Gospel Encouragement Mix 020621

Have you ever experienced times in your life where you felt like God was silent? Hard to hear? Difficult to access? I hear people say they need clarity, direction, guidance for God’s will, as if the issue is whether God is willing to speak. I’ve seen people assume the silence they perceive is because they’re unworthy & as a result God has cut off access! Let me break the suspense. Left to ourselves, none of us are ever worthy of Access to God, of hearing from God. Sometimes the issue isn’t whether God is willing to speak, but if w...

There are parts of the Bible we love to frame & hang on the wall, make cute memes to post on SM. Then the parts we’re not quite sure what to do with. Stories that don’t feel encouraging, that even make us uncomfortable with God and His Word. Today is one of those. At some point in our lives, we will be forced to answer the question: Lord, why? Why did this tragedy happen? It seems so senseless, so out of step with what I expect from You. It’s not a place we want to visit, but many of us...

There are parts of the Bible we love to frame & hang on the wall, make cute memes to post on SM. Then the parts we’re not quite sure what to do with. Stories that don’t feel encouraging, that even make us uncomfortable with God and His Word. Today is one of those. At some point in our lives, we will be forced to answer the question: Lord, why? Why did this tragedy happen? It seems so senseless, so out of step with what I expect from You. It’s not a place we want to visit, but many of us will. It’s a tragic place called “Nob”. It’s a place of brutality, injustice, and loss, that forces us to ask whether God is still sovereign when evil seems to win. But it also shows us something else. That even in places where judgment is real, even where evil is unleashed, God is still present, preserving what belongs to Him. If you’ve ever wondered how God’s judgement and mercy can occupy the same space, this sermon is for you.

We are, by nature, very short-sighted people. We look at our lives through a keyhole, we see the crisis of Tuesday, the stress of Wednesday, and the bills due on Friday. We are obsessed with the immediate "right now." And because we are so focused on the immediate, we tend to view God as a reactive God. We struggle with what I call "Temporal Narcissism", the idea that God’s clock started when we showed up. We think God sits in heaven responding to our choices, good or bad, with some immediate prescriptive consequence or blessing. Like He is just waiting for us to burn our lives to the ground so He can come up with a Plan B, or for us to “perform well” so he can send us “good job” gifts. If we truly believe in a Sovereign God, we must embrace a much bigger reality: God has no "Plan B." only Plan A. God’s Covenant of Grace is not a reaction to your faithfulness, or your failures, or your successes, or your problems. Grace & mercy in your life is a sovereign, precise plan that that predates your existence. Today, we’ll see how God never forgets a promise, leaves His redeemed hopeless, & never loses track of His heirs, even if they’re hiding in a cave.