Creator God

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. - Genesis 1:31

As we begin this week with our new series following the narrative of Christ from the beginning to the end of the story we are going to start by laying a foundation -

The Bible starts with a very familiar story to most, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…

Our view of the world begins with our view of God. The way that we think about God shapes the way that we think about everything else, along with the way we act and respond to every circumstance.

Because of this, we need to get our understanding of God straight before we go any further in this series… 

In other words, as we set out to tell the story of the Bible, we have to begin with God. As the author of the Bible and the hero of every story found in it, we can’t even begin to think about telling the story without starting with him.

To do this, we are going to start as the last verse of the first chapter… Genesis 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

At first glance, Genesis 1 doesn’t seem to give us much information about God. Instead, it seems as if we have just the story of creation, with the existence of God more or less assumed. But as we read through the account of the creation week, the authority of God is pretty astonishing.

God speaks, and things happen…

I don’t know about you but I am sure glad that this is the God that I serve – 

So how does Christ fit into this? Find out on Sunday @ 11!  

God's Goodness and Love

The past three weeks as we’ve been joyfully awaiting the glorious coming of Christ we’ve studying about the Hope, Peace, and Joy that surrounds the first and second comings of our Lord and Savior.

This Sunday we will relight the first three candles of the Advent Wreath — the candles of HOPE, PEACE and JOY. Then we reach the fourth candle of Advent. This is the candle of LOVE. Christ demonstrated self-giving love in his ministry as the Good Shepherd. Advent is a time for kindness, thinking of others, and sharing with others. It is a time to love as God loved us by giving us his most precious gift. As God is love, let us be love also.

Romans 5:6-11 is another example of a perfect Advent Gospel passage – “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

What a promise!

Even if the Lord never showed anyone mercy, His character would remain unblemished. However, in His rich goodness and love, He has decided to shower mercy on some so that we might better know how deep and how wide His goodness really is.

John 13:34-35 says:

 “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This Advent season will you allow the love of God to change you from the inside out? Will you love one another as much as you love Christ?

Joy in?

This time of year there is always a lot of talk about joy… But really what is joy? 

Joy is more than being happy…Joy is the byproduct of obedience! 

If you struggle with joy, you aren’t struggling with happiness you are struggling with obedience.

The Greek word for joy is chara. Joy is the natural reaction to the work of God, whether promised or fulfilled. Joy expresses God's kingdom.

The Greek chara is closely related to charis, which means “grace” or “a gift.” Chara is the normal response to charis—we have joy because of God's grace. Now this is the key - possessing joy is a choice. We choose whether to value God's presence, promises, and work in our lives. When we rejoice in Him, when we yield to the Spirit, He opens our eyes to God's grace around us and fills us with joy (Romans 15:13). Joy is not to be found in a fallen world; it is only fellowship with God that can make our joy complete (1 John 1:4).

The next step in the progression is to allow our joy to become an action as we express it. During the season of Advent we are rejoicing in the Lord for his coming - Philippians 4:4-5 says “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”

Rejoice is the Greek word it is chairó -- it is the expression of joy. The command to rejoice shares the same Greek root as joy – xar. When you start putting the pieces together you get an incredible message….

The root means literally, to experience God's grace, be conscious for His grace. To express joy, or to rejoice is to be glad for God’s grace.

We are to be glad for God’s grace – we are to let it be known to everyone, because the Lord is near! What a synopsis of Advent! 

A Voice in the Desert...

Christmas is coming! Decorations are going up, presents are being bought and wrapped, electricity is in the air, Christmas parties... TV specials... anticipation is building to the day... 

Though there are no stats to prove it I’d wager this time of year, leading to Christmas and New Year’s is one of the most popular times of the year to have parties…

How do you go about getting ready for guests? You clean the kitchen, the bathrooms, you run the vacuum, make the beds… maybe put out some candles, bake some cookies so the house smells nice and fresh right?

There is preparation work that has to get done before you feel ready… that’s the key…

Now imagine you are planning to have a party on Sunday but everyone shows up on Friday… Feel prepared?

Jesus is coming soon… How are you preparing for his arrival? 

Our text this week is from Luke 3:1-18.

John the Baptist was sent to prepare the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah. He called people to repentance. He called the people to prepare themselves for the Messiah’s arrival.

Luke is quoting from Isaiah 40:4-5 here, in Isaiah’s day it was common practice for Kings and Rulers send heralds before them in a journey to clear away obstacles, make causeways over valleys, and level hills to provide a smooth journey and prepare the people for the Kings arrival… They wanted large crowds of excited people waiting in every town…  

So John's duty was to bring back the people to obedience to the law and to remove all self-confidence, pride in national privileges, hypocrisy, and irreligion, so that they should be ready for His coming…

How were the people to prepare themselves? – How are you preparing yourself?

Luke via John the Baptist’s example gives us four clear ways to prepare for Jesus’s arrival in the passage – if you want to hear the rest you will have to come Sunday @ 11!