Harrisonville Church of the Nazarene

As we have been exploring throughout this sermon series, God's call to follow him involves taking risks, away from a safe, comfortable life to a life of obedience and trust in God only. God's promise to us is not that we will prosper at all times - God's promise to us is that even in the midst of times of darkness in our lives he will be right there with us.

As the Savior of the world was being born in a humble manger, God's angels are surprisingly nowhere to be found. Instead of announcing these great news to kings and rules, a host of angels appears to a group of poor shepherds on the countryside. As much as anything in the Christmas story, this teaches us much about the God we serve and the kind of person Jesus would be - someone who sought the outcasts, the poor and powerless of the world, with the great love of God.

Zechariah's call was to have faith that God could make the impossible happen, but Mary's call also involved accepting danger and uncertainty into her life. In spite of her young age, Mary's faith allowed her to say yes to this life of sacrifice, a life that would require her to give everything up, but a life that would also be filled with the kind of joy and purpose only God can give us.

Being visited by an angel is not a common place occurrence; they are life-changing and altering experiences. In fact, angel visits in the Bible tend to change people's trajectories, and not towards comfortable or carefree lives but towards deeper commitment and reliance on God. Zechariah's life was shaken by one such visit, which we will learn about in this sermon.

Rev Ben Hayden, hospital and military chaplain, joins us to talk about grief and how the Bible helps us to understand this process we all face at different times in our lives.

The path to wisdom requires us to be careful about what we allow into our lives. While we might believe certain behaviors only affects us, the truth is that anything we allow into our hearts will eventually be expressed in our lives.

The wisdom in the book of Proverbs is given to us to serve as bridge between theological knowledge and practical living. It is not enough to have knowledge about God and how we are to live as Jesus-followers. We must put that knowledge into action in our everyday lives. Wisdom is more thank knowing how to live well... it is doing the hard work of actually living well.

The old saying goes, "practice makes perfect", and what is true for the professional athlete or musician is also true for the disciple of Jesus Christ. Reconciliation is vital for the Christian because you cannot experience the depths of Christ's love until you share the depths of Christ's love.

Harrisonville Church of the Nazarene

Jesus appeals to people because he exemplifies the single-minded life of someone who lived out what he preached. However, his was not an easy life - Jesus chose a path of sacrifice and self-emptying, and he calls us to follow his example.