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The Cosmic Do-Over Button

Fall and Creation
By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
July 20, 2014
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, TX

Romans 8:12-25

“Western Christians have imagined that, at the end of the day, God is going to throw the present space-time universe into a trashcan and we’ll be sitting on clouds playing harps. The ultimate future that we’re promised is much more interesting than that. It’s new heavens and a new Earth with new bodies to live in.”N. T. Wright

I’m a year out from the 30th anniversary of my ordination in 1985. Don’t worry, I’m not fishing for another party like the one you threw me for my 10th anniversary. Frankly, the 30th anniversary of my ordination only reminds me of how old I am. But I do often have a fantasy. I sometimes wish I could go back to those first early years of my ministry, when I was a solo pastor of a small but wonderful little inner city church in Virginia, and start over again, but with all the knowledge that I’ve garnered from the past twenty-nine years. There were many good things about my years there, but many things that didn’t go so well either because of my personal shortcomings or because I simply didn’t know enough. That church in 1985 would benefit so much from what I know today in 2014 about pastoral care, preaching, worship leadership, community engagement, and social justice.Read More »The Cosmic Do-Over Button

The Virtues: Hope

The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, a powerful image of suffering prayer.
The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, a powerful image of suffering prayer.

To Listen to this Sermon, click here -> http://sermon.net/ststphnfw/sermonid/1200090941

Romans 8: 18-25

The difference between hope and faith is not always clear. It comes down to this: Hope is in the future, faith is in the here and now. Hope is what we long for, what we pursue, what we dream of, but don’t have yet. As Paul says in Romans, “Hope that is seen is not hope.” Faith, on the other hand, is how we make hope visible in the here and now; it is how we put that hope into action. As Hebrews says, “Faith is the substance of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things unseen.” Faith makes our hope concrete in our lives. But our hope is the thing we’re really after. The Olympic athlete longs for the gold medal; when that hope pushes her to train harder and better, it has turned into faith.Read More »The Virtues: Hope