10/8/2023: Friendship Sunday
TELL US A STORY
Much of what Jesus has to say to you and me is contained within his parables. Parables are simple little stories that contain profound truths about life and eternity. For the believer, a parable takes a challenging spiritual fact and makes it clear. However, since the parable conveys spiritual truth, for someone without faith, the story remains only that—a story. Therefore, our prayer for this worship series is that Christ would send us his Holy Spirit, so that we might receive the peace and power Jesus offers us in his parables. Tell us a story, Jesus!
A STORY OF RECKLESS PATIENCE
Patience is a virtue. But can too much patience be a vice? If you are too patient, waiting to see if that pain in your stomach goes away with time, you might make a problem worse. If you are too patient with an incompetent employee, you will lose productivity before the inevitable—his firing—occurs anyway. Too much patience would seem not to be a virtue, but reckless behavior.
Yet that is exactly what God demonstrates to a rebellious human race—reckless patience. Through a story Jesus teaches exactly what God’s patience means for us.
God bless your worship.
Pastor John Hartmann will preach on Philippians 3:12–21 "Welcome Home!"