The 3rd week of this year’s Advent messages looks at the gift of Joy. It cannot be complete without pain, it will completely persevere and will be complete with prayer. (John 16:19-24)
To encourage and equip people to love God, love our neighbors, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
To encourage and equip people to love God, love our neighbors, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Sermons on Advent
The 2nd week in this year’s Advent Messages we look at the gift of Love and how transformative love requires knowing god personally, is counter-cultural, unites the Body of Christ and changes the World.
Week 1 of this year’s Advent Messages looks at our Living Hope who gives us confidence, calls us to persevere with a purpose and come from God’s power.
This particular sermon, as is true of the others in this Christmas series, will be Christ-centered, but with a bit of a twist. The “Magi” or “wise men” as some translations render it, will take the stage so to speak and will focus specifically on what they say and do and then consider what that means regarding the baby before them.
Many debate whether we ought to say “Happy Holiday” or “Merry Christmas”, but such a debate misses what is most critical – to know and trust the Christ of Christmas. Matthew helps us know more about Christ and helps us see how we can trust Christ.
As is well known to most, this passage is the genealogy portion of Matthew. But it is more, much more, than just “so and so begat so and so …” Within this rich portion of scripture much is revealed regarding who this child really is and what He is able to do!
Isaiah is quoted quite a bit in the Gospel of Matthew. So, it makes sense to go to this Old Testament prophet first if we are going to spend the bulk of the Advent Season in Matthew. Here in Isaiah 7:13-14 is an old, very, very old pregnancy announcement. Specifically, a pregnancy annoucement of a baby boy who will be King. But Isaiah’s words do more than simply announce the birth of King Jesus.
God is the both the SOURCE of joy and the GIVER of joy. While circumstances may IMPACT your joy, they need not STEAL your joy.
Jesus’ Love is…Humble, Sacrificial, Unconditional
We often try to find peace through our circumstances, but peace only comes as a gift from the Lord of peace and then we carry his peace into our circumstances. Whether it is relational peace or emotional peace that we need, they both flow from first having peace with God and then trusting him to be who he is and to do what he needs to do to experience his peace at all times and in all ways.