The God who transforms

This week our Ministry Educator, Deborah Broome preached. Her sermon can be heard here. This is what she wrote for our pew sheet about the theme. 

"Haggai's prophecies are set in the post-exilic period during the reign of Darius. The work had stalled because of discouragement; Haggai's prophecies encouraged them to resume the work by reminding them that God was with them. Don’t get paralysed by the past, remember that God holds the future. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians had addressed concerns that Christ would never return. Now people thought that he would appear at any second—but no one knows the timing of Christ's return except Christ himself. The author thanks God for those who are faithful: God chose them to be forerunners of others who will come later, through being set apart through the Holy Spirit and through their faith. Sadducees were known for not believing the Resurrection; so the question seems designed to draw Jesus into their old argument with the Pharisees. Jesus uses the hypothetical question to teach about the Resurrection. Here is not like there. Here we marry; there they do not. To think about during the week: • Does thinking back to ‘good old days’ keep us stuck—or encourage us to look for God’s actions in the future? • When have you seen God’s transforming power at work?"