Proper 12, Cycle C  (Luke11:1-13)

"Prayer to Action "

I heard about a boy who had been misbehaving badly one day and was sent to his room by his mother. After a while he came out of his room and told his mother that he had thought it over and then said a prayer to God. His mother said to him, “That’s great, if you ask God to help you not to misbehave, He will help you.” The little boy said, “Oh, I didn’t ask him to help me to not misbehave, I asked God to help you to put up with me when I misbehave.” As I was studying the information available to me about prayer, I was reminded that ‘prayer’ has sometimes been completely misunderstood as a way of coaxing God into granting us our highest wishes and give us the greatest benefit. Prayer has sometimes been seen as a way of talking to God as if He was somehow blind to us, and that He needs to be helped along to see the way to help us. Actually, prayer should never be seen as a one sided conversation totally controlled be the person doing the praying. Prayer isn’t really meant to be some kind of automatic answer to our wish list. For example, prayer is not to be thought of as some kind of vending machine, where you put your prayer in and out comes your answer, your way, right away. As one author on the subject said, “Prayer is an intimate and personal communication between the Creator (God) and His created (Us). Prayer is communication that requires less time talking and more time listening. Prayer is communication with God that requires praise, worship and intercession and not just shouting out our requests to God.” I was reminded with today’s Gospel lesson about the five ways of prayer that we have talked about in the past and I thought what a perfect time to review these. They are from the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer. They call them the five facets of Prayer or the Cross of Prayer. These are first, prayers of Adoration and Praise of God. The second facet is saying prayers of Confession of our sins to God. The third way is prayers of Thanksgiving. The fourth way is saying prayers of Intercession for others. And lastly, saying prayers of petition for ourselves. We need to spend time in all of these ways of prayer, not just petition prayers, for ourselves. In all of these ways of prayer is also very important to be consistent in prayer. Using these different facets or ways of prayer helps us to stay focused in our prayer time with God. In the Cursillo Program, this has become known as the ‘Action’ Way of Prayer, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Intercession and lastly the ‘on’ in of Petition, spelling out the word ACTION. Prayer is taking action on our part. We must take time to pray. In today’s Gospel reading the apostles ask Jesus to teach them to pray, so Jesus teaches them that it is more than having a wish list, ‘of I want this or I want that.’ Jesus teaches them that there is a pattern to follow when praying to His Father-- it is a pattern along the lines of the five facets of prayer-- taking Action. After teaching them the pattern in what we know as the “Lord’s Prayer,” Jesus also teaches them to be persistent in their prayer life. Our prayer life isn’t supposed to be a whenever you think of it or whenever you need something kind of thing, but using the pattern as a way of developing a deeper relationship with our God. To try to bring out this point with the Apostles, Jesus tells them the parable of what is known as the persistent traveler. Jesus wants us to have a boldness and a persistent attitude in our prayer life. I have learned over the years of the importance of being specific and bold in our prayers. One writer say, that “persistent prayer is needed to help us overcome any apathy and complacency in our prayers, not because of God’s insensitivity to our needs.” You see practicing persistence in prayer is seen as a way of changing the hearts and minds of those who are praying, and it will help those who are praying to better understand and express the importance of their needs. By praying persistently, believers are not trying to coax God to answer their prayers a certain way, but they are actually showing that they are very serious about their prayer life with God. I think this is and important lesson for us from Jesus, Himself. The most important part of sincere prayer to God comes out when we become aware of our need to be dependent on God who, we believe as people of faith, is with us in all that we say and do. Only those who know their own needs and the love of God, as their heavenly father, will be able to pray not only in the way that Jesus taught them, but also persistently as brought out in the parable in today‘s Gospel reading. That is why Jesus went on in this reading for today to tell us to, “Ask, search, and knock,” to bring out to us that our God is the God who gives, opens, and helps us to find again from our Gospel lesson. It is good to remember about these three things that Jesus brings up ‘are to be on going.’ This means our prayers are not to be and, ask only one time kind of thing, but a persistent ongoing thing. God wants us to know that when we have a persistent and consistent prayer life, the answer will come to us in His timing, if we will not give up or come to God as if he was totally ‘unwilling’ to give us and answer to our asking for help. God is always ready to give good gifts to his people but it is important that we do our part by asking and coming to him with the understanding of how God may answer our prayers of petition. Jesus doesn’t say and He doesn’t mean that if we pray we will always get exactly what we ask for, at the price we want or in the color we want. Just remember that “no” may be the answer or not at this time. We remember the last prayer in our Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer service from the Book of Common Prayer, it is the prayer of St. Chrysostom and it ends by saying, “Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us…” In other words, sometimes the answer to prayer may be “no” because it is not “the best for us” in the long run. I believe that sincere prayer is not unheard by our God. It is answered in the way God sees as best for us. Prayer is a very good gift of having communication from God the Father who wants us to have communication with Him personally and consistently. May we find a way to find special set aside time for the consistent practice of prayer in our lives, may we never again think of prayer as some kind of blank check on which we can write anything down and God will automatically answer the way we want. Jesus taught that we would receive our needs not necessarily our wants. We are given the information, that answers will come to those who pray out of a sincere need for God’s will to be done and for His kingdom to come-- as the Lord’s Prayer reminds us. Let us strive to ‘ask and knock’ with persistence and consistency, may we persistently pray with a more open mind about how God answers prayers. Can we make the commitment this morning to remain consistent and persistent in our prayer life? Will we try our hardest to have a more personal prayer life, also, taking time each Sunday in prayer to come to church with our focus on adoration and the praise of our God in worship, showing that we really do follow the first great commandment, “To love God with ‘all’ of our heart, mind and soul?” A consistent-- persistent prayer life is an important part of a sincere spirituality in our life. We all need to walk with and talk with Almighty God. We can come to God with boldness-- when He knows we are sincere in our thoughts and prayers toward Him. If God is willing to give us the best He has, through His son Jesus Christ, and then give, as promised the most important of all gifts, His Holy Spirit, how much more do you think He will help us with our other needs? So here we are this morning praising God and hearing His Word in the Scriptures, let us put aside all distractions and bring ourselves sincerely to this altar of God this morning and bring ourselves sincerely throughout the week, into the presence of God with a persistent and consistent prayer time. Lastly, let us sincerely strive to take the time to, actually, communicate with God in a deeper way this day and everyday. Amen.

Proper 11, Cycle C, 2010 (Luke: 38-42)

 “Where’s Your Ice Cream Cone?”

 I want to give a title to my sermon this morning which fits in very well with today’s Gospel reading. “Where’s Your Ice Cream Cone?” When I was a young person there was and announcement on the local television station that said, “It’s 11 O’ Clock do you know where your children are?” Well, I’m here today, to try to peak your interest so I ask you, “Do you know where your ice cream cone is?” Everybody nowadays seems to be so busy doing things. How many of you are like me in that we get so busy, quote, “doing things” that our devotion time, our prayer time with the Lord gets pushed to the side. And we get so busy we might not even realize it. We don’t just say, “You know, time with the Lord just doesn’t matter. God will understand. Its not like He needs me to spend time with Him.” That’s not like us, we are people of the Christian Faith. The thing is, if we really think about it, we end up setting the Lord aside, many times, in order to take care of the busyness of the day. Yet, what we would consider an important thing to do, ends up being a distraction away from our time with God. Let’s think about a set of myths, that I found in my study this week. Myth #1: Busy equals important. We think when we are really busy it means we are really living. Actually, being overly busy cuts us off from the time we need to improve the relationships in our life: with our family, and with the Lord God. Myth#2 Someone wins the rat race. This is a lie because the rat race is all about “what you do” and God is more interested in “who we are.” A bumper sticker said, “The one who dies with the most toys wins. Well, “I’ve heard the answer to that one. It reads, “The one who dies with the most toys, is still dead.” I personally love myth # 3. It says, “Hurrying will buy us more time.” All this technology we now have was supposed to create tons of free time but, instead of enjoying it, we fill up that “free time” with even more work. “ I’ve got more time, so I can do more work.” Here’s a couple of more sayings to make us think: “Death is natures way of telling us to slow down” because “No one ever went to their grave wishing they’d spent more time at the office.” Maybe if we really made a point to slow down, that would give us the time to be able to see those things in our lives that are most important. Myth #4: “Down time is wasted.” We are made to feel guilty if we aren’t constantly “doing something.” But God Himself included the Sabbath Day in the 10 commandments. When was the last time you considered the Sabbath a day of rest? My thought on these 4 myths is that the real problem of the busy life is the same as the problem that Martha faced from our Gospel. She was given the chance to learn from Jesus Himself, but she couldn’t spare any time. You and I know that our culture promotes busyness. People expect us to be busy all the time. It has become a status symbol in our world. Some people believe that if they are busy, they are important, and if they aren’t busy doing something that they are considered lazy. For many people busyness is like a security blanket. It has become for many like a validation for their life. When actually, often it is used as a very good excuse for not dealing with the important things of life, like prayer time and devotion time with God. Many of us here this morning, have probably heard this story a thousand times. The story of Mary & Martha brings out to us the importance of our actual love for God. It is no accident that Luke in his gospel puts the story of Mary & Martha back to back with the story of the Good Samaritan which we heard about last Sunday. There are parallels between the stories. The Good Samaritan & and Martha are unlikely linked. You see, the society of the time had a set way about it. A Samaritan wouldn’t really be a model of being a good neighbor to Jesus, and a woman would not sit down with the men and listen to Jesus like Mary in our Gospel. Both stories bring out Jesus’ thoughts regarding the rules set by the society of that time. Martha welcomed Jesus into her home, and she right away began to prepare the meal to serve Jesus. Martha is following the role that was given to her by that society. In doing that, she was letting the secondary things in her life distract her from hearing God’s Word. Just as Christians are distracted from hearing God’s Word on Sunday. Twice in 2 verses it says Martha was “distracted.” I found out that the original language says that she was “pulled in many different directions.” Boy do I know how that feels. I am so thankful that we have the AC working in the Parish Hall. Lets look at what was going on here. This was a meal to honor Jesus. Was Martha doing that? “No“, she was so caught up in food preparation that she not only ignored Jesus, but she actually began to boss Jesus around. She says to Jesus, “Tell Mary then to help me.” Can you imagine someone ordering God around? But that is exactly what Martha did. Martha tells Jesus what to do; Mary lets Jesus tell her what to do. This should make us think. Are we critical of those not doing as much as we are doing? Martha wasn’t so much caught up in what needed to be done, as with what Mary wasn’t doing. This is what happens when we are doing what we think is to much of a good thing. We can get all stressed out when we busy ourselves with so many things that don’t really matter or when we are trying to cram to many of the so called “right things” into too short of an amount of time. Remember the Scripture, “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and distracted by many things, there is need of only one thing.” I read this week that this Gospel tells us that the point here is that we need to find a balance between “go and do” and “sit and listen.” Like I said before, it is no accident that St. Luke puts the story for today right after the story of the Good Samaritan from last week. In that story, Jesus is questioned by a lawyer. He wants to know how to obtain eternal life. Jesus tells him to love God and love his neighbor. This lawyer is no dummy. He knew the truth. The real trouble was he never acted on the truth that he knew, so Jesus tells him the story of the Good Samaritan. And since real belief always brings about taking action, Jesus told the guy to “Go and do likewise.” To the lawyer, Jesus says, “go and do”, but He praises Mary for sitting and listening. The life of a sincere follower of Jesus needs to have both. “Many years ago in the deep jungles of Africa, a traveler was making a long trip. Natives of the area were hired to carry the loads. The first day they traveled rapidly and went very far. The traveler had high hopes for a very fast trip. But the second morning the natives refused to move. For some strange reason they just sat and rested. When asked about the reason for this strange behavior, the traveler was informed that they had gone to fast the first day, and that they were now waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.” This is a very interesting story when we think about our Gospel for today. there are times when our lives move so fast, that we need to slow down and let our souls catch up with us-- not literally, of course, but figuratively. We don’t seem to very often ‘find God’ in the hectic times of our lives, but we will often find Him in the quiet times. In all of this I am reminded of Psalm 46:10 where God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” This familiar Bible verse was the theme of the last Cursillo Retreat Weekend in which my wife Cheryl served on the team. It reminds us to take time to be still and know God in our lives. Quite often we are to much like Martha. I think it is because we live in a Martha world. Like Martha, we are easily distracted by the busy world. We need to be more like Mary. There are times when we need to just stop and be quiet and still, and realize we are in the presence of God. It is good for our own soul, it is good for our relationships with others, and it is good for our relationship with Almighty God. I’ll close with this, a reminder of the title for today’s sermon. In 1990 a woman entered Haagen-Dazs in Kansas City for an ice cream cone. While she was ordering another customer entered the store. She placed her order, turned and found herself staring face to face with Paul Newman. He was in town filming a movie. His blue eyes made her knees buckle. She finished paying and quickly walked out of the store with her heart still pounding. Gaining her composure she realized she didn’t have her cone; she turned to go back in. At the door she met Paul Newman who was coming out. He said to her, “Are you looking for your cone?” Unable to say a word she nodded yes. “Paul Newman said, “You put it in your purse with your change.” Here are some questions to think about for today. When was the last time your focus, on the real ‘presence of God’ in your life,-- made you forget what was going on around you? Made you forget you’re your everyday stresses, made you forget about your I phone or your blackberry, or how about made you forget your bank account and paying your bills? Or made you forget where… you put your ice cream cone?

Prop 7, Cycle C, 2010 (Luke 8:26-39)

 Once there was a very wealthy young man who lived in a great big house with a dozen rooms. Each room was more comfortable and more beautiful than the one before it. One day he decided to invite the Lord to come and stay with him. When the Lord arrived, this young man offered Him the very best room in the house. The room was upstairs and at the end of the hall. “This room is yours, Jesus, stay as long as you like and you can do whatever you want in this room. Remember Jesus, it’s all yours.” “Thank you,” the Lord replied, and with that the man shut the door and went about his business. That evening, after he had retired for the night, there came a loud knocking at the front door. The young man pulled on his robe and made his way downstairs. When he opened the door he found that the Devil had sent three of his demons to attack the man! The man quickly tried to close the door but one of the demons kept sticking his foot in the door. Sometime later, after a great struggle, he managed to slam the door shut and he returned to his room totally exhausted. “Can you believe that?” the young man thought. “Jesus is upstairs in my best room sleeping while I am down here battling demons. Oh well, maybe, He just didn’t hear.” The next day, things went along as normal and, being tired from the night before, the young man retired early that evening. Along about midnight, there came such a terrible ruckus at the front door that the young man was sure that whatever it was-- would tear the door down. He stumbled down the stairs once again and opened the door to find that there were dozens of demons now trying to get into his home. For more than three hours he fought against the demons from hell and finally overtook them enough to shut the door against their attack. All energy seemed to fail him. He said, “I really don’t understand it at all. Why won’t the Lord come to my rescue? Why does he allow me to fight all by myself? I feel so alone.” Very troubled by the whole ordeal, he found his way to the couch and fell asleep. The next morning he decided to inquire of the Lord about the happenings of the last two nights. He found his way to the elegant bedroom where he had left Jesus. “Jesus,” he called as he tapped on the door. “Lord, I don’t understand what is happening. For the last two nights I have tried I have had to fight demons away from my door while you were sleeping. Don’t you care about me? Did I not give you the very best room in my house?” He could see the tears building up in Jesus’ eyes but continued on, “I just don’t understand. I really thought that once I invited you in to my life, that you would take care of me, and I gave you the best room and everything. What more can I do.” “My precious child,” Jesus spoke softly, “I do care for you. I protect all that you have released into my care. But when you invited me to come here and stay, you brought me to this lovely room and you shut the door to the rest of the house. I have protected this room and no demon may enter here.” The young man said, “Oh Lord, please forgive me. Take my house, it is yours! I am so sorry that I never offered you all of it to begin with. I want you to have control of everything. With that he flung open the bedroom door and knelt at Jesus’ feet. “Please forgive me for being so selfish.” Jesus smiled and told him that He had already forgiven him and that He would take care of things from now on. Along about midnight the banging on the door was frightening. The young man slipped out of his room in time to see Jesus going down the stairs. He watched in awe as Jesus swung open the door. The devil stood at the door demanding to be let in. “What do you want, Satan?” The Lord asked. The devil bowed low in the presence of the Lord, Jesus and said, “So sorry, I seem to have gotten the wrong address.” With that, he and the demons all ran away. This story reminds us that Jesus is to be a total part of our lives. Not up on a shelf or in a little room of our lives but a total part of our lives. And so I ask you point blank, “Is Jesus and the Christian way of life a total part of your life?” In our Gospel lesson today, a man had many demons and Jesus came to him and demanded that those demons leave. We know that the demons left. Notice the man didn’t have to ask Jesus to have the demons leave, Jesus acted on his own accord. The only request came from the demons themselves who asked that they not be put in the abyss, but to enter the swine and Jesus agreed. But the swine being filled with the demons rushed down the bank of the river and were drowned. The man, now free from the demons, sat at the feet of Jesus and we can just imagine that Jesus was explaining to him who he was, the Son of God. Then the people of the city came and were afraid of Jesus because of the miracle he had performed and asked him to leave. Isn’t that typical? If you don’t understand something, you become afraid and then you don’t blame yourself, but the person responsible for bringing it up. The people of Jesus’ day didn’t understand what He had done, they didn’t understand that He was the Son of God, or understand that Jesus had just healed the man who had been so tormented for years. What they saw they couldn’t believe, so they became afraid and asked that Jesus leave. But the man, who was healed, understood and wanted to go with Jesus. He was now healed from the torment of the demons and so he wanted to give his whole life totally to Jesus. Jesus understood, but wanted the man to stay behind and convince the people-- to not be afraid of Him and what He stood for but give themselves totally following the Way of the Lord. Jesus wanted this man to help the people begin to overcome any misunderstanding or fear of the faith and give their entire life to Jesus, not just one room, but everything. I believe healing comes to us in many ways. Some experience almost like a mini miracle, some are given the courage and strength to make their way through a very difficult situation. Others overcome certain personality problems that keep them from experiencing the healing power of Jesus. There was a Minister who wrote this about himself regarding this Gospel lesson for today. He wrote, “When my illness became so bad that I was bound to a wheelchair and I didn’t have the stamina to do much more than everyday activities, I became very angry. Angry at God, I guess for allowing this to happen, angry that I had to endure another “disability” in my life, angry that I had to basically give up something that I truly enjoyed and thought I was called to do. Finally, after much screaming at God, soul searching, and finally being able to just surrender this whole situation to God, some peace and comfort came into my life. I had to allow Jesus into every part of my life, even the part filled anger regarding what I saw as the unfairness of life. When I totally surrendered myself to Jesus, I felt at peace with myself and this terrible situation.” This Minister, I believe he is Lutheran ended by saying. “I do so enjoy preaching and this is one way for me to continue my ministry even though I am still experiencing all these symptoms that have cut away most all of my stamina and my strength.” I’ll close with this thought, true healing on the inside comes-- when we open all the rooms in our “house” to Jesus, letting Him into every aspect of our lives and He can work His awesome power within us giving us strength each and every day. Amen.

Proper 5, Cycle C, 2010

There are four funeral scenes in the New Testament of the Bible. And at each one of these funerals, the people are changed by the presence of Jesus Christ. One of these funerals, you remember, takes place at the home of a 12 year old girl who has just died. Everyone is crying. Everyone is very upset. So Jesus sends everybody out except Peter, James and John. He takes the girl by the hand and says, “Little girl get up.” And right away the little girl sits up and everyone praises God.

And then we have the famous funeral story of Lazarus, Jesus’ best friend who had been dead for four days. Jesus says, Lazarus come out. And Lazarus rises from the grave. And the people who were there praised God because they had witnessed for themselves the presence of Jesus Christ.

Today, we are told about the funeral of a young man from the little town of Nain. We’re following along with men carrying the open casket to it’s resting place. Then we will be reminded of the special presence of Jesus Christ in our Gospel lesson and how God is always here for us. After that, we are going to talk about what God wants us to do after WE have come to believe in the presence of Jesus Christ in our own lives.

The story begins with Jesus healing the centurion’s slave in Capernaum. He decides to go to the town of Nain about 20 miles away.

Nain had a population of only about two hundred people. So He can be there for a woman whose only son is about to be buried outside of town. We sometimes picture Jesus as this high and mighty being who is in heaven while the rest of us try to work out things in our lives down here on earth. But here, we have a touching picture of the Lord Jesus going out of the way to bring some comfort to a grieving mother in her time of need.

I know that some of us have experienced this type of grief and loss in our lives. And there are days when we are tempted to ask, “Where is God when life hurts so bad? Where is God when my sad heart aches till it almost breaks? Where is God when the grief is so thick I can hardly take another breath?”

The answer is that God is right here? He goes out of the way to be by our side when life hurts. He goes out of the way to give us strength when we have no strength of our own left. He goes out of His way to comfort us when the only thing we can feel are the tears going down our cheeks from our loss. The Book of Isaiah 57:15 says, that “God lives in a high and holy place but also with those who are contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” When people ask me “Where is God when life hurts?” I tell them “God is here to help His people. He is right here with us, to help us.

So we know about the presence of Christ with us. Now I want us to see the Compassion of Jesus Christ. He arrives at the city gate. And the Bible tells us in verse 12 that the body of a young man is being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she is already a widow.

Every funeral I have ever officiated has been a difficult one for the family of the deceased loved one. But what makes this one particularly difficult is that the woman was feeling the loss of her young son, which is probably one of the hardest things a person could ever experience. Plus, before this, she had lost her husband, which is another one of the hardest things that a person could ever experience. And so in verse 13, Jesus watches the woman as she leads the processional out of town. He sees her tears. He understands her situation. And His heart goes out to her and He says, “Don’t cry.” And the lady is probably thinking, “What are you talking about? I have lost the two people that mean more to me than anyone else in the world. I have no way to support myself. I’m probably going to lose my home. And you are telling me not to cry?”

If any of us told this woman not to cry, we would be seen as very inconsiderate. But Jesus tells her not to cry because he is going to take care of the reason for crying. You see when Jesus shows compassion, He doesn’t just say, “Oh, that’s too bad. It’s a shame that things like that has to happen.” No, one of the things that we learn in this story is that Jesus Christ is compassionate enough to get involved! He is compassionate enough to do something!

One of the reasons I consider it a privilege to preside over a funeral is because I know that Jesus is right there! I know that He is going to be with the grieving family in a very special way. I know that Jesus is going to bring a word of assurance and hope that someday, we will all be reunited with our Christian loved ones and with the Lord.

And for the woman in today’s gospel, we see the compassion and caring of the Lord. Jesus goes up to the casket. He touches it and says, “Young man I say to you get up.” And the young man sat up and began to speak. And the people say, “Wow, Praise the Lord! This is the most awesome funeral I have ever been to!! And they said, “A great prophet has risen among us!” And ‘God has looked favorably on his people.”

And so, it seems to me, that right there is the reason Jesus does this miracle. Not because He plans on doing this every time there is a funeral. But to remind us that God is there to help His people in whatever way they need to be helped.

We see this all through the Bible. I found examples of it in my study this week. All the way from Exodus 3 with Moses and the burning bush to Luke chapter 1 with Elizabeth and Zechariah. And 1Cor: 15:3 where the Bible says that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried, and then He was raised on the third day. He appeared to Peter, then to James and then the twelve apostles. And after that, He appeared to more than 500 people at one time.’ Why did Jesus choose to go through all of this stuff? Why did Jesus die for our sins? The answer is because God has come to help His people.

I challenge you today to share that with someone this week. Tell them that God is here to help His people. You may know someone who is really struggling in their life right now. You may hear someone say, “If I died today, I don’t know if I would go to heaven. I don’t even know if God will accept me. You could tell that person, “God loves you, He sent Jesus to die for every sin that you have ever committed. And if you ask Him to help you through your difficult struggles you can be reassured of His presence right there with you every step of the way.

Maybe you know someone who is in the same type of situation as the woman in our Gospel reading for today. They may be grieving the loss of a loved one. They say, “Some days, I think I’m doing pretty well. And other times, I feel like I am right back to square one. Will I ever make it through this time of grief and sadness? Will I ever start feeling like myself again?”

You can tell that person, “I believe that God is right here to help us. I believe that most days, there are two sets of footprints in the sand. And that the other days are the days that He is carrying us. I believe that someday, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. And there will be no more death or sorrow but life everlasting.

Maybe, you’re thinking, “Fr. Matt, I’m not the kind of person who feels comfortable about these things. Are you sure that this is what you want me to do?” That’s a good question. Well, we aren’t really supposed to worry about that because the gospel of Matthew chapter 10 verse 20 says that Jesus will give you the right words to say at the right time.

Plus, If you can’t say anything out loud, you can send someone a card. You can say, “I want you to know I’ve been praying for you. I want you to know that God is here to help His people through the difficult times.

Lastly, when you take the time to help put on a funeral reception such as the one we are having for Addie Walser on the 22^nd of this month, or when you take the time to help out with the Sundae/Sunday celebration we are having today. Then, you are bringing out the same message with your actions that God is here to help.”

If you are here today, and you are questioning your faith in any way, I want to remind you once again that God is here to help. And I’ll close with this profession of our faith. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Let us always remember to reach out to the One who is-- here to help His people. Amen!