Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our Sunday sermon. I am Rev. Laura A. Neff. This ministry shares the Word of God, the Spirit of Christ Jesus. Our ministry was created with twelve people around this world back in 2008. Each of us shares God’s Word in ways He guides us to utilize. 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 Elder Cal Jennings and his health issues, which are numerous. He continues having issues with his pain, vision, and memory.
- Please pray for a close friend who will have desperately needed surgery later this week.
- 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.
- Prayers for the soldiers and civilians who have died in Afghanistan, some of them are, friends, parents, sons, daughters, sisters, or brothers.
- Pray for my family members as some make very big changes in their lives all around this country.
- Be thankful for each day we live as we do not know what tomorrow brings.
- Pray in remembrance for those who have fought for our freedom, our fairer labor practices, better pay, better conditions, and all those who fought for human rights in corporate USA over the centuries.
- 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.
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 that truth can be seen where too many lies have filled life as we know it. We pray for those whose jobs are in a scary position. We pray for the 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. We pray for families still waiting to hear about their loved ones who may or may not have been victims of the dangerous wildfires, floods, and war or battles wages worldwide and Hurricane Ida’s aftermath over the past week. We pray for those facing life-changing events in their lives. 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: Promises ~ Joe L. Barnes & Naomi Raine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5m09rqOoxE
Sermon: We continue to explore the second chapter of Peter’s first epistle today. In order to get the full story for the very end of this chapter, we have to overlap with last week’s sermon. Peter is speaking and sharing that in order for us to understand his words, we have to remember the Savior and His sacrifice which left the Twelve Apostles to teach His Word the way God and Jesus insist it be shared. So, let’s see what Peter says here.
1 Peter 2:21-22 KJV – For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us as an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
Innocence is no easy essence to hang onto. This world bombards the people with everything that corrupts innocence, and we don’t even have to read a newspaper, watch the television, or hear the radio to find exactly that. It’s why God gave us the Word in order to have each of us find truth in the midst of lies, faith in place of fear, unconditional love, in place of hate and anger with all the rest of the styles of seven troubles that are easily found. Let’s see what the prophet Isaiah shares in this regard.
Isaiah 53:9 KJV – And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
There is one thing that never changes, no matter the status or stature we might have. Death still has the poor and the rich side by side, the evil and the good, and so on. Death is the one thing that unites us just as much as birth. Something my great grandmother once said in regard to life and death. It doesn’t matter where we are born, which end of the sibling ladder, stature in society, all of us are born naked, and all of us will die one day. Those are just two things that never change in life as we know it. God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said, are the same today as they were yesterday and will continue to be tomorrow. Jesus suffered every moment while He was alive on this earth. Even at the moment of His birth His very life was in danger, as were the lives of all His family members. Peter describes His dear Friend, our Lord and Savior this way.
1 Peter 2:23 KJV – Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:
Jesus was innocent when He was born, not brought to this earth through the sin of Adam and Eve. He was born in Immaculate Conception, through God’s will alone as the Spirit of God ensured Mary would bring the Son of Man into being through her womb. It’s no small feat, to be chosen for such a miraculous occurrence. When humanity brings children into being, it consists of watching the miracle of life even if all we see are rounding bellies for wives, daughters, and mothers, who all receive swift kicks to the ribs or kidneys for nine long months. God wants us to VALUE LIFE, all kinds of life. Jesus wants us to all learn to be friends in some way. It’s not easy in this world. There’s too much war, too much pain, in so many ways. Forgiveness is as divine as life would be. Forgiving others isn’t any easier than loving one another unconditionally. We all have those moments we don’t want to forgive and forget. Jesus said forgive. He did not say anything about forgetting. If we forget what happened in the past we will repeat it somewhere at some point. This is the premonition of our Lord and Savior’s reactions.
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.
Premonitions, people sometimes have that feeling of déjà vu in life. Premonitions, God has helped me realize are warnings that we should listen to. So, those feelings of déjà vu in your life, you should file away in your memories in order to prevent them occurring again. We continue to gain insight on Peter’s frame of mind when he wrote this epistle.
Hebrews 12:3 KJV – For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Even the lesser prophets and ministers who lived in the days after the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ were insightful and hopeful for the future that could be. We all should be the same. If all we do is fear for the worst we will not have anything in our minds to smile, laugh, sing, or shout about. We won’t hear the blessings that are meant for us, even those which would not look to be just that. It’s something we all have to work at, recognizing our blessings and proving them to be such. In Corinth, Paul reminds those who were listening what Jesus had done for all of us on that long ago day when He died on the cross, was buried, and rose again.
2 Corinthians 5:21 KJV – For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Romans 4:25 KJV – Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
Inspiration comes in many forms and formulas. Sometimes it is a song. Perhaps it could be a conversation with a friend, family member, or even a complete stranger. Jesus knew this. God knew this even as far back as the Garden of Eden. That’s why we always have a method to share our thoughts, our words, whether to one another or in prayer and meditation. We need that time alone or together with others, to reflect on the good, the bad, the ugly, and the sad. It is not always easy, but then if it were, we would not manage the right kind of growth in our love of Jesus as our Lord and Savior, God as our Heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit as the Great Counselor. It takes practice to learn, to teach, to share, and to hang on in the trials and tribulations of life. Peter went through the same thing, as we remember from the week of Jesus’s crucifixion. It takes no imagination to realize that Peter felt deeply in that regard and shared it with those who followed later through life as we see here.
1 Peter 2:24 KJV – Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
What does Peter mean by stripes? Well, remember, Jesus was scourged, whipped, to where He bled. It is those stripes He bore, to ensure that eternal life could be within reach for all of us. Isaiah foresaw that same moment that would alter life as humanity recognized it.
Isaiah 53:4 KJV – Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
It’s not easy to realize exactly what the Twelve Apostles saw, thought, felt, or even understood in the days leading up to the Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s not any easier to realize what Adam and Eve felt when they had committed the very first, Original Sin, that took paradise away from us until far in the future as yet to be lived. Peter provides a view of the ultimate hope in this last verse of chapter two in his first epistle.
1 Peter 2:25 KJV – For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
Paths get crazy on occasion, because we tend to wander in our faith. Every one of us can find, or lose, the path Christ left for us to follow. Every one of us has the opportunity to see ourselves as imperfect without Christ part of our lives. It is this fact, yes, fact, that we will stray without an eternal Shepherd who leads so that we can follow. That’s what Isaiah prophesied many millennia before this.
Isaiah 53:5-6 KJV – But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Watch the path, and take your faith to new levels. Have a little talk with Jesus, with God, through the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will be amazed how you feel afterwards and if you continue to follow that path with all your heart, spirit, mind, body, and soul. 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: I Will Follow ~ Chris Tomlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ohvhmGSfxI&list=RD1ohvhmGSfxI&start_radio=1
~ 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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