Welcome to MPC Connected! With our church family separated, we will be communicating with you throughout the week in a more intentional way, including emails from Max and Jeff, opportunities to serve others, and more. Enjoy!
Hi everyone, Jeff here. Hope you all are hanging in there so far this week. Our family is using a book called Long Story Short for a brief after-dinner devotional. The other night, the verse was Isaiah 9:7:
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
The connection in this passage was to Genesis 3, and the promise God makes that the serpent will eventually be defeated. Isaiah 9:7 promises that Jesus is indeed on His way to accomplish this. This is important by itself, but what struck me this week was just how long this story was in its unfolding.
Even by the most conservative estimates, it was a few thousand years between Genesis 3 and Isaiah 9. After Isaiah's prophecy, it would be several hundred years before Jesus was born. And now it's been about 2,000 years since He ascended back to heaven. In the meantime, we wait for Him to finally and fully make good on all of His promises - to totally defeat evil and give us a new heaven and new earth. We are longing for that day.
I've been thinking about how this time that we're experiencing is a microcosm of the much larger and longer story of the world. We are living in uncertain and, in some ways, scary times. The time stretching in front of us seems to get longer and longer. We started talking about distancing for a few weeks - now we realize it could be much longer. We are longing to all be together, but the time hasn't come yet.
As we wait, it sure seems like a time for us to lean into the good longings we are going to feel. Consider the joy we will experience when we see each other again - when we sing and pray and hear God's Word together - when we eat way too many snacks after the service - when we laugh and talk about the week behind and the week ahead - when we greet one another not with appropriate distance, but a hearty embrace. I'm filled with joy when I consider that day, and filled with sadness that it's not here yet. In some ways, it's like the longing we feel as part of the bigger story - the longing for everything to be made new.
In addition to a few thoughts every week, I'll do my best to point you to some other things worth your time - some will relate directly to our faith, some will just be for you to enjoy and hopefully smile at.
Worth Reading
Samuel James is one of my favorite Christian cultural commentators. He wonders whether or not this virus will eventually end up driving us back to one another and increasing our social bonds:
There’s another version of this whole story that keeps playing out in my head and I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t shake the feeling that an oppressive pandemic might actually be the one thing that disrupts the unthinking embrace of virtual social behaviors. When the toxic dust settles, I’m wondering if we’ll find that the punishment fit the crime, and that the anxiety of not knowing when we will see the people we love in real life is sadder than getting a new “Like” is fun.
Justin Taylor goes over J.I. Packer's understanding of having God as our Father - we could probably do worse than starting our day reminding ourselves of these truths:
1. I am a child of God.
2. God is my Father.
3. Heaven is my home.
4. Every day is one day nearer.
5. My Savior is my brother.
6. Every Christian is my brother too
Worth Watching
Last week, Max preached on John 8:30-36. This passage talks about the slavery of sin. An outstanding message on this topic (from another place in the Bible) comes from Tim Keller at the 2011 Gospel Coalition conference:
Worth Hearing
I've been really enjoying the sound of Shred Kelly, a Canadian folk band. Listen now before they get cool! Or so you can simply critique my taste...
And if Canadian folk isn't your thing, check out Rend Collective, who is doing a time of live worship on Friday at 5 pm on Facebook Live.
Worth Tweeting
A helpful nugget from Twitter:
Worth Laughing At
Apparently the beauty of people singing to one another from their balconies in Italy is spreading to America.:
That's all for now. Love you and miss you.
Jeff
Though we are separated during this unique season, we want you to know we are available. We will be doing our best to stay in touch in many ways, but if you need prayer or just need someone to talk to, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. You can always send a prayer request to Donna (mpcadminteam@gmail.com). You can also email or call Max or Jeff or any of our elders. Max's email is mbenfer@meadowcroftchurch.org and his phone # is 484-886-7726. Jeff's email is jeff@meadowcroftchurch.org and his phone number is 540-818-6215.