Prepared, Equipped, Blameless

1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

Yochtangee Park in Chillicothe is a delightful place to watch waterfowl. There are some swans, several varieties of wild and domestic ducks, and farm and Canadian geese. You do have to be careful where you walk. Wherever the geese go, the geese go. But Canadian geese do have other, more admirable qualities. They are devoted parents and they mate for life. Their faithfulness is astonishing.

Consider this true story: a pair of geese chose a rather unfortunate nesting spot located close to a road. A few days after laying her eggs, the female wandered into the path of a car. Luckily for her, all she suffered was a broken leg. But while she was whisked off to a veterinary clinic and admitted into the vet’s recovery ward, her faithful mate was left alone to tend their nest.

The male not only continued to do all the nest-sitting; he also established a unique “coffee break” ritual for himself. When he periodically left the nest to eat and drink, he returned by way of the road where his mate was injured. There he settled down and patiently waited for his wounded mate to reappear. When the call of the nest finally overwhelmed him, the male reluctantly made his way back to his solitary incubation duties.

Happily, the female mended nicely and the vet released her back to her family by the road a week later. This is a poignant example of true faithfulness and devotion. In a world of fads that quickly come and go, of technology that is swiftly outdated and replaced, of relationships that seem superficial, self-serving, and disposable, what does it mean to be faithful?

On this first Sunday in Advent, Paul’s opening words to the Christ community in Corinth reminds us that the ultimate example of faithfulness is demonstrated to human beings by God’s gift to us of the incarnate Word, the Word whose coming in the midst of humanity we are about to celebrate. In the coming of Christ, God is faithful. Faithfulness is one of the defining attributes of the Divine. God sit’s by the side of the road and waits for humanity.

For Paul, the faithfulness of God was undeniably part and parcel of the righteousness of God. If God was truly righteous, then God must be unquestionably faithful. The righteousness of God is the expression of God’s faithfulness to God’s own self, for without faithfulness, God’s redemptive activity in Christ would be empty and meaningless.

God’s providence is also bound up in God’s faithfulness—for a providential God to work out the divine plans according to the divine will requires unswerving faithfulness. The classic understanding of divine providence developed by John Calvin insists that God’s constant, providential governance of all that occurs directs creation toward a preordained and saving outcome. God created the world as “good,” and come the end of the age that “goodness” will be restored to the perfection God intended from before Creation’s Day One. Unless God is faithful to this providential trajectory, Calvin insisted, all creation will move along on its own accord in an aimless, unguided meandering.

Albert Einstein put Calvin’s position in a memorable aphorism: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

When we stop and think about our lives, each of us can come up with events in them that may only be explained by God’s faithfulness. We don’t often see it before it happens, but only as we look in our life’s rearview mirror. Sometimes it is hard to see single events, but when you string a series of things together, the flow of God’s faithful love is revealed.

God’s steadfast faithfulness is something other than a theological mandate or a biblical doctrine. It is a loving, saving power working in our lives every day.

Here’s an example of how one person keeps God’s faithfulness present. Pastor Ronald Patterson, of Dayton, tells of visiting a parishioner’s home one early March day:

“We were talking, and suddenly I looked up on a corner shelf and noticed a Christmas ornament hanging—almost as though it had been forgotten in the mad rush to put away the holiday season. I quickly looked away, hoping that my glance had not been noticed. But the woman caught me. Before I could say a thing, she smiled and said: ‘No, I didn’t forget. Every year when I clean up the mess, I choose one ornament to leave up to remind me that Christmas is not just one day or one season—but a lifetime. That little bulb is my reminder that Jesus walks with me every day.’” (“Cleaning Up the Mess,” Shiloh Springs Church, 24 December 1994.)

Could there be a better lesson in faithfulness to learn?

This is why Paul says that we were made rich through Christ in everything. God’s faithfulness was fully experienced in Jesus Christ. God’s eternal plan and providential care is the basis for our preparation for all the good things that God has in store for believers in this age and the final age. Just as Jesus’ hearers were familiar with the seasons of a fig tree, so our ongoing experience of God’s presence and activity in our lives – even if we view it only by looking backwards – guides us into the knowledge that God’s care does not diminish but increases throughout our sojourn of earthly life.

Paul reminds the Corinthian faithful that it is God and not just the gifts of God’s spirit which made them rich. God’s grace had increased their ability to speak about their faith, as well as their spiritual knowledge and understanding. The changed lives of the Corinthian believers validated the truth of the gospel message that had been preached to them.

The Corinthian church members had all the spiritual gifts they needed to live the Christian life, to witness for Christ, and to stand against the paganism and immorality of Corinth. These gifts would help the church battle sin both inside the congregation and outside in the world. These believers in Corinth lacked nothing—they had every spiritual gift—and because of this they more eagerly looked forward in faith and hope while they waited for the Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. As part of the gospel message, the promise of Christ’s ultimate return in triumph motivates all believers to live for him and eagerly await the time when they will live with him in his kingdom.

Because Christ has died for believers, given them spiritual gifts, and promised to return for them, Paul guaranteed the Corinthian believers – and us – that God will also consider them blameless. This guarantee was not because of their great gifts or their shining performance, but because of what Jesus Christ accomplished for them through his death and resurrection.

Which brings us to this table, Christ’s table, where all who believe in him can welcome his ministry in their lives and affirm their trust in the glory which he has prepared.

This first Sunday of Advent proclaims God’s faithfulness to the human race. Regardless of our disabilities, our failures, our weirdness, our belligerence, our seeming indifference, a faithful God works in our faithfulness. Receive the spiritual gifts which God has allocated to you at this point in your lives. Recognize the great care and blessing of God bestowed on us in Christ Jesus. And then be prepared, equipped and blameless as we remember the coming of the Lord.

General resource: “God is Faithful” (1 Corinthians 1:3-9), December 1, 1996, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2498; accessed November 28, 2014.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Reigning Thanks

Psalm 100; Ezekiel 34 11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25:31-46

If I were simply to speak the title of today’s sermon, “Reigning Thanks,” your ears would probably tell your brain that it is “raining thanks,” as in “raining cats and dogs.” That is certainly an impression that the listener might get from listening to the images the psalmist uses in Psalm 100. Thanks are raining down in torrents.
• Shout triumphantly
• Come with shouts of joy
• Enter God’s gates with thanks
• Enter his courtyards with praise
• Thank him [exclamation point]
• Bless God’s name
Thanks are all over the place. Thanks are teeming everywhere.

The homophone for “raining” is “reigning” – r-e-i-g-n-i-n-g – as in a monarch reigning. That is also an appropriate hearing of the word for today, which is the last Sunday in the yearly cycle of remembrance of God’s activity in and for the world, all for God’s glory. This is “Reign of Christ” Sunday, when we reflect on the promised eternal reign of Christ at the right hand of God, “when everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).

We are on the bridge between the yet and the not yet. Jesus told his listeners at the beginning of his ministry, “Here comes God’s kingdom!” (Mark 1:15). In other words, it is here, right now. We only see hints of it. But God’s eternity is breaking into the chaos of our lives just as God’s eternal creating breath broke into the chaos of the nothingness at the beginning of what we call creation, poetically described in the opening verses of the book of Genesis.

Psalm 100 is an introductory psalm. On one level it introduces the ones reciting it into the presence of God, as when physically entering the Temple worship space. But the psalm also introduces the worshiper into the very nature of worship. There is physical as well as spiritual movement. Offering the psalm is an act of praise and thanksgiving. The psalm is both the thanksgiving and the act of praising thanks.

The psalm describes the character of praise. The initial actions are those that belong to the approach to a king. Subjects greeted the king with a shout of acclamation. To serve the king is to have him as sovereign. To call oneself a servant of the king is to acknowledge dependence upon and subjection to the king. Serving the king or “Lord” is the alternative to serving other lords or kings. Joshua had challenged the people to choose whom they would serve, the gods of the land beyond the Euphrates, the gods of Egypt, the gods of the Canaanites, or the Lord.

On the mount of Jerusalem, two major buildings existed side by side. One was the palace or house of the king and other was the palace or house that represented the divine king, the Temple of God. The prophets sought to represent the heavenly ruler to the kings in the line descending from David. And they were often resisted, even severely. The early church sought to proclaim “Jesus is Lord” in their worship in an empire which required people to say “Caesar is lord.” Politics and theology have been on opposite sides much of the history of God’s involvement with humanity.

The worship which Psalm 100 inaugurates is “confessional in purpose”(1). The people of God assemble in public worship to declare that the one whose name is the Lord is indeed god, the only god, the one to whom the name “God” [capital G] belongs exclusively. Think of it as early trademark protection. No one else can use that name. “He made us; we belong to him” is shorthand for the salvation history of election, deliverance, and covenant by which Israel was brought into existence as the people of God – God’s flock, God’s pastured sheep. But it is more than just the people uniquely called of God. Without the slightest embarrassment the psalmist calls the whole of the earth to recognize as king and God the Lord, the One who creates and cares for his people.

It is that emphasis of God’s call to the whole world that sets the context for the parable that Jesus told of the final days, of the judging of the nations. The call of the psalmist has been to the inexpressible joy of being in relationship with God, The very presence of God is joy. With God in the midst of the people, there is enthusiastic and authentic worship. God is seen as Savior, God is for the people. God is a loving, empowering, ennobling power for good, not a stern taskmaster bent on abasing people. Worship is good, worship is joy because as far as time runs, from forever ago to forever from now, time – past, present, and future – is ruled by the loyal love and faithfulness of the Lord.

The problem highlighted in Jesus’ parable is that some people refuse the call to praise and thanksgiving. They refuse to acknowledge that the Lord is God, the eternal ruler, the king beyond all kings, the divine king. Like treacherous and disloyal fiefs, they ignore and snub the Lord. When the path of life divides for the palace of the world or the house of the Lord, they head for the palace of the world. They think only of themselves, they forget the rule of creation that all people were, are, and will be created in the image of God, thereby making no one being better or worse than another.

These people are aghast when they find out that they didn’t recognize Christ in neighbor or immigrant, as if Christ was supposed to wear a special uniform or have a tattoo recognizable by anyone in the know. They fail to understand the power and authority of Christ who gladly and willingly set aside the perks of divinity to become totally human, to fully experience human life as human beings experience it, and to completely save humanity in the face of all that charms, entraps, and lures us away from God.

The others who did recognize Jesus in neighbors and immigrants were those who understood that integrity is doing what is right when no one is looking.

Elaine Pagels(2) calls Jesus words the foundation for a radical new approach to society based on God-given dignity and the value of every human being. Human beings are not to be abused, tortured, humiliated for a very simple reason. “Whatever you do to someone else, you do to me.” So whether we are talking about Ferguson, Missouri, or Homs, Syria, Pyongyang, North Korea, or Monrovia, Liberia, how people are treated by other people is how Jesus is treated by those same people. “Because they do it to us” is an excuse that doesn’t carry weight with Jesus.

Jesus’ words are a statement about God. Jesus’ God, the psalmist’s God, our God is not a remote supreme being on a throne high above the clouds or in a galaxy far, far away. Jesus said, “God is here,” in the messiness and ambiguity of human life. And just because people shout, “God is great,” while they commit horrible atrocities, it does not mean they do God’s work which Jesus never did or speak God’s word about things that Jesus never said anything about. Whatever is done is done to Jesus. Whatever is said is said to Jesus.

Most importantly, God is interested in us. Not a nameless, faceless us, but you and me, each one of us, personally, eyeball to eyeball, on a first name basis. God wants to save our souls. God wants a reign of thanks to so fill our lives that we enter the house of the divine with every thing we do, with every word we speak, with every breath we take. We breathe in, “Thank you,” and we exhale, “Lord.” “Thank you, Lord”; “Thank you, Lord”; however many times a minute, an hour, a day, a lifetime.

Hymn 647 in Glory to God is written by Henry Smith. Its words are simple:
“Give thanks with a grateful heart;
give thanks to the Holy One;
give thanks because we’re given Jesus Christ, the Son.
And now let the weak say, “We are strong”;
let the poor say, “We are rich
because of what the Lord has done for us!”
Give thanks. Give thanks.”(3)

May Thanks reign now and forever from now. Amen.

(1) James L. Mays, Psalms (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994), p. 318.
(2) Cited by John M. Buchanan, “Matthew 25:31-46 – Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), Year A, vol. 4, p. 334.
(3) Henry Smith, 1978.© 1978 Integrity’s Hosanna Music (admin, EMICMGPublishing.com) CCLI #1869873.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

The Triple-Dog-Dare

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

Any parent will tell you that a sure fire invitation for a child to do something you don’t want them to do, is to tell them not to do it. It is a dare. “I can’t do something? Just watch me.” They don’t trust you that you are right. Unfortunately, if you were to try to get around that by telling them to do something you don’t want them to do, they’ll have the uncanny sense that you are trying to pull a fast one on them, so they’ll do whatever it is anyway.

Daring is something that is part of growing up. Since the perimeter guard of Halloween jack-o-lanterns has been overrun, sending the Thanksgiving turkey into full retreat because of the full-scale attack of Christmas on the calendar, I will not apologize for starting this sermon with some dialogue from “A Christmas Story.” It is the story of Ralphie growing up in Cleveland in the 1940s who has to convince his parents, his teacher, and Santa that the perfect Christmas gift for him is an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle. Here’s the scene: He and his classmates Flick and Schwartz are outside the school on a cold day.

Flick: Are you kidding? Stick my tongue to that stupid pole? That’s dumb!
Schwartz:         That’s ’cause you know it’ll stick!
Flick: You’re full of it!
Schwartz:         Oh yeah?
Flick: Yeah!
Schwartz:         Well I double-DOG-dare ya!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating]

NOW it was serious. A double-dog-dare. What else was there but a “triple dare you”? And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare.

Schwartz:          I TRIPLE-dog-dare ya!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating]

Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat!

The triple-dog-dare is infamous for the sole reason that you cannot back down from it—without exception! An issued triple-dog-dare has no counteraction and must be carried out.

While the scene from the end of the Joshua narrative is not couched in pre-adolescent playground language, I would suggest to you that the tenor of the conversation between Joshua and Israelites rises to the triple-dog-dare level.

The Israelites are at a new juncture in their communal life. For forty years Moses had led, guided, prodded them through the wilderness until they were ready to enter the promised land. Then Moses anointed Joshua as his successor to take the people into Canaan. The bulk of the Book of Joshua is not for the faint-hearted. It is the record of bloody invasion and expropriation of the land. That apparently lasts about twenty-five years, the best we can figure. Most of the hard work is done, although the next books in the history of God’s activity with the people show how tenuous the taking of Canaan was. Now it is time for Joshua to cede his authority. For the next period of time, there is no single compelling charismatic leader for the people. As need arises to make some decision or to quell some uprising with the neighboring people, leaders – judges – appear and disappear. They, along with the priests,  are supposed to be the representatives of God in and for the people.

So at the seam of this change in leadership style, Joshua sets the people down, reminds them of their history, and sets the stage for the future. The people have to make a decision. Will they serve God? Or the gods of beyond the Euphrates or of Egypt? Or the gods of the Canaanite peoples left in their midst?  At the dare level, Joshua says that he and his extended family will serve God.

And all the people say, “Me too.” There is a lot of pressure here. The spiritual/political leader who is stepping down has declared which option he and his family will take. What can the people say, except “me too”? We all have been in decision-point situations when it seemed best to say what the speaker wanted to hear. The head of the company makes a statement about where she is going to lead the company and asks who is with her. All the people around her become “yes-people” even though they have questions or grave doubts about the decision. The easy course of action is simply to say “yes.”

Joshua is not a dumb leader. He knew what was happening. So he cranks the covenant process up a notch. He double dares them: “You can’t serve the Lord, because he is a holy God, a jealous God. He won’t forgive your rebellion and your sins.” And the people accept the dare, “No! The Lord is the one we will serve.”

Joshua doesn’t want a bunch of “yes-Israelites” claiming they will serve God but quickly leaving God behind. “You are witnesses,” he said. That’s the triple-dog-dare the people can’t back down from. “Yes, we are witnesses.”

And they are witnesses—witnesses to their quick failure to do the very thing that they promised.

In spite of the triple-dog-dare, they fail. They are no wiser than the foolish bridesmaids who were delighted to be part of the wedding celebration but failed to think far enough ahead to bring oil to keep their lamps burning.

Joshua would have been disappointed but would probably nonetheless have been happier if the people had said “no.” At least there would have been a sincere realization that they couldn’t do what was expected them if they said “yes.”

For all practical purposes, Jesus triple-dog-dares us to be his followers, to do the ministry he did and which he entrusted to those who would come after him. We are quick to say “yes,” not fully thinking about what that means. We want in on the party, the celebration, the kingdom. But like the some of the bridesmaids we are ill-prepared for the task. We don’t have the resources. We can’t do it on our own. Just as Flick (and how many other rash kids) couldn’t get his tongue unstuck from the cold flagpole, we can’t get unstuck from the lack of follow-through needed to fully accomplish what Jesus has called us to do.

What the Israelites failed to understand is that they couldn’t do it by themselves, even though they tried time and again. And we have had our moments – perhaps more then we are willing to publicly admit – when we failed to fully understand what was required of us as the body of Christ for the world today.

Jesus’ triple-dog-dare to us isn’t about doing his work – and failing. It is about daring to put ourselves into Jesus’ hands so that it is not our imperfect efforts bringing misadventure, but his Spirit working in us moving us towards the full completion of the work he has given us. Jesus’ triple-dog-dare is to give up the pretense that we are powerful and invincible. He triple-dog-dares us to rely on him. That’s not a dare you can back down from. Is it a dare you can take up? Don’t say “yes” unless you accept all the conditions. It will change your life.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Fearless Giving

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Joshua 3:1-7; Matthew 23:1-12

All of you who have been here any or all of the last three weeks know that we are in the midst of the congregation’s stewardship season. We will be dedicating our commitments for 2015 later in the worship liturgy. The theme for this year has been “Fearless Generosity.” It is as much about God’s generous grace to us as it is about you and me penciling in time for God-work in our busy calendar boxes; or about recognizing God as the creator and giver of the special talents that help define who we are; or about putting our hands in our pocketbooks and returning to God a portion of the bounty God has enabled us to gather and be blessed us by.

Stewardship season is not a barbarian’s cudgel swung at us to separate us from our wherewithal. Rather these weeks of reflection remind us how blessed we truly are, not just in terms of bank balances, as important as they are, but more importantly in the blessing of a gracious and loving God who desires to bring us to our full adoption into the realm of God’s rule.

When we look at this week’s sub-theme, “Fearless Giving,” we are quick to hear it as an encouragement, an urging, even a plea to give to the church. But if we step back, we see that aspect as the veneer on the surface of our faith. The apostle John wrote, “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). It could similarly be said, “We give because God first gave to us.” The foundation for the veneer of our giving is that God gave to us first.

Paul already had told the believers in Thessalonica, and here he reminded them, that God alone calls them into God’s kingdom and glory. God’s kingdom began when God himself entered human history as a man. “The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood,” as Eugene Peterson so wonderfully expresses a key verse from the opening chapter of John’s gospel (John 1:14). Today that neighborhood is the hearts of believers. That’s where Jesus Christ reigns, but the kingdom will not be fully realized until all evil in the world is judged and removed. Then God will reveal both his kingdom and his glory to those who have been called to join it. All who have accepted Christ as Savior have been called by God to be part of his family.

We give because God has fearlessly given Jesus Christ to us. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Christ interprets creation to us in ways that the Law and Prophets could only point at. Christ is the one teacher. God is the one Father by whom we are all brothers and sisters in a way that no biology or no genealogy can explain. We are servants because Christ was a servant, “not considering being equal with God something to exploit ... emptied himself by taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:6).

When we think of slave, we quickly access the image of someone, if not in physical chains, then certainly in psychological and economic chains, the property of someone else, under the governance of someone else, beholden to someone else for the necessities in life.

The image that Paul and Jesus construct is very different. The word that comes to my mind is “acolyte.” You are probably thinking of the youngster in the surplice who comes to light the candles in the front of the church. That is a very narrow usage of the word. Yes, an acolyte does assist priests and ministers. But there is a broader use of the word: an acolyte is a follower or a devotee. The image that Paul uses suggests that the individual seeks out the master and throws herself into the service of the person not because she has to or is forced to, not because she is owned by the master, but because she earnestly desires to offer her skills and talents to the master just so she can be in the master’s presence.

As Paul applies this to believers, they recognize the fearless gift – the Gospel – of God and desire earnestly to be associated with it so as to live their whole being in the light and warmth of the Good News. You will remember that the gospel writer John told the story of two of John the Baptizer’s disciples who followed Jesus and desired to be with him, “Where are you staying?” to which Jesus responded, “Come and see.” And they did.

Paul wrote that he and Silas had “preached God’s good news” to the Thessalonians and appealed, encouraged, and pleaded with them “to live lives worthy of the God who is calling you into his own kingdom and glory.” Paul and Silas were not idle in their proclamation of God’s gospel. Those three verbs – appealed, encouraged, and pleaded – all support the same idea that Paul and Silas were deeply involved in the lives of the Thessalonians, not as outsiders, but as partners, not as spectators but as coaches, not as overseers but as fellow laborers in God’s work set in motion by Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

This was particularly important as the believers who converted to the gospel of God in Christ – either from Judaism or from the worship of the Greek deities – faced terrible difficulties and needed extra support. Paul did not water down the Gospel to make it easy for them to blend back into their context. All believers are urged to live lives worthy of God. Paul had reminded the Thessalonian disciples that he and Silas had led “holy, just, and blameless” lives. They set that example as a guide for how the Thessalonians were to live out their acceptance of the Gospel of God. Paul used those words to describe conduct that was above reproach.

The word “holy” refers to being set apart by God, devoted to his service, and acting responsibly before God. “Just” (or righteous) focuses on obedience to God’s law, coming up to God’s standard, being upright in dealings with people. “Blameless” points to their conduct toward the people, being without reproach.

This consistent example of right living surely affected the Thessalonians. If Paul and Silas had shared the gospel message but had lived carelessly, their message would have had little impact. But they preached through both their words and their lives. And then they urged the Thessalonians to live in the same way, above reproach, holy, just, blameless.

None of us ever achieves the full measure of holiness, justness, or blamelessness as we live out the servanthood which the Gospel of God calls us to. The generosity of God is that we aren’t swept away, aren’t written off, aren’t sacked as disciples. The ever-forgiving grace of God creates in us a resilience that allows us to pick ourselves up every time we fall, and renew our service. As the liturgy says every week, “In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.”

God knows that we can’t follow Christ all on our own. God knows that we time and again short circuit our attempts to be obedient. Yet God never takes back the gift of the Gospel, never pulls the plug on the grace which gives us life. We may fearlessly give back to God because even when we think God has ceased giving to us, God continues to lavish us with life now and life in the kingdom.

Shortly we will remember our brother and sister believers – God’s children – who died in the last twelve months and who now are fully present in the kingdom. Our remembrance is not just a reminder about them. It is also a reminder about the joy to which we have been called, the joy God waits to hand out. The saints join Paul in urging us to live lives worthy of God.

Paul’s last word in this section is one of thanksgiving that his readers had accepted God’s word and welcomed it, not as a human message but as God’s message. And he is further thankful that God’s message continued to work in them.

God’s message is at work in us, as we think about ways to extend God’s message to our neighbors in Waverly, as we consider how to make our worship more meaningful to God as well as to ourselves; as we strengthen the core of our faith through study and prayer; as we engage in fearless giving in the year ahead.

We give to God because God has first given to us. Thanks be to God.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.