It happens that July 4 falls on a Sunday this year. I am going to preach on the great gift and blessing religious freedom is to our nation. This will lead me to talk about the size of our church. I don’t mean the physical size. I mean the size of the Jesus we worship and serve, the size of the heart of New Hope Baptist Church.
The text for July 4 is Luke 4:16-30, which tells about the time Jesus went to his hometown and read from the scroll of Isaiah in the Synagogue. He applied the scripture by telling those gathered for Bible study the story of how God sent the Jewish prophet Elijah to provide food to a Gentile widow during a famine and how God used the Jewish prophet Elisha to heal a Gentile with leprosy. His people tried to kill him after that Bible lesson, because they did not want to hear that God actually brought healing to people who were not of their race or religion.
The title of the sermon is Big Church, Big Nation. My prayer for this sermon is that it will help us to see how America got its deep desire to give religious freedom to all people from the spirit that is behind Jesus’ teachings in this story. I also pray that it will lead us to see ourselves as Jesus’ church with a calling to live out God’s desire to bring healing and hope to people who are not of our race or our religion.
The following Sunday, July 11, the sermon will be based on an obscure Old Testament story of how the prophet Elisha threw salt into the water of the spring that supplied the city of Jericho. Elisha’s actions removed the curse that Joshua had placed on the city. This gives us an image of God’s readiness to quickly remove anything in our lives that has cursed us with doubts about our salvation and anxieties about our future.
The text for July 11 is 2 Kings 2:19-21. The title of this sermon is Salt in the Water. My prayer for this sermon and worship service is that it will bring healing for many. Come ready for God to remove any curse from your heart and mind that is holding you back from a free flowing supply of God’s love and from growing in Christ. You will have an opportunity to throw salt in water to symbolize your freedom, your healing.
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