Series
Rev. Jerry Hamstra
The Book of Esther
The Book of Esther
Sermons
Rev. Jerry Hamstra
Introduction to Acts
Introduction to Acts

The LORD’s Question and Elijah’s Complaint

Read: 1 Kings 19:1-10
Text: 1 Kings 19:9-10

“So we have Moses asking for mercy and minimizing justice. And we have Elijah speaking of justice and saying nothing of mercy. This points to a tension in the Old Testament between the mercy and the justice of God. There is an awful lot in the Old Testament of the wrath of God against the sins of his people. But there is also the theme of God’s mercy that runs through the story. And these two aspects of God’s character are in tension with one another at least from a human perspective.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

God Begins to Restore Elijah’s Soul

Read: 1 Kings 19:1-8
Text: 1 Kings 19:5-8

“So while the journey itself was not authorized by God, God was guiding it because he was going to use it to teach Elijah and renew him to his calling. This teaches us that even when we sin God can be directing events so as to teach us things that we need to know from our sins. It is not that God is ever responsible for our sin. But God is able to orchestrate things in such a way that we learn lessons from our sins.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Reviewing the Basics (3) “What Does it Mean to be a Sinner?”

“Our status needs to be changed. In order to be saved our status needs to be changed from guilty to not guilty – from guilty to righteous. But we need more than a change in status before God’s law. The kind of people we are needs to be changed. Our nature needs to be changed. We need to be changed from people who are inclined towards evil to people who are inclined towards obedience.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Discouragement and Endurance

“On the one hand, we have the revelation of God’s greatness and his power and his glorious promises to defeat evil and bring renewal, but on the other hand it often seems that evil has the upper hand. It often seems that any progress is tiny, and the advance of evil is massive. And that can be true in our individual lives and battles as well. The language of the Bible about the transforming power of salvation for believers is often so dramatic, while the experience of the transforming power of the gospel is often less than dramatic – it can be slow with many setbacks and discouragements.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Reviewing the Basics (2) “Why does God make such a big deal about sin?”

“And so it is possible for us to have life instead of death. We are born dead in sin, but by grace through faith, we can be reconciled to God on the basis of what Jesus has done and so begin to experience the fullness of life that is rooted in a relationship of love with God. The richness of that now already is beyond words, but what we experience know is just a foretaste of what is to come. And the key to it all is giving God his due – living for him and not for ourselves and finding our great joy and satisfaction in him.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Download Manuscript

Sermon Series: Reviewing the Basics

Persecution and Elijah’s Fear

“By nature we are all like Jezebel in our willful blindness to the reality and relevance of God. If we now believe in God and trust in Jesus for salvation, it is only because this miracle of grace as taken place in our lives. God has “shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” This is what Jesus came to do. One of the things that Jesus came to do according to Isaiah 42:7 is give sight to the blind.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Reviewing the Basics (1) God’s Message to the World

Read: Luke 24:44-53
Text: verses 45-48

“One of the greatest problems in the church and in each of our lives is a failure to live with the reality of who God really is. Our thoughts of God are far too small. Because of that we shove him to the periphery of our lives. The basic truth that we need to constantly be relearning is that everything is about God and that God is overwhelming in his greatness and glory. Our wellbeing in life is tied to our knowledge of the glory of God. And the great and fearfully serious sin that condemns us all is not to give God his due in our thoughts and in our actions and in our words. The call to repentance is first and foremost a call to give God the rightful place in our lives and God’s rightful place in our lives is first place in our lives.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Download Manuscript

Sermon Series: Reviewing the Basics