Luke 1:26-1:38 | Names have meaning and are significant to those who give them. Jesus' name was not given by his mother, Mary, but by God himself - making the name of Jesus extra significant. His' is the name above all names. What child is this? He's the Son of Mary, the Son of the Most High, and the Son of David - fully human, fully divine, and the King of Kings. Mary's response to God's work in her life should also be our response: ?"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

Luke 1:26-1:38 | As we study the angel Gabriel's announcement that Mary has been chosen to give birth to Jesus, we will learn how God favors his people in a way that is similar to how he favored Mary. We will also give an overview of Gabriel's explanation of Christ's attributes as well as the means God used to allow Mary to conceive the Christ Child.

Luke 1:5-1:25 | Luke's Gospel opens by foretelling John the Baptist's birth. He introduces us to John's parents who are described as both righteous and childless. This text helps us wrestle with what will come of our faith when we face difficulty? If you serve God for what you can get, you're actually serving yourself (that's the prosperity gospel not the biblical gospel). Christians aren't free from suffering because we serve Jesus. We serve Jesus because He is our hope and treasure. And God has a habit of using difficult circumstances to purify us and grow our faith.

Luke 1:5-1:25 | Have you ever had to wait for someone to respond and you weren't sure if they got the message? That is so often how we feel when we pray, we wonder if God even got the message. But as we enter into this Christmas season, we are reminded that even when we don't see or hear what God is doing, he is at work answering prayers and bringing about his perfect plan.

Luke 1:5-1:25 | Be filled with awe and wonder all over again at the link between the prophecies of the OT and the fulfillment of them in the NT - beginning with the birth of John the Baptist. The circumstances surrounding his birth are mysterious, inspiring and faith-building!

Luke 1:5-1:25 | Christmas. Again. It can feel a lot like just going through the motions instead of feeling the emotions that you'd expect in this season. Awe. Wonder. Even joy often escapes us. As we start our series on Advent, we get to encounter a group of people who experienced something that was (un)expected and it gave them new hope.

Revelation 22:1-22:5 | The Bible begins in a garden (Genesis 1-2) and ends in a garden city (Revelation 21-22). The ending of the story isn't one of getting things back to the way they were but even better than they were. We will see God face to face and joyfully find God-glorifying pleasure in the work of our hands. Not only that, our lives now are not about waiting to die to go to heaven but rather present participation in bringing redemptive culture to bear on the world.

Ephesians 1:7-1:10 | The grand story of the Bible is all pointing us to see Jesus! The whole story is about Him, what he has done and what he is still going to do. And in this period of waiting we get a part to play in God's grand story.

Ephesians 1:7-1:10 | While the cultural and biblical understandings of redemption are similar, they have very different emphases. Biblically, to redeem means to release or set free, with the implied analogy to the process of freeing a slave - in particular, buying back a slave or captive and making ?"him" free by payment of a ransom. In Christ, this is what God did for us - and because of it, we look forward to that time when all things will be restored, set right and unified in Him.

Ephesians 1:7-1:10 | While the cultural and biblical understandings of redemption are similar, they have very different emphases. Biblically, to redeem means to release or set free, with the implied analogy to the process of freeing a slave - in particular, buying back a slave or captive and making ?"him" free by payment of a ransom. In Christ, this is what God did for us - and because of it, we look forward to that time when all things will be restored, set right and unified in Him.