Anchor Of Hope Christian Reformed Church

I am excited and hopeful as we begin our sermon series in the book of Isaiah. King Uzziah is a great example of the overall problems with much of Judah and Israel.When Uzziah feared God and sought the Lord, God made him prosper. Yet, when Uzziah was strong, and rather than remembering it was God who made him strong, he grew prideful and forgot his need for God. This brought about his destruction. It was the same for the people of Judah, the people of Israel, and for us. Let us seek God and learn from the prophecies of Isaiah as a reminder of our need for a savior (Jesus Christ) and our powerlessness without him. Amen!

The Church is the Body of Christ with Christ as its head. The Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ and The Father work through the church to encourage the hearts of believers. God fills us with His peace and our love is to be rooted and founded in faith in Jesus Christ. It is the love God has for us in Jesus Christ and the love we grow into as children of God that is love incorruptible.  The love we have in Jesus Christ will never end, diminish, fade, or fail in any way. Praise God!

The best way to stay alert and persevere is to be in a constant communion and fellowship with God in prayer. It is in times of forgetting about, ignoring, and not taking God into consideration that we most find ourselves wounded and stumbling in sin and fear. The Spirit prays for us and groans on our behalf when we do not even know what to pray. The Spirit also empowers us and our continual prayer is that God will enable us to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ in boldness without fear no matter what our circumstances, even in chains! Help us Lord!

God's Word makes us alive! It is living and active and the Holy Spirit uses the word of God, the gospel, as it makes alive God's elect. Faith comes through hearing, understanding, believing in, trusting, and living out the word of God. God's word not only makes us alive to repent and believe in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, it also enable us to grow up into the likeness of Christ! It is only with this sword that we can do battle against all the deceitful schemes, deceptions, and lies that continually come against us. Praise God for His word!

Much of the battle we face in standing in the faith is waged within our thoughts. We must have transformed minds through the power of the Holy Spirit that enable us to continue to have our hope fixed in Christ no matter how difficult the circumstances. It is by holding fast to our hope in God's promises to us His children that we will have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul enabling us stay fixed in Him no matter how strong the storms. Amen!

Our three enemies: the devil, the fallen world systems, and our fallen flesh want us to doubt and call into question the goodness, holiness, justice, love, and truth of God. This is why we must stand with the shield of faith always before us; for it is only with a sure hope and conviction that we will be able to continue to stand against such a continual attack. In the midst of the fiery trials we continue to trust, believe and obey Jesus Christ knowing that He is our everything. Amen!

It is the knowing, believing, trusting, and having faith in the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ by God's grace that enables us to stand and walk into and through any circumstance and situation. It is knowing that God is for us and not against us because the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf on the Cross that enables us to understand Romans 8:31b-33 ...If God is for us, who can be against us? (32) He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (33) Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. This peace enables us to be ready for anything! Amen!

Within our constant battle against sin, the fallen world and the Devil we must protect our hearts and emotions. This is only done through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is through walking in righteousness, by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, that our hearts and emotions are protected against the dagger thrust or arrows of temptations to immorality, pride, and disobedience to God. We are called to be holy as He is holy. Help us and guard us O Lord! Amen!

We are in constant battle against sin within, the fallen world around us, and the Devil. We must have our tunics tucked firmly into our belts so we are not tripped up and fall. The tunic is our minds, thoughts, desires, passions, who we are -- and the only way we will be able to stand firm and advance against our enemies is having all of who we are firmly held together by the truth of Jesus Christ and His Word. Let us wrap every thought, word, and action in the Truth! Amen!

In every moment we are on the front lines, in the heat and intensity of battle. The Devil, the demonically inspired and influenced fallen world systems, and our fallen flesh/old-dead-nature are our enemies. We are to resist these enemies in the name of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit as we humble ourselves and draw near to God the Father our rock our fortress and our protection. God's word, the Bible equips us for this battle. Let us put on the armor of God, stand firm in the faith and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ the author and protector of our faith! Amen!

God shows no partiality. No matter how low you are, God can lift you up in His son Jesus Christ. No matter how high you are, God can bring you down and humble you in His Son Jesus Christ. This is why every believer, regardless of background, brokenness, political power, wealth, education, or social standing is first and foremost brother and sister, members of the body of Jesus Christ. We submit to one another as we all ultimately submit to Christ. Amen!

Every believer in Christ, at the core of their identity, is a slave of Jesus Christ. Jesus is a wonderful master, infinitely better than our former masters of sin and the Devil! A part of being a slave of Christ is picking up our cross, dying to our self and following Jesus. The more we become a slave to Christ the freer we become to everything and everyone else. This is why we can render service to anyone and do good to anyone regardless of their attitudes and treatment toward us. Vengeance belongs to God, we are called to display patience, love, and grace. Amen!

God disciplines and instructs those whom he loves. Earthly fathers are to love their children enough to sacrifice themselves for the sake of not only their wives, but also their children so that their children will grow in the truth of God. God's word is to so permeate the words, actions, conversations and instructions of the father so that the truth of the one true Heavenly Father is always front and center so that everything focuses on glory to God! Their is no room for provoking to anger when God's glory is always to be of greatest significance. Amen!

Parents are to raise their children in the love, truth, word, and in obedience to God. Children are to learn, honor, respect, and obey their parents in all good and right things. Obeying parents is training for obeying God; disobedience and disrespect to parents is training in disobedience and disrespect for God. Jesus shows all of us children what it means to live out obedience to our heavenly Father. Even if our parents are godless and haters of God, we honor them in whatever ways we can knowing that ultimately we have the best and most wonderful Father in heaven who always loves, teaches, and disciplines us perfectly. Amen!

A husband and wife are one flesh. This is a mystery and it is to help us better understand the mystery of how every believer, the church, is a part of the body, flesh, of Christ. This is part of the reason that marriage is "until death do us part." Just as the church can not be separated from Christ its head, a husband and wife are to be one flesh, the wife respecting her husband and the husband loving his wife. Let us pray that our marriages display the unity, love, tenderness, self-sacrifice, and care that represents Christ and His body, the church, well. Amen!

Jesus cares for the church more than we can hope, imagine, or fully comprehend. Jesus gave His life for the Church! Jesus frees the church from the bondage of sin, death, the devil, eternal judgment and wrath! Jesus interceded to God on behalf of the church. Jesus is returning for His church when all will be made well in the New Heavens and New Earth. Husbands, how much are you sacrificing for, serving, caring for, and loving your wives? Hopefully, as much as Jesus does for His church.

In Jesus Christ, wives are able to live out the most God glorifying and Christ exalting life of submission to Christ depicted in submission to their husband. God has created an order of husband as head over their wife to model and display in beauty Christ's head of the church. Christ is a perfect husband to the church, let husbands be like Christ! Christ displayed perfect submission and obedience to His Father, let wives be like Christ!

Christ is the Head of the Church and each Christian is a member of His body. The hand cannot say to the foot "I do not need you!" We must care for one another as Christ cares for us. This means sacrifice, suffering, service, and the willingness to die to our self, pick up our cross, and follow Christ. To love Christ is to love our brothers and sisters as Christ loves them.

Be careful little eyes what you look at, be careful little ears what you listen to, be careful little mind what you think about and meditate on, be careful little mouth what you say, be careful little one how you live because your heavenly Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful. Because of Jesus Christ's obedient life, sacrificial and atoning death on the cross, and victorious resurrection - those who believe in him can be set free from sin, death, and foolishness. The wisdom God's children receive from God is how to live new lives of freedom, love, and gratitude for His amazing grace and mercy. Let us sing this out whenever and wherever we can!

I love to sing the song I learned as a child in Sunday School "This Little Light of Mine." Hide it under a bush, o no! Wont let Satan blow it out! I'm gonna let it shine! It turns out that the source of this light is not "little." The Scriptures tell us that, "God is light and in Him is no darkness." Jesus is spoken of as the "light of the world." God's word is a "light unto our path." For us to let the light of Christ shine in our words, thoughts and actions means imitation of God's holiness and turning away from the darkness of sin. Jesus died on the cross for all those who would come into the light of faith and believe in Him so that they would no longer be in the darkness of sin, death and eternal judgment. Praise God for the light of His love. I'm gonna let it shine!