This Sunday is the start of Advent, and we begin a new Advent series: The Heart of Christmas. There is no question that the meaning of Christmas has shifted since that first Christmas night in Bethlehem when the Christ child was born. While the holiday still bears the name of Christ in its title, I’m afraid for many people Christ is not even really thought of in their celebrations. This year I invite you to come back to the Heart of Christmas, Jesus Christ.

Christmas is a season of HOPE! 

• Children are filled with the hope of receiving some gifts they have asked for in the weeks leading up to the big day.
• This week you will watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade which highlights the hope we have in the celebration of Christ’s Birth.
• The whole thing with Santa Clause is dripping with hope. The naughty vs the nice list. People reason –  I hope I’m on the nice list! I hope Santa will come! I hope Santa will give me what I want!
• Christmas occurs at a time of year when everything in the plant world is dying. We bring evergreen trees and wreaths into our homes to give us hope for life in the midst of all the death.
• This is the darkest time of the year so as part of our Christmas celebration we hang lights to give us hope of the one who is the light of the world. 

This Sunday we will look at Joseph, the husband of Mary, and see the Hope is at The Heart of Christmas. Joseph had reason to lose his hope, but an angelical visitor helped him find hope and with it, the heart of Christmas. Join me Sunday for the first week of Advent and see the hope that is at the heart of Christmas!  

Next week our nation pauses to celebrate Thanksgiving. The origins of the Thanksgiving holiday are well known to most of us: The early European settlers to our land took a day to recognize God’s faithful provision during the very difficult first few years in the new world. I think the focus of Thanksgiving is often on God’s provision of the bounty from his creation. The food we eat. The homes we have. And now in our time we celebrate the comforts we enjoy. I hope you enjoy your thanksgiving celebration next week.
It’s important as Christians to recognize the origins of thanksgiving going back much farther than 400 some years ago, with a different object for thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a uniquely Judeo – Christian value that we see expressed in the very earliest chapters of the Bible. Our text this Sunday is Psalm 103 where David admonishes us to “Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” David warns us to not forget the benefits God had afforded those who surrender to Him as LORD and redeemer. Following that statement in verse 2 are 5 participles that the Psalmist uses to describe what those benefits are. The interesting thing is none of them pertain to the material, created world. Instead, they all have to do with the deep spiritual needs of mankind and God’s loving provision for those needs. If we only pause on Thanksgiving Day to remember the tangible, we will miss the greatest benefits God has bestowed upon us. Join me this Sunday as we all get our memories jogged with David’s admonishment to Forget Not Thanksgiving!

Some days we feel like it’s us against the world. That is a bad feeling and a desperate place to be. David, the human author of Psalm 3, most certainly felt that way. The context of Psalm 3 is 2 Samuel 15-19 when his own son Absalom led a coup against David for the throne of Israel. In this lament psalm David’s foes included his own son Absalom, former military confidants as well as people he had deliberately showed kindness to that he didn’t have to. David felt as though the world was against him! What did he do? David did what any God fearing person should do; he cried out to God.
From David’s experience as described in Psalm 3 we find valuable steps we can take when under attack from the world around us. David began this Psalm with the question of why God was not acting to deliver him from these foes. The Psalm ends with an acknowledgement of the LORD”S deliverance and the blessing that accompanies that deliverance. The Psalms tend to meet us in real life situations and show us how we can trust God to guide and protect us through the trials of life. Join me this Sunday as we find deliverance when the world is against us.

This Sunday our text is Psalm 2 which starts with a question: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” Considering this Psalm was written over 2500 years ago, it is amazingly on point for the world we live in today. After World War II the nations of the world came together to form the United Nations in the hope that it would result in an unparalleled time of peace. It was a noble idea but you don’t have to be a political science major to see that the world is not experiencing unparalleled peace. The nations of the world are raging and vainly plotting as much as ever. We don’t have to look beyond our own borders, including our most recent election, to see that our nation has its own share of turmoil when it comes to understanding how we should govern ourselves.
Psalm 2 pulls the curtain back on a heavenly view of the nations of the world. While human government is needed for human flourishing, human government will always fall short of meeting the needs of mankind. We would all likely agree that democracy is the best form of human governance, but it still has its shortcomings. Our Founding Fathers were very concerned that the future of our republic would be governed as guided by the principles found in Holy Scripture. Why did they hold that conviction? Because they understood that the only form of government to completely meet the needs of humanity is under the Kingship of Christ. While the world has many kings and rulers, there is only One True King, and He graciously invites all to come under the care and provision of His eternal kingdom. Regardless of how you feel about the election last week, we all would be wise to place ourselves under the kingship of Jesus and look not to the government to meet our needs, but look to the One True King to meet every need of our lives for time and eternity. Join us this Sunday for a timely message on kings and the One True King.