Newsletter from November 18, 2009

From the Senior Pastor...
 

Next week we celebrate Thanksgiving. This week, I want to thank everyone who worked diligently to organize and oversee this year’s Mission’s Conference.

I thought the format worked well. From the presentations Friday evening, the prayer time Saturday morning, the sermons by Chaplain Messner, the reports given in various Sunday School classes, and hearing briefly from Sam Oppong Sunday evening — I found it all instructive, challenging and honoring to our Lord.

I was particularly impacted by Chaplain Messner’s sermons. Sunday morning, preaching from Philippians 1.12-18, Rev. Messner reminded us that following Paul’s example we are to be passionate about the advance of the Gospel (1) to lands far away, (2) to those near at hand, and (3) within those who believe. This passion should be ready to pay whatever the cost in comfort, freedom or reputation. As Paul says in Philippians 1.18, “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.”

Sunday evening, Chaplain Messner examined all of Philippians in the light of chapter one, verses three through eight. God calls his people into a fellowship with one shared purpose — to know Christ and to make Him known. Therefore we are (1) to pray for one another, (2) to be there for one another, and (3) to provide for one another in whatever way possible.

And at this season of the year, I also want to thanks the Lord for blessing me and my family with the gift of freedom.

In March of 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the American people in his first inaugural address that the only thing they had to fear, was fear itself.

In January, 1941, faced with the rise of tyrannical powers in both Europe and the far East, President Roosevelt spoke to a joint session of congress about his longing for a world “founded upon four essential human freedoms.”
∙ Freedom of speech.
∙ Freedom of religion.
∙ Freedom from want.
∙ Freedom from fear.

I am grateful to live in a country where the freedoms of speech and religion are still protected. I am grateful to live in a land in which neither I nor my family have ever wanted for anything. I didn’t say we haven’t ever wanted anything. I said, we’ve never wanted for anything. There’s a world of difference between those two statements.  

I’m also grateful for the opportunity for me and my family to live lives free of fear. But such freedom is not the gift of human government. It is the gift from God to His people. Because of His grace, mercy and love, we are delivered from sin’s curse and power. Therefore we are supernaturally enabled to rest with confidence in God’sprovidence and purposes, even when we can’t see the end from the beginning. Only by such faith can we live content whatever our circumstance, free from wanting what we don’t have, and free from fearing the future.

The title of this week’s sermon will be “Freedom” (at least, so I think at this moment). Our text will be Romans 7.14-8.4. I would suggest, in preparation for this week’s worship, and as a great preparation for Thanksgiving, that you read and then reread Romans chapters four through eight.

“Thank you, O my Father,
for giving us your Son,
and leaving Your Spirit,
till the work on earth is done.”

Pastor Caines