When I was a kid our family lived in a house that was built in the 1860’s. My dad added on a large family room with a fireplace and an expansive view overlooking the property. It was great. There was one problem though. Where the new addition met the existing house there was a leak in the roof that evaded every attempt to remedy. After trying many things to keep the area from dripping water into the new addition, my dad came up with the only thing that worked. He installed an eves trough inside the attic where the new roof met the old and ran it through the side of the house to divert the water. 

Sometimes we just decide to live with our problems the best way we can. We cope. The problem is still there but it is managed somehow, even if not very well.  

Jesus has come to bring a cure to the problem we could never solve but only try to manage. He came to forgive our sin and give us new eternal life. He is the only one who makes it possible for us to finally be healed from our most insidious issue, the problem of sin which leads to spiritual destruction. 

In Jesus’ day there was a man who was born blind. He had a big problem because his disability earned him social stigma that kept him from worshiping in the synagogue. He became a beggar and at least managed to stay alive. Jesus was willing to heal the man, and in doing so the man became a billboard for the work of the Messiah who had come into the world. 

Jesus still heals our greatest needs. And he still invites us to bear witness to the grace of the Savior by the lives we live as people who have experienced the healing work on the Lord. 

Pastor Rich

Brenda and I were at a dinner with George W. Bush.  True story. Are you impressed?  Don’t be.  It was just before he was elected president. It was a campaign dinner in a large gymnasium at Grand Valley State University. The dinner was being catered, and we were behind a partition plating up the meals for the guests.  While the president was speaking, we began cleaning up. 

What is the closest you have come to a very important person?  Did you feel out of place? 

A worldly woman from Samaria shared drinks with a famous Jewish rabbi just outside of a sleepy town one afternoon at a local watering-hole.  It was awkward at first, and then it got awesome!  Jesus told her plainly that he was the Messiah that they were all waiting for.  She believed in him and told a lot of others who also believed in him.  They spent a couple of days with Jesus Christ and that little town was transformed.  They had been outcasts and now they were partakers in the kingdom of God. 

On Sunday we are going to take a look at this encounter with the most important VIP that ever walked this planet.  Please know that he wants to meet with you too.  What would you ask?  How would you feel?  

Get a head start by reading John 4:1-42.

Pastor Rich

Something I find rather interesting in today’s era of social media / sound-bite / quick-fix / easy-way-out mentality, is the sharing of life hacks. In our newsfeed or on Facebook or YouTube Shorts, when you open most any app, there is someone telling you how to do something better, quicker or cheaper. Some are simply amazing and practical; others are pretty lame. You can see ideas of how to hack meal prep, carpentry, home organization, restaurant menus, automotive repairs, and anything else you can think of. 

It seems like all of this creates a mentality that is always looking for a hack somewhere. And this thinking can even carry over into how people might try to hack God. It’s an issue as old as time. Ancient people used idols and offerings to try to appease their idea of a higher being. Today, people get pretty creative to try to get what they want/need from God in a way that is quicker, cheaper, less demanding, more appealing. 

This Sunday, we will look at the apostle Paul’s words in Romans chapter four. It could be said that he addresses the desire of people in his day to get what they needed from God by doing things a certain way. And Paul lets us know of the one way that will work for us, and ironically, it’s the simplest and best way too.   

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1

Satan’s strategy is to get us to love ourselves and seek our will more than we love God and seek his will. He uses the strategy of encouraging disobedience to God, which results in becoming disconnected from God. The thing Satan wants most is for you and me to move away from an intimate relationship with the Lord and move into a self-centered life where we trust ourselves and seek to please ourselves. 

Satan usually does not approach us with blatant lies, but rather brings suggestions to us that questions God. Did God really say that? That’s how Satan seeks to destroy relationships.  He invites us to question God and he invites us to think about what we want over what God wants for us. And before you know it, temptation can grow into disobedience and sin. 

This Sunday, as we enter the season of Lent, we will first look at the reality of sin and our fallen nature, then will consider how we are invited to respond to God’s invitation to be forgiven and restored so we can enjoy our relationship with God as he designed it to be.  

On Freedom Sunday, February 19th we join together as the people of God to stand against human trafficking. We join in prayer, in guided worship, and in giving. We join to say, “No more.”

Globally, human trafficking has made an estimated 40 million children, women, and men victims of slavery. Most are forced into labor, such as domestic work, construction, agriculture, or commercial sexual exploitation. Others are exploited through forced marriage.

Again and again, it is clear that God cares deeply for those who are vulnerable. The work of the Lord to bring restoration and transformation is a central calling of the Gospel. The prophesy in Isaiah 61:1-2, which Jesus read as he publicly announced his mission, calls us to join that restorative work.

Join us this coming Lord's Day to learn more about this important topic and to discover how we can respond in faithfulness and in alignment to the Lord's will.

Together, we share God’s good news of freedom.

Grace and Peace -

God created the heavens and the earth. He created mankind. And everything was good. Sin entered and marred God’s plan for his creation. He then sent His Son to make a way for us to be saved from sin and eternal death. In the days we live now we have the opportunity to have Christ and have life instead of live in sin and inherit death. Praise God!

The next great cosmic move of the Creator is to return to this earth and gather all those who have believed in Christ to live with Him in eternity. We have been living in these “last days” for a long time now. We have been living in the in-between times … the growing season. One day harvest time will come. Peter tells us, “The end of all things is near.” (1 Peter 4:7)  That is to say, the next step to come is harvest time. 

In our text for Sunday, 1 Peter 4:1-11, Peter tells us what we should be doing in these end times. The things that are most important as we live for God in these days will matter greatly when He returns. Let us live in a way that glorifies God and gives us tremendous hope for His return.  

Pastor Rich