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

Here's our text for Sunday, June 24, 2007:

"Living In The Light"

This Sunday we conclude our sermon series on RELATIONSHIPS with a summary of all that God has said to us since we began. But you need not fear a long drawn out message this week (I promise to get you all home by supper time!), for God's message for all of us, in ANY relationship we may be in is simple and direct:  LIVE IN THE LIGHT..... the light of His love.

You see, if we consciously strive to avoid causing others to stumble in their faith (through our own stumbling or ego or pride), and if we, when stumbling, are quick to seek forgiveness not only of God but those we may have mis-taught with our actions, we are then living in God's light!

When my son Jim was only about 3 or 4 years old he walked into our kitchen to discover Mona and I in a marital "discussion." Now you must understand that I may be your pastor but I'm considered by some to be sort of human too. I have a temper (ask Mona!), and when I allow it to control any of my actions the dumbest things can happen.

So Mona and I are having this "discussion", and I, as usual, am being proved wrong. I have this piece of bread in my hand that I've just thickly buttered in preparation for jelly when my ego gets in the way of my brain and in a frustration perhaps only able to be understood by a person who is often proved wrong by another, and in a final moment of utmost rage at my own inability to win this thing I lift the buttered bread high over my head and FLING it as hard as possible onto the floor, butter side down. SSPLLATT!!!!

Dead silence reigns as a trembling Mona and equally shaken Ken cease all motion. Then we both hear the noise. A scratching on the floor of one small foot being rubbed over the other. We look to our side and their is Jimmy, looking ever so scared. His Mommy and Daddy are yelling at each other and Dad just tossed a perfectly good piece of food onto the floor...something that if he did would surely elicit a negative response from both parents.

Now what?

If at that moment the darkness of pride had overtaken me I might have stormed out of the room and left Mona to explain to Jimmy what was going on. In that case Jim would have learned from me that sometimes daddy's can be jerks and he would forever be wondering when a piece of bread, or something even more substantial, might be flung in his direction from me.

Instead the light that comes ONLY from Christ calmed my racing heart, opened my eyes so that I could see, and created in me a desire to teach Jimmy, and be taught myself, the truth.

Mona and I both rushed over to Jimmy, each reassuring him that our argument was over, telling him what it was about in words we felt he could understand (I have no clue now what it was about), and then took time for a group hug AND for me to apologize for letting my temper get the best of me.

Well, that's a good story. I wish I could say that every time my temper took over my brain that I acted this way, but that would not be truth.

I'm still learning how to live in the light each day, and I expect that preparing the message for this weekend will grow me a little more in this way.

Perhaps you too need to learn more about living in the light and less in the dark?

If so, please come out to hear the Word of God illustrated by real life. After all, God's light is real so that we may live by it in real life!

Come join us on Sunday for "The Rest of the Message!"

See you soon!

Pastor Ken