Trusting God's Promises - Our Second Church Visit

We visited Redwood Christian Fellowship in Fortuna, CA this week, pastored by Bob Hapgood, and enjoyed our time there.

The sermon text was 2 Peter 1:3-4, and pastor Bob called each person to practically trust the promises of God in daily life. God's promises are great and infinitely valuable and He is the one who makes them, therefore they are always true.

A few pointers:

He called his congregation away from trusting in worldly value-systems and instead to be shaped by the value-systems of God's Word. Whenever we are more committed to our immediate needs (in this world) more than our spiritual needs (salvation, trusting God's promises) we are out of whack and we need to have our values "put right" by God's gospel.

Like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, we all walk a narrow path and many times fall off, but we must continue down the path and we do so by trusting God's promises more then the many offers and temptations of the Worldly-Wise Men that meet us along the path.

One aspect that I really appreciated from Pastor Bob was his authenticity in sharing his struggles. He was not afraid to humble himself and lead his church in speaking out of his own experience and struggles in not trusting God daily. It's sometimes easy to view trusting God as a distant past-event of the first time one believed the Gospel, but our faith is shown by trusting God daily, be it confessing our sin and believing the Gospel and trusting God with our circumstances whether good or bad, because His promises are always sure and deal with the in's and out's of life.

Finally, his analogy of not just putting our wallet on the chair of God's promises, but putting our whole selves (our self-weight) wholly on God in life is the key. Throwing ourselves on God and leaning all our weight into Him is what He desires, not compartmentalizing our lives and only giving God particular categories of our lives.

Another wonderful thing was to take communion with God's people and be called back to the death and resurrection of our Savior. This church, at least on this Sunday, did a good job of keeping that central throughout the service, and that is always a joy to be a part of.

Fearing what you should Fear - Our First New Church Visit

My wife and I's church that we were a part of is no longer, so we are in the process of looking for another church. The church that we went to this week was Centerpointe Community Church in Eureka, CA.

I really appreciated Pastor Chuck Starnes' message. I can't tell you how refreshing (and convicting!) it is that the first church we go to visit preaches on the fear of God. His introduction was:

"My fear is that you would fear things you shouldn't fear and not fear the things you should."

How true this is, but how often do most American pastors have this fear for their congregation. In my view, it takes much love from a pastor to preach on fearing God. I appreciated Pastor Chuck's loving word to me that I need to fear what is most important. I need to check my values, my dreams, my fears, in light of the reality of the holy God of the universe.

He gave these three bullet points:

1. You cannot hide from the consequences of your sin.

This was contextualized by exhortations away from sexual sin and away from pride and toward confession because God forgives.

2. Being afraid of what people think can be a trap.

Basically this was: Do not fear man, fear God. Do you value God's opinion or man's opinion?

3. You cannot assume the mercy of God.

Do not presume upon God's mercy. God never owes of mercy. He only owes us judgment. His mercy is freely given out of grace, and this is good news 'cause God is gracious.

Another great aspect of this sermon is that it was all clothed in the book of Genesis, which is the book that he has been going through for quite some time. In that narrative we consistently see God's judgment and God's mercy, and the sins and successes of God's people.

It was a good reminder that the wise fear God. May God bless this church.