Encouragement is a wonderful thing, wouldn’t you say? To encourage others means to inspire them with courage, spirit or hope; it means to spur them on towards endurance; it means to give them confidence as we cheer them on.

Just because a person happens to be a veteran sailor or a seasoned traveler, does not mean that peril at sea will be taken lightly. In fact, it will be taken all the more seriously! And along with this, the knowledge that you are not ultimately in control of all that is happening! This is what we see in the description of Paul’s sea voyage.

This text before us in 1st Kings is about waiting; it reveals to us how Elijah waited on the Lord in his time of need. Truth be told, faith and waiting go hand in hand, for “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb 11:1). When we can’t see yet have hope, we are waiting, waiting for something we cannot bring about through our own strength or resources.

A "Spirit-filled Christian." Have you ever heard this term before and if you have, would you have a definition of what this means? How would you describe such a person? What would a Spirit-filled Christian look like to you?

Last week, we looked at a wonderful passage that brings forth several principles for us to consider in regard to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In the passage before us this morning, we find additional insights in how we are to operate as a church under the Lordship of Christ and empowered for ministry by the Holy Spirit.

No church on earth is exempt from problems of one sort or another. We can see this in the New Testament churches, and the church in Corinth was no exception. As a matter of fact, they knew they had problems and so they wrote a letter to Paul about some of them, asking about such matters as marriage, food sacrificed to idols, the nature of the resurrection of the body, and spiritual gifts. As we continue our series on the Holy Spirit, I find the teaching of Paul on spiritual gifts to be very helpful. Here, we find solid counsel on the use of spiritual gifts in the life of the church.

Our passage for this morning is also about change – but it is all about positive change for the better. It’s about a transformation that occurs in the life of every Christian by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit – change that is gradual, but permanent; slow, but steady; in degrees, but life-long. It’s summarized for us in the last verse of our passage for this morning: "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

One of the key questions I and so many Christians have asked regarding the Holy Spirit is this: "Is there a ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ and if so, when and how does it happen?"

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:1-2).

We are not unlike Jesus’ first disciples in this, for they found it very difficult to believe in the resurrection. Jesus seemed too good to be true when he appeared at a gathering of all 11 of his disciples. We can understand the difficulty they faced. After all, they were just coming to terms with the fact that Jesus had died on the cross. All of their hopes had been dashed when Jesus died. They had not understood that this was a part of God’s plan of salvation and had come to think that maybe they had been wrong about Jesus.

Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed (John 20:8)

In the midst of such public events, however, Jesus wanted to teach His disciples a vivid lesson about faith. It began on Monday, when Jesus and the Twelve were leaving Bethany to return for Jerusalem.

What a "world-wind tour"! Three years with Jesus, but the recent events seemed to be fast-paced, exhilarating and exhausting for Peter and the others. In the recent past, Jesus had fed miraculously over 5,000 men, women and children. Jesus then asked His disciples for how they perceived Him, as to who they thought He was, and Peter made his great confession of Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It was a high moment for Peter, even though that was followed by Jesus’ startling prediction of His death in Jerusalem.

So far in looking at the portrait of Peter in the Gospels, we’ve seen different dimensions of the call to discipleship that comes from Christ – the call to follow, the call to serve, and the call to trust. In our passage for this morning, we find "the call to confess."

Our passage this morning describes a very tense and stressful moment for Peter. Portraits of the scene help us to appreciate the anxiety of the moment. But none of us can sense fully what that moment must have felt like as this seasoned Galilean fisherman saw his faith dwindle and his life now in jeopardy in a sea of relentless fury.

In our passage for this morning, we look at the calling of Peter and the others to serve, as Jesus called them to Himself, gave them His authority and power to go forth, and directed them how they might serve others as His appointed ambassadors. All these points of calling are clearly relevant to our own with Christ, as we look at each one carefully.

The Biography Channel; the biography section of a bookstore; People Magazine; Entertainment Tonight; even obituaries in the daily newspaper. These are all about people and it seems that we are always interested in people – people of various types and backgrounds, thought and expression. The Bible is also rich in giving us biographies, biographies of the faithful and the faithless, the courageous and the timid, the strong and the weak, the wise and the foolish; and the biblical testimony regarding Peter the disciple has fascinated many of us.

There is something in all of us that questions authority and desires independence rather than submission. This is true in our interactions with other people and it is especially true in our interactions with God. Psalm 2 steps into the midst of our rebellion, proclaiming Jesus’ reign over all creation and inviting us to take refuge in him.

The pastor of the church where I grew up loved to tell stories. He had a story for every situation, and everything that Jesus did reminded him of a story he’d heard somewhere or other. Jesus got left behind in the temple as a boy; Dr. Anderson got left behind one time too. Jesus’ disciples caught lots of fish; Dr. Anderson caught a lot of fish too. Jesus’ feet were anointed by a harlot . . . come to think of it Dr. Anderson never had a story for that, but he did love to tell stories.

The changing of the guard: for those who’ve visited London and who’ve seen this wonderful sight, it is truly awe-inspiring. But the changing of the guard isn’t always this way, as in Paul’s situation, for example. As we continue to look at Paul’s trials before going to Rome, we find a "changing of the guard" in Roman procurators.

Conscience: there it is again for the apostle Paul. It seems to be a common theme for him as we look at his New Testament letters, but especially when brought before authorities to defend himself. When Paul was first arrested by the Romans in Jerusalem and accused by the leaders of the Jewish Council, he began his defense by looking straight at them and saying, "My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day."

It happens every year on the first Sunday in January – you can expect it! I’m not talking about Holy Communion – although I could, as we have Holy Communion on the first Sunday of every month. But what I’m talking about here is the ordination and installation of new church officers. It’s such a special time in the life of our church, as ordained ministry is critically important ... and I do mean critically important! While not to be seen exclusively, the health of a church is often contingent upon the spiritual health of its leadership.

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." And no I’m not speaking of a recent meal at Ben’s Chili Dogs. Instead, I’m speaking of those first few months of Jesus’ life, the time in which he was completely dependent upon Joseph and Mary for his survival, for the powers of this dark world were closing in upon him. You know Joseph and Mary don’t you? Joseph’s a quiet one; he doesn’t say much, but we can be sure he’s a highly successful man. After all, his wife is known around the world, and he has been chosen to be Jesus’ earthly father, not just anybody gets that job; he’s obviously not an ordinary Joe.

"Shepherd" – it’s an honorable word for many of us who know what the Bible says about shepherds. The Bible mentions shepherds or shepherding over 200 times. We may consider the profession of caring for the sheep – of feeding, leading, and protecting the sheep from harm.

As we look at the subject of faith found in the people of the "Christmas Story," there is not perhaps a faith more impressive than that of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Yes, we need to recall that Scripture never portrays Mary as an absolutely perfect and flawless individual. No human being is, and that includes the mother of our Lord who was a sinner in need of redemption, just as we are. But in the passage before us, at the time of the annunciation, Mary displayed such an exemplary faith. She exercised her faith in such a way that her faith can become a model for us, as elements of Mary’s faith can be applied to the exercise of our own faith.

We continue today with our Advent series, "Assets and Liabilities: Looking at Faith in the Christmas Story." This morning, we look at the faith of Joseph and come to a critically important life-lesson. It is a lesson Joseph learned in the midst of such unusual events and it is one we all must learn on the journey of our own faith. It is as simple and profound as this: A life of faith means that we will always be open to guidance from the Lord in the choices we are to make.

This morning, we are going to start revisiting some of the most familiar stories in the Bible. They are so familiar to us because we read them every year at this time. But this year, I’d like us to take a closer look at the faith of the people found in these stories. As we look at different episodes that are such a part of the Christmas story, we find people at different stages of faith in God. I call this series: "Assets and Liabilities: Finding Faith in the Christmas Story." I want us to look more closely at the strengths and weaknesses of the faith of Zechariah, Joseph, Mary and the Shepherds. As we do, may the Holy Spirit guide us toward applying practical lessons to that of our own faith in Christ.

"Focus, focus, focus!" I’ve said this many times and perhaps you’ve said this to yourself many times, needing to concentrate. We can be distracted so easily by all that is around us and thus our eyes need to be centered on what’s really important. Then again, under certain circumstances, the nature of a particular challenge before us can naturally lead us to remain focused and that’s precisely the case that was before King Jehoshaphat. In our text for this morning, we are told that a collaboration of enemies from the east, southeast and the south converged on King Jehoshaphat and his small kingdom of Judah. As a result, he was alarmed and frightened in facing such a formidable force. Clearly, his eyes were focused on the LORD, looking to the LORD for help, not knowing precisely what to do. You might say he was in a holding pattern with his center of attention completely on the Lord.

As you can surely tell, Thanksgiving is the theme of our worship today. It’s good to be together as a family of faith on this Lord’s Day to give thanks. On Wednesday evening, we’ll join together here with four other churches as the larger family of God in thanksgiving. On Thursday, many of us will also be found gathered together with family or friends, finding the joy of giving thanks with those for whom we care a great deal. As I find myself in the midst of such gatherings, I often find myself remembering those who will not be with others, and for whom Thanksgiving or Christmas can be very lonely days. But in all honesty, lonely days can come in any of the 365 days in a year, can’t they? And even when we are surrounded by a number of people, we can still feel quite lonely Our text for this morning speaks of loneliness in the midst of a particular crisis at hand; only the loneliness was revealed in time to be unfounded. Two men encircled by a hostile, enemy army were not so alone after all.

One of the things that strikes me as I read 2 Chronicles 7:14 is the powerful verbs used to describe how God’s people should pray and the way in which the LORD will respond to their prayers: "humble, pray, seek, turn, hear, forgive, and heal." These verbs jump out at us; they draw us into this prayer and compel us to join in, for these verbs allow us to see this prayer, and we desire the healing that the LORD offers to those who pray it.

The more I read the Bible, and the longer I am in ordained ministry, and the more experience I have as a disciple of Christ, the more I realize the vastness of this subject, which covers the subject of money, though a good deal more as well. In fact, I could do a whole series of sermons on this subject, if the mere thought of it wouldn’t scare people so much! So, here we are on “Stewardship Sunday,” looking at a text that gives us much to think about, knowing all the while that there is so much more that could be said and covered.

It’s Reformation Sunday, and in our collective imaginations we should be sensing the Scottish mist swirling about us, bag pipes piping hymns of faith, and Martin Luther speaking to the royal court, seeking to defend his life saying, "My conscience is captive to the word of God. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me." The Church, in the centuries preceding the Reformation, had distorted the Gospel, putting the focus on humans and the Church as an institution while taking the focus off of the work of Christ and God’s free gift of grace. The reformers, the faithful ones who were the architects of the Reformation, saw through these distortions and sought to speak of an authentically Biblical faith, one in which God reaches out to humans seeking a restoration of their relationship with him. We have inherited that faith, and on Reformation Sunday we celebrate the Good News of the grace that comes to us through faith in Christ.

What's the bottom line? That seems to be a common question for many who want to get to the primary issue at hand.

Using the Lord's Prayer as a model prayer for us to teach us how to pray.

We come this morning to a part of the Lord's Prayer that is unquestionably difficult and challenging. This part speaks not only of how we pray, but also of how we live.

Believe it or not, there are Cliff Notes for the book of Jeremiah, and you don’t even have to go out and buy them. They’re right there at the beginning of the book where 52 chapters of text are condensed into three short verses in which we discover the themes, characters and plot of Jeremiah’s life and ministry.

As we continue looking at the Lord's Prayer as a model prayer and an instructive prayer for us, we come to a brief petition of only seven words, and yet a petition full of meaning and pertinent application for our own prayers. It is the petition: Give us this day our daily bread.

Prayer is never to be seen as being unessential in the work of the Kingdom of God. In fact, there will be no power found in the work of the Kingdom, unless prayer comes first.

Prayer: it's as deep a subject as one can possibly find. We never get to the bottom of it, but are always learning more about prayer, and yes, sometimes we seem to find more questions than answers.

Most people understand conscience to be an inner sense of moral awareness. It's a human capacity to reflect upon how a person has conformed in behavior to certain accepted norms or standards.

Have you noticed how many books of "Christian fiction" are being published today? Just walk into a Christian bookstore or even our own Fellowship Hall, for example, and notice how many books of Christian fiction are there.

It was quite a startling statement to make. Mohandas Gandhi, the Hindu nationalist leader of India, was reportedly once asked by a close friend: "If you admire Christ so much, why don't you become a Christian?"

Acts 20 is a sort of travel diary of the beginning stages of Paul's journey from Greece to Jerusalem. Now Paul was not traveling on a vacation; he was on a mission.

In Acts 20, our text this morning, Luke recounts the initial stages of Paul's journey back to Jerusalem. This is a long journey for Paul, complicated by the fact that the Jews of Corinth are seeking to kill him.

Obviously, we don't see many gods and goddesses in temple shrines today, at least here in this country. It is safe to say that there are nevertheless idols enshrined in the hearts and lives of many people. We need only look to a few examples to be able to affirm the truth of this.

As we make our way slowly but surely through the entire book of Acts, one thing can most certainly be said of the New Testament church: "there never was a dull moment!" The Holy Spirit was on the move in the life and witness of the church in often unexpected and dramatic ways.

That's when Jesus said to His disciples in a teaching moment, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” More laborers were needed, and so Jesus told His disciples - and us to pray for more workers.

Beyond that of a seasoned pastor, we all face tough times, troubling moments and daunting challenges. We all need encouragement from above, and we are reminded of this when we see how Paul himself was encouraged in Corinth, receiving encouragement from above.

Unfortunately, we have yet to discover any dessert islands, but for all those who follow Jesus Christ and long for the fullness of the Kingdom of God, there are times when we know all too well what it feels like to be on a desert island.

Obviously, finite human beings will never be able to adequately define God, the Most High God. But if a relationship with God is ever going to exist, we must seek to address God appropriately. This includes addressing the "Triune God," most often known to us and addressed by us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

My children are older today, but I remember the question all too well. In fact, most parents are very familiar with the question. The car fully packed, off we would go for our summer family vacation. No more than 30 minutes into the trip, one of them was sure to pop off the question: "When do we get there?" Not more than 10 to 15 minutes later, another one would ask, "Are we almost there yet?" It seems that I could just never drive fast enough to our destination!

During the first century, and ever since, the gospel has been spilling out into the world this gospel is at the heart of Paul's letter to the Colossians, for Paul is concerned that they continue to live according to the gospel they received.

I have listened to the words over and over again. The lyrics penetrate my soul and give me a yearning for the Church to be all that it is called to be by Christ and in Christ. The words are from Casting Crowns and the words of the song, "If We Are the Body", are these...

Language is an art form, wouldn't you tend to agree with me? Actually, the English language is an evolving art form, we might also say, as new words are coined and older words are either retained or changed in their meaning. For example, in my youth, the word “cool” had a new meaning. It was not the opposite of warm, but it instead came to mean, "great, fantastic, wonderful!"

Many centuries ago, the people of Israel were in danger of the theft of their identity. It came at a time when the prophet Isaiah declared Israel's guilt in breaking their covenant with God.

When we are here in worship surrounded by the community of faith, following Christ seems so simple, straightforward and uncomplicated, but when we leave this sanctuary and encounter the world, we often feel as though our faith is being buffeted by winds blowing this way and that.

But we may ask ourselves, what about now, after Easter has come? What now, after the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has come and gone? Where are we, now that Easter has come and gone?

We are told that it was toward the early break of the day and the beginning of the dawn on Sunday that it happened; there was scarcely any light. Deeply loyal and devoted women came there to the tomb of Jesus, just as they had been at the Cross of Calvary when Jesus died and in Joseph's garden when Jesus' body was buried.

Maundy Thursday Service: Remember that Jesus was celebrating the Passover with his disciples on the night he was betrayed. How amazing it is that this meal, first eaten 1,500 years before Jesus came and 3,500 years before our time, speaks so truly about God's work of salvation in our lives.

On Easter, we will turn to Matthew's Gospel and find ourselves being "At His Feet for Worship." But for this Palm Sunday, may we find ourselves "At His Feet in Submission."

It's also true to say that my life is so very often full of unexpected "bumps and potholes," all of which seem to require a certain kind of "realignment." For me, that's why this story of Martha and Mary is so helpful toward the kind of realignment I need.

I think it's fair to say that our passage for this morning is a very challenging one. It's challenging in the sense that it forces us to look at our personal worldview. Is the concept of an evil spiritual realm merely a non-scientific, irrational approach to explain the experience of these first century Christians?

But when we look at the Gospels, we discover soon enough that healing was also a great concern of Jesus. In fact, it was an essential part of his 3-fold ministry: teaching, healing and deliverance; and our text before us for this morning is a wonderful example of the healing ministry of Jesus.

As we continue our Lenten series concerning people who ended up at Jesus' feet, we come to a very different and unusual dinner party. The event described here occurred at the house of a Pharisee named Simon. We don't know why the invitation was extended to Jesus, but we do know from vv.44-46 that it was not given out of love or of deep respect for Jesus.

It's found in my family room a portrait of a peaceful, placid lake, recovering from the most violent and intense of storms. It is the Sea of Galilee and of Jesus and His disciples in a boat. Whereas the intensity of the storm had visibly shaken seasoned fishermen, Jesus, with the confidence of heaven itself, simply called for stillness, and all had become still at that very moment.

Our text today ends with a handful of Athenians believing the Good News and joining Paul as disciples of Christ. We don't know how many heard Paul as he spoke in the synagogue, marketplace and in the midst of the Areopagus. Surely, there were more than a handful listening to him, yet many refused to hear his message.

I would like to draw our attention to a portrait in contrasts that is given in our Scripture lesson for this morning. It really is a portrait in contrasts, one found between the Thessalonians and the Bereans. Let's look more closely at the two, and then note the application to our own lives.

The fact is that there are different kinds of prisons in which we may find ourselves, and there is only One who can free us from those prisons. Sometimes we are imprisoned by others; sometimes our own actions imprison us, and other times circumstances that are beyond our control land us in a bleak place.

As we look at the passage before us, one describing Paul's first steps taken in his second missionary journey, we find that certain principles in serving a missionary God can be found and applied to our own lives; for you see, God never stops being a missionary God, and you and are on a mission field as much as was the apostle Paul. The entire world is a mission field, and that includes where we are presently living.

As we continue this morning in our sermon series on Acts, we find the Church in a time of severe crisis. It isn't surprising, for the Church has always experienced times of challenge and difficulty, and of varying degrees of intensity.

As for the passage of Scripture before us this morning, it most certainly is of a wide and general purpose as well. Paul closes this brief letter with some wide and general counsel for the life and mission of a church. But if you will indulge me, I'm going to take what is intended for all and seek to bring it to the attention and consideration of our new church officers, our Deacons and Elders.