For the second sermon of Advent, Pastor Cana turns to Luke 3:1-6, where John the Baptist, son of Zachariah, received the Word of God and went out to pave the way for Jesus’ offer of salvation. It is up to us to do the same for the Savior’s Second Coming.

Advent is a season of waiting, which requires us to be on alert. For the first sermon of Advent, Pastor Cana turns to Luke 21:25-36, where Jesus teaches that signs are our signal to stay ready for the Second Coming of Christ and the redemption He will bring. To catch those signs, we need to pay attention and not be distracted.

Jennifer’s son Cody Urban delivers a message to us for the holiday, focusing on what thanksgiving is. Thanksgiving is essential for prayer, as expressed in the ACTS model (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication). It is also a peace offering, a means of having fellowship with God through a communal meal. Finally, it leads to generosity when we remember that all we have been blessed with belongs to God and is not ours to keep.

Pastor Cana looks to Ecclesiastes 3 and Job 38:1-7, 12-13 to convey that God cares about our concerns and isn’t threatened as we are when our life changes seasons. Because of this, we should feel confident rather than concerned when changes and challenges come our way.

For this Spiritual Discipline, Pastor Cana explains that fasting desires dependance on God and a spirit willing to live out God’s will. In Isaiah 58:6-9, God tells Israel that their insincere rituals of fasting are unacceptable and fasting must be taken to heart. There are many ways we can incorporate fasting into our daily efforts to nurture our relationship with God.

The secular holiday of Halloween is often controversial among Christians. In this message, Joanne Tramel traces the origins of the holiday and takes on the question “is it okay to celebrate?” Even a pagan holiday’s origins don’t always carry over into modern culture’s intent. Yes, Satan is real, but the Enemy is more likely to put his efforts into true evils such as hunger, drug addiction, and abuse. Only Jesus and modeling Christ-like actions can overcome Satan’s influence.

For Pastor Cana’s message, she takes us to Exodus 1:15-21, where Pharaoh commands the midwives Shiprah and Puah to kill newborn Hebrew boys so that the slave population could be controlled. However, these midwives dared to defy and deceive him so that many lives could be saved and eventually freed. God’s deliverance is often messy, but will offer us life if we hold fast and serve confidently.

Singing is one of the most common ways to worship, so Jennifer Urban discusses the role it has in our worship, why it’s so essential, and reminds us that Satan uses lies to keep us from singing. We must keep in mind that worship is not about us, but about our Savior.

 

(Contains writing by Tom Olson, Joe McKeever, Vivian Bricker, James Jack, and Jonathan Mcleod)

Pastor Cana explains context for 1 Corinthians 8:1-6, which finds the early church arguing over the rightness of eating food sacrificed to false idols, leading Paul to tell them that being right is far less important than love. We often struggle when we don’t agree with others and feel the need to be right, but to have true humility, we must love first. Love offers a willingness to humble ourselves for the sake of another.

Pastor Cana refers to Exodus 20:8-11, which lays out God’s 4th Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. On the 7th day of Creation, God rested, blessing the Sabbath day and consecrating it for our sake. We must take time in our week to set aside our work to focus on recharging our physical, mental, and spiritual being.