Tag: love of God

“Healing for the Earth: The Flood, part 2”

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This past weekend at Eastbrook, we contimued our preaching series, “Fractured,” drawn from Genesis 4-11. This is the second part of a two-part series on Genesis 1-11 that will stretch from January through Lent up to Easter. You can access the first part of this series on Genesis, “In the Beginning,” here. This fourth week of the series Pastor Jim Caler preached from Genesis 8:1-9:17, walking through the second part of the flood narrative with Noah and his family.

You can find the message outline and video below. You can access the entire series here. Join us for weekend worship in-person or remotely via Eastbrook at Home.

“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and He sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” (Genesis 8:1)

Remembered = “Zakar” Used to indicate God taking action on His promises

            Sodom & Gomorrah (Genesis 19:29), Rachel (Genesis 30:22), Israel (Exodus 2:24)

“He remembers His covenant forever, the promise He made, for a thousand generations,” Psalm 105:8

  1. We know God remembers us, so we wait patiently for God’s direction (Genesis 8:1-19)
  2. God stops the waters (1-3)
  3. The Ark comes to rest (4-5)
  4. The Birds (6-12)
  5. The Hatch/Covering is opened (13-14)
  6. God speaks (15-19)
  7. God told them to go in (7:1)
  8. God tells them when to come out (8:15-16)

“I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.” Psalm 130:5

“Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near” James 5:7-8

  • We know God remembers us, so we worship Him, grateful for His faithfulness (8:15-22)
    • Worship thru Obedience (18)
    • Worship thru an Altar and Sacrifices (20)
    • The Worship was pleasing to God (21) 
  • We know God remembers us, so we welcome a new relationship with Him (8:21-9:19)
    • A new humanity (9:1)
    • A new relationship with creation (9:2-4)
    • A new law (9:5-7)
    • A new covenant (8:21-22; 9:8-17)

LIVE IT OUT

            How will you remind yourself that God remembers you?  

            Where do you most need to wait for God’s direction, instead of racing ahead of Him?

            How will you encourage others with the truth that God remembers them?

Dig Deeper

This week dig deeper in one or more of the following ways:

Jesus Draws Away: poem and prayer from Matthew 14

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

inspired by Matthew 14:1-21

John the Baptizer at his highest point
spoke to soft souls of God’s rigorous way,
of the need for true repentance to join
the highway of God’s holiness today.
But now, good John, imprisoned unjustly,
caught up in the machinations of power,
is dead. A young girl’s passion-dance swiftly
brought a king’s rash vow—John’s death in an hour.
That same king’s wary eye falls on Jesus.
whose wonder-working power has drawn great crowds;
a sort of echo: John redivivus.
King Herod wants to seek and end that sound.
So, now, Jesus withdraws to the desert
to let His Father’s loving voice recenter.

* * *

A prayer of response:

Lord, give me grace
to hear Your voice of love
amidst all the sounds
and pressures of life.
Help me know when and how
to withdraw with You
that I might be recentered
by You and in You.

“Before Anything, There is God the Creator”

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

This past weekend at Eastbrook, we began a new preaching series entitled “In the Beginning,” drawn from Genesis 1-3. This is the first part of a two-part series on Genesis 1-11 that will stretch from January through Lent up to Easter. This first week of the series I preached from Genesis 1:1-2 on the revelation of God as Creator in the book of Genesis.

At the very beginning of this message I share an update on a tragic situation within our church and lead in prayer related to this situation. The message from Genesis 1 begins right after that.

You can find the message outline and video below. You can access the entire series here. Join us for weekend worship in-person or remotely via Eastbrook at Home.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

An Introduction to Genesis

The name of the book of Genesis

The structure of Genesis

Questions raised by Genesis

Our focus in this series

Genesis as a Revelation of the Kingly Power of God

God’s power to create

God’s power to rule over creation

Genesis as a Revelation of the Creative Craftsmanship of God

God’s powerful creativity and the creation from nothing (ex nihilo)

God’s manifold creativity seen in the variety of creation

Genesis as a Revelation of the Triune God

The Father, the Eternal Word, and the Breath of God (1:1-3)The plurality within the One God (1:26)

Dig Deeper

This week dig deeper in one or more of the following ways:

  • Memorize Genesis 1:1
  • Consider going outside this week to explore God’s creation. Even in this cold time of the year, the world is full of wonders. Notice things and give God thanks for them. 
  • Watch the Bible Project’s video, “Genesis 1”
  • Read Tremper Longman’s book How to Read Genesis
  • Listen to all or part of Joseph Haydn’s The Creation

A Prayer of God’s Lavish Love

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18)

Loved lavishly, beyond understanding, as Jesus
lowered Himself, laid His life down for us
to the uttermost lengths, even dying for us
to show in real bodily life the depths of divine love.

This love, not abstract but enfleshed,
not generalized but particular and personal—
this love,
this divine love become human,
strong arms with tender touch, all powerful
yet perfectly humble, applied to us
in overwhelming yet all-wise manner.

We, too, are conduits of this divine love—
receiving first, savoring first, overwhelmed first,
but then giving, offering, overflowing
from God to us to others and onward.

Lord, give me grace to receive and give,
to be overwhelmed but also to overflow,
and to know in wisdom and faith
what that it looks like for love to become enfleshed
in my very human life.

Loved by God, We Love One Another

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

On Wednesday, I wrote here at the blog about how important it is to know we are deeply loved by God as His children. What flows directly from that love of God for us as his people is that we are called to love one another as brothers and sisters. Throughout Scripture, the church is consistently referred to as being a family. One portion of Scripture that makes this connection between God’s love for us as His children and our call to love one another very clear is Ephesians 5, where Paul writes:

“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)

The church is a community loved by God, and because of that the church is also a community called to love one another. We are children of God and called to love one another as brothers and sisters. Another way to say all this is: Loved by God, we love one another.

This connects powerfully with us in our present moment. If there’s anything the past few years have shown us is that when hard times come, it is much easier to pull apart than to hold together. When the pressure is on, it takes a tremendous amount of effort to step forward in relationship and love with others. Yet, when hard times come, even when persecution may come, the church is still called to live in God’s love for us and our love for one another. We cannot disengage because we are a family established by God through Christ. 

Not only in this present moment, but in our ongoing cultural pressure, we also need to remember something very important about ourselves as the people of God. The church is not an event or a consumer activity. In our culture, we have been groomed to think of everything we do as something to consume. We consume by binging online shows. We consume by quickly scanning snippets of online articles without really reading them fully. We consume by scrolling through Instagram or TikTok, often mindlessly. We consume by throwing away or replacing items that could be used until they’re truly worn out or could be reused by others. We are a consumer culture. 

But the church is not one more consumer option among many. The church is not some place I go to figure out what I can get, but a family with whom I live to consider what I can bring…and what others can bring to me. It is a community of love. And you cannot buy love, even the Beatles knew that, and we cannot consume love, although people do try to do so in many ways. Love is forged within the time-bound, embodied connections, rooted in relationships of honesty, vulnerability, and experience. 

The church is called to live in God’s love for us personally and cultivate true love one with another. Small groups help with this because they are like support groups for living in love. They are like workout groups for muscles for loving that we don’t have yet. Small groups are like mini-schools of learning to live in God’s way of love. 

If the church is going to be a community of love, then we need to shed our consumerist mindsets and mannerisms when we think about existing as the family of love one with another.  Loved by God, we love one another.