Hope Lutheran Church

Paul's closing word for us as we wrap up this series on 1 Thesslonians is this: Live in Peace. Live in peace with God and with one another. Thankfully, that's not something that's left up to us. Instead, we rely on God working in us through his Word and by the power of the Holy Spirt.

It's easy to get complacent in our relationship with God knowing that he loves us unconditionally. But in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul encourages us to live in a way that pleases God more and more.

What does the model church look like? In today's lesson from 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul paints a portrait of the model church's leaders. He talks about how he and Silas preached the gospel to them with integrity, and how the church loves like a family.

This week as we celebrate our 6th Anniversary, we also start a new sermon series. We're looking at the Thessalonian congregation, because Paul calls them "a model for all the believers." Today we see how the Thessalonians turned from idols to serve the living and true God.

One of the fundamental parts of faith is the ability to see beyond yourself. By nature, we all struggle with that. What we see in this last story from Joseph's life is that, by faith, he didn't. He was able to see beyond himself to forgive his brothers, and he was able to see beyond himself by faith in God's promises.

This week we get to see Joseph and his brothers reconcile. We'll see that there are three parts of their reconciliation. The brothers' repentance, Joseph's refusal to take revenge, and God's redemption of the whole situation.

Today as we continue our series on the life of Joseph, we come to a moving story that shows just how much Joseph's brothers have changed. But from this story, we also get to see a picture of the gospel. In Judah's substitution, we get to see a foreshadowing of our salvation, which was won for us by a descendant of Judah who substituted himself for us.

We've all been there. We put our hope in someone, thinking they are the one who will finally give us what we've been waiting for. Then they let us down. That's what happened to Joseph in our reading for today. He had hoped that the cupbearer would remember him and put in a good word for him with Pharaoh. But the cupbearer forgot him. Thankfully for Joseph, and for us, this story teaches us that even when people fail you and forget about you, God will not fail you and will never forget you.

This week we continued the story of Joseph, picking up with his encounter with Potiphar's wife. We learn from this story to run away from temptation and to run toward the one who rescues us from temptation.

This week we kicked off a new sermon series based on the life of Joseph. This story has so much to teach us about our God and how he works in the events of our lives, often behind the scenes. Today we see how the dysfunction in Jacob's family led to his favored son being sold for silver.