The New Birth and Its Fruits

There are things in this world that defy explanation. There are events that happen that you would say are impossible. I just read an account of that in David Grann’s book, The Wager. It is the story of HMS Wager, a British ship that was lost at sea rounding Cape Horn—the southern tip of South America in 1741. It was reported by other ships in the squadron that it just vanished. However 2 years later, various factions of the ship made it back to England, telling tales of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder.You read the book, and you can’t believe it is possible that anyone would survive this shipwreck given the weather, the desolate island they were initially stranded on, the privation they endured, and the navigational feats they achieved, and yet they did. It has been a week like that for me. On Sunday I will tell you another story where the seemingly impossible happens. That is not just from my estimation of the situation, but also from everyone I asked, including the car body shop I went to. He heard my story and looked at one of his guys who worked for him and said, “I don’t believe in all our years here we have ever seen this before".We do love stories of the unlikely and the unimaginable, don’t we? Well, this week we turn to look at how the redemption that Jesus accomplished at the cross actually comes to us, and let me just say this—in the Gospel, the impossible becomes possible. I will say no more until Sunday!I hope you will join us. I don’t know about you, but it was good to get back into a rhythm this past week. Now if we could just get some coo