re not going to be able to finish it this week either, because we’re going to be looking at just one of about four mini-stories within the story of Gideon. So if you want to know the whole story, you’re going to have to read through it on your own some time this week. You’ll find it in Judges 6, 7, & 8 – and if you’re really ambitious, you can read about Gideon’s son Jotham in chapter 9.

But for today, we’re going to start in Judges 7:1.

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Published September 26, 2011

Gideon – Part One

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been looking at some of the unknown heroes and zeros of the book of Judges. We started with Ehud – the left-handed man who rescued the Israelites by defeating King Eglon. Then we looked at Deborah, Barak, and Jael last week as they defeated King Jabin and the commander of his armies – Sisera. But today we’re going to look at another judge – one who is a little more well-known then some of these others. Today we’re going to look at the life of Gideon.

You’ll remember the cycle of sin that we’ve been talking about in the book of Judges. Israel would sin and so God would send their enemies to punish them. And after several years of enduring this oppression, the Israelites would repent and cry out for God to save them. Which of course, God did by sending them a judge – that is, a rescuer – like Ehud or Deborah. But then, as soon as the enemy was defeated and that particular judge died, the Israelites would go right back into sinning again and the cycle would begin all over. Sin, oppression, rescue, sin, oppression, rescue.

And so, it’s quite predictable, that after 40 years of peace after Deborah rescued Israel from King Jabin and his commander Sisera, that Israel would again sin, and God would have to send another enemy to oppress them. And this time, the enemy was a doozy. If you have your Bibles you can turn to Judges chapter 6 – verse 1.

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