What’s your greatest fear? Maybe for all you archery hunters it is arrowing a big deer just a bit back and not knowing if you will recover it. Maybe for you fantasy football fan it is your biggest point gainer to get injured or under perform. Maybe for you parents it is for your kids to do something that would bring embarrassment to the family. Maybe it is getting laid off from work. Whatever your greatest fear is, I’m sure it isn’t trivial to you.

Fear really is an idol of the heart.

That went deep fast, but it is true isn’t it? Fear tries to trap us, it tries to define us, it tries to scare us into doing what it wants and not what is best. Fear is an idol we often bow down and serve because we aren’t sure people will like the truth or that we can handle the truth, so we run to fear and do something stupid out of respect for fear.

We feel like fear will be easier, more comforting, less harsh. We are wrong to feel that way. A contemporary Christian song out has a line in it that says, “fear is a liar.” We would be more right to look at fear this way.

Here is the solution to fear. It starts in realizing that God loves you and admitting that you struggle with fear and trusting that His love can conquer your fear.

We all want to be known. But we have a couple fears that are born out of this want.

Just look at the world today, well first you’d have to look up from your cell phone. Take a look around, look at how many people are looking down at their phones. They are wanting to be known. Many of us turn to social media, did so and so like my post, did so and so comment on my comment, in order to be known. I’m guilty too.

We also look to perform well, or dress well, or speak well, or to be well educated so others will take note of who we are. We like to put labels on ourselves and put adjectives before our accomplishments, we chase after accolades from our spouses, children, co-workers and friends and other community acquaintances.

Here is the truth about being known, We all want to be known, but we are fearful to let anyone truly know us. Why? Because to be known and to be rejected is well, almost unbearable. To be unknown and not be noticed is lonely and hard to understand.  To be fully known, warts and all, bad life decisions and all, successes and failures, good times and bad times, private faults and personal thoughts and yet still loved is quite unthinkable, outside of the love of a faithful spouse or God.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

― Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

God calls the church his bride. He knows her. He knows her fears, he knows her tears, he knows her mistakes, he came not to condemn her but to rescue her and save her. He took her sins and bore them for her, so that she might be set free from the fear of penalty and payment for her sin. Jesus removed the penalty of sin, death, and he promises one day to remove the presence of sin from her life. Jesus loves the church even though he fully knows her faults.

We can cast off our fears on Jesus. He isn’t afraid and he doesn’t want us to be either. One of the most common commands Jesus gave while on earth was Do not fear, do not be afraid. Why? Because he knew us. He knew we would need to be reminded.

Jesus knows what scares you, you can’t hide from him, he knows what terrifies you, call out to Him, He will rescue you. There isn’t anything that you can do today to make God love you less, and there isn’t anything you can do today to make God love you more, Psalm 86 and Psalm 136 talk about God’s love for us being steadfast. That is unending, unchanging, love, a love that will not cease to be.

If you want to be at peace, if you want to live in a world where you can face your fears with the truth, if you want to live a life with purpose and meaning and do all you do for the glory of God, rejoicing and reveling in being able to overcome your fear because you know the truth then hear God’s call today. Understand how much you need him, believe that what he says in John 14:6 is true, “I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to Father except through me.” Jesus knows you, and loves you, decide to be known by God and to accept His love for you today. Let His love overwhelm you, produce an awe in you for Him that leads to a life of worship. Fear not, you are loved.

by David Kelly

As a church we are currently preaching through the book of Galatians, learning what justification is and learning what it means to live out our faith, learning that we are saved by grace through faith alone. We are not justified by works of the law, no one is, but we are justified through faith in Jesus Christ. As we kick off our Fall 2019 activities we hope you will join us here at New Hope Presbyterian Church.

We pray that God would help us to keep the preaching of God’s Word and prayer the focus of our ministry here. We want God to transform us, Eustis, Lake County and all the world by the power of His Word. We want to introduce you and your family to the powerful, equipping, life giving word of God. God has Good News for you and wants you to not only hear it but do what it says.

New Hope wants to raise up faithful followers of Jesus Christ. We want to fulfill the great commission by planting more churches in our area. We want to plant more churches by preaching the Gospel, teaching the Gospel and living out the Gospel, we want to plant more churches by praying for Christ to call men into ministry, by praying for families to invest their gifts and talents into kingdom focused ministry, by praying that the Holy Spirit would awaken dead hearts and turn to worshiping the one true God.

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — “, Galatians 3:13a. Come join us as we celebrate the joyous reality of God’s grace, the reality of God’s Good News, the reality that Christ is our redeemer!

Come check us out! Come help us live out the Bible in Lake County! We want to grow with you, serve with you and love with you so that Jesus Christ might be exalted in all that we think and say and do! Let’s preach God’s Word, Let’s hear it and do what it says, Let’s pray together, Let’s minister to those that are widowed, that are suffering, Let’s do our part to radically align our purposes with God’s purposes, Let’s plant more churches.

We are looking to introduce the New City Catechism for one year. For the next 52 weeks we will give you a question and answer that we would like you, or you and your family to work on together. We will have it on the screen before worship, we will have it in the bulletin under the notes section and we will have a link on the website for you to download the web app, or the mobile app. We hope that this will not only benefit you and your family but as a church give us a firm foundation with which to answer the questions that our community has about God, life and the Bible. http://newcitycatechism.com/ is where you can find the resources you may need. Vimeo.com also has all the questions in song format that helps learn the answers for children and well as adults, here is that link https://vimeo.com/215521940.

Psalm 146:5-7, “5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.”

Mission To North America, is the PCA’s arm of disaster relief response. We suggest you give to MNA to help those suffering in Florida and in the flooded areas of Texas and elsewhere. Below is a link to their site.

https://www.egsnetwork.com/gift2/?giftid=6D781F3DFD8A428

Also for more information on MNA ministries check out this site, there are also articles on our FB page.

Thanks for giving!

Disaster Site Updates

by David R. Kelly •

Let us not forget that God is at work. Often we try to compare our knowledge with God’s knowledge, this is really insane. And then sometimes we think we are trusting in God and we are really just trusting in our reasoning. Remember Matthew 14, the beheading of John the Baptist at King Herod’s command because of a request from his daughter at her birthday party all prompted by her mom, Jesus heard the news, John was dead, he got in a boat and left, he went a performed a miracle, the feeding of the five thousand, where they gave bread, to the one we call the Living Water, who in turn gave them more than they had invested. Here we see a small gesture of faith in God returned in overwhelming fashion; Jesus after this put the disciples in a boat and retreated to the mountains to pray. But as Jesus saw the disciples boat being tossed by the waves in the middle of the night, He went out on the water to them, at first thinking He was a ghost they were afraid but, Jesus said be not afraid,do not worry, trust me, know me, and Peter said Lord if it is really you let me walk out on water, thinking this was an act of faith, Peter was trusting in the miracle not having faith in the one able to do miraculous things. Once Peter realized he was on the water he panicked, he doubted, he was unsure if it was possible and he started to sink, He cried out “Lord Save Me.” [Read more…]