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.

All through Scripture we see comparisons between two people that represent two different paths in life.  Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, David and Saul—and Bible history culminates in Christ and Antichrist. Two men, two ways, two destinies. Our text this Sunday, Psalm 1, depicts this contrast in great detail, but with nameless personalities. In Scripture, when a nameless personality is used it means the morals of the writing are to be applied in the reader’s life. The Psalm concludes by naming these two paths: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. The most important question for anyone to answer in life is, “Which way am I following?” Join me this Sunday as we consider the life of blessing that God provides for those who follow His way. 

Sunday we will conclude John 17, Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. In the closing verses of this prayer Jesus prays for all who will ever believe in Him throughout the existence of the church: Jesus Prays for You! I hope you will approach this passage with a healthy sense of curiosity to see what in fact Jesus is praying for you. What Jesus prays is ultimately what we all need to be praying for ourselves as well as other believers.

Generally, the prayers we offer for ourselves revolve around things in this material world. First and foremost, would be our health, followed closely by our perceived needs from the material world for our comfort. Not that there’s anything wrong praying about those things, (I pray about them myself), but they are not the highest level of prayers Jesus would have us offer. I say that because those are not the things Jesus prays for us. Jesus prays that we as Christians would live together in complete unity. From our text we will see the necessity for Christians to commit to growing together, through the good and the bad, that will result in the unity of the church. It is no great revelation that the church throughout the last 2000 years has not done a very good job of staying unified. That however does not give us an excuse to stop striving for the unity Jesus is praying for. Have there been people in the church you have found hard to love? Hard to serve with? Difficult to share fellowship with? We all do. Have you ever thought that God has put those “difficult” people in your life to help you grow? As we learn how God wants us to have relationships, the end result is a unity the world can’t understand but finds irresistible and is drawn to. Join me this Sunday as we hear Jesus’ prayer for us.

I realize that the entire Bible is the Word of God and that one of Christ’s names is “The Word”, describing the fact that he is the embodiment of God’s full revelation. But sometimes don’t you just wonder what Jesus thinks of you and how he prays for you? I do. In John 17, Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer is the answer to those questions. This Sunday we will see what Jesus prays for the Church as a whole and then next Sunday we will conclude Chapter 17 be seeing what Jesus prays for us individually.

What does Jesus pray for the Church? This prayer is offered just hours before Jesus would be arrested and face an unjust trial, followed by being cruelly tortured, then crucified. Jesus knows His time on earth with the disciples is drawing to a quick close and He is concerned about how they will continue in the mission of the Father without Him. In verses 6-19, Jesus beautifully articulates what He thinks of you (and you’re going to feel so good from knowing what He thinks), and what He asks the Father to do through His Church (and you’re going to be so encouraged by what He is asking us to do.) I hope you will join me this Sunday as we look at what Jesus prays for the church.

While I love going to church every Sunday, I have to admit that I look forward to our One Church – One Service Sunday’s with a little more excitement. It is a blessing for me to see the entire congregation, together at the same service as we will this Sunday. This Sunday we will WORSHIP in song, we will PRAY, I will TEACH, we will celebrate COMMUNION and then after the service, stay for some FELLOWSHIP around light refreshments. These are the five activities of the early church in Acts 2, and we will practice all of them this Sunday . . . with our entire congregation.
Sunday I will preach from John 17:1-5 where Jesus begins His High Priestly Prayer by praying first for His relationship with the Father to be glorified. Think about that word “glory” for a minute or two. What do you think of when you think of something that has glory? The Olympics are an opportunity for athletes to reach for glory in their sport. In a month we will have an election where the winner will be given the glorious position of being President of the United States. If you have been to a wedding recently the bride is dressed in such a way to bring glory to her personhood and appearance. What is the glory of God? The beauty of creation reveals the glory of God. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the Angels spoke about the glory of the baby Jesus. As glorious as both of those are, they are not the ultimate glory of God. The ultimate glory of God comes through the events of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. From a human perspective there is nothing glorious about crucifixion, yet that is where the glory of God is its greatest. Why? There is glory in the cross because it is only through the redemptive sacrifice of Christ that mankind can be given eternal life and a relationship with a holy God. In this prayer Jesus points out that the Father has “sent” Him for this purpose: to glorify the father through the redemption of mankind. And that purpose is passed onto the church today. As a church that seeks to know and fulfill the purpose of God, we must be reminded that our purpose is to share that glorious message with the world around us – that life, and life eternal are only found in Jesus Christ.
We are One Church – One Purpose.

Have you ever seen the movie or the play “The Music Man?” In that story a quiet and peaceful little town has a visit from a stranger who at first seems very friendly and nice, but brings something to the little town it had never had before: the game of pool. And with pool came gambling, and with gambling came that dreaded “T” word, trouble. The story is told as a musical and the signature line of the theme song goes like this,
“You got trouble, folks, right here in River City, trouble with a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands for pool.”
The music man brought trouble to River City, and it was never the same. Our text this Sunday shows us that there is not only trouble in River City, there is trouble in this world. The passage context is the night before the crucifixion and that would bring a whole new level of trouble for the disciples. In the backdrop of that impending trouble, Jesus promises that trouble will be turned to joy. And we know that was true for the disciples. The passion of Christ was full of trouble, but just a few days later it all turned to incredible, indescribable joy because of the resurrection. As long as we live in this world we will have trouble, but that trouble is the catalyst that brings people to the cross of Jesus where that trouble can be turned into great joy.
Do you have trouble in your life? You are not alone. Join me this Sunday as we examine how Jesus brings peace over trouble.

Out of sight – out of mind. Have you ever been guilty of that? I know I have. It is easy to stay focused on the things we experience with our senses of sight, touch, smell, sound and taste. The things beyond the natural senses are a little more difficult to focus on. I think that is what often happens with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Because we can’t see the Holy Spirit, and He is the third person of the Trinity, we tend not to think about the Holy Spirit to the same level we do the Father and the Son.
In our text this week Jesus tells us the vital role of the Holy Spirit in the time following His death, resurrection and ascension . . . the time we now are living in. Jesus goes on to say that it is actually a good thing that He (Jesus) was leaving because His departure would be the catalyst to send the Holy Spirit from heaven. Jesus thought the work of the Holy Spirit was so important for us that He said His own death and departure was good because it would bring the benefit of the Holy Spirit to you and me. Unfortunately for most Christians, the Holy Spirit remains out of our minds because He is out of our sight. Join me this Sunday as we consider the dynamic and powerful work of the Holy Spirit in our world today.