Grace Dover Messages

As we continue to ponder the Christmas story of Christ’s birth, we are also naturally drawn to think about Easter. We may celebrate these seasons in different times, but they must always go together. For both stories are part of the greater story of God’s grace in salvation to us through Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that this salvation was all part of God’s "plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him.” As we celebrate Christmas and begin a new year, let us reaffirm our faith and trust in the Lord’s plan for us now and eternally.

Jesus actually became a human, and like us grew up from childhood to adulthood. The mystery of the incarnation continues in a peculiar story in Luke 2 where we get a glimpse of Jesus's childhood. Jesus as the child of God grew in wisdom, yet as our Messiah, was always filled with wisdom! Jesus shows us where true wisdom can be found, "In his Father's house". Therefore our savior incarnates with us and teaches us how to truly grow.

The season of Advent challenges us to see the world through the eyes of heaven. Advent reminds us that heaven came down and it is coming to remain with us permanently. What happens to us when heaven and earth come together? Can divinity join together with humanity? In Mary's Magnificat we have divinity literally becoming one with humanity. Mary can't help but sing! When divinity joins with humanity the first thing that happens we get magnification and mindfulness. When divinity and humanity come together we discover mercy and might in one person. When divinity and humanity merge you find mitigation and memory brings healing. There is great profundity in the lessons from the unity between divinity and humanity! And these are all taught to us by a girl who received the grace that God bestowed on her. During the season of Advent, how will you respond to the grace of the divine being one of us and being one with us forever? This girl, Mary, she can teach us a few things!

For many people Christmas is a time that brings about depression and feelings of sadness. Christmas can bring on the blues. Even though you are a believer, it doesn't mean that you won't have feelings of grief, and sorrow. These sorrows and griefs happen to all people at different times and in numerous way. And our tendency is to try to bear them alone. This makes us vulnerable to being isolated in our grief and ineffective in processing it. Grief and sorrow happens to us as individuals, but to bear it alone is deceitful and deadly. Our Scripture passages remind us that we are a people and the Lord is in our midst. What does this mean to the grieving and sorrowing heart? It means you are not alone. It means you shouldn't bear your griefs alone. The difficulty of rejoicing always is related to thinking that you are the one responsible to produce the joy. However the Lord is at hand! As his people we are together enabled to bear one another's griefs and sorrows. This Sunday's sermon we want to take time to acknowledge the reality of the grief and sorrow that we suffer as individuals and as a people. We will also bring these to the Lord, who is in our midst, for he enables us to bear them together. The good news of the gospel is that the Lord is at hand! So, together, with him, we are able to rejoice always and we can let our reasonableness be known to everyone, because the Lord is in your midst.

The season of Advent reminds us that we are in a state of already, but not yet. As we look back at the first coming of Christ, we are reminded of why he came and how his perfect life, death, and resurrection are our justification for the atonement of our sins through faith in him. We have been given new hearts and new lives because of Jesus’ first coming. Yet, we continue to live between the sanctification of the Holy Spirit and the gratifications of our flesh. So, as we look forward to the second coming of Christ, we are reminded that we will be made righteous only by the grace and love of God to us through Christ.

This Sunday begins the season of Advent. During this season, each sermon will be focusing on the coming of our Lord. In waiting for the Lord's coming, then and now, we find it difficult to hold in our hearts and heads what it is that we are waiting for. What are the people of God waiting for? We are waiting not just for injustice to be dealt with. We are waiting not just for all things to be made new. We are waiting to stand before the Son of Man. Everything that the child of God is longing for finds its meaning and fulfillment in being able to stand before the Son of Man. The Son of Man comes to reclaim his creation. Therefore, the Son of Man's coming , is going to shake things up. He is coming to execute justice and righteousness. There is no way for things to remain the way they are when the Son of Man comes! This can be both terrifying and comforting at the same time. The question for each of us to answer is, "Will you be able to stand before the Son of Man?" The Son of Man, Jesus, is coming. This sermon's focus will help believers to know what it means to stand before the Son of Man and how it is accomplished through the power of the gospel. For it is in the gospel that we find that the Lord's coming is to save us from the trouble, provide us with the Lord's righteousness, and correct the evil in the world. Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Sermon by Joshua Suh, Senior Pastor, from Exodus 31:1-6 & Matthew 27:57-61. This final sermon in our generosity series will examine the gift of Joseph of Arimathea and the way that he stewarded his wealth and property to give glory to God.

Last Sunday's sermon in the series on generosity taught us that, "All things come from you [The Lord] and of your own have we given you." (I Chronicles 29:14b). This is demonstrated for us in this week's devotional reading when the Lord has need of the colt of a man while on his way to Jerusalem. The colt is the man's property but, "The Lord has need of it" so the man gives this gift to the King. This sermon will teach us that if the Lord doesn't have need of anything we've got, then whatever we've got isn't going to do us any good. But if whatever we've got, if the Lord has need of it, then to give it will do us the most good. This is the nature of generosity to the Lord. The gospel demonstrates this as King Jesus uses the colt's owner's generosity to ride into Jerusalem, fulfilling Scripture, and bringing salvation to the world. Our generosity is a participation in the work of heaven and earth becoming one. Do you want your generosity to generate joy? It is only as we remember that all that we have is all given by the Lord, and things serve us best when we serve the Lord with what we have.

Sermon by Joshua Suh, Senior Pastor, from 1 Chronicles 29:10-15 & Luke 8:1-3. In the third week of our generosity series, “Gifts For A King,” we take a look at people who gave to Jesus during his adult earthly ministry. We see that many people were compelled to give to Jesus out of the love and gratitude that came from knowing his grace and salvation. In the same way, we are called to be generous because we know that God has given us everything first, even his own Son.

Sermon by Kenny Foster, Associate Pastor, from Exodus 30:22-31 & Mark 14:3-9. This Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP). In our second sermon in the series on Giving Gifts to the King, we see that generosity to Jesus can lead to persecution, but Christ counts it as a beautiful thing. The scripture reading, through the example of the woman with the expensive perfume, is teaching us to do something beautiful to Jesus. It teaches us something about the motivation of our generosity. Our generosity is not for the Lord, but to the Lord. When generosity is to the Lord, we take care to prepare, we seek to obey, and we seek to promote Christ. And as we do this we can expect persecution. Like the woman in the story of anointing Jesus. She knew there was a cost. She didn't care that it would draw criticism. And when your generosity draws persecution, what makes you continue? It has to be the beauty of the gospel, since she drew a commendation from Christ. Christ taking on our suffering, redeeming our pain, he turns it into a beautiful thing to him. Beauty begets beauty. That beautiful thing that Christ has done is the beauty the persecuted saint pursues as the motivation for the acts of generosity they seek to do to Jesus.