I hope you have had a wonderful celebration of Christ’s Birth! Merry Christmas!

This week we are going to turn our attention to Matthew 2 and the account of the Magi’s visit to the Holy Family. There is a lot going on in this chapter, but I want to focus our attention on the concept of wisdom as it’s lived out in this passage. Wisdom is defined as “the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments.” In our text we will see one man, King Herod, makes a bad decision and judgment because he refused to accept the knowledge he had. Herod failed to apply wisdom to his knowledge and experience. However, the Magi from the east had the same knowledge as Herod, but acted with wisdom based on what they knew. The results were drastically different between Herod and the Magi – that’s why we call them “Wisemen.”
All of mankind faces a similar situation as Herod and the Magi. We are blessed to live in an age of knowledge unlike anything human history has known. Together with knowledge people can have experiences previous generations could not even imagine. As with the characters in Matthew 2, all knowledge is used through the filter or lens of an individual’s own biases and presuppositions. People can filter the knowledge of the universe through their own presupposition, a presupposition that often elevates man’s place in the universe and at the same time diminishes God’s. The outcome from Sunday’s passage is one of either worship of the one true king, or embracing a culture that leads to death. Will you follow the path of the Magi and become a wiseman (or wisewoman) by considering the natural revelation through the knowledge and experience of a supernatural God.

Sunday is Christmas Sunday! As we move through the themes of Advent, this week we focus on the love of God we receive at Advent. John 3:16 is the most well known verse in all scripture and there we read that “God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son.” The Advent of Christ must be viewed as a gift, motivated by the pure love of God for us.
At Christmas we give gifts to various people in our lives, from close family members to people we barely know. The gifts we enjoy giving the most are ones we give motivated out of love for the person we give the gift to. But even then we may feel anxiety wondering if it is a good gift that they will like and enjoy. Sunday we will see that the gift of love at Advent is the right gift at the right time, a gift money cannot buy and a gift that keeps on giving. Join me as we celebrate God’s great gift of love to us in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Sunday starts the second week of advent and we will focus our attention on the peace Christ brings to us. The word peace in the Hebrew Scriptures speaks of a person’s wholeness, completeness, unity and harmony. As defined this way, peace is an undeniable need in our society. It is as though there is a force at play which seeks to divide, fragment and disrupt our human existence. Can you relate? Do you feel torn and pulled in different directions? Is your life lacking harmony that leaves you feeling used and worn out? The Heart of Christmas Brings Peace.

This Sunday we will look into the Old Testament to see when peace was first lost for mankind, what were the effects of losing that peace and how Advent restores peace. Understanding the back story to the loss of our peace will frame for us the work of Christ in bringing peace to us. Have you ever wondered why it was the shepherds God first announced the Advent of Christ into the world? Shepherds were considered unclean and out of the fellowship of the spiritual elite of the day. They would have been the last people most would have thought for that kind of announcement to be made. But that is just the point of the gospel; the Advent of Christ is Good News for everyone, including those that are on the outskirts of society. Join me this Sunday as we see that The Heart of Christmas Brings Peace.

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.