2019 Pledge and Giving Commitment Form

2019 Stewardship Commitment Worksheet

        

       Resurrection Anglican Fellowship

      P O Box 2127    Centennial, CO

   REZANGLICAN@AOL.COM

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(Note: If you desire to give anonymously, please leave the top part blank 

and mail to the above box number or return this portion in the offering plate by DEC 9)

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Check all that apply;
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        (  ) One time gift
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        (  ) Friend of REZ on Facebook
        (  ) I/We receive the weekly CC email or
        (  ) I/We would like to receive it.

My / Our giving commitment ;

        (  ) Annual          $____________________

        (  ) Quarterly      $____________________   X 4

        (  ) Monthly        $ ___________________    X 12

        (  ) Bi-monthly     $___________________   X 24

        (  ) Weekly          $ ___________________  X 52

        (  ) Special          $ ___________________

                                                     Total Giving Commitment  $_______________

(  ) I am interested in talking about giving non-liquid assets to REZ.  (Car, business interests or stocks/bonds/insurance assets) (This may be accomplished by setting up a donor-advised fund through the National Christian Foundation and can have huge tax benefits. Ask Fr. Phil for info or to set up a consultation appointment)

(  ) I would like to give through my bank, bank card or other fund transfer methods.

We encourage you to set up a regular transfer through your bank's automatic payment system.  We can help you get it set up.

Please call with questions
Fr. Phil 720-219-0055.

God will bless you as you give.

Fr. Phil Eberhart+

ADVENT 1 - So What's the Point?

ADVENT I

DEC 2, 2018

FR. PHIL EBERHART

Zech 14:(1-2)3-9

Ps 50:1-6

1 Thess 3:6-13

Luke 21:25-33

Welcome to Advent!   Happy New Year, Church Year that is!

I have preached a multitude of Advent 1 sermons and each time I am amazed at the readings and their immediacy and relevance for our day.  Sometimes its like reading the morning paper!  There are things that sound familiar to us - even more familiar now - perhaps than ever before.

It's true that every age - every generation - has had its visions of Christ coming in the clouds, because of some of the circumstances which they are enduring, whether hardship and persecution, extreme weather, earthquakes, amazing things happening in the skies above ...  whatever.  All of these things are present in our news too.  Earthquakes, tsunamis, nations in distress, people groups rising up against one another, ethnic strife and hatred on the rise - we can name a few right from our morning papers!

So whats the point - the point of ADVENT?

As we study the Word of God I think it is paramount that we remember what was said in our Gospel reading this morning from Luke - the last line of our reading.

Heaven and earth SHALL (say SHALL) pass away...

You know how important I say some words are?  Like Therefore!.  Well ... SHALL is one of those words too.

Every one say the verse together --

Heaven and earth shall pass away, BUT My Words shall not pass away!

OK, guess what "shall" means?!!

YEP...    SHALL!

It's going to happen!  NO doubt.  

God is going to remake the heavens and the earth!  It's here in the Book!  And what does it say SHALL NOT pass away?  My Words.

The Word of God is enduring - it alone is the creative force!  God said, ... and BANG!  IT WAS!  

I read it in the first chapter!  And now, here we are almost at the last chapter, nearly at the last page, and the Word of God is the thing that will remain!

Where should we put our trust?

Where should we draw our life from?

Where can we find Solid Ground to stand on?

One of the men yesterday at Mens' Group, commented that the point of Advent and of our readings this morning and throughout the 4 Sundays of Advent are Get Ready!  Be prepared.

Next week we go further into what that preparation looks like - our collect is the Word of God Collect - one of our favorites here - HOLDUP YOU HAND-  small finger up: Hear! Next finger: READ!  Next:  MARK!  First finger: LEARN!! and finally the thumb, INWARDLY DIGEST.

Friends, this is the stuff that SHALL NOT pass away, and here we find a sure foundation, a rock that will stand the storms of life, even at the end of days!

And as we "see the day approaching" it behooves us to avail ourselves "more and more" to this WORD and what it gives us!  PREPARATION - READINESS - FAITH - A SWORD IN OUR HAND -

Sounds like another list we are pretty familiar with, right?  Ephesians 6:10 and following?

1.  TRUTH AS A BELT

2.  RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A BREASTPLATE

3.  PREPAREDNESS OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE

4.  FAITH AS A SHIELD

5.  SALVATION AS A HELMET

6.  WORD OF GOD AS A SWORD

7.  PRAYER IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

So this is what Paul calls the WHOLE ARMOR of God.

I've made these words live links in my sermon text that you can find on my blog site:  rezpadre.blogspot.com

Take some time each day and click on just one and go through the meanings and the concordance references for each one:  Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Faith, Salvation, Word and Prayer

All of these are intrinsically bound up with the living and enduring Word of God - and they are the way that you prepare  -  you "dress yourself for battle" in this way!

Is there anyone here that thinks we're really NOT in a battle?  

I want to tell you that your worldview matters!  What you believe to be reality matters!  Is there a heaven and a hell?  Moreover, is there even a GOD?

We live in a day that questions those realities more and more - there is and will be more and more push back - even to the point of persecution ... yes, right here in River City!  It's going on now, as we speak.

Get ready.  Get your mind and your heart, your finances and your household, ready.  We pray, "Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus" -- but I believe we are in this for the haul.  It's what one writer called "a long obedience in the same direction!"

If we're ready now, we will be ready whether there is a "rapture" - a catching away as some believe, OR whether we are to stand in the midst of the storm on the ROCK of obedience to Christ Jesus and His Word.  However God wants to do it, we will be ready.

And THAT is the point of ADVENT.

Let's pray together:

Pray with me the very appropriate collect for today again:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  

Having Confident Faith

Pentecost 26

Nov 18, 2018

Fr. Phil Eberhart

Daniel 12:1-3Psalm 16 Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25Mark 13:1-8

"We are not among those who shrink back"

HAVING CONFIDENT FAITH

Have you ever wanted to just quit?   I don't know...  a sports team ...  a cooking class ... driver's ed ? !!

The remedial class you were in after you got your ticket?  

Or something more important than that?

Those who the writer of the Hebrews Letter was writing to were in that spot.  The Jewish Church based in Jerusalem had been under-the-gun for a long time.  This was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, as had it been written later, that would have been the headline!  But we think it was close to that date and tensions, and persecutions were high.  The believers of Jewish origin needed some encouragement and sometimes a kick-in-the-pants to move on - to go 'higher up and deeper in.'  To not just quit the whole thing because it had gotten hard.

I think Jesus himself was fairly clear that this journey was not going to be a "walk in the park"  - his invitation wasn't to a 'rose garden.'  His invitation was, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, an invitation to "come and die!"

oooooo, sign me up!

This morning I want to look at our passage in its context from the mid 10th chapter to the early 12th chapter, some very familiar pieces of scripture containing the "let us" verses I referred to some weeks ago, to the Hall of Faith and the opening verses of Heb 12 that we are so familiar with.

Open your bible if you have it, or your Bible App to Heb 10.

So the whole of Hebrews is moving toward this pinnacle in Hebrews 12:1-2, and chapter 10 is a major part of the ascent, kind of the last sheer face to conquer in the climb.   Throughout the letter, the writer has been taking the forms and rituals of the OT Law and the sacrificial system of the old way, and making comparison to the new way being offered by Christ Jesus - the new way that these Jewish Christians have already been initiated into through baptism, many probably on the day of Pentecost!

The old way of righteousness was through yearly sacrifice of "bulls and goats."  But it is apparent, because there was now a system (what Jesus came in to literally "overturn") that these sacrifices had no lasting effect - they had to be offered over and over and over, year by year by year.  But NOW, 10:9-10

9 And then he said, “God, I will be the One to go and do your will.” So by being the sacrifice that removes sin, he abolishes animal sacrifices[d] and replaces that entire system with the new covenant.[e]10 By God’s will we have been purified and made holy once and for all[f]through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah!  

And so we continue to follow the "therefore's"... and the "let us's"

10:19 begins this section of conclusions, I've spoken recently about  "The Bowl of Let Us"

Let us...

DRAW NEAR WITH SINCERE HEARTS

HOLD FAST OUR CONFESSION OF FAITH

CONSIDER HOW TO ENCOURAGE AND SPUR ONE ANOTHER ON

One more "therefore"...

don’t lose your bold, courageous faith, for you are destined for a great reward!   

[Heb 10:35 NASB] 35 Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 

As Oak would say, "There it is!"...  What the writer has been pointing us to the whole time!

And we have to ask ourselves the question, "where am I in this picture?"

Am I among those who may potentially lose my faith?

Do I need to heed the word of this letter?   Lord, are you talkin' to me?  ... You talkin' to me?

Yep, I think He is!  To you and to me and to all of us.

As we read this passage yesterday in the Men's group I was struck by some of the similarities and by what may be ahead of us for the church.  We have all felt some of the sting of our culture's bitterness toward Christianity, or maybe its toward "Church-ianity."  Even so, those who name the Name of Jesus are increasingly scorned and excluded in our culture.  We have not gotten to the point of shedding blood or death yet ... YET.

But the point of these passages are "Better get ready."  These are the promises of Scripture that we never quote!  In the west we largely have never had anything like this experience - not even a whiff of suffering, exclusion, or persecution.  But its coming, I think.

How can we be excluded from what almost the whole rest of Christendom is experiencing around the world?

How did our writer put it?

32 Don’t you remember those days right after the Light shined in your hearts?[s] You endured a great marathon season of suffering hardships, yet you stood your ground. 33 And at times you were publicly and shamefully mis-treated, being persecuted for your faith;[t] then at others times you stood side by side with those who preach the message of hope.[u]

34 You sympathized with those in prison[v] and when all your belongings were confiscated you accepted that violation with joy; convinced that you possess a treasure growing in heaven[w] that could never be taken from you. 35 So don’t lose your bold, courageous faith, for you are destined for a great reward![x]

Friends,

The whole point of the Hebrew letter and the whole point of this morning's sermon is that last line!

The line that comes immediately after it, after the chapter division is the very definition of faith.

Faith is... the substance - the confident assurance - of the things we hope for  AND

the evidence - the fingerprints we can see of the God that is - NOT SEEN.

THAT is the reason that the letter was written and the sermon was preached.

So What?

HEB 12:1-2

Therefore!!!!

Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnessess (martys) let us run the race that is set before us with confident endurance, laying aside that which so easily grows up around our feet and legs and hinders us! And FIXING OUR EYES ON JESUS, the Author and the Finisher - the starting blocks and the finish line - of our faith.  

Keep on keeping on.  The world we see is not the end product!  We and it are 'In Process!"  So keep on keeping on, no matter what comes our way.  Keep the faith. Run the race to win.

let's pray...

O God, you sent your only Son Jesus to make a way for us to come back into right relationship with you.  Help is in our weakness and fear, in our doubts and second-thoughts.  Stir up our hearts and wills, indeed.  Give us your grace, Father, to run and to win our race of endurance in faith.  To the very end.

This we pray in Jesus Name and for His sake,

Amen.

Running Our Race before a Great Cloud of Witnesses!

All Saints Sunday

Election Sunday

Nov 4, 2018

Fr. Phil Eberhart

Running Our Race before a Great Cloud of Witnesses

Rev 7:9-17

Ps 149

Eph 1:(11-14)15-23

Matt 5:1-12

Welcome to our first anniversary out of the funeral home business!  Some here don't even have that much history for our congregation!  Praise God !!   That means that we have several new faces among us!!  Praise God!

A year ago this Sunday we moved into "Prepare the Way" which was "on our way" to this place!  Friends, I cannot say enough how much God has been present and in charge of this process!!  There is a report coming out of just the things that God has done - what He's helped us to accomplish in the past month or so and what is coming between now and Thanksgiving.  Don't miss that Good News!!

Watch for that update on Thursday evening in our churchwide email.  I hope that many of you open and read the work that Deacon Ethel and Barbara Parvin do on that Constant Contact.  I think it is extraordinary!

I want to draw your attention to a scripture this morning that is NOT in our readings but speaks to this All Saints morning and to the work ahead of us this week.

It's the passage we know well from Hebrews 12:1-2

[Heb 12:1-2 NASB] 1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Can you feel the surrounding Cloud of Witnesses around us?  Saints and Angels -  The writer of Hebrews in the same chapter- describes them in detail: 

[Heb 12:22-25 NASB] 

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of [the] righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than [the blood] of Abel. 25 See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned [them] on earth, much less [will] we [escape] who turn away from Him who [warns] from heaven.

We are poised on this weekend, because of All Saints, last Thursday, between time and eternity in our celebration this morning.  Our scriptures this morning are all pointed to the reality of the eternal reality which is the home of the saints.

HEAVEN!  Is this something that you believe in?  Some in our society no longer believe in an "after life," you know. They seem to think that we are just imposing rules on life because we want to!  They believe that morality is the left over of a by-gone age, left in the dust as we move from one level to another of higher consciousness.

But are we actually getting better and better as we mature in our culture or do we bear a kind of fruit that tells us we need to repent!

I think the latter is actually truer of us than not.

We in the church are called by Jesus to be - to act -

   in our culture as "salt"  and  "Light."  

Salt and Light both have a restraining effect!  The effect of salt on a piece of meat is to arrest the processes of decay!  To keep the meat from spoiling!!

The effect of Light is that of illumination - it is the positive side of the equation -  It always dispells the darkness.  Does the culture seem darker these days?  It's not because of the darkness-  The very nature of darkness is passive, because it is definable as "an absence of light!"  The darkness is not the problem, the darkness is just being dark!  The problem is with the LIGHT - ouch!  That's us.

And friends we are faced with a perfect example and an opportunity this very week. An opportunity to BE THE LIGHT!  Whatever your party or political affiliation or non-affiliation, we have the opportunity to VOTE.

YOUR VOTE IS THE MOST CRUCIAL PART OF YOUR CITIZENSHIP IN THESE UNITED STATES.

As someone who is a "light bearer", your vote is a direct manifestation of that light in our culture!!  That means that you must know what you believe and be informed of the issues and candidates.  That is why we have voter's guides in the entry way and why we urge you to vote the values you have as a "bearer of the light!"

As I said earlier,  What we do this Tuesday, friends, will bear ramifications in our culture for at least a decade, maybe more! Perhaps an entire generation!  It is vital that we all get out and vote.  How many of you have already voted?  (show of hands)!!  Great... that is great.  I pray that for the sake of our country you will simply get out and vote if you have not already.

I've said to many who are trying to excuse themselves that this on is "FOR ALL THE MARBLES!"  WHICHEVER WAY YOU VOTE!  It is the most important act of citizenship you have engaged in, probably in your lifetime!  

Let me repeat that,  This Tuesday's vote is likely the most significant act of citizenship that you have engaged in --- in your lifetime!

So let us "run the race" friends.  Filled with faith and being faithful to our Lord and to HIS Word!   It's time for us to PRAY and then VOTE and then PRAY some more.

I invite you to join me and other friends as we lead for an hour this Tuesday on a National Prayer Call from 9 to 10 a.m.  You can join the call anytime from 6 am to 9 pm Mountain Time this Tuesday.

The number and the list of leaders is in our Thursday email - and once again, I will be part of the leadership from 9 to 10 am on Tuesday if you would like to join us to pray for the outcomes on Tuesday.

And so I invite you to join as we pray this morning for our selves, for our nation, for the elections. 

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be served but to serve: Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his Name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy;  for the love of him who laid down his life for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  

Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage: 

      We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will.  Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth.
      In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.