Evanston Vineyard

Christmas is all about Christ making his home in us so that we could return home – to the home of God.

As we close our series, we look at the strange nature of Biblical signs. Noah got an olive branch, Moses a burning bush, the Israelites a cloud by day and fire by night. But King Ahaz? He got the strangest sign of all – and it’s good news for the entire universe.

Advent is a valley, the time between the first coming and the second. Valleys, at least in part, happen because of leadership crisis. We are more or less facing one now. And Israel was in the same predicament. But out of the shorn stump of Jesse comes a branch, a root, a shoot that will save us all.

It’s the first Sunday of Advent, that time in the church calendar when we remember the first coming of Jesus and look forward to his return. We’re following along the lectionary in the Book of Isaiah and we begin with the solid, lasting, durable nature of Biblical hope. Indeed, it’s more solid than a mountain.

To close out our “Come, Holy Spirit” series, today we consider how to go out into the world and embody the Spirit everywhere we go. This means we become people who are both naturally supernatural, and people who have the Spirit indwelled in them. How do we do this? By being vessels filled with the fruit of the Spirit.