Welcome to a new week. We had
a beautiful weekend of worship, celebration, and rest. Jessy and Tom were
visiting us from Philadelphia, and we had a blessed time. Our Jess is blessed
with the gift of winsome humor, and she blesses us every time we are together.
We were also able to celebrate our nephew's 19th birthday this weekend, with a
variety of traditional Indian dishes. Jess and Tom took my wife and Jess's
cousins out for dinner and a movie on Saturday evening.
In the worship services this
weekend I spoke on the old masters. I spoke on Joshua, who finished his race on
earth well at the age of 110. He was one of the original trailblazers, whom
the Lord used to pave the way for the pilgrims, like us, who came after him. We
are called to serve the Lord faithfully and fervently and, above all, joyfully,
and leave this world not as "flickering wicks" but as blazing and brilliant
sunsets. No matter how old we are the Lord empowers us to finish the race well
by His grace and with His authority.
America the beautiful will
observe Veterans Day tomorrow the November 11. This day is the anniversary of
the signing of the armistice which ended the World War I hostilities between the
Allied nations and Germany in 1918. Veterans
Day is intended to honor and thank all military personnel who served the United
States in all wars, particularly living veterans. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 an armistice
between Germany and the Allied nations came into effect. On November 11, 1919,
Armistice Day was commemorated for the first time as President Wilson proclaimed
the day should be "filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in
the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory".
In the movie Saving Private
Ryan, an army captain named John
Miller is given a mission; he and a small squad of soldiers are sent behind
enemy lines to rescue a soldier named James Francis Ryan, whose three other
brothers have already been killed in action. Their mission is to find Private
Ryan and get him out of harm's way, so he can return to his grieving mother back
in the States. They accomplish their mission, but it costs Captain Miller and
many others their lives. That was the price of saving Private Ryan. In a
similar way, God sent his Son to earth to find us, to take us out of harm's way,
and to restore us to relationship with our heavenly Father. He accomplished
that mission, but it cost him his life.
Romans 8 says: "The
creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed, for the
creation was subjected to frustration in hope that the creation itself will be
liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the
children of God." Some day everything on earth and in heaven will be restored
to its original splendor, to all that God had in mind when he created it in the
first place, for his glory and for our good. All this is possible because our
God is a Redeemer
We live in world made by our Lord
God. There is beauty and blessings all around us. Our Lord reigns and rules.
We also recognize that Satan, though defeated, is still alive and not well.
When we realize that, in spite of our highest hopes and our best intentions,
there's something fundamentally wrong with us and with our world, that's when
any old belief system won't do. That's when saving ourselves won't cut it.
That's when we need a Redeemer, someone who can rescue us from the mess we've
made of things, someone willing to pay the price for that rescue, someone who
can restore us to the people we were meant to be and to the world we were meant
to live in.
You and I were created to be
caught with the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit and run the race
well.. But something happened along the way. We got lost. Things were ruined,
and we've been taken captive. We need a Redeemer and, praise God, there is one:
Jesus Christ, our great redeemer and Lord.
In Christ,
Brown
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