Pastor Ken Invites You To Hear "The Rest of the Message"

Pastor Ken will be preaching at the 1st Worship Celebration this Sunday (April 21st), then he will be driving to Gibraltar to preach the morning service at True Faith Holiness Church. Pastor Leroy Bailey (some of you will surely remember him from two years ago!), will be bringing the message at Hope's 2nd service. Both pastors will be preaching on the same text and theme - John 3:16 - and the message is LOVE!

Here's our text for Sunday, April 21, 2007:

Love, the most misunderstood and misrepresented word in any language. We say it when we simply mean Lust. We croon it in countless "love" songs, many of which are also really about Lust. We hear the words of Scripture that call us to love everyone including our enemies, but without even pondering that statement long enough to peel a Chinese Buffet shrimp, we figure that it must be impossible to do so we ignore it.  We ignore, hate, fight with and kill our enemies, often, sadly, even in the name of the God who tells us to love them in the first place.

Just what is this love that God calls us to, anyway? If it's so all-fired necessary, yet so darn tootin' hard, how in the world are we to DO it? 

I suggest we start with defining it the way God describes it Himself, and I can think of no place better to start than John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

God's love means that He will allow His only child to die, so that you and I may live.

Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than that he should lay down his life for another." Yet God does not expect us, except in the most extreme circumstances, to die a physical death for Him or another human being, though there have been some who have been martyred in this most absolute way. Instead He calls us to LIVE for one another. That seems a decidedly harder task when you think about it, doesn't it?

So here's one challenge you can ponder as you prepare to worship with us or at your home church this weekend...how is God calling you to exhibit your love for others this week?

Pastor Ken