Pastor Beck

Very, Very Good

/ After Pentecost - 01, Season After Pentecost, The Holy Trinity / , , ,

We often want to understand something before we can accept it as true. “I just don’t get it!” we might cry out. But God is bigger than anything we can ever understand. The Trinity is bigger than we can grasp. Three persons, each of them God, yet we have not three “Gods,” but one God? How does that work?! We can take comfort that God is bigger than anything we can wrap our minds around. This is the God who is so complex that we cannot understand, but He bent all His incomprehensible being to rescue us from sin, death, and the devil. Our God is bigger than our brains, and we can take comfort that such a God still loves us.

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Wait!

/ Easter - 8, Season of Easter, The Day of Pentecost / , , , , , ,

In John 14, Jesus says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” The primary role of the Holy Spirit, then, is to teach us and remind us of all that Jesus said–perfect communication. When Peter had confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, Jesus said immediately to Peter: “the Son of Man must suffer many things . . . be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22). Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. This is the word that the Holy Spirit reminds us of week after week in Scripture, hymns, preaching, and Holy Communion. It is this word of Jesus that brings us down a notch when we are arrogant and lifts us up when we are brought low by our sin. Christ, crucified for sinners and risen, is perfect communication. This is precisely what the Holy Spirit breathes into our ears.

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Resurrection Witness

/ Easter - 7, Season of Easter / , , ,

Most celebrations in our world last a few hours–or in the case of some great professional sports win, maybe a week. Here in church we have celebrated Easter for seven Sundays–a week of weeks! The Easter season concludes today with powerful words from Jesus. He is praying for His people in the world–for us! His prayer for us is at the same time comforting and challenging: “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are one” (John 17:11). How comforting it is to know that Jesus’ prayer is for the Father to hold on to us no matter what. How challenging it is–in light of the ways that we divide and scatter–that Jesus wants His followers to be one. Today, in Holy Communion, we catch a glimpse of both. The Lord holds on to us by drawing us together to receive Christ’s body and blood; at the same time, we who gather to receive are in that moment one, a foretaste of the feast to come. The Lord is risen! What a celebration!

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Grace and Power

/ Easter - 5, Season of Easter / , , , , ,

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. He has chosen believers to be His own through faith. We are indeed a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). Even so, as we traverse our days on this sinful earth, we can expect trials and tribulations to come our way. One of God’s chosen disciples, Stephen, experienced such trials in the ultimate way. As he preached the law, he was rejected and stoned to death. However, God was preparing a home for Stephen as He is for all believers. Jesus promises that He will come again and take us home to Himself in heaven. Rejoice in our resurrected Savior as we focus our eyes heavenward!

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Shepherds and Sheep and the Door

/ Easter - 4, Season of Easter / , , ,

This day we are often reminded how Jesus is the Good Shepherd that cares for His sheep. However, in the Gospel, Jesus gives us another different and vivid picture of Himself: as a door. He says, “I am the Door of the sheep . . . If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:7, 9). Jesus is the only way to salvation; as His sheep, we look only to Him and listen for His loving voice alone. What a contrast there is between a thief, who would never use the door properly and brings only destruction, and Jesus, the Door, who brings abundant life.

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Earth Shaking

/ Easter - 1, Season of Easter, The Resurrection of Our Lord / , , ,

Most merciful God, as the people of Jerusalem, with palms in their hands, gathered to greet Your dearly beloved Son when He came into His Holy City, grant that we may ever hail Him as our King and, when He comes again, may go forth to meet Him with trusting and steadfast hearts and follow Him in the way that leads to eternal life; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen!

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Isolated, But Not Alone

/ Holy Week, Lent - 6, Palm Sunday, Season of Lent / , , ,

Most merciful God, as the people of Jerusalem, with palms in their hands, gathered to greet Your dearly beloved Son when He came into His Holy City, grant that we may ever hail Him as our King and, when He comes again, may go forth to meet Him with trusting and steadfast hearts and follow Him in the way that leads to eternal life; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen!

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