forgiveness

To Those Who Struggle with Sexual Identity: We Love You

By Joel A. Hess –

There is one group of people who have been left out during the battle between President Obama and Classical Liberal Americans: people truly struggling with their sexual identity. Many rightly complain about the Obama administration’s bizarre fiat forcing fourteen-year-old girls to undress in the presence of eighteen-year-old men. The government claims that their draconian mandate is the result of compassion. Many who agree with allowing anyone to use any bathroom are sincerely concerned for individuals suffering from gender dysphoria.

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The Names I’ve Forgotten

By Scott Keith –

“The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.” – Revelation 3:5

The other night, during one of our final dinners in England, we somehow wandered to the topic of old friends. We were discussing friends we had in common and those with whom we had lost touch. At one point in our conversation, the name of my friend Justin came up, and I was again, almost inexplicably, brought to tears.

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Don’t Let Haters Be Your Validators

By Joel A. Hess –

Often during the election year, I find myself drawn to the political candidate whom the left hates the most. Well, not the intellectual left, as I respect the left, but the Miley Cyrus, Sean Penn, and Rachel Maddow shallow-screaming left. But is that a good strategy for picking a political candidate? Of course not!

Sadly, many in the various church bodies allow hate to validate their beliefs and actions.

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All Things New

By Paul Koch –

“And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

Those words are incredible! They are the words spoken by our crucified and risen Lord, words that speak to the result of his work. The result of his being born in that little town of Bethlehem. The result of driving out demons and healing the sick. The result of living faithfully under the Law of God, the result of cleansing the temple and teaching without hesitation. The result of the whipping and beating, the humiliation and the death on the cross. The result of the rest in the tomb and the resurrection on the third day. The result of his ascension to the right hand of the Father and the promise of his glorious return. “Behold I am making all things new.”

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Thou Art With Me

By Paul Koch –

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…” Seldom does one go to the funeral of a brother or sister in Christ where these words are not spoken. And rightly so, for Psalm 23 is a powerful Word of God and it has sunk deep into the psyche of his people. The language of that Psalm, especially in the old King James translation is the go to passage from the Word of God for obituaries and those little cards at the mortuary. It may not be your favorite Psalm, but there is no denying that for most of you this is the Psalm that you’ve come in contact with more than any other.

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Jesus Doesn’t Look Like You

By Bob Hiller –

This past week, I came across an article from Christianity Today entitled “Why Jesus’ Skin Color Matters.” In it, author Christena Cleveland argues that the Western church has done a great disservice to the church by presenting Jesus as a white male. She argues that Jesus, as a first century Jew, would not have been a member of the powerful, white Roman class. Instead, he was a dark, olive-skinned member of a social minority.

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The Failure of Men

By Cindy Koch –

My oldest daughters are right in the midst of their teenage years. As it goes with adolescents, we have recently been introduced to a few young men who have captured their attention. As I shake the hands of these boys, a terrible accusation rolls around and around my head but has not yet dared to reach my lips. I know you are a sinner, and you will probably hurt my little girl.

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ET Buried to Be Forgotten

By Jaime Nava –

A couple years ago, archaeologists unearthed something unexpected in New Mexico. There was a legend of items buried within a landfill that had many hoping they were the ones to find it. It was in 2014 that the hunt for an urban legend proved fruitful. What was found? E.T. It wasn’t the actual Reese’s loving alien, but rather a video game that had been released in 1983. Some claim that it was one of the worst games ever made.

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Bored with Preaching

By Bob Hiller –

Somewhere along the way, I was taught that sermons should always be about Jesus. Further into my training, I learned that this doesn’t just mean that we should talk about what Jesus did a long time ago, but that what Jesus did a long time ago is for you here and now. The proclamation of the Good News (that is, the Gospel) is not simply an explanation of sacred events, but the delivering of sacred gifts, which in itself is a sacred event. Preaching is delivering Jesus to sinners and attacking those things that try to get in His way. At least it should be. At least, that is what I was taught.

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Give them Grace

By Scott Keith –

This month, my children will be 21, 19, and 16, and I think that they’ve turned out pretty well. Our oldest is a Dean’s list student at the University, a co-worker with me at 1517 the Legacy Project, a husband, and soon to be a father. Our second son is a full-time worker, lives on his own making his way, and soon to be a proud uncle. Our youngest, our daughter, is already taking college courses half-time (and doing quite well), an accomplished babysitter, and while she is very sassy (I don’t know how she came by that trait), she is also kind and sweet.

It occurred to me this morning that, while Joy and I were raising our children, I never once read a book on parenting, Christian or otherwise.

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Recovering the Virtue of Lying

By Bob Hiller –

OK, I will do my best not to bore you with the details of this week’s sports setup. This past week, after losing to Oregon in the NCAA Tournament, Duke’s head coach, Mike Krzyzewski, was caught on camera having a long conversation with opposing player Dillon Brooks. After defeating Duke, Brooks got caught up in the moment and didn’t act very respectfully. During the handshake, Coach K told Brooks he was too good of a player to act that way. When asked about it, Brooks told reporters, “Coach K is a legend. He just told me that I’m too good of a player to be showing off at the end. And you know, he’s right. I gotta respect Duke.” Classy. Well spoken. Good on that young man.

Later, however, when asked about it, Coach K denied saying that at all.

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The Firstfruits

By Paul Koch –

“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor. 15:19) This statement by St. Paul is a treasure. It gets to the heart of what this day is all about. If in this life only we have hope, then what’s the point? Why the celebration? Why all the joy and excitement? To worship a Jesus that brings hope in this life only is the type of Jesus that the world likes. He fits into boundaries of our expectation and He is easily controlled and contained.

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Cross Bound

By Bob Hiller –

We’d prefer something else tonight. I mean, sure, it’s good for us to come and remember Jesus dying. It makes us feel a bit more holy because we are the ones on this Friday night being so very good: going to church contemplating the suffering of our enfleshed God. Oh, we can explain this death, tell you how He did it for us, and feel pretty good about our well-educated confession.

But, quite honestly, we’d prefer something else.

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Remember Why You Started

By Ross Engel –

I fell in love with weight training the first time I walked into the gym. I was a scrawny 14-year-old kid who barely weighed in at 115 pounds. I was so weak that I could barely lift the 45-pound Olympic bar. I had played soccer and basketball for years, so I was pretty quick on my feet. I had just started doing gymnastics, and I wanted to get stronger and faster. My introduction to weight training was a great awakening to a new world, one that I have now spent the better part of 22 years enjoying. That scrawny, wide-eyed kid who stepped through the doors of the gym those years ago is not recognizable when people see me now, but he’s still there in my mind. He (along with a fair share of life’s tormentors) is the unseen motivation behind every set, rep, and training journal entry.

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A New Thing

By Paul Koch –

On Mount Sinai, God established a covenant with his people. It was a covenant etched quite literally into two stone tablets. This covenant established the relationship between God and his chosen people. On the outset, it seemed so simple. After all, God had done all the heavy lifting. He had heard their cries in the land of Egypt, brought them out with a mighty outstretched arm, enabled them to walk through the Red Sea on dry ground, and protected them in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. They didn’t have to earn that right; they didn’t have work towards this blessing. Instead, they are given a law, one set in stone, that would guide how they live.

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Christianity’s Unhealthy Obsession with Measuring Behavior

By Graham Glover –

Sometimes I wonder if being a Christian is only and exclusively about how one acts. It’s not that the Scriptures testify to this. The Church does not properly teach it. But every time I turn around these days, I find fellow believers telling me or suggesting to me that one’s Christian faith is a measurable thing – specifically, that our behavior is the clearest mark of what we believe, and the truest test as to whether one actually is a believer at all.

This asinine idea that our behavior is the means by which we measure our Christian faith is not only an unhealthy obsession, it is a lie.

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Empty

By Paul Koch –

I remember the first time I walked into this sanctuary and saw this magnificent painting by Hillary Asbury. I was completely stunned. I stood there towards the back and then slowly walked down one side of the church trying to take it all in. For the next few days when no one else was here, I would stand in various parts of the church and I found new details would jump out at me: new movements and even emotions were drawn out as I pondered the painting. Hilary named this work “Empty.” And that makes sense. After all, the blood red sky pulls your eyes away from the place of the skull to the brilliant white sun rising in East. And there, below the light of the new day, stands the gaping mouth of the tomb. Its black void proclaims the sentiments of the angel that first Easter morning, “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”

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