Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our April 11th Sunday sermon. You will normally see us posted on Sunday in several places including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and on our blog site at Blogspot. 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 & LinkedIn
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 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. Please pray that the LORD heals her and brings her smile to her face once more.
- Please also continue to pray for Elder Cal Jennings and his health issues, which are numerous. He has mostly been having issues with his pain, vision, and memory, which can often keep him from the enjoyments of life. 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 hope, faith, calm and peace for Sister Theresa Bogard who is going through a lot right now with her remaining pains and issues due to being hurt pretty badly back a year ago last November. She is facing the very real potential for surgery. She has two sisters who are also having serious issues with their health and well-being. Let’s pray that the three feel the healing hands of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.
- 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.
- Continue to pray for six of my family members as they go through some dramatic situations and 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, mass shootings, and all the other dangers, trials, and torments, 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. There are several family members that need Your healing touch, Lord. We bring them all up to You in this prayer, since you know all the names. We pray for Elder Cal and Rev. Lisa, as well as Sister Theresa and those others close to us that they heal and learn good things in the near future and leave the bad behind. 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 will continue to gain in momentum and any and all of 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: This Little Light of Mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki5CA4oXL7w
Sermon: We are getting back to good and evil and how to discern between them. The sermon last week proved in many ways that what you see in each of us and what God sees are often two different things entirely. Today we are continuing in the New Testament Scrolls to do more study into discernment and how it can draw us ever so much closer to the path Jesus created for us. So, let’s start here.
1 Corinthians 15:33 KJV – Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
Corinth was an ancient Greek city near Athens. Back in the days of the Apostles and their escape from Jerusalem after the resurrection, Corinth was on the way to mainland Greece. There weren’t very many Jews to be found in these small towns, so the Apostles did as Jesus had, teaching regardless that their audience was filled with Gentiles. Spreading the Word of God beyond the hearts and minds of those in Jerusalem and its surroundings. Discerning good and evil is not specifically set aside for the Jews. In fact, all of us in this world can learn how to use discernment, in everything we do. This next verse is proof that all of us need to practice this art.
2 Corinthians 6:8 KJV – By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;
Getting to the truth of matters can be a job many of us wonder if it would be endless or not. Sometimes you gotta shovel out all the miscellaneous trivial inanities of life before you find the real deal truth about a person, a job, or anything that is happening around us near and far. I know that is not always easy. We tend to live in a world of disinformation more often than information that is helpful and necessary to continue life as we know it. Prepare to fight your own feelings and decisions once in a while, because evil hides far too well for far too many in this world. We don’t want to fall in the trap and destroy our personal path with Jesus. That’s what this next verse to those residents of Thessaly would share.
1 Thessalonians 5:15 KJV – See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
The Great Commission that Jesus gave to His Apostles and Disciples is one many of us who preach and teach Scripture know just about by heart. For those who have not seen it or read it recently this is what Jesus said on that long ago day.
Matthew 28:19-20 KJV – Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Jesus wants everyone to hear the Word of God, the Living Word, the gift of Unconditional Love created through the last gift Jesus gave us as He died on the cross and was resurrected into heaven to provide a path for all of us toward Salvation. That last gift is the Holy Spirit, a grand and amazing gift brought to our conscious, unconscious, and subconscious minds, spirits, bodies, and souls. The gift that shows us how to see the way evil can hide within ourselves and others and how to defeat that evil to bring us that much closer to a heavenly home.
Hebrews 5:14 KJV – But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
The scroll of Hebrews is an interesting one because it does not sound like Paul at all. There is a reason for that. The writer was studying Paul’s styles and had been part of the group of Apostles and Disciples of Christ for many years. The Scroll of Hebrews is often attributed to one of the Disciples who had a very strong knowledge of Greece, the language, the traditions, and the landscape. That person also had a hand in an often read and consulted gospel, the Gospel of Luke. Like the others who were spreading the Word of God through the teaching methods of Jesus Christ our Savior and Salvation, Luke was matter-of-fact, with a personable method toward writing and preaching the Gospel as Jesus taught for so many years. We see how that ability to translate words came in handy with the one Apostle who had the toughest time in the beginning to prove how deep his faith would be, and upon whose teachings would form the most well-known, ever expanding congregation of Christianity. Honesty is a huge asset for us as Christians. That’s what Peter proves in our next four passages.
1 Peter 2:12 KJV – Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Everyone has learned the song “This Little Light of Mine”, which was written by Harry Dixon Loes and often thought of as a ‘black Christian church song’. Most, if not all of us as Christians, whether as a young child or as a newly created Christian at some point in their lives would have sung this song. If you don’t recognize the name, here are the lyrics, and I apologize ahead of time if my singing voice is not nearly as strong as it once was.
This little light of mine,
I'm going to let it shine;
Oh, this little light of mine,
I'm going to let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I'm going to let it shine;
Let it shine, all the time, let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No!
I'm going to let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No!
I'm going to let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No!
I'm going to let it shine.
Let it shine, all the time, let it shine.
Don't let Satan blow it out!
I'm going to let it shine.
Don't let Satan blow it out!
I'm going to let it shine.
Don't let Satan blow it out!
I'm going to let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Let it shine til Jesus comes!
I’m going to let it shine!
Let it shine til Jesus comes!
I’m going to let it shine!
Let it shine til Jesus comes!
I’m going to let it shine!
Let it shine! Let it shine!
Let it shine!
Even with everything that can go wrong with our lives in this world, do not let that evil, the despair caused by that evil, take your faith and extinguish the light of God’s love in your heart. Jesus promised that it would all be worth it, in the end. We will reach the gates of heaven and walk through them. This is the joyous thought that Peter wants those around him then and those reading his writing now to understand.
1 Peter 3:10 KJV – For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
What exactly is guile? It is insidious cunning in attaining a goal; crafty or artful deception; duplicity. Okay, so now we know the definition of guile, let’s define insidious which is defined as stealthily treacherous, otherwise harmful to those who are around that use of guile. In basic terms, someone or something we should avoid at all costs if we are going to stay on the path that Jesus left for us to follow. This is what Peter shares in these two verses of the third chapter in his first scroll.
1 Peter 3:11 KJV – Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
1 Peter 3:16 KJV – Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
We all know how easily it is managed to have that guilty feeling when you know you’ve done something wrong and know it could very well bring harm of one form or another to those around you. It’s something that, when we are young, we often do not realize that we’ve set foot in Satan’s trap and must learn how to extract ourselves from it. Of course, as true Christians know, it’s easy to fall into those traps and not so easy to get out of them. That’s why John the Beloved constantly reminds us to test the spirits, as the rest of the Apostles and Disciples have taught all the way back in the days before Jesus was resurrected and on into the future because, as Jesus explained, none of us but God would know what tomorrow brings.
1 John 4:1-4 KJV – Beloved, believe not every
spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false
prophets are gone out into the world.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is
not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that
it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he
that is in you, than he that is in the world.
Jesus is greater than anything and everything, anyone and everyone, in this world living and dead because He alone conquered the evil that is ever present in this world. He did so in order to save us and bring us back to the truth of God’s unconditional love. This is why John the Beloved always reiterated what needed to be shared, and it is why we ministers of God’s unconditional love refer to the Scriptures to bring you a warning to not get lost off the path, because it is easy to do so. There is no easy way out of life on earth. It wasn’t ever meant to be easy. That’s why John the Beloved shared this with all who listened.
3 John 1:11 KJV – Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
Evil hides well, even when you think it is good that you see with your eyes or hear with your ears. Test those spirits, every last one, because until you test those spirits, you will not know how to discern good from evil with your own heart, mind, spirit, and soul. 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: The Impressions ~ Amen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZcUZQ8C78&list=PL614A115BF39E5936&index=40
~ 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