REV. Zachery Sarrault, Associate PASTOR
Pastor’s Corner for May 5-11, 2024
Overcome!
(1 John 5:1-8)
Confirmation Sunday is this weekend! It is a great celebration for our 12 students and their families as they are continually drawn closer to God through their immersion in God’s Word over the past two years. They have spent time learning the Bible stories and Luther’s Catechism, seeing the ways God has worked in and with His people in the past and their own lives still today. They have learned that their God never changes and always has one goal, to forgive sinners. In that forgiveness there is eternal life, living in God’s presence with no end in sight!
Because there is no end in sight, Confirmation is not the end but just another beginning. It is another season of equipping, a continuation of what God started in their baptisms. It is part of the overcoming that we are all brought into. Pull out your Bible really quick and read 1 John 5:4-5. This will be read over our Confirmands on Sunday, and it is the work of God that is true for them and all of God’s people!
It is utterly amazing that God has guaranteed us victory at this very moment, even when we don’t feel that victorious. These students know the troubles of the world. You and I know them, and these students will get to know these troubles more and more intimately as they keep growing up. They can be overwhelming to the point of despair and desperation. We can feel beaten down, alone, hated, and afraid. It is a scary world that we live in, and the devil is good at his job. All he wants is to pull us away from God, make us think that we really are on our own and that God has left us. But that is not true!
What John reminds us of is the incredible work of God for us. John tells us that we have overcome the world because we have been born into God’s family. We have overcome the world because we have been given faith, anticipatory hope in what is to come. We have overcome the world because we believe in the One who has defeated death itself, the One who is risen from the dead, the One who has conquered all!
This overcoming is something that is already ours. No matter what we face in this world, we have already won because God has already won. This is a guarantee, a fact, a reality, the truth. There is nothing more solid in our lives or the lives of these students than Christ’s victory and the reality of God’s presence with us always, causing us to be overcomers in everything we do.
So, join me in prayer today and in the days to come. Pray for these Confirmands, that they may always hold tightly to the Right Hand of God that grips them fast. That they may be confident in their overcoming the world by God’s power alone. That they may continue in their journey in faith where there is no end in sight!
Your overcoming brother in Christ,
Pastor Zach Sarrault
Ordination and Installation of Pastor Zachery Sarrault (July 18, 2021):
Sunday was a great day at RLC! We celebrated the Ordination and Installation of our new Associate Pastor Zachery Sarrault. It was a beautiful service with a heartfelt sermon by his father, Pastor Joel Sarrault. Congratulations and welcome, Pastor Zach! Thank you to all who participated in this special day.
Pastor Sarrault Ordination and Installation
Pastor Zachery Sarrault Ordination and Installation Bulletin
From Pastor Zach (July 16, 2021):
Hey Resurrection Family!
Kelsey and I are finally here! We have finished up at St. Louis, seen family in Michigan, and moved into our new home. After all of that traveling and living out of suitcases, we couldn’t be happier to finally be back to something comfortable. Comfort is always something nice to hold on to. All of us have something that makes us comfortable, whether it be a family member or friend, a good book or fishing pole, a quilting machine or a wood shed, we all have our go-to comfort places. This is part of being human! We love comfort!
The thing with comfort is that sometimes we get too comfortable. We can settle in and tell ourselves that we never wish to see any change. “Life would be perfect if I could just stay in my recliner with Tom Sawyer all day.” Or whatever your comfort may be. Sadly, we know that this isn’t how life works. No matter how much we enjoy our comforts, ‘real life’ happens and it disrupts those little joys. But, is it ‘real life’ or is it God, calling us into His mission to do more than just the comfortable?
Jesus never led a life of comfort. From the manger to the cross and even the empty tomb, Jesus’ life was one of challenge and the uncomfortable. When one of the scribes declared that he would follow Jesus, all Jesus had to say was, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20). Kind of an odd response, one that rightly scared away the scribe. Probably would have scared me too!
So, what does this mean for us? Are we supposed to throw away all of our earthly comforts and live lives of asceticism? Not at all! But we are called to know where these comforts come from and who our ultimate comfort is. In all things, comfort or challenge, our Lord and Savior stands before us, behind us, and beside us. As Jesus prepared His disciples for life after His death and resurrection, Jesus told His followers, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
There is our ultimate comfort! Not in our little hide-a-ways or indulgences, but in the One who has overcome all sin and who has promised us peace. Our comfort is in the faith that we have through Christ’s death and resurrection. Our comfort is in the kingdom of God that has already been given to us! That is a comfort that is never changing and never ending. No matter what God has in store the Sarraults in North Carolina, we know that the comfort of our Lord will always prevail!
In the comfortable and the uncomfortable, but always in Christ,
Pastor Zach Sarrault
From Pastor Jonathan (July 15, 2021):
There's a new face at Resurrection! Seminarian Zach Sarrault and wife Kelsey made it down to Cary last Monday, and soon-to-be "Pastor Zach" is already taking part in leadership team activities here at RLC. He will serve as Associate Pastor at Resurrection... meaning he will be working full-time in all aspects of ministry: preaching and teaching, visiting the homebound, discipling others, showing up at youth events, leading school and preschool chapel services, making friends in his neighborhood, evangelizing... and doing it all as one who is privileged to be an Under-Shepherd of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. We are very blessed to have him and Kelsey in our midst!
Though the Sarraults hail from Michigan they know a little bit about our area already since Zach served as Vicar at Hope Lutheran Church in Wake Forest from 2019 to 2020. At church you can find Pastor Zach in the Associate Pastor's office, next door to the main office on the left side. I look forward to working with Pastor Zach and seeing him welcomed as warmly by all of you as Juli and I were not so long ago! May God bless and further your ministry among us, Pastor!