Gathering Recap - 04/28/2024 - Hebrews 3:7-19 - Warning and a Way

Call to worship:

4 The Lord is high above all nations,
    and his glory above the heavens!
5 Who is like the Lord our God,
    who is seated on high,
6 who looks far down
    on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,
    with the princes of his people.
9 He gives the barren woman a home,
    making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the Lord!

Psalm 113:4-9

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How does the warning of Psalm 95 apply to the Hebrew church? How does it apply to us today?

In what ways does “taking care” and “exhorting one another” prevent hardness of heart?

Why is there a call to persevere and hold the original confession of faith?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,

We thank you for the presence of Christ and the peace He brings. We are grateful for this grand story that centers on Your Son and shapes the entirety of our lives. May Your Spirit send us from this place with boldness, kindness, compassion, and love.

In the name of Christ we pray,

Amen

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Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Hebrews 3:7-18 - Josh Reading

The warnings show how unbelief erodes both inner and communal life.

The author gives the way to a life of equilibrium and sharing in Christ.

Romans 8:9: You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.

Romans 8:17: Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Romans 11:22: Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that [lit., if] you continue in his kindness.

2 Corinthians 13:5b: Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

Colossians 1:22–23: But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.

“The author of Hebrews cannot give unqualified assurance to those drifting away from God that they indeed have a part in God’s house or are sharers in Christ. He addresses them collectively as believers, but realizes that some in the group may manifest a different reality as time goes on (They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 1 John 2:19) Perseverance does not gain salvation but demonstrates the reality that true salvation indeed has been inaugurated. If the end comes and a person is not in relationship with Christ, it means that the person had never truly become Christ’s companion” - George Guthrie

Gathering Recap - 04/21/2024 - Hebrews 3:1-6 - Hold Fast

Call to worship:

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise, O servants of the Lord,
    praise the name of the Lord!

2 Blessed be the name of the Lord
    from this time forth and forevermore!
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting,
    the name of the Lord is to be praised!

Psalm 113:1-3

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How is the idea of being “holy brothers” and having a “heavenly calling” brought about?

What does it look like to consider Christ?

In what ways can we tend to the soil of our lives?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,

We thank you for the presence of Christ and the peace He brings. We are grateful for this grand story that centers on Your Son and shapes the entirety of our lives. May Your Spirit send us from this place with boldness, kindness, compassion, and love.

In the name of Christ we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Hebrews 3:1-6 (Chris)

Title: Hold Fast

“doesn’t merely talk about where our calling originated or where our calling is taking us. It also describes the quality of our existence; the kind of person we are designed to be. Our lives now and forevermore are to be characterized by the values of heaven; energized by the power of heaven; shaped by the beauty of heaven. We are to live now, on earth, heavenly lives.” — Sam Storms

“Although Abraham and David and Isaiah and Daniel are critically important figures in the OT, none is greater than Moses. He was truly a national hero and “the architect of Israel’s corporate life” — R. T. France

“…If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord…” —Numbers 12:6-8

List:

(1) Whereas both Moses and Jesus were “faithful” to God, only Jesus was altogether obedient and never sinned or disobeyed.

(2) Moses was faithful in God’s house, whereas Jesus built it!

(3) Moses was faithful as a servant of God, but Jesus is the Son!

“He does not say that if you fail to hold fast your confidence this means you once had it but later lost it. Rather, if you fail to hold it, it means you never had it at all. If someone does not hold firmly to the end of this “faith” or “confidence” that he/she claims to have put in Christ, this reveals that they never truly and sincerely shared in Christ in the first place.” — Sam Storms

Gathering Recap - 04/14/2024 - Hebrews 2:1-18 - Perspective and High Priest

Call to worship:

1 Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
    who greatly delights in his commandments!
2 His offspring will be mighty in the land;
    the generation of the upright will be blessed.

Psalm 112:1-2

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What dangers of drifting existed for the first listeners? How about today?

How does the call to pay attention connect to the story of Scripture?

Jesus knows, is near, and able as our High Priest. How does this good news impact you today?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,

We thank you for the presence of Christ and the peace He brings. We are grateful for this grand story that centers on Your Son and shapes the entirety of our lives. May Your Spirit send us from this place with boldness, kindness, compassion, and love.

In the name of Christ we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Hebrews 2:1-18 - Chris

"Love does not mean the abandonment of justice and right; nor is it a sentimental benevolence which does not have the capacity for holy wrath.” George Ladd

“Pay attention to what you pay attention to.”

“The most basic form of love is attention”

“What you pay attention to expands”

Phil 2:5-8

“The drive for autonomous living—to control my own life and destiny—runs counter to Christian commitment. For the autonomous self the premier question is not “What do I owe to God or this community?” but “What can this God and community do to help me in my pursuit of self-actualization?” In other words, as long as God and the community are useful in helping me “get and keep it all together,” I will participate. When that ceases to happen or my autonomy is threatened by these relationships, I will drift elsewhere” - George Guthrie

Jesus, Savior, pilot me,

Over life's tempestuous sea:

Unknown waves before me roll,

Hiding rocks and treach'rous shoal;

Chart and compass come from Thee–

Jesus, Savior, pilot me!

As a mother stills her child,

Thou canst hush the ocean wild;

Boist'rous waves obey Thy will

When Thou say'st to them, "Be still!"

Wondrous Sov'reign of the sea,

Jesus, Savior, pilot me!

When at last I near the shore,

And the fearful breakers roar

'Twixt me and the peaceful rest–

Then, while leaning on Thy breast,

May I hear Thee say to me,

"Fear not– I will pilot thee!”

Edward Hopper

Gathering Recap - 04/07/2024 - Hebrews 1:1-14 - Is He Worthy?

Call to worship:

1 Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
    in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the works of the Lord,
    studied by all who delight in them.
3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work,
    and his righteousness endures forever.
4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
    the Lord is gracious and merciful.

Psalm 111:1-4

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What does the book of Hebrews address? How is it connected to our current cultural moment?

How has God chosen to reveal himself? (Heb 1:1-4)

In what area of your life do you need to behold Christ?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for the truth of your word and the beauty of Jesus. As we go from this place empower us by Your Spirit to see Your Son, follow His way, and represent Him well.

In the name of Christ we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Hebrews 1:1-14 - Kim

“(1) Whereas pastors in the Christian communities were normally referred to as “elders” or “overseers,” in Hebrews alone among the New Testament documents they are called “leaders” (hegoumenoi) (13:7, 17, 24). Outside the New Testament this designation for church leadership occurs in two early Christian documents, 1st Clement and The Shepherd of Hermas, both of which we know to have been associated with the church at Rome.(2) First Clement, a pastoral letter written from Clement of Rome to the church at Corinth sometime around the end of the first century, demonstrates extensive use of Hebrews. One section in particular (36:1–6) shows direct literary dependence on the book, and the rest of the document bears the marks of Hebrews’ influence. Therefore, the earliest evidence of Hebrews’ use in the ancient church locates the document in Rome.” - George Guthrie

“32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” (Heb. 10:32-34)

“God’s Son—heir, agent of creation, sustainer of the universe, Savior, and sovereign—who now sits at the right hand of God… in 1:1-4 we find no fewer than ten weighty topics, which span from heaven to earth and from eternity past to eternity future. The list of themes reads like part of the table of contents in a systematic theology textbook! How can we focus our application when we are confronted with so much substance in such a short space?” - George Guthrie

"The story of divine revelation is a story of progression up to Christ. But there is no progression beyond Him."

- F.F. Bruce

"Just as the Spirit of God in this passage invites all to come as far as Christ, so He forbids them to overstep this last word of which He makes mention.”

- John Calvin

“There have been many attempts made by the fathers of the Church to explain the relationship between the two Divine Persons, the Father and the Son; but the explanations had better never have been given, fro the figures used are liable to lead into mistake. Suffice it for us to say that, in the most appropriate language of the Nicene Creed, Christ is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.” He is co-equal with the Father; though how that is, we know not. He stands in the nearest possible relationship to the Father, — a relationship of intense love and delight, so that the Father says of him, “This is my beloved Son.””

- Charles Spurgeon

“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” - C.S. Lewis

Dear God, thank You for speaking to us in the Bible, the writings of prophets, who wrote in so many different ways over such a long period of time that we have good reasons to believe in Your absolute truthfulness and faithfulness.

Father, we especially thank You for the gift of Your Son, Jesus Christ, through whom You made all things. Through Your Son, O God, You have spoken to us truly in the Bible and through creation. We thank You that in addition to speaking and demonstrating Your will and way of life for us, that Jesus died so You could forgive us and purify us in spite of our sins. We thank You Father that Jesus sits at Your right hand and always intercedes for Your people.

Oh God, we thank You for the angels who watch over us as Your servants, and we praise our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because He is far superior to the angels, for He is Your Son. Indeed, all the angels worship Jesus and so do we, Your children, because He is worthy of our adoration and praise.

Lord Jesus, thank You were sitting on the throne of God, for indeed You are God. Unlike the leaders of this world, You rule with justice and righteousness. Indeed, we pray for You to come again quickly and visibly display Your just rule over all in the Kingdom of God. Amen

— How God Teaches Us to Pray: Lessons from the Lives of Francis and Edith Schaeffer

Gathering Recap - 03/31/2024 - John 21:20-25 - What is that to you?

Call to worship:

1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” 8 And they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

Luke 24:1-12

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What do you tend to do when you don’t know what to do?

How do you see the gospel at work through the life of Peter?

When you hear “what is that to you? You follow me?” from Jesus, what comes to mind?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,

We thank you for the wonderful surprise of the resurrection. We ask you to shape us and send us by Your Spirit with this same power. May Jesus lead the entirety of our lives toward loving you above all else, and our neighbors as ourselves, until You return.

In the name of Christ we pray,

Amen

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Notes//Quotes//Slides:

John 21:20-25

“The original creation of light itself is almost too extraordinary to take in. The little cookout on the beach is almost too ordinary to take seriously. Yet if Scripture is to be believed, enormous stakes were involved in them both, and still are.” - Frederick Buechner

“Jesus matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weaknesses he gives us strength and and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity.” - Dallas Willard

1 Peter 1:3-5

“The disciples go fishing but catch nothing. Jesus then helps them to an enormous catch but proceeds to commission Peter to be a shepherd rather than a fisherman. There are many things going on simultaneously here, but at the center is the challenge to a new way of life, a new forgiveness, a new fruitfulness, a new following of Jesus, which will be wider and more dangerous than what has gone before. The resurrection isn’t just a surprise happy ending for one person; it is instead the turning point for everything else. - NT Wright

Gathering Recap - 03/24/2024 - Psalm 13:1-6 - Silence

Call to worship:

5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
    Let your glory be over all the earth!
6 That your beloved ones may be delivered,
    give salvation by your right hand and answer me!

Psalm 108:5-6

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What is (and isn’t) the silence of God? How does it differ from our silence.

What would help you to learn to love God in the waiting?

How do you see Jesus at work historically in “silent” seasons?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Psalm 13:1-6 - Jon

“Habakkuk lived in the final decades of Judah, Israel’s southern kingdom. It was a time of injustice and idolatry, and he saw the rising threat of the Babylonian empire on the horizon. Unlike the other Hebrew prophets, Habakkuk doesn’t accuse Israel or even speak to the people on God’s behalf. Instead, all of his words are addressed to God. The book of Habakkuk tells us about Habakkuk’s personal struggle to believe that God is good when there is so much tragedy and evil in the world”

— bible project

1 The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2 How long, O Lord, will I call for help,

And You will not hear?

I cry out to You, “Violence!”

Yet You do not save.

3 Why do You make me see iniquity,

And cause me to look on wickedness?

Yes, destruction and violence are before me;

Strife exists and contention arises.

4 Therefore the law is ignored

And justice is never upheld.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

Therefore justice comes out perverted.

5 “Look among the nations! Observe!

Be astonished! Wonder!

(NASB)

Habakkuk 2:3

3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

it will certainly come

and will not delay.

(NIV)

“One of her colleagues attended a conference on Jungian dream analysis where people wrote questions on cards that were passed along to a panel of experts, among them was a grandson of Carl Jung.

One of these cards told the story of a horrific, reoccurring dream, in which the dreamer was stripped of all human dignity and worth through Nazi atrocities. A member of the panel, read the dream out loud. As she listened, my colleague began to formulate a dream interpretation in her head, in anticipation of the panels response. It was really "a no-brainer," she thought, as her mind, busily offered her symbolic explanations for the torture and atrocities described in the dream.

But this was not how the panel responded at all. When the reading of the dream was complete, Jungs's grandson looked out over the large audience. "Would you all please rise?" he asked. "we will stand together in a moment of silence in response to this dream." The audience stood for a minute, my colleague, impatiently, waiting for the discussion she was certain would follow. But when they sat again, the panel went onto the next question.

My colleague simply did not understand this at all, and a few days later, she asked one of her teachers, himself a Jungian analyst, about it, “Ah, Lois," he had said, "there is life, suffering unspeakable, a vulnerability, so extreme that it goes far beyond words, beyond explanations, and even beyond healing. In the face of such suffering, all we can do is bear witness so no one need suffer alone.”

- Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

“I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.”

—Samuel Rutherford

“Honesty. David is in agony and can’t feel the presence of God. he cries out that God has ignored his pain and his sorrow. It is almost a howl, and the fact that it is included in the Bible tells us that God wants to hear our genuine feelings, even if they are anger at him. David never stops praying, however, and that is the key. As long as we howl towards God and remember his salvation by grace (verse 5), we will end up at a place of peace. If Christians do that, by hearing Jesus praying verses 1-4 on the cross, losing the Father's face as he paid for our sins, we will be able to pray versus 5-6 indeed.”

— Timothy Keller

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith

It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane

When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod

And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart

When he has to remember what broke him apart

This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not

When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll

In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold

And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone

All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot

What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought

So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

- Andrew Peterson, The Silence of God

Gathering Recap - 03/17/2024 - Matthew 27:45-56 - Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Call to worship:

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
    whom he has redeemed from trouble[a]
3 and gathered in from the lands,
    from the east and from the west,
    from the north and from the south.

Psalm 107:1-3

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What is going on in the cry of dereliction?

How does Psalm 22 shape our understanding of the cross?

In what ways is the abandonment of Jesus good news for His followers?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Slides Cry of Dereliction

Slide 1

“And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Luke 24:25-27

Slide 2

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Where did the Cry of Dereliction come from?

What did the Cry of Dereliction mean?

Slide 3

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest.

Psalm 22:1-2

Slide 4

But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;

they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;

“He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;

let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

Psalm 22:6-8

Slide 5

“I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;

it is melted within my breast;

my strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to my jaws;

you lay me in the dust of death.

For dogs encompass me;

a company of evildoers encircles me;

they have pierced my hands and feet —

I can count all my bones—

they stare and gloat over me;

they divide my garments among them,

and for my clothing they cast lots.”

Psalm 22:14-18

Slide 6

Defeat ---> Victory = Defeatory

Slide 7

“And we ask the question, how can God be forsaken of God? And I can ask twenty questions for which there’s no answer. And let me say that that’s a good thing for us to be brought to the very limits of our understanding where we simply have to bow the knee and say, “Lord, I don’t understand it, but I accept it. It’s in Your word.” That’s a good thing for Christians to have to run into every once in a while.”

Ligon Duncan

Slide 8

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 Corinthians 5:21

Slide 9

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

1 Peter 2:24

Slide 10

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

Galatians 3:13

Slide 11

He had known from the beginning that he would die a violent death, and in Gethsemane he had looked it in the eye, and shuddered. But now he is tasting it in all its bitterness, and the reality is infinitely worse than the prospect.

Never before had anything come between him and his Father, but now the sin of the whole world has come between them, and he is caught in this dreadful vortex of the curse. It is not that Abba is not there, but that he is there, as the Judge of all the earth who could condone nothing and could not spare even his own Son.

Donald Macleod

Slide 12

“Here’s what we must remember and treasure: Jesus willingly suffers this so sinners may escape it. Jesus’ abandonment means the sinner’s adoption. He takes our place on the cross so we can take His place in the kingdom. Because He was abandoned socially, we may be children in the household of God. Because He was deserted emotionally, we become whole again—renewed in the image of God. Because He suffered spiritual separation, we may be spiritually united to Him through faith so that we will never be separated from God’s love. Because He was forsaken, we are forgiven. Now He says to us, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Thabiti Anyabwile

Gathering Recap - 03/10/2024 - Matthew 23:25-27 - WOE

Call to worship:

47 Save us, O Lord our God,
    and gather us from among the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
    and glory in your praise.

48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting!
And let all the people say, “Amen!”
    Praise the Lord!

Psalm 106:47-48

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How do you see the tendencies of the religious rulers playing out today? How about in your own heart?

Jon Tyson says “In what way does my own faith and life embody & give a credible alternative to the things I criticize & condemn in others? The gap between what I criticize in others & fail to embody myself is the root of hypocrisy. Criticism is cheap, discipleship is costly.” - In what ways does this resonate?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Kim reading Matthew 23:25-27

1–3  “…The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.

4–7  “Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’

8–10  “Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.

11–12  “Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

(Matthew 23:1-12 MSG)

“In what way does my own faith and life embody & give a credible alternative to the things I criticize & condemn in others? The gap between what I criticize in others & fail to embody myself is the root of hypocrisy. Criticism is cheap, discipleship is costly.”

— Jon Tyson

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not  consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.”

(Philippians 3:12–15 ESV)

“The church that listens to this indictment with good faith will remove from her midst the showy and pretentious; disciples who listen with good faith will question culture’s and their own carnal megalomania, successism, and title hunger.” —Dale Bruner

Gathering Recap - 03/03/2024 - Matthew 7:21-29 - Depart From Me

Call to worship:

1 Praise the Lord!
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord,
    or declare all his praise?
3 Blessed are they who observe justice,
    who do righteousness at all times!

Psalm 106:1-3

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How is the close of the Sermon on the Mount kind?

What comes to mind when you read that not all who say “Lord, Lord” enter the kingdom of heaven?

What does the foundation of your life reveal about your faith?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Matthew 7:21-29

Deut 30:15-20

”We learn at least that it is possible to work for Jesus and yet not live under him. We can be intoxicated by the power of Jesus and yet be hostile to his hard Commands. “I never ever really knew you; get out of my face, you doers of the very opposite of my teachings.” They believe that they know Jesus, but apparently they never gave him a chance to know them (“I never really knew you”), that is, they never gave him a chance to come into personal contact with their innermost life (the force of the biblical word “know”). It is strangely possible to serve and even to glorify Christ and yet in one’s own personal life not to obey him. The fact that Jesus says “many” will present their christocentric-charismatic credentials at the Judgment and that even then they will not get in should be frightening to us all. It means that just as a loving manner (sheep’s clothing) is not necessarily the real item, so a Christ-glorifying ministry (“in your name, … in your name.… in your name”) is not always the real thing either.” - Dale Bruner

“If I ever reach Heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had thought to meet there; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.” - John Newton

“Obedience to Jesus’ words is not so much protection from troubles as protection in them, just as rock under a house does not shield from storms but supports during them” - Dale Bruner

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be admired but to be obeyed - RT France

“The focus is on my ability, my creativity, and my potential. These become the pistons driving the engine of self (resulting, Jesus tells us, in the eternal loss of self). No place for weakness exists in this view of reality. More important, no place exists for God. We don’t reject God outright, but we retain the god of Deism, who once did some powerful things but is generally detached from our day-to-day lives. So instead of abiding, we pray for God to give us some of his power. Instead of growing into him who is our head (Eph. 4:15), we ask him to give us some magic (“Just make me stop sinning,” “Just make these temptations go away,” and so on). Instead of entering into the way of weakness, we try to use God to become something powerful.” - Kyle Strobel and Jamin Goggin

Gathering Recap - 02/25/2024 - Matthew 11:25-30 - Revelation and Invitation

Call to worship:

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
    make known his deeds among the peoples!
2 Sing to him, sing praises to him;
    tell of all his wondrous works!
3 Glory in his holy name;
    let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
4 Seek the Lord and his strength;
    seek his presence continually!
5 Remember the wondrous works that he has done,
    his miracles, and the judgments he uttered

Psalm 105:1-5

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How is the exclusivity of Jesus both difficult and good news?

What kind of rest does Jesus offer? How is it experienced today?

In what ways does sabbath lead us toward replenishment and rest today?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Matthew 11:25-30

“At the heart of the revelation is this simple fact: God’s whole truth (“absolutely everything”) has been placed in and revealed through Jesus the Son. The key to divine revelation is Jesus. In Jesus, God gets a face. Jesus invites us to himself, and we feel quite naturally that we are invited to God.” - Dale Bruner

Hebrews 1:1-4

“Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” - Bill Gates

A yoke is a work instrument. Thus when Jesus offers a yoke he offers what we might think tired workers need least. They need a mattress or a vacation, not a yoke. Still more precisely: A yoke is not a sitting instrument; it is a walking instrument. Jesus does not say, “Take my chair and learn from me”; he says, “Take my yoke and learn from me,” which means that as we seek to live in obedience to Jesus we learn from Jesus along the way. Jesus realizes that the most restful gift he can give the tired is a new way to carry life, a fresh way to bear responsibilities. Life is a succession of burdens; we cannot get away from them; thus instead of offering escape, Jesus offers equipment. - Dale Bruner

“An easy life isn’t an option; an easy yoke is.” - John Mark Comer

Mike Gaston Slides:

“Thus says the Lord:

‘Stand by the roads, and look,

and ask for the ancient paths,

where the good way is; and walk in it,

and find rest for your souls.’

But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”

Jeremiah 6:16

For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath

Matthew 12:8

Attached Image 1 (Eugene Peterson)

“Odd, isn’t it? We have more leisure hours per person per year as a country than anyone could have guessed a hundred years ago. But we are not leisurely. We are not relaxed. We are anxious. We are in a hurry. The anxiety and the hurry ruin intimacy and sabotage our best intentions in faith, hope and love – the three actions in which most of us set out to do our best.

That is why I as your pastor want you to keep a Sabbath. I want you to live well. I want you to live whole and mature, with appreciation and pleasure, experiencing the heights and depths of glory in your bodies and your work, your friends and your gardens, your minds and your emotions, at the ocean and in the mountains. You can’t do that if you are ‘on the run.’ You can’t do that if you are watching the clock.

Sabbath is the biblical tool for protecting time against desecration.”

Eugene Peterson

Sabbath = regular, intentional, contemplative, Christ-centered rest

Image 2 - Sabbath Rest

“The rest of God – the rest God gladly gives so that we might discover that part of God we’re missing – is not a reward for finishing. It’s not a bonus for work well done.

It’s sheer gift. It is a stop-work order in the midst of work that’s never complete, never polished. Sabbath is not the break we’re allotted at the tail end of completing all of our tasks and chores, the fulfillment of all our obligations. It’s the rest we take smack-dab in the middle of them, without apology, without guilt, and for no better reason that God told us we could.”

Mark Buchanan

Gathering Recap - 02/18/2024 - Luke 12:4-7 - Fear Not?!

Call to worship:

33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord.
35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
    and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!

Psalm 104:33-35

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How do you see people (including yourself) “plagued with paranoia?”

In what ways does our idolatry of security perpetuate our fears?

What does “getting small” and “singing a new song” look like this week?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Luke 12:4-7 - Mike

It's the age of doubt

And I doubt we'll figure it out

Is it you or is it me?

Age of anxiety

Fight the fever with TV

In the age when nobody sleeps

And the pills do nothing for me

In the age of anxiety

- Arcade Fire

“Unfortunately, many of us presume that the world is the ultimate threat and that God's function is to offset it. How different this is from the biblical position that God is far scarier than the world …. When we assume that the world is the ultimate threat, we give it unwarranted power, for in truth, the world's threats are temporary. When we expect God to balance the stress of the world, we reduce him to the world's equal …. As I walk with the Lord, I discover that God poses an ominous threat to my ego, but not to me. He rescues me from my delusions, so he may reveal the truth that sets me free. He casts me down, only to lift me up again. He sits in judgment of my sin, but forgives me nevertheless. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but love from the Lord is its completion."

- William D. Eisenhower

Acts 10:39-43

“We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

“And therein is an extraordinary paradox, for we live more safely than ever before. Though we are safer than almost any other society in history, safety has become the holy grail of our culture. And like the Holy Grail, it is something we can never quite reach. Protected like never before, we are skittish and panicky like never before…. How can this be? Quite simply, our culture has lost God as the proper object of fear. That fear of God was a happy and healthy fear that controlled our other fears, reining in anxiety…In ousting God from our culture, other concerns—from personal health to the health of the planet—have assumed a divine ultimacy in our minds. Good things have become cruel and pitiless idols. And thus we feel helplessly fragile, and society fills with anxieties…The suggestion that loss of the fear of God is the root cause of our culture’s anxiety is a real blow to atheism. For atheism sold the idea that if you liberate people from belief in God, that will liberate them from fear. But throwing off the fear of God has not made our society happier and less fretful. Quite the opposite…So, what does our culture do with all its anxiety? Given its essentially secular self-identity, our culture will not turn to God. The only possible solution, then, must be for us to sort it out ourselves. Thus, Western society has medicalized fear. Fear has become an elusive disease to be medicated. (I do not mean to imply here that use of drugs to curb anxiety is wrong— only that they are a palliative, at times an important one, and not an ultimate solution.) Yet that attempt to eradicate fear as we would eradicate a disease has effectively made comfort (complete absence of fear) a health category—or even a moral category. Where discomfort was once considered quite normal (and quite proper for certain situations), it is now deemed an essentially unhealthy thing.

- Michael Reeves

Psalm 8:3&4,

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?”

Psalm 96:1–4

Oh sing to the LORD a new song;

sing to the LORD, all the earth!

Sing to the LORD, bless his name;

tell of his salvation from day to day.

Declare his glory among the nations,

his marvelous works among all the peoples!

For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;

he is to be feared above fall gods.

John 1:29

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

Gathering Recap - 02/11/2024 - Luke 9:57-62 - Let the Dead Bury the Dead

Call to worship:

20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his word,
    obeying the voice of his word!
21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
    his ministers, who do his will!
22 Bless the Lord, all his works,
    in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Psalm 103:20-22

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What does being on the road with Jesus look like?

What does the process of following/attaching to Christ shape life?

How have you seen his call to hardship/obscurity/priorites/urgency/focus shape your life?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Luke 9:57-62

Throughout history various religious traditions have used the imagery of pilgrimage or journey to describe spiritual development. These journeys were focused on an eternal destination, a spiritual transformation of the individual. Today, however, the “pilgrimage” is all about the individual’s own life journey. The contemporary self does not have to literally be on the move to be on the road. Being on the road is primarily a state of mind, one that constantly is dissatisfied, looking for the next best thing, living in incompleteness, always engaged in a quest for a sense of significance. This search for meaning becomes even more problematic in a culture which flees from objective truth, which fears authority and the holding of belief too strongly. Mark Sayers

“we have a generation whose principal desire is to feel [God] rather than worship Him.” - Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

”By degrees, attachment to the law sank deeper and deeper into the national character…. Hence the law became a deep and intricate study. Certain men rose to acknowledged eminence for their ingenuity in explaining, their readiness in applying, their facility in quoting, and their clearness in offering solutions of, the difficult passages of the written statutes” Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature

“Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.” - CS Lewis, Screwtape Letters

How can the dead bury their own dead? This is normally taken metaphorically: "Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead." This reading would make good on the change of life for which Jesus calls, particularly with regard to the reconstruction of one's dispositions and behaviors and of one's self-identity. Contemporary Jewish funerary customs make possible another reading. The practice of primary burial (in which the corpse is placed in a sealed tomb) followed by secondary burial (following a twelve-month period of decomposition the bones were collected and reburied in an ossuary or "bone box"') is well attested, with the additional twelve months between burial and reburial providing for the completion of the work of mourning. According to this reckoning, Jesus' proverbial saying would refer to the physically dead in both instances: "Let those already dead in the family tomb rebury their own dead." In either case, Jesus' disrespect for such a venerable practice rooted in OT law is matched only by the authority he manifests by asserting the priority of the claims of discipleship in the kingdom of God. In this way, Luke brings to a close his introduction to the journey narrative by asserting through the repetition of rigorous demands the nature of commitment required of those who would follow Jesus on the journey. Joel Green

“The Lord had not committed himself to my plans. The Lord had committed himself to me. Learning the difference was what was to make up the long arc of the Christian life. We are not most changed by what we think or feel or by what happened. We are most changed by what we depend on. And nothing has disfigured me more cruelly than my dependence on myself.” John Andrew Bryant

Gathering Recap - 02/04/2024 - Matthew 19:16-30 - If You Want To Be Perfect

Call to worship:

15 As for man, his days are like grass;
    he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
    and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
    and his righteousness to children's children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
    and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
    and his kingdom rules over all.

Psalm 103:15-19

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

1. Do I think that God has a price? Am I transactional with Him?

2. Am I attempting to speed God up?

3. If God were to ask me for __________ could I and would I give it to Him?

4. Am I generous with my wealth and what percentage of it goes to Kingdom priorities

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Matthew 19:16-30 - Faith

“It is wrong if eternal life is an additional “acquisition,” if one wants the spiritual as a complement to all the other good things one has—physical, financial, social, and the like. “I am a successful businessman, a good father, and respected in my community; now I want to be a success with God as well.” Service clubs sometimes seek such well-roundedness in their members, but the idea of eternal life as the acquisition of an upwardly mobile person is offensive to Jesus. Eternal life is not spiritual real estate for a person on the make.”

— Dale Bruner

“It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate. Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim. In our kind of culture, anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is a little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness…Everyone is in a hurry. The persons whom I lead in worship, among whom I counsel, visit, pray, preach, and teach, want short cuts. They want me to help them fill out the form that will get them instant credit (in eternity). They are impatient for results. They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points. But a pastor is not a tour guide. I have no interest in telling apocryphal religious stories at and around dubiously identified sacred sites. The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions and in such ways.

—Eugene Peterson

“Americans profoundly underestimate how rich they are compared to the rest of the world. The average U.S. resident estimated that the global median individual income is about $20,000 a year. In fact, the real answer is about a tenth of that figure: roughly $2,100 per year….What explains these misperceptions? Human beings draw heavily on their own local, lived experience to make judgments about the wider world. As individuals’ own incomes rise, and therefore the incomes of those around them, so too do their overestimates of the global median income.”

— Gautam Nair, PhD political science at Yale University

Questions:

1. Do I think that God has a price? Am I transactional with Him?

2. Am I attempting to speed God up?

3. If God were to ask me for __________ could I and would I give it to Him?

4. Am I generous with my wealth and what percentage of it goes to Kingdom priorities

Gathering Recap - 01/28/2024 - John 6:52-60

Call to worship:

10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.

14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 103:10-14

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What metaphor is Jesus getting at with eating his flesh and drinking his blood?

If belief is the bedrock of life, how’s your foundation looking?

What does eternal living and abiding look like today?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

John 6:52-60 - Jack A.

“Jesus offers himself as God's doorway into the life that is truly life. Confidence in him leads us today, as in other times, to become his apprentices in eternal living. "Those who come through me will be safe," he said. "They will go in and out and find all they need. I have come into their world that they may have life, and life to the limit.” In other words, eternal life is not primarily duration but quality of life, "life to the limit." It cannot be stolen from us, and so it does go on. But the focus is on the life itself. "In him was life," the apostle John said of Jesus, "and that life was the light of men.” - Dallas Willard

“There have been five chapters of John's Gospel leading up to this point; they establish the frame of reference into which eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood actually fits. Come to him and believe in him as Nicodemus was taught to do (John 3), as were the woman at the well and the other folk from Sychar in the next chapter. And in chapter five, you've got the reality of Jesus healing the cripple, and restoring to him a life that he didn't have before.The Jews were understandably bewildered because they didn't know that Calvary was coming, and so they scratched their heads and asked the question which at that stage was unanswerable, really: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” The reference Jesus made to eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a metaphorical way of describing the person who draws on, claims, or lays hold of the reality of his atoning sacrifice by putting personal faith in him. We've constantly got to come back to that. It all adds up, you see. And this is something that I find myself wanting to say over and over again to people who ask me about difficult Scriptures. If you read what leads up to them in the book from which they come, again and again you'll find that the problem answers itself, because the foundation for resolving it has already been laid.” - JI Packer

Hebrews 11:1-3,6

If Christ be anything He must be everything. O rest not till love and faith in Jesus be the master passions of your soul! Charles Spurgeon

Gathering Recap - 01/21/2024 - Matthew 10:34-39

Call to worship:

6 The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
    his acts to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Psalm 103:6-8

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

To whom are you truly aligned?

What threatens your allegiance to Jesus? How do you exist in the world with Him?

Does Jesus bring a sword, or you?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Matthew 10:34-39 - Karen W Reading

“Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.

- Matthew 10:34–37 (MSG)

“Since the prophets always promise that under the reign of Christ there will be peace and tranquil times, what else would the disciples have hoped for, but that everything would at once be pacified, wherever they should travel?” - John Calvin

“Jesus enters earth, he enters the world, and he lays claim now, as a king from another kingdom, on every human heart. “I am worthy of greater affection, greater love, greater allegiance than any member of your family.” If all the family members respond to Jesus this way, you’ve got peace. But if they don’t, if there is anger because Jesus has become more important than family bonds and family affections, then a sword cuts right through the relationship. We’ve all tasted this in some ways.” - John Piper

“And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”

- Colossians 1:18 (ESV)

“If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me."

- Matthew 10:38-39 (MSG)

“Jesus is not triumphalist about the future of Christian mission; he knows that his mission is a rugged minority movement, a tough, divisive affair, and he prefers to make this clear rather than to give false hopes. “The gate is wide and the way pleasant that leads to destruction, and many people [a majority] go this route; but the gate is narrow and the way is tough that leads to real life, and very few people [a minority] find this way” (7:13–14). The effect of this minority movement as it moves aggressively into the massive majority culture is bound to be friction. Jesus does not want his disciples to expect great triumphs and then, when persecution, hostility, and rejection are their experience, to feel betrayed. “This is the way it goes,” Jesus assures them; in fact, “this is the way I plan it to go.”” — Dale Bruner

Questions:

1. Am I a jerk?

2. In what aspects of my life am I tempted to tell Jesus to take a back seat in? What threatens my allegiance to Him?

“Anything that becomes more important and nonnegotiable to us than God becomes an enslaving idol. In this paradigm, we can locate idols by looking at our most unyielding emotions. What makes us uncontrollably angry, anxious, or despondent? What racks us with a guilt we can’t shake? Idols control us, since we feel we must have them or life is meaningless.” —Timothy Keller

3. To whom am I truly aligned?

Gathering Recap - 01/14/2024 - Luke 2:40-52 - Luke 2:40-52

Call to worship:

 1 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Psalm 103:1-5

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What do you make of 12 year old Jesus?

How have your plans and understanding not aligned with the word and will of God?

In what ways has God’s plans and will been better and sweeter than your own?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Luke 2:40-52 - Mike Reading

“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.” - Augustine

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.” - Anne Lamott

“I can state unequivocally that childlike surrender in trust is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. And I would add that the supreme need in most of our lives is often the most overlooked—namely, the need for an uncompromising trust in the love of God.” - Brennan Manning

A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts — not only their own but their friends' and neighbors'. It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide the grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. And, just as important for our current situation, such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt. - Tim Keller

“Doubt your doubts. Be skeptical of your own skepticism. Why? Because you realize that you are not completely objective.” Tim Keller

"The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light." James Baldwin

Gathering Recap - 01/07/2024 - SNOW DAY!

Call to worship:

1 O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2     Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings[b]
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8:1-9

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

Where do you struggle to trust Jesus?

How does His spirit give life?

What are you paying attention to and how is it expanding?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven, We thank you for this year with its celebrations and sorrows. We are grateful that you have been with us for every moment. For the wounds we’ve encountered, we ask you to heal us. For the wounds we’ve inflicted, we ask you to forgive us. As we embark into a new year we pray for your guidance and direction. Grant us a hunger for your word, a passion for prayer, and a love for people. Let us reflect you well in all that we say and do. For the glory of Christ we pray, amen.

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Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father

There is no shadow of turning with Thee

Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not

As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be

Great is Thy faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love

Great is Thy faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Blessings all mine with 10, 000 beside

Great is Thy faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of the pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise.” - Brennan Manning

Peter’s way of expressing himself appears somewhat pretentious, as if he and his fellows are a cut above the fickle ‘disciples’ who have turned away, superior at least in insight. Indeed, Peter’s words might almost be taken to mean that he is doing Jesus a favour. But Jesus will not allow even a whisper of human pretensions. Ultimately, the Twelve did not choose Jesus; he chose them. Even there, the one catastrophic failure amongst the Twelve was not unforeseen. One of them was a diabolos: the word in common Greek means ‘slanderer’ or ‘false accuser’, but in the New Testament it always refers, when it is a substantive, to Satan, the prince of darkness (e.g. 8:44; 13:2; cf. 13:27). Indeed the Greek should probably not be rendered one of you is a devil but ‘one of you is the devil’. The meaning is clear from 13:2, clearer yet from Mark 8:33 par., where Jesus addresses Peter as ‘Satan’. The supreme adversary (Heb. śāṭān) of God so operates behind failing human beings that his malice becomes theirs. Jesus can discern the source, and labels it appropriately.

Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (p. 304). Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.

Gathering Recap - 12/24/2023 - 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 - Resurrection and Return

Call to worship:

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Luke 2:8-14

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How does Paul’s reflection on the resurrection and return of Jesus shape our understanding of Advent?

How does Jesus reverse the curse and rescue all of creation?

In what ways are you longing for the renewal of all things?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

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Notes//Quotes//Slides:

1 Cor 15:1-8

1 Cor 15:17-19

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” C.S. Lewis

1 Cor 15:20-26

No more let sins and sorrows grow,


Nor thorns infest the ground;


He comes to make His blessings flow


Far as the curse is found

Issac Watts

I arrived to find myself already loved.

A forgiveness preceding, exceeding

my first crime and my last.

A prior mercy,

a predestined grace.

Anticipating my shame

a welcome offered,

a healing before the pain.

I had imagined it to be my task

to close the distance between us,

to cross the chasm,

scale the height.

My fault dictating my duty,

though futile and impossible.

But I looked up

hearing the angels sing

to find you already here.

-- Richard Beck Incarnation

John 3:16-17

1 Thess 4:13-18

We must remind ourselves yet once more that all Christian language about the future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist. Signposts don’t normally provide you with advance photographs of what you’ll find at the end of the road, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pointing in the right direction. NT Wright

In a very deep sense, the entire christian life in this world is lived in Advent, between the first and second comings of the Lord, in the midst of the tension between things the way they are and things the way they ought to be. -Fleming Rutledge

Revelation 21:1-8

Gathering Recap - 12/17/2023 - Mark 10:32-45 - Death

Call to worship:

1 It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
    to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
    and your faithfulness by night,
3 to the music of the lute and the harp,
    to the melody of the lyre.
4 For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
    at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

5 How great are your works, O Lord!
    Your thoughts are very deep!

Psalm 92:1-5

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How does Christmas come with a cross?

In what was does the suffering of Jesus align your soul?

Spurgeon tells us “the way upward is downward.” How has that played out in your life?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

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Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Mark 10:32-45 - Kim J

Title: Suffering Savior

“31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” (Mark 8:31-32)

“but that's not what's going on here at all. And why not, you may say? If God is really a loving God, why doesn't he just forgive everybody? Why did Jesus have to go through suffering into death? Why did he have to be a ransom?……Here’s the beginning of an answer: Jesus didn't have to die, despite God's love; he had to die because of God's love. And it had to be this way, because all of life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.”

- Timothy Keller

“The only way that Jesus could redeem us was to give his life as a ransom. God couldn’t just say, “I forgive everybody.” In the creation, God could say, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God could say, “Let there be vegetation,” and there was vegetation. God could say “Let there be sun, moon, stars,” and there were sun, moon, and stars (Genesis 1). But he couldn’t just say, “Let there be forgiveness.” That’s simply not the way forgiveness works.

God created the world in an instant, and it was a beautiful process. He re-created the world on the cross —and it was a horrible process. That’s how it works. Love that really changes things and redeems things is always a substitutionary sacrifice.”

- Timothy Keller

“The way up is downward That is not a contradiction, but it is a paradox. Sink, and you shall rise. Be willing to serve the very least, and you shall have honour amongst your brethren. Remember that the King of kings was the servant of servants.”

- Charles Spurgeon

Jesus can you take the time

To throw a drowning man a line

Peace on Earth

To tell the ones who hear no sound

Whose sons are living in the ground

Peace on Earth

Jesus in the song you wrote

The words are sticking in my throat

Peace on Earth

Hear it every Christmas time

But hope and history won't rhyme

So what's it worth?

This peace on Earth

— U2

Gathering Recap - 12/10/2023 -Hebrews 4:14-16 - Life

Call to worship:

12 So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord! How long?
    Have pity on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
    and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and establish the work of our hands upon us;
    yes, establish the work of our hands!

Psalm 90:12-17

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

What surprises you about the life of Christ?

How can you integrate greater wonder and awe into this season?

How does Christ restore the image of God in humanity?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.

In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen

If you are able to support the church financially, we invite you to give securely by clicking the button below:

Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Slide 1

Jesus was born to perfectly fulfill all of the commandments that Israel had failed to honor.

Slide 2

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.”

Matthew 5:17

Slide 3

“And beginning with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Luke 24:27

Slide 4

“Jesus says that He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. In other words, Jesus’ purpose was to establish the Word, to embody it, and to fully accomplish all that was written. “Christ is the culmination of the law” (Romans 10:4). The predictions of the Prophets concerning the Messiah would be realized in Jesus; the holy standard of the Law would be perfectly upheld by Christ, the strict requirements personally obeyed, and the ceremonial observances finally and fully satisfied.”

Gotquestions.org

Slide 5

Jesus was born to reverse the damage that Adam had inflicted on creation.

Slide 6

“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.”

Romans 5:18-19

Slide 7

“All who are ordinary descendants of Adam are in Adam until by regeneration, faith, and repentance they move from being in Adam to being in Christ. If we are in Christ by faith alone, we receive forgiveness of sin and our Lord’s perfect righteousness, by which we are accepted by God…

In sum, those who are in Christ will get back what they lost in Adam, but more accurately, what we will get back will be better than what we lost. As John Calvin comments, “[Adam] by his fall ruined himself and those that were his, because he drew them all, along with himself, into the same ruin: Christ came to restore our nature from ruin, and raise it up to a better condition than ever.” Christ can do this because He is the last Adam, the federal head whom God appointed in His mercy to stand in for us so that we will become the glorified saints God intends us to be.”

Ligonier Ministries

Slide 8

Jesus was born to assure us that He understands our lives.

Slide 9

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews 4:15-16

Slide 10

“For thirty-three years Jesus felt everything you and I have felt. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He got colds, he burped, he had body odor. His feelings got hurt, his feet got tired, his head ached.

To think of Jesus in such a light is…well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. He’s easier to handle that way. Something about keeping him divine also keeps him distant, packaged, and predictable.

For heaven’s sake don’t do it. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in, can he pull us out.”

Max Lucado

Slide 11

Jesus was born to be the mediator between God and mankind, to bridge the gap between us and God.

Slide 12 (both verses on one slide)

“For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,

that we should come to trial together.

There is no arbiter between us,

who might lay his hand on us both.”

Job 9:32-33

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”

1 Tim 2:5-6

Slide 13

“Out of the deep darkness that surrounds this suffering saint, a ray of light breaks through. It is the first break in Job's gloom. What is needed is a mediator, an arbitrator who can come between us, who understands us both and brings us together, Job says. For the first time in this book we begin to see what God is producing in this man, why he is putting him through this protracted trial. For now Job begins to feel, deep in his bones, the nature of reality: the terrible gulf between man and God that must be bridged by another party.

We who live in the full light of the New Testament know that he is crying out and feeling deep within the need for just such a mediator as Jesus himself. Job is laying the foundation here in his own understanding for the tremendous revelation that comes in the New Testament when God becomes man. God takes our place, lives as we live, feels as we feel, solves the great problem between us and God, and brings the two—God and man—together. For the first time in Job, we begin to sense what God is driving at.”

Ray Stedman

Slide 14

Jesus was born to restore mankind to the exalted position for which we were created.

Slide 15

“Advent is a chance not only to celebrate Jesus’ taking of human flesh but also his keeping of it. It wasn’t a mere 33-year stint—impressive as that would have been. Jesus is forever the God-man. He is glorious not merely in assuming our human nature but in remaining our brother and continuing as the visible “image of the invisible God.”

To put it in the apostle John’s language, the Word became flesh. His humanity isn’t a costume. The eternal divine Son didn’t simply make a cameo in the created world. He forever joined our humanity to his divinity and for all eternity will be fully God and fully man.

David Mathis

Slide 16

One of the doctrines in the area of Christology that is difficult for some Christians to fully grasp is the permanent humanity of Christ. The impression often seems to be that the Son of God came down from heaven in incarnate form, spent three decades or so as a human, and then returned to heaven to revert back to his preincarnate state.

But this is Christological error, if not outright heresy. The Son of God clothed himself with humanity and will never unclothe himself. He became a man and always will be. This is the significance of the doctrine of Christ’s ascension: he went into heaven with the very body, reflecting his full humanity, that was raised out of the tomb. He is and always has been divine as well, of course. But his humanity, once taken on, will never end.”

Dane Ortlund

Slide 17

Have a wonder-filled Christmas