Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our sermon or midweek study. You will normally see us posted on Sunday. 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
Rev. Laura’s other sites: Facebook & Blogspot & Twitter
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 continue to pray for Elder Cal Jennings and his health issues, which are numerous. He has been having issues with his pain, vision, and memory. Add to the prayers with a need for new housing as the family is in dire straits there at this point in time.
- Please pray for calm and peace for Sister Theresa Bogard who is still going through a lot right now.
- Please pray for my daughter’s grandmother-in-law, Judy, who has been in the hospital with health issues and my daughter’s mother-in-law, Suzanne, is unable to travel to be with her during this worrisome time. Pray for healthy outcomes and peace for the family.
- Pray for my friend Marci’s mother who has contracted Covid-19 Coronavirus.
- We are ever watchful in regard to the weather, the unrest, and the virus and response to that virus. Let us pray for calm skies and seas, calm voices and spirits, and also healthy outcomes for those who are affected.
- We pray that the upcoming school year is filled with progress for our children who are attending and for the teachers and staff that must adapt to what is considered the “new normal” around this world.
- Continue to pray for four of my family members as they go through some dramatic changes in some cases.
- Be thankful for each day we live as we do not know what tomorrow brings.
- Pray for all of our outreach ministries with Pastor Stephen Okoth, Pastor Robert Nganwa, Pastor Simon Peter Javaji, Rev. Lisa Tyler, and all the others who have joined us.
- 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.
- Pray that truth is revealed where falsehoods have been shared around this world.
Prayer: Father in heaven, this is our prayer for today. We bring our many sick and wounded up in prayer, including Elder Cal Jennings. We pray for answers to mysteries for potentially serious health issues and money issues with several members and family members. We pray for our poor and desolate, our brothers and sisters who have been brought devastation due to the terrors around this world and all of the natural disasters, storms, and so forth this past week. We pray for those in our outreach ministries that their reach gains momentum and their needs are met. 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.
Opening Song: God Will Make A Way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsMAXhc0QTs
Sermon: We are now continuing our voyage in Chapter 5 in Ephesians.
Ephesians 5:6 KJV – Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
Vanity is one of those seven deadly sins, or seven troubles that we have spoken of so much. It isn’t easy to put vanity out of our lives, nor is it easy to do that with any of the seven troubles. Disobedience is something we see all over the world and has no age limit. It’s easy to disobey God’s law by forgetting to love one another despite the things some might do. That’s something we see everywhere in this world at one point or another. Loving one another unconditionally is never easy because we get annoyed, frustrated, angry, sad, depressed, and so forth. We all have been through these emotions and, as we all know, emotions can, and do, cause all manner of chaos in our lives. One of the biggest reasons we must be aware of what chaos can be unleashed with these crazy emotions is a warning given in the Scroll of Jeremiah. Our voyage through the sermons in Ephesus must connect the past with the present, not just in our minds, but in the minds of those who were in the audience, the congregation, when Paul was preaching all those years ago.
Jeremiah 29:8-9 KJV – For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord.
Deception is something that happens, sometimes with us sitting or standing in front of someone who is saying or doing something for the audience. Sometimes it is written in news articles, books, or other written media. Sometimes you’ll see or hear it in movies or other forms of visual media. This is something that God and Jesus both warned about in many ways and quite often throughout Scripture. This is the warning Paul provides for the people of Ephesus.
Ephesians 5:7 KJV – Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
This is a warning to be aware of the soothsayers, the tricksters, around this world. We must keep vigilant watch over our personal faith, our personal character portrayed in this world and shake off the chains of this world and refuse, yes, refuse, to go toward the path that many may want or desire us to go, but know that we are definitely not going that direction to fulfill the worst parts of worldliness. Remember what it means to love one another, no matter if we are family or not, young, old, or somewhere in between. That’s what these three verses here remind us for.
Proverbs 23:22 KJV – Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.
Colossians 3:20 KJV – Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
Exodus 20:12 KJV – Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Our parents might not understand us, and they might not be traditional parents in the view of biblical family life. Families can be so many different views. Honor those you feel are elders in your life. Understanding what it means to honor our parents takes practice, because, we haven’t always been able to walk in their shoes and see the world as they did when they grew up. The same can be said for our parents, because they haven’t grown up in our generation. It becomes even more evident the older we get. That’s what Paul reminds the citizens of Ephesus here.
Ephesians 5:8 KJV – For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
We all walk in darkness at some point in our lives. This even when we have happy, healthy relationships with our families. There is darkness around every corner in this world. That darkness is sin. It is temptation to the max. We have to continually remind ourselves that we are supposed to be the light that illuminates the path of Jesus that was left for us to follow. That’s what these two supporting verses share.
1 Thessalonians 5:5 KJV – Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
John 12:36 KJV – While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.
What does light mean here? It doesn’t mean a candle, a light switch, the sun or the moon. In this case, light means wisdom, knowledge of God’s truth. Jesus wants all of us to be able to discern the light and see it as easily as we see the world around us in broad daylight. Let us remember to find the benefits of being God’s children. This will give us the opportunity to fully understand and share this next verse.
Ephesians 5:9 KJV – (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
What are the fruits of the Spirit? That’s easily shared with this particular pair of verses that connect to the ministry of Paul in Ephesus.
Galatians 5:22-26 KJV –
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith,
Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and
lusts.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one
another.
All of these benefits of walking in the Holy Spirit on the path that Jesus left for us to follow are easily seen if we remember to hang on to those very gifts of the Spirit no matter how chaotic life gets in this world. We need to remember that it is better to be prepared for the worst and hoping for the best than to go blindly through our individual and collective daily lives. There will come a day when the warning of Revelation will come to pass and those will be dark days foretold more than two millennia in the past. 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)
Closing Song: Lead Me Lord ~ Gary Valencia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76KsgvKrqnI
~ 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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