God’s wonderful gift of grace – “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap.” Put into our hearts, put into our life together as God’s people – grace even spilling out from this sanctuary into the streets and hearts and world beyond.

What must it have been like for a people like that, a people who’ve been torn down and stepped on and taken advantage of their entire lives? What was it like for them to hear these words of Jesus: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you?”

“They see the risen Jesus and yet how could it really be Jesus that they are seeing. They believe and yet they can’t see how it could be true. “

In this fallen world, for so very long, the poor were without hope, the hungry were without sustenance, the mournful had only their tears, and the persecuted only their suffering. But Jesus has now come, the Savior has now appeared, God’s Kingdom has now begun.

“At the center of true religion is God Himself – His love for us, answered by our love for Him.”

The concept of sin is a tough sell in this day and age. In many of the seeker-sensitive megachurches that have sprung up like mushrooms over the last couple of decades, one can go years without even hearing the word “sin”.