Recognizing the key role that hope plays in our lives, we encourage each other by saying, “Keep your hopes up!”  We also realize that a situation is lost if someone gives up hope.  With so many difficulties in our lives, we need hope to keep going.  In I Peter 1:3-12, God calls his people to be a hopeful people, but not based on wishful thinking but on his own work for us.

To start the year, we are studying Peter’s first letter by beginning with I Peter 1:1-2.  In each section, we will see how he describes the people of God.  In his greeting, Peter calls Christians “elect exiles,” which is a curious expression that mixes something positive (elect, chosen, selected) with something negative (exiles, driven out, rejected).  As it turns out, God’s election makes his people exiles in this world, and Peter reminds us that it is our call to live our lives as those who are in the world but not of the world.

In order to prepare for the happiest 2018 possible, we ended 2017 focusing on God’s word and how we hear it, looking at Jesus’ Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:1-20.  Nothing will be more beneficial to our lives, our family, and our happiness than careful attention to God’s word.  As a church, we are joining together to read the New Testament during 2018 following this plan.

At first glance, it looked like Matthew made a big mistake in his genealogy of Jesus by placing him in the line of David, since he admitted that Jesus was born of Mary, not of Joseph.  In Matthew 1:18-25, he went on to explain how Jesus was conceived and what role Joseph played in his life, which in turn explains how Jesus entered the line of David.  He also revealed the meanings of the two names of Jesus, which tell us who he is and why he came.

If genealogies are not the most engaging reading, why would Matthew begin his history of Jesus with one in Matthew 1:1-17?  Actually, genealogies can be very engaging if we find in them connections with our story.  Because Matthew wanted to connect Jesus with Jewish people, he emphasized Jesus’ descent from the patriarch Abraham and from King David.  At the same time, he included some fascinating details that connect Jesus not only with Jewish people but with all of us.

In Jonah 4, we find the most successful preacher of his day angry enough to die after his greatest triumph, because God had done in Nineveh exactly what Jonah had suspected he would do.  In this final chapter, God presented two arguments to teach Jonah about compassion, the same two arguments that still hold for us who have received God’s compassion in Christ.

In Jonah 3, we find that God did not give up on Jonah or on the people of Nineveh, which encourages us to believe that he has not given up on us either.  Upon hearing Jonah’s preaching of impending destruction, the Ninevites surprised everyone by believing God and turning from their sins to him.  According to Jesus, they became an example for later generations of what it means to repent.  God’s response to them is also an example of how he treats all who turn from sin to him with faith.

In Jonah 2, we take a break from the narrative to read a poem of thanksgiving that Jonah prayed when he was detained for three days and three nights.  It turns out that the fish that swallowed Jonah was God’s appointed means not for Jonah’s destruction but for his rescue.  By surviving his brush with death, Jonah learned an important lesson that we all must learn.

In Jonah 1, we meet the Israelite prophet who preferred to flee rather than obey the Lord’s call to do something new, surprising, and unpleasant, namely, go preach to the Ninevites, the mortal enemies of the Israelites.  However, God did not give up on Jonah, or, as we shall see, on the Ninevites, or on us.

“Priorities for Parents” – Ephesians 6:4 and Deuteronomy 6. All families develop customs that reflect their priorities. Today we look at three biblical priorities for parents to establish and maintain in their family customs so that it may go well for our children throughout their lives.