06.16.19 By Special Request: My Ebenezer

 

Sun, June 16, 2019 + Father's Day 

Second Presbyterian Church + Portsmouth, OH 

 

BY SPECIAL REQUEST summer sermon series 
(Pastor Allison's request!) 

 

Gospel reading  Matthew 16:13-20 

Responsive reading  Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 

Epistle reading  1 Peter 2:1-10 

 

Ministry of Music  "How Can I Keep From Singing" 
Justin Wiget, tenor; Dr. Stan Workman, accompanist 

 

Old Testament reading  1 Samuel 7:3-17 

Sermon  "My Ebenezer" 

 

Sermon excerpt: 

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote in his journal, “Life must be understood backwards. But … it must be lived forwards.”[i]

The life of faith is a careful balance of remembering God’s divine interventions and deliverances in the past while discerning God’s will for the future in our own lives.  

And the good news is that we have the stories of Scripture with its countless Ebenezers to remind us of God’s past help and faithfulness. And we have a hymnal full of songs and Ebenezers raised up in times of difficulty and trials.

Even the cross of Christ is itself an Ebenezer, perhaps the ultimate Ebenezer, a constant reminder of the depth and breadth of Jesus’ love for us that caused him to make the ultimate sacrifice to deliver us, his own lost sheep, prone to wander as we are.  

[i]