Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our Sunday sermon. You will normally see us posted every Sunday. I am Rev. Laura A. Neff. Our ministry was built on the truth of God’s love now thirteen years ago. 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
I have added a Facebook chat button to our blog and also a link for donations. All donations are tax deductible.
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.
- A high school friend of mine lost her mother on Friday. Sending prayers of comfort and peace for her and the family with this loss.
- An online friend of both Elder Cal Jennings and I has just gotten home from the hospital. She is on bed rest and we pray that she heals well and soon.
- Please continue to pray for Rev. Lisa Tyler’s sister, Mary, who has had lung issues and is in the hospital in an induced coma. It isn’t COVID-19 related. I haven’t heard anything new since last week. She’s holding her own, praise God. Please pray that the LORD heals her fully and brings her smile to her face once more.
- 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 answers to several issues including faith, peace, and patience for Sister Theresa Bogard who is going through a lot right now.
- Continue to pray for three of my family members as they go through some dramatic, and drastic, changes in some cases.
- I have three very dear friends going through a lot of chaos in the realm of their health and well-being right now. One of those is facing surgery sometime in the future this year. A second has been having issues with anxiety, and a third has been having money issues in too many directions.
- 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.
- Sending out two belated birthday prayers for my nephew Joey who turned eighteen this past week, and my nephew Peyton, who just turned eleven.
- Sending a birthday hello to Pastor Robert Nganwa, one of our outreach ministry leaders.
Prayer: Father in heaven, this is our prayer for today. We pray for healing and better days for several members and friends. This includes our own Elder Cal Jennings, who still has some pretty bad days lately. Lord we pray that all those who we know are injured, ill, or just not doing well, will have better, healthier days with Your everlasting grace and unconditional love. We pray for our poor and desolate, our brothers and sisters who have been brought devastation due to the domestic, national and international terrors around this world and all of the natural disasters and storms this past week. We pray for our homeless veterans, children, and families around this world. 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: Invocation ~ The Carpenters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLaXey38gXA&list=FLys7UjSJHrgrNHy9kLrkxpw&index=111
Sermon: We are starting a new Scroll of Scripture today. The Lord inspired me to open my Bible and find something different in order to give us insight on good and evil and what the teachings of Jesus ended up being to the children and grandchildren, and others who may have never met our Savior in person would feel in regard to His teachings. So, today we start with the Epistle of Jude. Jude, shortened from Judah, brother to Jesus Christ our savior, left a short letter that is chock full of godly wisdom for all of us to learn and share with others around us. Let’s start at the beginning.
Jude
1-2 KJV – Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that
are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:
Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
He sounds quite a lot like his older brother, Jude does. He’s bestowing the gifts of mercy, peace, and love, all promises of God and Christ and unconditional in all cases. We are introduced to Judah through the Gospels and other Scrolls in Scripture as well. Here we see a verse from the Gospel of Luke.
Luke 6:16 KJV – And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.
Like most of the epistles Jude is packed full of information to expound upon. Now we’re checking out the time spent in Philippi with Paul, who spent quite a while in the foothills of Greece and Italy as well as other locations. In this case, the ancient city is near the eastern borders of Greece. What Paul is sharing is a warning to those who forget the Father, the Son and Savior, and the Holy Spirit. His words are an echo from far back in the Old Testament.
Philippians 3:19 KJV – Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
Like just about all of the New Testament we will see references from the Old Testament to share tradition, words that were part of their everyday life, as shared by the prophets and preachers ordained by God our Father. I like the Scroll of Proverbs because they make you think about so much in your personal, individual life and how your life impacts others.
Proverbs 25:14 KJV – Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.
Yet again, a warning shouted by the words from Jude’s mouth, echoed far back in the Old Testament. And, now we’re going to revisit the Scroll of Ephesians we just completed a month or so ago. Yet another warning to pay attention to who and what we are listening to. Who and what would be interfering with our thought processes and our own ability to have free will.
Ephesians 4:14 KJV – That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Notice how all of these verses thus far show us just how to discern the good from evil in this world, no matter what we’re experiencing anywhere in this world. Now we look at the Apostles and their teachings for all who would stop and listen.
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.
Listen to this verse as I repeat it. This verse is significant because it brings us closer to God, an action that the Apostles all worked hard to share the greatest gifts of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with any and all they would meet, because they knew that to bring hope and peace was the Lord’s greatest gift to humanity as part of the unconditional love bestowed in His resurrection to create a new home in heaven for all who believe. Now, to further connect this to our Lord and Savior, we are visiting one of my all time favorite portions of Scripture. The Parable of the Vine and Branches as shared in the Gospel of John the Beloved.
John 15:4-6 KJV – Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of
itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the
same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and
men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
What does it mean to abide in Him and have Him abide in us? Well, there are two ways to think about this. The first is to stay, to reside within a specified place. The second is to remain steadfast and faithful. In this case, Jesus is teaching us both within this parable. Now we’ll explore what the Apostle Peter brings to the conversation.
1 Peter 1:5 KJV – Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
There you go. Peter is defining exactly what it means to abide in our Heavenly Father’s unconditional love as shared through Jesus Christ our resurrected, eternally living, Lord and Savior. Like Paul and the rest of the Apostles, Peter too held strong to his faith in the Lord and Savior who rose from the dead and now resides sitting at the right hand of God. Now comes a word we have had controversy over for millennia. That word is predestinate as shared to the Romans through Paul.
Romans 8:30 KJV – Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Being able to foretell is something that few are blessed with. God chooses who will be bestowed this gift. The only way to understand predestination is to be willing to learn all the nuances and teachings of our Father, God, our Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Now we’ll get back to the next verse shared by Judah.
Jude 3 KJV – Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Judah is instructing the ones he writes to that they needed to earnestly, honestly, grow their faith, pursue it relentlessly. How do we keep our minds focused on this? We learn that well with all the Inspired Word of God. Now we go into the Scroll of Hebrews, written by the Gospel writer Luke. Like Jesus, Luke teaches us to pay attention and to always work to renew our faith, every day, sometimes every moment of every day.
Hebrews 6:4-6 KJV – For it
is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the
heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they
crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
It is no easy thing to stay on the path Jesus provided for us. Our paths would never be straight, and would also not match others in exactly the same way. Planting the seeds of faith and love within each other, past, present, and future, is what Jesus hoped would occur in the future after His time on earth was done. This is alluded to here in the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew 15:13 KJV – But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.
Everyone knows what seeds are not sown through the Unconditional Love of God would be. They are the seeds of evil. If you read and study enough of Scripture the seeds of evil are more than plentiful in this world filled with despair, pain, sorrow, loss, and so much more. A long way back, the prophet Isaiah shared this knowledge as to the wicked and their wickedness.
Isaiah 57:20 KJV – But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
Wickedness, the garbage brought by the wicked hearts and souls amongst us in this world, is something we do not always see. Much like discerning good and evil, discerning wickedness takes practice to manage. The Lord knows we all need a lot of time to practice, or just a lot of practice in a short amount of time. Here we see what the consequences may be shared in our futures depending on what tomorrow brings.
Revelation 8:10-11 KJV –
And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning
as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the
fountains of waters;
And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters
became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made
bitter.
Now we meet with a student and disciple of Paul, and his words to prove grace, mercy and peace all can be held close through the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Titus 1:4 KJV – To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Paul is also teaching here in the country of Turkey long before it was given that name. He teaches the citizens of Galatia. He wanted to share the Scriptures with as many as possible, as far as he could walk or ride at the time. Being a missionary toward those who were willing to build fledgling ministries for God and Jesus was something Jesus asked His Apostles and Disciples to manage when His life on this earth ended. That’s what Paul shares here.
Galatians 2:5 KJV – To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
Judah packs a lot of punch in just a few verses. That’s the reason I was led to take it just a few verses at a time. We all have to explore what Jesus wants us to learn, know and share with one another as we walk our daily walks alone and together as one voice for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 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: Jerusalem’s Cry ~ Randy Travis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO1FBzsaQZ8&list=FLys7UjSJHrgrNHy9kLrkxpw&index=115
~ 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 © 2021 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment