Stretching the Sermon

Lilet Alcos wants to share this with her HCC family... The sufficiency of the grace of God Exodus 16:16-21 The command was to gather daily as much as the Israelites needed. There was an ample supply of manna for everyone, no one had overabundance regardless of how much manna they gathered, and the gathering was a day-to-day activity: only what was needed for the day, except on the day before the Sabbath. No one was allowed to store up for the future. God impresses on me the concept of grace here—that His grace is sufficient each day . It is sufficient for all my needs; it is sufficient regardless of the severity of any one need each day . It will never be exhausted; it will not run out of supply. It will always be here every day for me to appropriate (take possession of) as much as I need for whatever my need is on that day . This is making me aware of my daily dependence on Him. From time to time He brings extraordinary crises into my life, just like this pandem...

The reason we looked at Psalm 22 yesterday was that Greg pointed to it as being one of the possible reasons why Jesus called out, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?”   Greg suggested Jesus was quoting from that Psalm rather than simply uttering an emotional cry for help. What do you think? Observe. Even from the cross, Jesus was still “on mission.” While hanging there He made arrangements for His mother Mary to be looked after by John, fulfilling God’s desire to look out for orphans and widows. While hanging there He accepted the faith of a criminal and promised him eternal life. So it makes sense that while hanging there that He would continue, until His final breath, to preach the Gospel (the good news). If you read or listened to that Psalm yesterday you might wonder how such dark words could be considered “good news.” But that might be because you aren’t a first century Jew. School children in the Palestine of Jesus’ time had the first five books of the Scriptu...

Greg had us close our eyes on Sunday as we listened to him recite portions of Psalm 22. That text is one of the most powerful proofs of the historical authenticity of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Written almost 1000 years before Jesus hung on that cross, King David was moved by God to write the prophesy in the form of lyrics to a new hymn: inspired lyrics that describe in uncanny detail what Jesus would go through in His final hours. David even suggested to the royal worship director that it should be sung to the tune of another well-known song of that time. Our devotional time today is simple: read the lyrics to the full song while picturing Jesus being described throughout it. If you want to close your eyes and just listen to it being read for you, click here . (note: the version is slightly different, but the reader has a good voice). Psalm 22 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me,    so far from my cries of angui...

Why did Jesus holler out, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” Another possible explanation for Jesus’ statement is that He actually was abandoned by the Father. Some have suggested that a better declaration is that the Father turned His back on Jesus, or turned His face away from Him. Could this be true? As Greg pointed out in his message, there is considerable controversy surrounding Jesus’ statement above and great theologians debate its meaning. Some say that it’s impossible for God to have abandoned Him or to have turned His back on Him because the Trinity cannot be split; God has been looking upon sin from the first two humans that He created in the Garden of Eden so looking on Jesus was no different. They also point to the Psalm 22:24 prophecy that says that God will not turn His face from Him but has listened to His cry for help. I am not a great theologian (perhaps just an applied theologian ), yet, I find myself drawn to what I believe to be a more compell...

Why did Jesus holler out, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” One possible explanation was that he was truly feeling abandoned in that moment. Think about it. Jesus is the only human being—ever—to live with the indwelling Holy Spirit from conception to death. Not a moment of His life was He ever without God’s perfect presence. He may have felt moments of aloneness during his life, such as when He was tempted by the devil in the desert. But even in such moments, the lifelong rich experience of perfect unity with the Father always sustained Him, allowing Him to be the man we read about in the Gospels. This was true when He was rejected and then even betrayed. But then things changed. In the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his arrest, we get a glimpse of a Jesus we hadn’t seen before. The knowing pain of His approaching torture and crucifixion became so intense that Jesus, the man, showed us for the first time that perhaps what the man in Him wanted was different fro...

Greg's message yesterday ( click here ) explored one statement that Jesus uttered while hanging on the cross: "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?" This week as we examine our pastor’s thoughts on the death of Jesus through the lens of this one statement, I thought we would begin by simply becoming familiar with how all four Gospel writers recorded the account. But, rather than seeing them separately, we will look at them in one harmonized narrative. For those wishing to see which statements below come from which Gospel writer, send an email to omegaman.pb@gmail.com . The texts are:     Mark 15:42-47       Matthew 27:45-56        Luke 23:50-56        John 19:38-42 “It was about noon, and the whole land became dark and the darkness lasted for three hours, because the sun did not shine. About three o’clock Jesus cried in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, la...