Anchor Of Hope Christian Reformed Church

How precious to me is the Blood of Christ? How much does "redemption through His blood" fill my thoughts, feelings, words, actions? Everything is in, through, by, and for Jesus Christ and we are His if we have been bought out of our slavery to sin, death, the devil, and the world through the price of His life on the Cross. Our salvation cost Jesus His life on the cross and He paid the price of being forsaken by His heavenly Father so that we could be forgiven and loved. Thank you Jesus for willingly shedding your blood for me!

In Jesus Christ we become God's adopted children. Our Father is the sovereign creator, sustainer, and redeemer who is all powerful, all knowing, holy. With such a Father who loves us so completely we need not fear any creature, circumstance, difficulty. Our Father knows. Our Father Cares. Our Father is able! Amen!

Where your hope, desire, love, and thoughts are is where the true allegiance of your heart is. God blesses us by giving us a new heart by making us alive to receive His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus is our greatest treasure, our greatest treasure is in heaven, and that is where we are to direct our thoughts, desires, hopes, life. God blesses us before the foundation of the world. Amen!

Paul was sent out by God to be a servant and witness of the Good News of Jesus Christ. As we begin a new sermon series going verse by verse through the book of Ephesians, I hope that we will grow in the knowledge of the priceless riches of grace, salvation, hope, peace...found only in Jesus Christ. I pray that we will be faithful and gain a better understanding, through the work of the Holy Spirit, of the peace we have with God through the gracious gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Lord, open our eyes to see your power and forgiveness! Amen!

(message file truncated this week sorry!) God is gracious to us saved sinners! When we are naked and exposed in our rebellion and hatred of God He clothes us in the righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ. God makes it very clear that the only way of eternal life is in His son Jesus Christ. Believing in Jesus, trusting in Jesus, putting on Jesus, dying and living in Jesus, eating Jesus is the only source of life. Having faith that Jesus took our sin, paid the debt for our sin, satisfied God's wrath for our sin gives freedom and life. Thank you Jesus! Amen.

The wages of sin is death. We need a savior! Because of rebellion and disobedience there are curses, pain, suffering, sweat, and all of us will return to the dust in death. In the midst of this God brings the gospel. Romans 5:8 - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Though we die in Adam we can be made alive in Christ through faith by God's grace. Amen!

Because of sin, so often rather than loving nurture and loving respect -- marriages become torn through the desires of subversion and oppression. Marriage is to to be a living expression of Christ and His Church as Ephesians 5:22-33 makes clear. Jesus did not oppress, exploit or abuse the church, He gave His life so that it could have life, love, and forgiveness. The church is not to try to make itself more powerful than Christ or manipulate the Scriptures for it's own earthly desires. O Lord, let our marriages lift up this truth through your grace! Amen!

Jesus, motivated by love, suffered. Jesus, the Holy One, only begotten Son of God, King of kings and Lord of lords suffered on behalf of God's elect. His heel was "bruised." Yet, Jesus won the victory over sin, death, and the devil, and paid the full penalty of our sin by bearing the full just wrath of God for our sin! The devil's head is "bruised." Believe in Jesus, receive His victory, be set free! This is the good news of grace God speaks of in Genesis 3. Amen!

Let us, through the grace of God, the new life we have in Jesus Christ, and the empowerment of the indwelling Holy Spirit stop hiding from God. Let us stop hiding behind excuses and blaming. Let us stop hiding behind shame and anger. Let us stop hiding behind lie's and deceptions. Let us live in the light of Christ in His truth, in obedience to Him with forgiven hearts. Amen!

Why do we not trust God? Every time we sin, we are putting our hope, trust, and desire in something other then the God who made us, saved us, and graciously give us us all things that are good and life giving. Why do we continue to listen to the lies of the devil, the world and our own fallen flesh and continue to be deceived by these lie's? Help us Jesus! The Holy Spirit enables believers in Jesus Christ to work out the process of saying no to the lie's and yes to God's truth. Thank you God for your grace! Amen!

The Scriptures teach us about one God in three persons- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is eternally in perfect relationship within Himself. Of all the other kinds of living creatures God brings to Adam, he cannot find a helper to fit him perfectly. God is making clear by making woman from man that true, fitting, and helpful marriage can only be between one man and one woman united until death would separate them. Marriage points us to the ultimate and eternal union between Christ and His bride- the church. Amen!

When God makes Adam He places Him in a perfect garden with abundant food and work without toil or struggle. In the midst of all this perfect beauty and peace there is a test. Genesis 2:17 "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Will Adam be content with all God's goodness, or will he chose to abandon it for something he thinks is better than the best? We all face these tests every day. Will we be thankful for God's best, or will we disobey God thinking we can do better? Help us Jesus!

The seventh day is a set apart day to remind us that God is the perfect creator who created everything that exists "very good" and begins a rest on the seventh day until sin enters the creation. The only way we can enter into the "rest" that God provides is to trust and believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that provides the forgiveness we need. Salvation is a gift, it can not be earned by us. To enter into God's rest is to acknowledge that there is not work that we can do to save us and that we must rest in our faith that we are saved by grace through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only source of life giving rest. Amen!

God created the first man and woman "very good." Adam and Eve are given dominion over all the kinds of other living things in the universe. There is peace and life, no conflict or death. We are all born into sin and death because of the fall, yet God has made a way of peace and eternal life in His Son Jesus Christ, the new perfect Adam who does everything very good. All things that are "good" can only be found in Jesus. Amen!

What the Bible teaches as true concerning Genesis 1:1-25. The Eternal Sovereign Triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) created out of nothing (without preexisting material) the heavens and the earth (the universe- all existing matter and space considered as a whole). God ordered the created matter and space to be conducive for inhabitation. All vegetation and living creatures were made according to their kind. God created the universe in a sequence of six solar days (morning and evening). This creation occurred in a period of one week of normal solar days, about 6000 or so years ago, and the entire creation was mature and aged at the instant of its creation. Death did not exist, nor any corrupting influence; and the creation was good.

Genesis 1:1-5 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Nehemiah 9:6 "You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. God is in control. God is in charge. God is greater, bigger, more powerful than anything because he made everything

To be a healthy church requires God's gracious gift of the "minds of Christ." These are minds unified in God's love and truth. These are minds of complete sacrifice, forgiveness, and humble service. These are minds fixed on the cross of Christ and continual carrying of our own cross in following Jesus. I pray that God will grant us such a mind as we continue to respond in lives of gratitude to God who is to receive all the glory, praise, and honor. Amen!

Love and forgiveness are of vital importance in the process of discipline. Remember 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (4) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant (5) or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; (6) it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. (7) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (8) Love never ends... If someone we have disciplined comes to repentance, then we welcome him back to full fellowship within the Body of Christ. The limb is reattached with much rejoicing and tender care and healing.

I Corinthians 15:1-4

Ephesians 5:15-20, 25-33; 6:1-4