You-Turns Allowed

This past week in worship, as we celebrated Resurrection Sunday, we began a new message series entitled, U-Turns Allowed; you can watch the message by clicking here. The point of this opening message which will carry on throughout the series, is that the Resurrection of Jesus completely changed the world and our relationship with God. As I mentioned Sunday, before Jesus’ Resurrection, the old bumper sticker pretty much summed it up: the one who dies with the most toys wins. But with Jesus’ victory over sin and death, we can find assurance in His words that, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” (John 11:25)

Jesus himself proved this to be true on Resurrection morning. As the gospels tell us, Mary was on her way to the tomb to care for Jesus’ dead body. When she arrived, however, she found the tomb empty! This led her to make a U-Turn of sorts and head back to share the news to the rest of Jesus’ disciples.

For you and me, if we find ourselves in a difficult time, oppressed by the same feelings that haunted the disciples – their betrayal, denial, fear, dismay – we can rest assured that the power of God that busted in the tomb to call forth Jesus is the same power that bursts through the rock-hard walls of our hearts to bring us back to life, too! And the good news is it is never too late, and we are never too far gone, for God’s power to be able to work miracles in our lives! All you need to do is accept the power of God, and with faith in Christ as the one sent to free us, receive the blessings of salvation. For as the bible says, “…if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18)

Implicit in this message is we need others to help us on the journey of life in faith. We will invariably encounter difficulties, potholes, seeming dead-ends, endless construction, and all kinds of unknown conditions on the road of life, but when we travel together, we find safety, support, accountability, and it is frankly a whole lot more fun.

I hope you will make plans to be with us throughout this Easter season (which runs until Pentecost on May 24) for our U-Turn message series. It will be enlightening, informative, entertaining, and challenging; through it all, though, we will gain a deeper appreciation for how we can make our own individual U-Turns from a dead-end way of living and embrace a new way of thinking and behaving (remember: repentance) that keeps us on God’s path. The remaining topics we’ll cover are:

·       April 12 – Wrong Way/One Way | John 14:1-8 | Salvation

·       April 19 – Slippery Road Ahead | 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 | Temptation

·       April 26 – No Parking | 1 Peter 3.8-16 | Evangelism

·       May 3 – Merge | Romans 15:1-13 | Relationships for Service

·       May 10 – Yield | Romans 10:1-13 | The Lordship of Jesus

·       May 17 – Rest Area | Exodus 20:9-11 | Sabbath

Happy Easter, have a great week, and I hope to see you Sunday (if not before!),

Pastor Mark