This story captures the first of Jesus?s ?signs,? actions that symbolize what he came to do for us. It isn?t as eye-catching as some of his later miracles. There?s no healing of the sick, no calming of a storm, no resurrection of the dead. But when Jesus turned water into wine, he offered a perfect taste of what his coming means for his people: he will turn guilt and shame to unimaginable joy.

The best way to evaluate whether Jesus is the Messiah is to experience him as a person or, in Jesus? words, to come and see. But when you experience Jesus you see, as did his first disciples, that he knows you already and has the power to make you new.

This story of Jesus?s life begins not with Jesus himself but with a figure called John the Baptist, one sent to prepare the way for the Christ. Following John?s lead, we get a clear picture of what we must know about ourselves and about Jesus if we?re to truly enjoy what Jesus offers us.

At the heart of Christianity is the claim that God became human for us. But how can we get our minds and hearts around this claim? It?s at once abstract and too familiar, but John would have us taste the beauty of incarnation.

The opening of John?s Gospel gets at questions all of us must address at one point or another. Where did we come from? Why are we here? What?s wrong with us and our environment? Who can we trust to solve problems that are too big for us? John places Jesus at the center of these questions, and confronts us with questions of his own, the questions his book will address all the way through: Who is Jesus? And who is Jesus to you?

John wrote this book to persuade readers that Jesus is the only one who can give us the life we?re made for. And though he originally aimed at first-century Jewish readers, John?s Gospel is for all of us because all of us need to trust Jesus more than we do.

One of the most challenging problems in the heart of a Christian is forgetfulness. David gives us hope by encouraging us to remember all that God has done for us in Christ: He has saved us from sin, saved us from death, saved us by love, and saved us for joy in Him.

God became a child to make you a child of God.

Speaker: Bill Heerman

Paul?s first letter to the church in Corinth covers a full range of issues basic to human life across the centuries. It?s a letter about politics and competition, about fashion and style, about sex and money and food. And straight through every issue it?s about selfishness and the power of cross-centered love to overcome the root of evil. It?s a letter well-summarized by Paul?s final instruction: ?Let all that you do be done in love.?