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Sunday, we had the honor of having Pastor Dan Berry, superintendent of the Southeastern District of  the Weslyan Church, come to preach. We used his story two weeks ago in the first week of our ”HOPE” series as an example of how quickly tragedy can strike our lives, even the lives of those who love and serve God.

On September 10th of this year Shelly Berry, Dan’s wife, finished her last chemo treatment for the cancer she had been fighting for years. To celebrate the mark, Dan took Shelly to a jewelry store. He told her to pick out a pearl necklace, because pearls represent beauty created out of suffering. She picked out a ring with 2 pearls on it. They went and had a nice dinner, and Shelly was bubbling over with joy and affection for Dan. On their way home that evening, as they were turning into their neighborhood, a driver going 80mph in a 45mph zone “T-boned” into their van on Shelly’s side. Dan woke up upside down to the sound of his wife drowning in her own blood, and he reached his hand out to hold up her head so she could get air. He was pulled from the car and rushed to the hospital with a broken pelvis, ribs, and multiple gashes. Shelly was pulled from the car and airlifted immediately with 2 collapsed lungs, many broken ribs and other fractures.  She had also suffered a major head trauma, and in the coming days after several surguries they discovered she had brain damage, and she was not waking up from her coma.

Over the past couple weeks, after millions of prayers and hours spent talking to her, Shelly has begun to respond with simple movements and words! However, she is by no means out of the woods. She was forced to leave the hospital and Pastor Dan had to make the decision to bring her home or send her to a nursing home. Currently, she is at home under 24 hour care. She has now missed the half the holiday season with her family and the birth of her first granddaughter, but yet in all this Pastor Dan still firmly trusts God and has hope for his life.

How is this possible? Pastor Dan honestly shared with us some of his journey over the past months. He said he has screamed at God, cried with Him, and asked Him how and why this happened most of it with no answers. But Pastor Dan finds peace knowing that God is big enough to handle all his anger, all his questions, and all his doubt. He knows God loves Him because of the Cross, and He knows God can turn anything around and use it for good because of the Cross. Pastor Dan also encouraged us to follow scripture and approach everything with prayer and thanksgiving, trusting and believing that prayer is powerful. Pastor Dan has seen first hand the power of prayer of the past months and he encouraged us to get on our knees in life. He also shared with us the importance of the church body. For most of his life he has spent time giving hope out but over the past months he has received hope from the church and it has stirrred his heart and opened his eyes to a new beauty that is the Bride of Christ.

To conclude we sang “To The Throne,” an original song written by our worship leader Hunter Wright:

One life, one time
To live, to shine
Today we choose, to follow after You

To the throne, of my King
I will run, I will cling.
The promises of my God
Stand firm above the world

You reign on high
Sustain my life
Your words are my guide
Your will is my life

Its all in Your hands
My dreams, Your plans
Lord my one desire is You lifted high
So be lifted high.

You are my God You are my Rock
You my Source, my Living Hope
My Strength, my Shield, my debt fulfilled
My Savior King, my everything

download message here. 

In the second week of our hope series pastor talk about hope differed in his message titled “Finally” He started off talking about America’s fatal flaw: it’s impatience.  America’s impatience, its the reason Al Quida thinks they can win the war and we have it down to a science. Its especially obvious during the holiday shopping season. Buy it now! Don’t have the money? Buy it on credit. Store closed? Buy it online. Buy it with ultra high speed online for the ultimate impatient. Don’t wait ’til you’re home, just stop in somewhere with wi-fi. Or shoot don’t wait that long, just use your phone, and for goodness sake, buy it now! We don’t have to wait in America. We’ve made a science out of our impatience. We expect our coaches to win, our CEO’s to always turn profit and we expect it now or we fire them.

Impatience is a human condition. As Solomon put it in Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” But Christmas is about hope, a long standing hope, one that started back when the human race first “screwed it all up.” Yet that very day God offered hope to us when He said to Satan that the offspring of Eve would “crush his head.” There was a hope from that day forward that one day it would be different, but that hope was deferred. Sometimes when our hope is deferred we begin to pursue other things, just to make the best of what we have. Sometimes we begin to question the source or the reality of our hope.  

At the moment of failure, the moment sin, death, pain and hurting entered the world, God had already determined He would pay the price. That He would send His only Son to be  our Savior. He knew this because He is outside of time. So to a timeless God, it was already done. From that point on the prophecies of the coming Messiah began. They became more numerous and more specific until they culminated in Isaiah when he spoke of the suffering servant. From the time of the fall people began to hope in Him. The one they had never seen, of whom they knew very little, but who would deliver them from the effects of the Fall. 

This is Christmas. The Savior finally come. Pastor explained what this has to say about our hope. From the first promise to Eve and when Jesus was born at least 4000 years passed. After the culmination in Isaiah over 700 years passed before His birth. After the last time any prohet mentioned anything about the coming Messiah 400 years of silence. Jesus being born in a manger isn’t all the things you might think of…its hope. Hope deferred for years finally arrived.

In perfect timing, as it speaks in Galatians, God sent His Son to redeem us and make us His children as we were created to be. So if you are a slave, a slave to your impatience, if you are under the control of what might have happened but doesn’t seem to be happening, if hope is fading, if you feel like giving up add a new picture to the photo album of your heart. A picture of hope called Christmas. A picture of hope called Finally. That God will never let you down. That God will always come through. 

blog and audio coming soon!

Download message here.