A Sunday sermon by Peter DuMont.

Joy is a beautiful emotion. It resonates deep within and brightens everything we experience. Like Love and Peace, Joy can be seen as a ‘ruling emotion’ that bears beautiful fruit.

  

 Joy is a gift of God and a primary characteristic of God. We receive joy from God for the same reason we receive love: because joyfulness is a significant part of God’s nature. King David exclaims in Psalm 16, “in your presence there is fullness of joy.”

  

 When we search for God, we are in search of joy. To find God is to find joy. Yet we ponder at Advent a Joy that suffers, that experiences limitation, that empties himself to become one of us. Motivated by joy set before him, Jesus endures great suffering and death, so that Presence can be restored among mankind.

  

 Joy, Suffering, Presence…all these movements of God begin at a manger.   This Advent season, the God of Joy is waiting to be encountered at the mangers of our lives. Let us move toward him there this Sunday!

A Sunday message from Eternity's Youth.

It seems only natural that after the first week of Advent in which we focus our hearts and minds on hope, the Spirit of God would lead us into love. Perhaps that’s why so often when we try to slow down, to take a breath and fix our thoughts on hope, we stumble into despair. What was meant to be a time of quiet rejoicing in eternal hope becomes cloudy with the worries of the world. Friend, all the more reason to hold to hope!

The cord of hope that God lowers to us is not something we can create. Divine hope is not something humanity can manufacture. God’s hope must be extended to us. Only then can we take hold of it. But this presents a whole new worry. When we grip tightly to the rope of God’s hope, He begins to lift us from our muck and mire (perhaps the very thing we were praying He would do!). But no sooner has He begun lifting us, we are tempted to let go of hope because without our present condition (our cares and concerns, our anxieties and all the things we define our lives with) we won’t know who we are! We let go of hope and cling to the things we think are within our control. 

John Bunyan described this in his classic Pilgrim’s Progress as the “slough of despond” (or as we might say it, the bog of despair). But when his protagonist, Christian, was stuck in the swamp, Help came along, took him by the hand, and helped lift him out. Christian could have struggled against Help. He could have stressed and strained and in his vain effort pulled his potential rescuer in with him!

Beloved, as we hold to hope this week and feel the impulse to achieve by our own power and might, hear the wisdom of Madame Guyon: “Rest. Rest. Rest in God’s love. The only work you are required now to do is to give your most intense attention to His still, small voice within.”

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

As we gather together this Sunday, we will light the first candle of Advent. The first candle is known as the “Prophet’s Candle” because it symbolizes the anticipation of the ages felt by men and women, prophets and kings, who longed for the arrival of the Messiah. When times felt consumed by the dark, the candle of God’s prophetic voice speaking through His prophets burned brightly for His people. The Spirit spoke through women and men like Deborah and Samuel who sang of the Lord’s enduring faithfulness toward His people.

We light this first candle in hope. We rejoice in the lumination hope brings to our dark places. The light of hope casts out the shadows and drives away our doubts. By the light of hope, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2.12). As Paul told his spiritual son Timothy, this “is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe” (1 Timothy 4.10). We find hope in prayer, and our prayer of hope leads us more deeply into belief.

The light of hope guides our feet in all times and all sorts of situations. We can dream of easy days and comfortable nights, but life shows us that the light of hope is all the more meaningful when we face difficult days and nights stained with tears. In those dark times, the flicker of hope is all we can keep our eyes on. This must have been how Joseph and Mary felt as the Messiah grew within Mary's virgin womb. God’s plan created complications in their lives that needed the light of hope. The Irish Jesuits reveal how clear it was that “Joseph puzzled over what he should do and finally resolved on a particular course of action before the angel intervened. We too are often left by God to puzzle over what we should do in difficult circumstances.” But we do not puzzle alone or in the dark. We have the light of hope, the candle of Christ’s prophetic promise.

This Advent, let’s begin praying with hope.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

For Elise and I, it's never too early to start celebrating Christmas! I know some refuse to deck the halls until after Thanksgiving, but in our house, we rarely make it all the way to All Saints Day before we start decorating! And after Epiphany, when we finally take down the tree, we put up a little leafless tree branched with lights to take its place until next year’s festivities.

In the hustle and bustle of life, often the first thing to get lost in the rush is celebration. The to-do list takes precedence. Our holy days (now jammed together into one word: holiday) lose their sacredness not because God is absent, but because we didn’t stop to be present with him. This can be because work is hectic or the concerns of the world weigh too heavily on our souls.

Surely this was at least in part what Pope Pius XI had in mind when, as he witnessed the rise of fascism changing the political landscape of post-Great War Europe, he instituted the Feast of Christ the King. Several denominations and fellowships have followed suit in the decades following 1925, calling Christ’s people to slow down and celebrate a feast on the last Sunday of November. For nearly one hundred years, millions of Christians have celebrated the Feast of Christ the King!

As we read Jude’s final words to the Church (24-25), his great doxology of praise and adoration, let’s celebrate together that Jesus Christ is King! This Sunday, we rejoice as we dedicate our children to Christ’s love and care, baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and break Christ’s bread of communion. In the fellowship hall we will have some special treats and ways to feast together.

But that is just the beginning! Take this final week before Advent as a time to remember how Jesus was born among us, how He made His dwelling in our midst, and how we now wait in expectant wonder for His return; and celebrate with your friends and family what it means that Christ is our King. This is good news, indeed!

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. 

Some movies just have to be watched on the big screen. Big action! Surround-sound score! A small screen at home struggles to immerse us in the story. Home for the holidays in high school, I had a copy of a brand-new blockbuster. Instead of watching it on a cramped old tube TV, I borrowed a projector and screened against the biggest wall in my room. It was epic!

Once Henry was old enough, we watched that movie together (alas, no big screen). But the other day, he ran in shouting a trailer for a sequel had just been released! We watched it, on the edge of our seats, drinking in the carefully curated clips from the film coming to a theater near you!

Jude’s letter is a lot like a movie trailer. Where Peter and John go to great apocalyptic length to color God’s revelation to a Church in troubled times, Jude captures all the big ideas in rapid-fire shots. If we know the stories of the Torah and are acquainted with the good news of King Jesus, as we read Jude, we are jumping out of our seats with all the cameos! You can hear the audience’s shouts of surprise as different characters appear on the screen.

In verses 17-23 we arrive at the climax of Jude’s cinematic letter. He’s exposed the opponents of the Church. He’s anchored our view of one another in Christ and shown us how to pray. Now, as the soundtrack swells, he hooks us. He breaks down the fourth wall and calls us personally to response. We are part of this story. He charges us to build up our faith. Right now, in our church, we have a choice: faith or friction. Will we build up our faith—praying in the Spirit, wait for Christ’s mercy, keeping ourselves in God’s love (Jude 20-21)—or will we slide into judgment, choosing merciless division, behaving like those opposed to Christ?

As the screen fades to black and the score goes silent, a few bright words appear: What will you choose?

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

For the past several days I’ve had a special song on almost constant repeat. Making coffee to start the day. Driving to visit dear folks for lunch. Walking into the library with a hum in my heart. The Sensational Nightingales—seriously, is there a better band name!—gave a beautiful four-part harmony to Dottie Rambo’s "Remind Me, Dear Lord." With a slow measured pace, the song leads us down a country road between rolling hills covered with leaves. Beside our drum-like footfall comes a voice, “The things that I love / and hold dear to my heart / are just borrowed they're not mine / not mine at all / Jesus only lets me use them to brighten my life.”

In a world corrupted by sin and clamoring for power, the sweet things we cling to can get lost in the scuffle, obscured from memory by growing layers of grief. This song encourages us to remember though Fall may cast our leaves to the ground, the promise of winterbloom waits on the unseen horizon. Beloved, all hope is not lost, even if a cold winter lies ahead.

Born in the middle of the Great Depression, Dottie Rambo grew up longing for a wider view. A culture of greed which crashed the world’s economy revealed the hollowness of wealth and the tunnel vision of avarice. At the height of the revolutionary 60s, when a new generation was fighting to carve the path America is currently on, Rambo wrote the words to this song. Like Jude, she doesn’t call us to rely on dreams or wrestle for authority. Her song doesn’t incite us to rebellion or self-preservation at the expense of others. No, her words are a prayer for God to “Roll back the curtain of memory now and then / Show me where you brought me from / and where I could have been / Just remember I'm a human and humans forget / So Remind me, remind dear Lord.”

Reading Jude 8-16 leads to a fork in the road, if we are to take Jude's words to heart. A divide between revelation and rejection. May the soundtrack for our reading be this prayer, asking Jesus to roll back the curtain of our biblical and personal memory to bring comfort and conviction, healing and hope, purpose and peace.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

During heightened times of aggressive political rhetoric and social upheaval, it’s hard to be at peace. Name-calling and accusation slinging feel like daily occurrences. All the televised vitriol can leave us unsettled and dis-enchanted. In a sociopolitical environment fostering “us-vs-them” thinking, we unconsciously find ourselves drawing dividing lines between ourselves and others. In the process, we absolve ourselves of any consequence as we burden others with our choices.

 

 We would be wise to heed the Swahili proverb: kikulacho kiko nguoni mwako, “That which consumes you is concealed within your clothing.” Andrew Mbuvi tells us “The common understanding of the Swahili saying is that the source of one’s trouble is usually those closest to him or her. It is usually used as a warning to the fact that those most likely to cause you the gravest harm tend to be the ones closest to you, since they know both your strengths and weaknesses.”

 

Jude, the brother of Jesus, wanted to write the church and celebrate about the joy of salvation they shared, but faced with troubled times within the church, he was compelled to write a very different letter, one that speaks to us in our current times as much as it did two thousand years ago. 

 

Beloved, reading Jude’s words will challenge us. So, as we set out to receive the Word of the Lord, let us root our reading in his first and final words. Jude begins by reminding his brothers and sisters in Christ who they are: called by the Father, beloved and kept in Christ. He concludes his letter in a doxology, a hymn of praise “to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” 

 

Friend, let’s not allow ourselves to be consumed from within by fighting or fear. Hearing Jude, let’s hold nothing back from the Spirit, remembering who we are and who Jesus, our Savior and Lord, is.

A Sunday morning sermon by Peter DuMont.

When we consider God’s self-revelation in Scripture, we think in terms of Fullness and Life. John the Apostle addressed this in his Gospel when—speaking of Jesus—he wrote, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). There is something deeply satisfying about the experience of the fulness of God. King David writes of it in Psalm 23 when he exults, “you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”

  

 We have been looking at language of dis-enchantment and re-enchantment around our experience of Scripture, of God’s leading, and the world around us. Last week Brett brought us into Ezekial 47 for a vision of the River of God flowing from God’s Temple into the world, beginning as an ankle deep gurgle, and flowing deeper and deeper into overwhelming, life-giving fullness.

  

 This Sunday we are going to conclude our Re-Enchantment series by engaging with what it looks like to move deeper into becoming a church marked by the Spirit and the Word, where we seek to live more and more in the living presence of God’s Spirit as it bears witness to the eternal proclamation of the life and work of the Son-Logos-Word of God.

  

 Let us move toward worship Sunday preparing to wade into the water of the flowing fullness of the Triune God!

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Even when our kids are little, we sometimes want to share with them our favorite things. The week our oldest came home, while she nestled in my arms, I “showed” her one of my favorite movies: Citizen Kane. I could talk for hours about Citizen Kane. But for some reason, my newborn didn’t seem entirely interested in that cinematic wonder.

One movie, however, that did catch our little kids’ attention was Singin’ in the Rain. Packed with vibrant colors, singing and dancing, hilarious pratfalls and sight gags, it’s an easy film to get excited about! Unlike Citizen Kane which uses the stark contrast of black and white to tell its tragic story, Singin’ in the Rain is bursting with color as it tells a heartwarming story of creativity and innovation.

I think this is what N.T. Wright was getting at when he said, “It is possible to allow the study of the text, and of different interpretations of the text, to become a substitute for allowing the text to bring us into the presence of the living God.” We can appreciate the biblical complexity, tightly packed within grammar and genre, time and place, like a black and white masterpiece. There is value to devoted study, but we cannot substitute the leading of the Holy Spirit with academic rigor. When we are led by the Spirit into Scripture, we are immersed in awe and wonder, vibrant colors, singing and dancing, hilarious wordplay and life-defining reality.

As we prepare our hearts to reflect on Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 47.1-12), ask the Holy Spirit to bringing God’s Word to life in living color along the banks of the desert and Dead Sea of our disenchanted imaginations.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

When our kids were little one, of our favorite movies to watch as a family was Enchanted. Like The Little Mermaid, it has memorable music and a compelling “fish out of water” story. There is a hilarious part of the film where Giselle (the cartoon protagonist who was pushed into the real world by an evil queen) is walking through Central Park with Philip, the unsuspecting lawyer who found her lost in the rain. In the middle of their conversation, not accustomed to the real world, she breaks out into song. Before Philip can stop her,  hundreds of other park-goers join in!

In her book, Re-Enchanting the Text, Cheryl Bridges Johns explains what she means when she refers to enchantment. “The word enchantment comes from the Latin verb cantare (to sing) preceded by the preposition in- (into): incantare… At its root, enchantment means the experience of ‘finding oneself in a song’ or ‘to sing into.’ An enchanted world is one in which there is harmony.” This exactly what we find in the movie: people who’ve become disenchanted by life and the rough and tumble existence of the world, re-enchanted by a person with a song to sing.

For the Prophet Ezekiel, he doesn’t find himself in a park with dancing octogenarians and a mariachi band (seriously, go watch the movie). No, Ezekiel finds himself in a valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37). And yet, in this place with God on a lifeless battlefield, Ezekiel finds himself re-enchanted. He spoke forth the prophetic word given to Him by God. Over and over again he says, “Thus says the Lord God” and watches in awe as bones are bound back to one another by sinew and skin. He marvels as wind sweeps into reborn lungs when, at the height of God’s resurrection music, the Lord reveals the meaning of this vision. This vision is for Ezekiel, yes, but it is also for all God’s exiled people. God is re-enchanting the Text. Through Ezekiel’s song, God is re-enchanting the Torah. Just as the first vision stirred our imaginations with the past and the Passover (Exodus 12), so this vision reminds us of God in the Garden bringing His image bearer's breathless body to life (Genesis 2.7).

Beloved, what is the song God is singing over your life? How is He drawing you away from the cruel comfort of isolation into the re-animated joy of community? As a church, how is God calling us to sing together?