You know it’s Christmas by all the lights. Lights on trees, in windows, hanging like icicles on rooftops, lights shining everywhere! It’s ironic that at the darkest time of the year, during the time of the winter solstice when our nights are the longest and our days are the shortest, that we celebrate the season with lights! But Christmas lights are not about lighting up the dark nights of winter, but about pointing to the true light, the Great Light, Jesus Christ.
December 20, 2020 |
Luke 2:1-20 |
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Like Charlie Brown, when we make Christmas about something other than the coming of Christ, we’ll always be disappointed. If we make it about spending money and giving and receiving gifts, sure we might be happy for a day. But the bill for the gifts we put on our credit cards in December, come due in January. After the gifts, the food and the fun, there’s the cleanup and the packing away of Christmas decorations and lights. Our holiday festivities that we looked so forward to, always quickly come to end. Where’s the meaning? Where’s the joy that lasts for more than a day?
The answer is only found in understanding the true meaning of Christmas, by seeing the Genuine Light of Christmas found in the coming of Jesus Christ.
December 13, 2020 |
John 1:1-18 |
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Do you ever feel alone? Christmas is just around the corner, and for many people that means family, fun, and a few days spent in the company of the people we love. Except that, for some of us, Christmas time represents none of these things. For some, it will be a time of loneliness, trauma and great anguish. Many of us will spend this Christmas grieving for the people we’ve said goodbye to since last year. The parents we’ve lost. The friends. The children. Others may be reminded of insurmountable fractures in their familial relationships – the people we no longer speak to, the parties we can no longer in good conscience attend.
How can we experience the true light of Christmas this year? A light that overcomes our broken hearts and broken relationships? The apostle John tells us that Jesus came to light up our lives, so that we might know and be made right with God the Father. Jesus offers to be the Light of your life!
December 6, 2020 |
Isaiah 9:1-2,6-7 |
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Understanding the true meaning of Christmas begins by understanding and admitting the darkness of our world. Not the darkness of winter’s short days, but the darkness of ignorance and evil, suffering and pain, fear and anxiety, dark despair and gloomy grief. These and more describe what the Bible means by “darkness.”
It’s not enough to recognize the darkness in our world, nor is it enough to think you can brighten it through your own good intentions and efforts. In fact, this is the very reality that the Light of Christmas reveals: That we not only live in a dark world, but we have a darkness in our souls that cannot be enlightened without a Light from outside ourselves, a Great Light that could overcome our soul’s darkness. In Isaiah 9, he encouraged the people of Israel with a Messianic prophecy of a Son who was to be born as a great light that would overcome the world’s darkness. We can believe that the great Light that overcomes the world’s darkness has come in the person of Jesus.
November 22, 2020 |
2 Corinthians 5:14-21 |
rise up
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Over the last three weeks, we’ve talked about the first two qualities of disciple-making. This week, we will focus on the third quality, Heart for Our World.
The gospel always goes against our excuses and our temptations. What’s the antidote for the sinful, “curved inward” bent of our souls? The gospel of Christ offers the antidote. And it bids us to turn our hearts outward towards God, each other and our world. In the book of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul challenged believers to answer Christ’s call to have a heart for their world. We can answer Christ’s call to have a heart for our world.
November 15, 2020 |
Colossians 3:9-16 |
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This week, we will focus on the second quality, Heart for Each Other. We live in a time when it is easier to stay in touch, but people are starving for a in-person touch.
What’s the solution to our increasing loneliness and social isolation? A loving relationship with Jesus and through Him a loving relationship with one another. Jesus invites us to follow Him and belong to His family. In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he reminded them that as Christ-followers they were to show a heart for each other. As followers of Christ, we are to show a heart for each other.
November 8, 2020 |
Psalm 96:1-9 |
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We are called to make disciples of Jesus. What should those disciples look like? The first and most important thing is they should have a growing Heart for God.
In Psalm 96, David taught the Israelites how to worship with a true heart for God. We can worship with a true heart for God.
November 1, 2020 |
Matthew 22:37-40 |
rise up
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Whenever God wants to get a work done, He lays hold of a people who are willing to rise up. In the Old Testament, it was Nehemiah and those returning from Babylonian exile who answered the call of God to Rise Up. Today, God is calling us! In Matthew 28:19, Jesus called us to make disciples. But what should they look like?
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. We believe that’s the kind of disciples He wants us to make–– disciples of Jesus who have a heart for God, for each other, and for our world.
Do you believe in the importance of prayer, yet you often feel that your prayer life is missing something? You’re not alone. Many believers today admit that they’re not satisfied with their prayer life.
What are “safe” prayers? They’re the kind of prayers that sound like a laundry list of needs without any mention of what God is doing or wants to do in your life or in this world. They are prayers that sound rote and practiced, rather than fresh and passionate. They’re boring prayers, to us, and probably, to God too. But what if we began to pray “dangerous prayers?” Prayers that cry out to God for an answer? Prayers that are God-sized and God-willed? Prayers that stretch us outside of our comfort zone? If we were to begin praying “dangerous prayers” together as a church, who knows what would happen!
October 25, 2020 |
John 17:13-26 |
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This week, we’re going to learn to pray, “Lord, send me,” agreeing with the Lord’s prayer in John 17.
“Lead us” and “deliver us.” This closing part of the Lord’s Model Prayer is aimed at us. It requests both direction and protection. It closes with the purpose for which we live: His kingdom and His glory according to His power, Amen. It is that part of the Lord’s Model Prayer that sends us out into the world! In John 17, Jesus prayed that His disciples would be sent into the world just as the Father had sent Him into the world. We can pray in agreement with Christ’s prayer that we are sent just as He was sent.
October 18, 2020 |
Psalm 51:7-17 |
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This week, we’re going to learn to pray, “Lord, shape me.” Prayers where we ask God to examine our inner life to make sure we are in alignment with His will.
In Psalm 51, which David wrote after being confronted with his sin of adultery with Bathsheba, he prayed that God would forgive him of his sin and shape him for His glory. We can pray that God would shape us for His glory.
October 11, 2020 |
Psalm 139:23-24 |
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This week, we’re going to learn to pray, “Lord, search me.” Prayers where we ask God to examine our inner life to make sure we are in alignment with His will.
In Psalm 139, David prayed that God would search him so that he might bring his life into alignment with God’s will. We can pray for God to search us that we might align our lives to His will.
