Book: Jeremiah

Recently I watched the movie “The Truman Show” for the first time. For those unfamiliar, the “The Truman Show” is a movie from 1998 starring Jim Carrey. Going in, I was surprised to find out it was more of a psychological thriller than comedy. I was also surprised by how stunningly it criticized our present day, some 25 years later.

We are not all called to be Richard Wurmbrand (thank God!). In His mercy, God might not even call us to any serious persecution in our lives. But Jesus does send us out as sheep in the midst of wolves, he asks us to be ready, and he tells us not to fear.

There is only one Kingdom that will last forever! And that Kingdom is the only place we can take refuge. Until Christ comes again, earthly kingdoms will rise and fall. Christians will face persecution, but our hope is in the one who reigns forever.

Can you really be a Christian when you don’t pray every day? A recent Pew survey indicates that roughly half of all professing Christians do not pray every day. Without daily prayer, we cannot be truly happy. And when we pray, we should pray like the tax collector, begging for God’s mercy. We need to be people of real prayer.

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Do we hear them cheering for us? But what are they cheering for us to do? It isn’t for us to mope through life. It is for us to run the race with endurance. This is what we are called to do as disciples of Christ, in the good days and the bad. Our lives are filled with the endless, useless noise of sin. Only by cutting through the noise, and focusing on the call of the Lord and the cheers of the Saints, can we run the race with endurance.

Beloved, we have been living in a spiritual drought in America for a long time. We need to seek out the right type of water to nourish us in times of drought, but as Jeremiah tells us, the heart is deceitful and desperately sick. Only God searches the heart and tests the mind, and only by trusting in him will our souls be refreshed.

Beloved, we cannot afford to excuse ourselves from the work of ministry. We cannot rely on others to speak the truth while we coast through life. God has anointed each and every one of us with the responsibility to serve Him and share the Gospel. When we excuse ourselves of that responsibility, we are being disobedient, and we harm not only ourselves but the next generation as well - because we are robbing them of an opportunity to hear God’s Word.

Sermon by the Rev. Mark Galloway, given on the 5th Sunday of Lent (3/21/21). Our struggles in this life are against more than just flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of sin and darkness. Christ died for us so we can have victory in the battle, if we only join Him.

Our call to Christian vocation is always urgent, and always relevant. But what do we do if our life situation isn't what we want it to be? The Rev. Stomberg discusses why the call of Jesus surpasses even our desire to have the perfect life.