Raise your hand if you like to wait? So, that makes none of us. But we often find ourselves in a place of waiting. We find ourselves in-between. How do we live in a place of waiting? How do we keep our hearts alive to hope and to the ache we feel for Christ to make all things new?
Advent 2021
HOpe and Ache: waiting For God
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"WAIT"
November 28, 2021
Psalm 130:1-8
Pastor Katie Fowler
Advent is a season of expectant waiting. In this season of Advent, we prepare our hearts to celebrate the first coming of Christ as we remember how God’s people waited for the Messiah. We also look to when Christ will come again. We are waiting for Jesus to come and right all wrongs. And we also look to all the ways we need Christ to come here and now. To intervene, to show himself, to heal. We wait in hope for the Lord to come. We are a waiting people.
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"GOOD PROMISE"
December 5, 2021
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Matt DeHarte
The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. We wait on God to fulfill his good promise. We wait trusting that God will keep his word. In Jeremiah 33, God’s people were about to be carried off into exile. They carried deep sorrow and ache. Even there, even here, the Lord speaks hope. Our hope is in God our Savior. Our hope in the waiting is for God to come through.
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"KEEP WATCH"
December 12, 2021
Mark 13:32-37
Leanor Ortega-Till
What does it mean to keep watch as we look for Christ to come again? To wait on the Lord is not passive and yet it is also not us frantically grasping for control. How do we stay alert and awake?
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"MARY'S SONG"
December 19, 2021
Luke 1:46-56
Pastor Chuck Fowler
We are waiting for justice, wholeness, and peace in our world. But God has already acted. Mary is bearing God in the flesh in her womb. God’s Kingdom arrives in unexpected ways, in hidden ways (Matthew 13:31-33). God’s Kingdom came to us in the form of a helpless infant.
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"WITH"
December 24, 2021
Christmas Eve
Pastor Katie Fowler
Emmanuel. God is with us. Ring the bells. Throw the confetti. Shout for joy. God is with us. We are not alone. We have not been abandoned. God has fulfilled his promise. God has kept his word. God is here. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight. God has become one of us. For us and for our salvation. The invitation that is always before us is to live life with God.
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"GOD WILL DO IT"
January 2, 2021
Philippians 1:3-11
Emmanuel Engulu
The work God is doing in you will be completed. God himself will bring it to competition. As we come to the end of the Christmas season and look to the start of a new calendar year, we put our hope in the promise that God is not done with us yet. Our story is not over. The faithful one will bring our story to a good and grace-filled ending.