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 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.
- Pray for friends and family members of my friend Mary this week as there have been quite a few with medical issues and more, including Brian’s Dad.
- Pray for our friend Dena who has been in the hospital after back surgery and now has returned home to complete the healing process.
- Pray that another friend gets good news in a week regarding their healing process after back surgery. May the healing process be in good standing and issues resolved at long last.
- 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.
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 or continue to be in a scary position. We pray for our nations, that peace and prosperity would replace war weariness, angst, and isolation. We pray also for family members of colleagues and friends. We pray for those who are traveling back and forth across this country and around this world to remain healthy and whole. 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: The Garden ~ Alan Jackson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhIGIfsLxVk
Sermon: We continue to explore Peter’s first epistle and will complete the fourth chapter today. Every human being on this earth can most likely bring up a moment, a day, a week, year, or whatever time frame, where life has proven to be more than a little challenging. This is what Peter shares to help us through those trying times.
1 Peter 4:12 KJV – Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
We see so much in Scripture that connects one author’s words to another’s. Peter and the rest of the Twelve Apostles were brothers through Christ, and faith and they shared their experiences in letters just like this letter that Peter had written.
1 Corinthians 3:13 KJV – Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
Everyone has heard of the thought “trial by fire”. The thing is, it’s true, not just for events and lives here on this earth, but for the future that we all hope for. There is a moment where we will answer for anything and everything that has occurred in our lives, from day one to that last breath breathed. Each of us has conscious and subconscious thoughts, actions, and reactions that, whether we realize it or not, would be recorded in our memories, sometimes to the point of extreme detail, and others vague in nature. There is a reason everyone has the ability to remember and forget things that happen. Sometimes it is for gaining peace. Other times it is simply not significant enough to consider remembering. This next supporting verse helps us understand why we tend to put those poor decisions, pangs of conscience aside and no longer worry over them. This is what King David shares.
Psalm 55:22 KJV – Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Now, let’s go back to Peter’s writing. He reminds us there is a reason to accept our own conscious decision to forgive and forget.
1 Peter 4:13 KJV – But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
Believing is part of the process of Christianity, sharing that belief is the development of faith and gaining understanding. Recognizing the pain and suffering that can be felt and experienced personally or by being a part of a group helps us gain a working knowledge of our faith, just allowing for wisdom to be attained. When we, as Christians, focus our thoughts, our minds, our spirits, on the mission that Christ has for us, we utilize the wisdom of God’s Holy Spirit and share that with those who surround us. These are things that all of the Apostles taught. They are also taught by the family members of Jesus, including this little brother who put a lot of work and experience into a few short chapters himself.
James 1:2 KJV – My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Now we have to notice just how familiar these verses are even from a different set of eyes, a different set of memories, and yes, a different method of teaching the Word. Each of us learn differently. God and Jesus both knew and know this. Not everyone absorbs education equally and sometimes it can be shorter or longer to reach that point where knowledge and understanding create wisdom. We find it all the way through Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. Here are two other viewpoints from John the Beloved and from Timothy.
Revelation 12:12 KJV – Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
2 Timothy 2:12 KJV – If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
The two share a note of caution in their words. It is a warning not to become complacent, and not to do as Peter did on the day Jesus was arrested and put on trial. Denying Christ exists, denying your faith, also causes Jesus and God to deny us the ability to reach the ultimate reward of heaven. Those of us who are willing to be condemned for our belief in Christ, our belief in God through the Holy Spirit, and work hard to ensure that our belief is heard, felt, and experienced wherever we are in some way, big or small, will find the path that Jesus has for us to recognize, and share with others. We will find that “happily ever after” scenario, in heaven where His love shines forever.
1 Peter 4:14 KJV – If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.
Have faith in God’s Unconditional Love, the infallible grace that Jesus reaches towards each of us with through the Holy Spirit, a gift so unfathomably important to belief because we cannot see Jesus in the flesh. We cannot see God with our own eyes here on earth. However, we can feel His presence through the Holy Spirit in prayer, in study, in worship and in testifying our faith to each other and to our children, grandchildren, friends, co-workers. THAT IS WHERE HIS LOVE EXISTS, in the heart, spirit, soul, and mind of everyone who is willing to listen, hear, and participate in the gift of God’s Word. Here is what James shares once more.
James 4:7 KJV – Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Learning the pathway that Christ gave us so long ago takes practice. We have to practice that walk in order to continue walking the path that Jesus left for us. There are many blessings in this walk we manage. This is what Jesus shares in His Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Listen to these two verses.
Matthew 5:11 KJV – Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Matthew 5:16 KJV – Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Even being hated, despised for our faith, pursue it anyway! Prove it, anyway! What matters is that you believe, you have faith in that belief, enough so that you are willing to share it no matter what. When we can build upon that relationship with God and Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and the Human Spirit as well, we learn so much of what God wants us to know, experience so much and so many of the reasons Jesus died on that cross for. These are the things that every Apostle worked hard to teach, to help others who never once had heard of or seen the teaching, the ministry of the Savior, all those years ago. This is the last of the fourth chapter in Peter’s first epistle. And they are all read at once because they need to be heard together.
1 Peter 4:15-19 KJV – But let none of
you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in
other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be
ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it
first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of
God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner
appear?
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping
of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
If you are going to commit yourself to the glory of God’s truth, to the faith of our Savior Jesus Christ, to the hope found in the gift of the Holy Spirit, then you’ve got to share that passion, that faith, that love, with those who surround you. It can be done in small ways, like, opening a door for someone behind you. Helping someone who has dropped something by picking it up and handing it to them. Reach for something on a shelf for someone who cannot manage that on their own. Reach for someone who is falling before they hit the floor or the ground. It’s the small things, those tiny gestures that nobody seems to recognize anymore, that will help you find faith where you least expect to do so. That’s what all the Apostles, what Jesus, and all the other prophets of God worked so hard to do. Our last verse is from the Apostle Timothy.
2 Timothy 1:12 KJV – For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
We’ve spoken about all the good things that can be when we have faith, believe in that faith, share it with others, and what it all does would be to undo all the damage those terrifying seven troubles cause in this world. Imagine, if you would, for every good thing we do in a day, week, whatever time period, how much bad stuff can be wiped away. What an amazing gift that is, we can wipe those seven terrible troubles of vanity, envy, lust, wrath, enmity, shame and doubt, completely off the map. This is what we should strive for. How often can we work to literally erase those seven troubles from existence? Is it truly possible? Remember, with God in our hearts, anything is possible, nothing is impossible. 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 We All Get to Heaven ~ Alan Jackson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mei1MYF_fm8
~ 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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