Hope Christian Fellowship

The Sower and The Seed: Part 2 – Which Are You?

In this second installment of the famous parable, we are going to take a closer look at the different types of people that Jesus describes. He makes it clear that the difference in fruitfulness is not a difference in sower or seed, but in the type of soil it lands on. Jesus explains this parable to His disciples to show what He is illustrating with each type of soil. The clear question to us is this: which soil are we?

The Sower and The Seed: Part 1 – The Choice

The story that Jesus tells about the Sower and the Seed is one of the most famous in the Gospels. It is found in three of the four of them. In Luke, it takes up a lot of space, so we’re going to take two weeks to try to digest the message of Jesus in this parable. This week, we’re going to focus on the invitation that is embedded in the story. Some people think that only certain people are eligible for salvation. Jesus certainly did not talk like that in this episode (along with many others). In fact, Jesus points to human choices as the key to whether the Word of God has an effect. And this is not just the initial truth of the Gospel and someone’s response to it. This is an illustration of the fact that we are constantly making choices about what we will do with truth. We all can receive it. Let’s take to heart Jesus’ word.

God’s Children

As we set aside a day to celebrate and give thanks for the mothers in our lives, we recognize that the One who came up with the whole idea of motherhood is God Himself. Most moms feel overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for a precious child. Likewise, it is not unusual for dads to feel unprepared and unqualified. But what we’re going to see in Scripture today is that this feeling is a reminder of a very important truth. Jesus told us that the truth would set us free, and this concept can definitely do exactly that. There is rest and peace for parent – even parents with wayward children – that comes from the truth we are looking at this morning. And this idea is applicable to any and every calling in our lives, no matter how big or small. Let’s see what we can learn from a mother who desperately wanted a child and then made a very unusual choice. We may not take exactly the same action, but we can make the same choice in our hearts by faith.

Diagnosing Idolatry: Knowing God in a Distracting World

(Hosea 1:2-3, 5:4, 6:6, 7:11, 2:14-20, 3:1-3) Golden calves, statues of giant bulls, some guy named Baal: it can be all too easy to laugh and belittle the idol worship of the Old Testament. How could anyone bow down or devote themselves to a man made thing? Meanwhile we nervously check our bank accounts, meditate in front of endlessly scrolling social media feeds, and evangelize our politics online. Idol worship hasn’t just changed, it’s evolved, taking on devious forms designed to distract us, misdirect us, and put our hope into hopeless things. If we aren’t careful we can sleepwalk into idolatry, idly worshipping our bank account, our reputation, our political sphere, or anything other than God. Today we are going to look at the book of Hosea and how he confronts an idolatrous Israel. While we may not be exhibiting the exact same sins as Israel, we can learn a lot from how Hosea depicts idolatry and how God seeks to remedy the issue in his people, and in us.

Building the Feeling

Many people come to Hope and talk about how it feels to come for the first time. We love the feedback that our church feels welcoming and warm. We are thrilled that Hopers own the calling to step towards someone they do not know and try to help them feel like they belong. But this feeling does not happen by accident. It is something we intentionally build. We are going to have a different service today. We will worship as usual. Then we’ll look at some Scripture like we always do. But we’re going to have some time at the end of the service to respond. We want everyone fully involved in serving at Hope. We’re going to talk about what that accomplishes, but we’re also going to invite you to serve at Hope. If you’re not serving, this is your on-ramp to start. If you are serving, but you need to step in more, this is the day for that step. Pray with us that we will all be able to see God lead us into serving exactly how He wants us to!