Look back, then look forward...

Hey friends… We have been working our way through the Old Testament for an entire year at Mt. Hope! Can you believe it?? Are you tired of it yet? Has it inspired you? Empowered you? Scared you? Discouraged you? Encouraged you? Let’s take a quick look back and then let’s see what is coming. More on this in Deeper Thoughts below.  
 
 BUT first… a bunch of things happening… 
 

• Please pray for our Elder Team: The six couples of our Elder Team are gathered this weekend for our annual intensive retreat, praying specifically for you, seeking God for the next chapter of our ministry, and mapping out the Holy Spirit’s guidance for the next 12 months at Mt. Hope. We will be home Saturday evening and with you on Sunday; we cherish your prayers for God’s wisdom, revelation, encouragement, and peace.  

• In case you don’t know, our Elder Team is comprised of: 

• Chris and Sherri Eads 

• Ryan and Jessica Sauder 

• Samuel and Evelyn Sierra 

• Randy and Debbie Richardson (exploring eldership; not yet appointed) 

• Al and Leigh Villaflor 

• Jameson and Kristie Zoller 

 

• TEENS: NO Youth Group this Sunday BUT… NEXT Saturday, May 9, is a FIRE Worship night, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. Our theme is HOPE and we’ll be exploring what it means to put our hope in Christ. Pizza, connection, music and sharing. Friends are welcome! 

 

• Ladies: Join us Saturday, May 16, 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. for a women’s Self-Defense and Wellness Seminar led by Pastor Samuel Sierra and others to equip women with practical tools for safety, physical confidence, and whole-body wellness. Click here for details and to RSVP! 

 

• Really big deal BAPTISM Sunday, May 17… join us for an amazing Sunday morning worship service where we will be baptizing seven new believers at Mt. Hope! This is going to be a phenomenal experience of celebration and worship! 

 

• Churchwide workday!! Saturday, May 30, 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Come join us to help spruce up the campus for the spring and summer… lots of fellowship, fun, and tasks for all skill level, ages, and energy! Contact Kristie Zoller for more info. 

 

• High School and College Graduates will be honored in our Sunday service on May 31. We look forward to celebrating this amazing milestone in your life! 

 

• NEW Daily Six content THIS WEEK!! Join us for six minutes each day, Monday through Friday, as we continue our character-by-character study of how to find the heart of God… click here for our Daily Six webpage to find new content on Monday morning, OR… click here to sign up for our daily email reminders (if you’ve not already done so!).  

 
 
OK… that’s it for today for you email skimmers and those who hate long emails… 
 
BUT… 
 
 
Some Deeper Thoughts… 
 
Many believers shy away from the Old Testament for a lot of very understandable reasons: 
 

• It is long. Really long. Thirty-nine books long. 

• It is old. Really old. Twenty-five hundred years old. 

• It is hard to understand. Really hard. Like, sometimes I don’t get it at all hard. 

• It is depressing. Often. Lots of people screwing up and God being mad. 

 
Add to these facts that we no longer live under the Old Covenant, and it becomes really easy to assume that it is frankly irrelevant to us. Why spend all the effort to dig through thousands of stories, complicated poetry, cultural history that is lost to us, names that we cannot pronounce or keep track of, and all of God’s yelling if we don’t live with the same God from way back then? 
 
Wait… did you catch it? Is He a different God from then until now? 
 
Because Jesus Christ revealed God in the flesh--a God of absolute grace and mercy that seems so unlike the (seemingly) angry God of the Old Testament—we think that we live with a different God.  
 
But are we sure that’s true? 
 
There is indeed a different relational dynamic with God that we experience in the New Testament. It is awesome. It is SO full of grace, love, intimacy, and power… IF we will live up to the New Covenant’s call to us and opportunity for us.** 
 
** Side note: Something the Elders are significantly praying through this weekend is that for many modern American Christians (and we imagine many in our congregation), we have never been exposed to the “whole counsel of God” that the New Testament reveals. There is so much power revealed for us than many of us have never heard of or seen. Therefore, many modern believers unwittingly live their Christianity more similar to the Old Testament’s call to moral conformity than knowing or living from the power of the Holy Spirit available to us. We are working this weekend to hear from God a blueprint for how to boldly impart to each of you this whole counsel of the New Testament… standby for more news!! 
 
But Jesus was super-clear about the place of the Old Testament in our lives: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets [the Old Testament]. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). The life of Jesus Christ was to accomplish and reveal the end game, the purpose, and the goal of the Old Testament—to restore our lives to God’s fullest desires for us by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
The Apostle Paul explained its value for us to understand who God is and how He relates to us: “These things [the Old Testament stories] happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). The patterns, struggles, temptations, and failures of the people of Israel are merely a visual snapshot into our own personal struggles, failures, and impulses. How God responds to them is a revelation of how He feels about all of us. 
 
BUT… as we read the Old Testament carefully and through the lens of God’s ultimate revelation of grace, mercy, and healing that come to us in Jesus Christ, we cannot miss that in every story of failure in the Old Testament, and in every place where God pleads with His people with stark and intense words, He is doing so with their full redemption and healing in mind.  
 
The God of the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus is all over the Old Testament, from the very first verse to the very last. Though he’s not mentioned by name as his physical birth as a human had not yet occurred, his presence and activity among God’s people as a member of the Trinity is unmistakable. 
 
This Sunday, let’s review everywhere we’ve been so far, and look forward to where we are going next. We’re getting to the best part, where God begins to reveal all the details of His end game—the life and ministry, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit into our hearts.  
 
Do a little advance reading before Sunday if you can: Genesis 2, Deuteronomy 6, and Ezekiel 36. I think these are the most important parts we’ve read thus far. And then let’s dig into what’s next!! 
 
Can’t wait to see you Sunday, 10:00 a.m. sharp… Don’t be late… bring your your Bible and a pen!! 
 
Much love to you all…  
 
Chris Eads 
Mt. Hope Pastor 
Friend 
[email protected] ​