Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our sermon or midweek study. You will normally see us posted on Sunday and Wednesday. I am Rev. Laura A. Neff. Our ministry was built on the truth of God’s love. It doesn’t conform to society’s wishes. This ministry shares the Word of God, the Spirit of Christ Jesus. Those who know me well will recognize that there are definitive differences in the creation of every sermon from this point forward. It is God’s will that has brought this to be. We wish only that God’s truth will be shared within His words as brought to us by the Spirit as it fills my heart, mind, and soul to be shared with my hands, but with His words alone.
You will find us in the following location: http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com
Prayer List: We have many on our prayer list. Some wish to remain anonymous, and others only wish to have their first names mentioned. Our prayer list grows or changes every week. This is our current list.
- Please pray for my brother Scott Newman, who is again in the hospital due to his seizures. They are very severe this time as I saw one in progress on Saturday.
- Please pray for faith and hope boosters to help bless Sister Theresa Bogard and our families as we all wait for news regarding my brother.
- Be thankful for each day we live as we do not know what tomorrow brings.
- Pray for our nations that the voice of God be heard through the Spirit.
- Pray for our friends and families that their tomorrows bring blessings and pray our own be the same.
- Pray for our nations that the voice of God be heard through the Spirit.
- Pray for our friends and families that their tomorrows bring blessings and pray our own be the same.
- Pray for those suffering as a result of the terrors that have occurred just this past week around this world.
- Pray for our sick and wounded that they may heal, including Kaylee Roberts’ son who is suffering from pneumonia.
Prayer: Father in heaven, this is our prayer for today. We bring those who are ill and suffering that they are healed, and their pain is removed. We say a special prayer for those of our number who are sick, injured, or suffering. We pray for those who have lost loved ones this week. We pray for those in danger that safe haven might be found. For each of these we pray in Your Holy Name, through our Savior Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Amen and so it shall be.
Sermon: We have been working through the first chapter of Ephesians. I honestly did not understand what the Holy Spirit was leading me toward when we started this intense study. Today we start a quarter of the way through the first chapter. Paul is speaking in regard to Jesus and what His resurrection offers us while we are here on this earth. Redemption and forgiveness, something many of us wonder about.
Ephesians 1:7 KJV – In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Now we go through with others Paul had shared the glory of God and Jesus with here in the Scroll of Hebrews. Sharing exactly how we are redeemed through Christ’s very painful sacrifice. The Old Testament’s method toward forgiveness was sacrifice of animals. The New Testament shares that redemption is only found through the blood of Jesus and our believing in that sacrifice our redemption is at hand.
Hebrews 9:12 KJV – Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
Redemption is something we all yearn for because even though we try very hard not to be sinners in our daily lives, there are times when we slip into that human nature which can wreak havoc on our desire to be good and faithful Christians. Jesus ensured that His Apostles could portray His teachings in the best way possible. Doing so has translated throughout the centuries all the way to present day and we are still learning each time we study the Word and meditate on the meaning as it fits into our lives. We have to remember what true redemption is, and how it is possible for each of us to achieve that. This is shared here by the Apostle Peter.
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
We are blemish-free so long as we work to be more like Christ, and more willing to listen to God’s voice in our hearts and minds, through the Spirit that He brought us so long ago to help us through the pain, sorrow, danger, and disasters of life. When Paul and the other Apostles spoke in Ephesus, and all around Greece, Italy, Israel, Palestine, and beyond, they wanted to share this fascinating fact, no matter how awful things here on earth could be, there is a way to put it all behind us. That way, that light, is found in the path of Jesus. This is seen here.
Ephesians 1:8-9 KJV – Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Paul is warning us to be careful about the things we accept in our lives. It’s not easy to live as Jesus would in this world filled with temptations of every description and even with those we don’t recognize as such. That’s why we go to Scripture to learn to recognize this fact and work hard to ensure that we pay attention in our lives. This is shared in these next verses.
Colossians 3:6 KJV – For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
1 Peter 4:3 KJV – For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:
Someone asked me a long time ago regarding how to describe the journey toward being a truly devout, truly believing, truly wise Christian. It’s easy to say we are Christian. It’s not so easy to prove it in how we act and react to things that happen in life. Sometimes we can’t describe to ourselves how our journey in Christ affects ourselves and those around us. It takes practice, and a lot of it, to keep on that path. Even when we fall, there’s still a way out of the potholes of life toward that redemption that is eternal life.
2 Timothy 1:9 KJV – Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
Psalm 51:5 KJV – Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Now we are brought back to the Old Testament to remind us that it is a journey toward redemption and nothing about it was meant to be easy. Many truly wise people I have spoken to have revealed that sometimes being good, pure, true Christians in every sense of the practice is one of the most difficult challenges in this world.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Now Paul is speaking of how Jesus brought the things of earth closer to the serenity of heaven, and vice-versa. It is as much a need to bring us closer to God as it is to bring God closer to us. That’s what Jesus was more than willing to provide for all of us who believe, all of us willing to share the glory that is Christ’s unheralded, undoubtable, unshakeable faith in humankind. There is a line in a movie, “There is nothing wrong with valuing life.” Jesus valued life, all forms of life, and willingly sacrificed His life to ensure that we could have more than mortal life, an eternal life. Through His sacrifice, we are justified in the eyes of God. This is what Paul and the Apostles shared throughout the New Testament.
Romans 3:24 KJV – Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Colossians 2:12 KJV – Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
Acts 20:32 KJV – And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
Peter, Paul, John, Jude, James, Timothy, Andrew, Philip, Matthew, Bartholomew, and Simon all taught the truth of Jesus and how we received redemption through the resurrection. They did so even at the cost of their freedom, or their lives. Nothing that threatened their mortality was considered a stumbling block toward their teaching the truth of God’s unconditional love. They worked even up to their deaths, to ensure that those who followed could also believe. Now that’s something to think about as we pray in the prayer that Jesus taught us saying:
Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)
Closing Song: There Was Jesus ~ Zach Williams & Dolly Parton
https://youtu.be/37wV6D49iEY
~ Shalom ~
Rev. Laura A. Neff
Elder Calvin Jennings
Covenant of Hope Ministries Main Site: http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com
Scripture Excerpts: The New Open Bible Study Edition: Copyright © 1990: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.
Scripture Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © 1982: E. E. Gaddy and Associates, Inc.
Scripture Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright ©circa 1890-1910: International Bible Press, The John C. Winston Co.; Philadelphia, PA, USA
Sermon or Study Copyright © 2020 http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com
Our mission for Covenant of Hope Ministries is not to exploit fear, but to conquer it, and overcome all that is created through fear together as the bringers of the light of Jesus found in the midst of darkness.
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