God With Us
The great tragedy of the Bible is that sin broke the personal, intimate relationship we had with God and as a result, humans were cast out of the garden. But God didn’t give up on people. He chose a family—the people of Abraham—to re-establish this personal relationship with. He gave Abraham’s descendants a sacred tent in which His presence would live and dwell among them. Despite their continued rejection of Him, God never gave up on them. Through the prophet Isaiah, God promised He would send a boy who would be God among the people. Christmas culminates with the truth that God has come to us. Listen in as we look into how this came to be and answer the question: how does God’s presence live with us today.
Opposition
The Bible begins with one main character—God. He is the hero of the story. He is the good guy. But it doesn’t take long for us to meet the villain. A creature, known as the serpent, wants to turn God’s good creation upside down and unfortunately He is initially successful—turning humans against God. This theme of opposition is carried into the story of Christmas. When word gets out about the birth of the Messiah, the current King of Israel, Herod, does all that he can to oppose Jesus’ birth. But the silver lining behind all the opposition is that God—the true king—can’t be stopped. Join us this week as we learn how God has defeated opposition and how we can find victory in today’s world amid suffering and strife.
The Unexpected
Last week, we started a new sermon series called Christmas Throughout the Bible. In this series, we are exploring major Biblical themes throughout the Bible that point to Jesus and His coming at Christmas.
One of the most surprising truths found in the Bible is that God often works in ways that are unexpected to human instincts. In the beginning of the Bible, when these finite creatures betrayed God, He surprisingly didn’t wipe them out, but instead promised to redeem them. He chose one obscure man, Abraham, to build a nation that would bring a rescuer. The more we learn about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their sons, the more we realize they are messy people. As we read the Bible, God keeps surprising us with His upside down ways, with the Christmas story being an ultimate picture.
Listen in as we see how God's long standing promise of sending a rescuer was fulfilled and how we can start expecting the unexpected when it comes to God and his continued plan to use broken people to spread the gospel.
The Promised One
As we enter into the Christmas season, we are starting a new sermon series called Christmas Throughout the Bible. This week, we’ll be looking at the beginning of the Bible where we see a story of beauty, hope, intimacy, and love. Tragically, sin entered the world, brought division between God and man, and introduced chaos into the world. However, God did not leave the world to rot. God made a promise that He would send someone to provide rescue. A boy will be born who will wage war against the enemies of darkness and he will win. This promise is the first hint we get of a Messiah—the anointed one. As we keep reading the Old Testament, we get several other hints that a promised one is coming. Christmas is the culmination of this promise being fulfilled. Jesus is the long awaited Messiah.