A Call to Prayer | Teach Us to Pray | Luke 11:1-13
This kicks off our prayer series. The first sermon is a sort of general call to prayer showing its necessity for our lives. It’s our primary means of knowing God and experiencing intimacy with Him and it also aligns our hearts and lives with His and His world. It is because of Jesus and the power of God that not only can we pray but our prayers are heard and change us and the world.
The Message of the Light | Advent | John 1:1-14
The message of Christmas has been sullied for many years. Often, it boils down to a saccharine sweet message of good tidings that delight for a day but, like the peppermint canes of Christmas, last but a day before dissolving into the harsh realities of life. But the actual message of Christmas is different. It moves us from the ethereal to the real and that is precisely what God did by becoming a man. It isn’t just that Jesus came with a message, Jesus IS the message. John’s prologue gives us a beautiful entry into this message. John intends for this to be the entry into the whole Gospel itself. And when we receive this message (v. 12), it changes our lives—our identities and our way of living.
Extraordinary for the Ordinary | Advent | Luke 2:8-20
In our Light From Darkness series, this is the only passage that doesn’t directly mention “light.” Instead, the glory of the Lord shines. Glory is the shining presence of God and this matters because Jesus has just been born—hence, the glory of God filling the nighttime sky. Jesus is the glory of God revealed. And of all the people in the world it is first revealed to, it is to ordinary shepherds. It is a picture of grace that God reveals Himself to the ordinary and lowly (can we see our own lowliness?) and the message of the manger is a picture of the very nature of God where dominion and power are wrapped in the swaddling cloths of humility. Christmas, then, shows us everything we really need to know about God: power and mercy, kingship and humility. In this paradox, we are confronted and called to follow Him and do what the shepherds did—to go find Him and then pour out praise and worship through our lives lived for Him.
The Dawn of Light | Advent | Luke 1:67-80
Continuing our Advent series, we ask this week, “Are we preparing for Christmas Day or are we preparing for the Savior?” Zacharias, in his prophecy, describes an epic, cosmic event that shifts everything with the coming of Jesus. In this passage, we’re told what it means to know God and what He has mercifully done for us. Most importantly, the birth of Jesus is described as the dawning of the light—hope that the darkness will be chased away and we will be free.
Church of the Good Wine | DNA | John 2:1-11
We end our DNA series with a passage concerning joy and where it is found. In Scripture, wine is always associated with joy and God’s abundance. It is no coincidence, then, that the first miracle of Jesus is turning water into wine at a local wedding. John says it was a sign—it was pointing to something much bigger. It was pointing to the blood of Christ that would be poured out for our sins so that we would feast eternally with God at the wedding supper of the Lamb (Rev. 21). All of this means we are to be the “Church of the Good Wine”—what we have to offer to he city is festal joy that comes from our salvation in Him.
Discipleship | DNA | Luke 14:25-33
Come, follow me.” Maybe the most iconic words in the Gospels and repeated many times by Jesus, including here. Discipleship into Christ is the whole purpose of the church and we had better understand exactly what it means and entails if we are to live as Christians. Jesus says it involves a whole renunciation of the self and our attachments as the center of our lives. It isn’t that those things and other people are valuable, just that Jesus must be more supreme than anything else. And far from “demoting” the value of everything else, we can actually love everything else more truly when our loves are rightly ordered.
Generosity | DNA | 2 Corinthians 8:8-15, 9:6-12
Being the church should be synonymous with generosity. Whether an individual or a collective group like a body of believers, we recognize generosity when we see it but in this passage, Paul seeks to re-start a call to generosity that has been waylaid by distrust and perhaps other reasons. In doing so, he lays out a biblical vision for not only the benefits of generosity for ourselves and others but shows us how it is the Gospel alone that generates the desire and drive to be generous. When the church lives into this calling, we and the world experience more kingdom abundance and life!
The Word | DNA | Psalm 119
“This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.” It’s what we say after each Scripture reading and we do it because we believe God’s word is a treasure worth celebrating. One of CCE’s commitments is to preach and teach God’s word faithfully. We believe it has authority in our lives because God is the designer of life and knows what we need. And, as the psalmist says, we can “delight” in it because when we grow in learning something that is good, delight naturally happens and because “delight” is another way to describe a healthy relationship. Ultimately, God’s word is more than instruction but is the very voice of a loving God towards His bride, the church, longing to be with us. And the best news of all is Jesus is the Living Word that transforms us by changing our hearts, the very thing the Psalmist says they long for.