Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our Sunday sermon. I am Rev. Laura A. Neff. I try to be live every Sunday for the benefit of our members here at Covenant of Hope Ministries and for anyone willing to listen and hear His truth and build faith in their hearts, minds, and spirits.
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 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.
- We are ever watchful in regard to the weather with tropical weather and with the high winds around many places. We continue to pray for those who suffer or have suffered from the COVID-19 chaos. Let us pray for calm skies and seas, calm voices and spirits, and also healthy outcomes for those who are affected.
- 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 who are jobless, homeless, no matter what might have ended up causing either of those. Pray that providence would find them and ease the suffering.
- 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.
- Pray that our family members have a safe voyage home later this week.
- We send out congratulations to my brother Scott and his new wife, our very own founding member Theresa Newman.
Prayer: Father in heaven, this is our prayer for today. We continue to pray for the ones suffering as a result of shootings and unrest around this world. We pray for those whose jobs are in a scary position due to this pandemic and economic circumstances. We pray also for family members of colleagues and friends. We pray for those traveling back and forth across this country, including our family members who have traveled here for the wedding yesterday. We pray for the other travelers around this world so they remain healthy. We pray for the medical scientists, and physicians who battle on the front lines of the COVID-19 virus and all the other terrible diseases in this world. 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: Faith to Believe ~ Shane & Shane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xsUmo_zRA
Sermon: We continue to explore Peter’s first epistle and will finish the chapter today. Now, we have learned how much Peter loved the people he preached to and with. We have learned so much as to how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ affected him, and what was learned by others as a result.
1 Peter 1:18 KJV – Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
Everything made by a man or woman’s hand is corruptible, it isn’t worth anything in God’s kingdom, the place where we all work hard to reach at some point. We have to learn that things are just things, no matter how cheap or how expensive. The most precious thing isn’t received through paying money. The very most precious thing in this world is LIFE, which is brought to be through LOVE, unconditionally, unequivocally, undeniably. Faith takes WORK, and this is what our supporting verse shares here.
James 1:3 KJV – Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
The single most precious gift that Jesus gave each and every one of us is LIFE, for ETERNITY, through the single most amazing gift there would be, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. He allowed His blood to be shed, no matter the pain, the sorrow, the fear that was felt at that moment on Calvary. We have to realize that our BELIEF, and the sharing of that BELIEF is worth more than any form of money or wealth could buy.
1 Peter 1:19 KJV – But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
Nobody is guiltless. Every one of us has sinned in some way. The seven troubles of vanity, envy, lust, enmity, wrath, shame and doubt are always and ever present in life as we know it, no matter how rich or poor, how weak or strong, a rainbow of colors, and all the rest. Those seven troubles will exist far and beyond what we might consciously recognize. Oppression, affliction, that’s where the seven troubles would exist in life. That’s what the prophet Isaiah spoke of here.
Isaiah 53:7 KJV – He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
This is a premonition of events to come. The lamb, being Jesus Christ our Savior. The Word alive and suffering ridicule, envious and jealous people watching Him teach and preach and seeing how His Word while here on this earth was moving people to build faith, to share that and then to give it wings. All of which occurred for thirty-three years of the Savior’s earthly life. That all leads up to this memory Peter shares.
1 Peter 1:20 KJV – Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
From the very beginning of this world we were destined to exist. Every person is here for a purpose, a reason, no matter how small or large that would be. Salvation began at the birth of our Savior, but only just. Salvation was assured when our Savior was nailed to that cross, as He bled and His life’s breath left His body on that long ago day.
Galatians 4:4 KJV – But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
What happens when we realize and recognize the amount of love and faith our Savior holds for us? Eternal life is something we all are eligible to achieve, no matter our stature in society, no matter what country we live in, what language we speak, what age we would be. This is the reason Peter and the rest of the Apostles and Disciples then and now would prepare each of us for. Peter acknowledged that here.
1 Peter 1:21 KJV – Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
Faith a definition Scripturally would be the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
Hope defined Scripturally shares this: to place trust and faith within something or someone. In the case of Christians and those who seek to understand Christianity, this is what trust and faith together can manage.
These lead us into the various connecting verses just like this pair of verses in the Acts of the Apostles.
Acts 2:24 KJV – Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
Acts 2:33 KJV – Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
We all have the ability to build up our faith, to hope that our faith shows in how we live and what we share with all around us. It is something that takes work, thus the noted consideration of works of faith. Our faith is something we must work on, constantly, through disappointment, fear, and all those earthly considerations that exist in life. We should all reflect on our faith and push those other thoughts away.
1 Peter 1:22 KJV – Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
Peter and the Apostles worked very hard to teach those around them the truth of Christ the Savior after the resurrection. The writers of the four Gospels added to that as shared in both of these verses.
Acts 15:9 KJV – And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
We all know how important John the Beloved’s role was in the life, death, and resurrection, of our Savior. We all know just how John taught, regardless that he ended up imprisoned many times, the Roman emperor even attempted to kill John the Beloved in a vat of boiling oil. John’s faith, and his connection to the Savior, his strong belief in His love kept John alive, ensuring that nothing they tried would change His belief, His faith in the gift of Jesus’s eternal life. Love, especially the kind of Love that Jesus preached, protects far more than we ever may realize. That’s what brings us to this verse from the Gospel of John the Beloved.
John 13:34 KJV – A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Jesus loves each and every person on this earth, no matter what. We just have to remember that the path to eternal life is not traveled alone, no person’s road is identical, but each of those who follow’s with unconditional love, will find eternal life at the end, in the arms of our Savior Jesus Christ. Baptism with water. Baptism with faith and knowledge confirms the wisdom of our Lord and Savior, allowing us to be born again into eternal life as seen here in this next verse.
1 Peter 1:23 KJV – Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
Faith is a project that is always being worked on. We work on that faith individually, and collectively, family, friends, and so on. We are supposed to be working on it. That’s the idea. Old, young, somewhere in the middle, doesn’t matter. Rich, poor, in between, doesn’t matter either. God’s love and the sharing of it, THAT MATTERS. This is what is shared here.
1 Thessalonians 2:13 KJV – For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
Be thankful for what you have, no matter if it is little to nothing, or mountains of plenty. All of us must remember to be thankful, grateful, for what we have and not worry about tomorrow, because it will take care of itself. God will see us through. Things on this earth are worthless in the working of faith. They aren’t part of our hearts, our spirits, our minds and souls. That’s what these last two verses from the first chapter of the first Epistle of Peter.
1
Peter 1:24-25 KJV – For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the
gospel is preached unto you.
THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOR EVER! That’s something that outlasts every possible thing on this earth. Created by the hand of man or anything we see around us in life. The WORD is forever. That’s what God proves every single day, since the beginning, and Isaiah shares that as well.
Isaiah 40:8 KJV – The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
Again, we end with the Gospel of John the Beloved. From beginning to end, God’s Love will always be seen, heard, experienced, by someone here on this earth, until eternal life claims victory over sin and this last verse shares how it all began.
John 1:1 KJV – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
From the very beginning of life to the very end as of this moment not here before us, Jesus is part of our lives and our faith, our belief, grows for as long as we allow it to do so. We never stop learning, day one through day 365,000 a century of life, He is the constant, the eternal constant, that never changes, as His love never stops, never changes, always looks new each day we open our eyes all the way to the last day we close our eyes here on earth. Now, that’s something to think about as we pray in the prayer that Jesus taught us.
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: When I Get Where I’m Going ~ Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbFz2F_YYzI
~ 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.
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