Mercy Hill

Our THIRD Neighbors & Nations campaign is starting this week!!! Over the next 4 weeks, we’re going to hear from our local, national, and international partners about how God is at work from our community to our nation and across the world.

Each week, we’ll be be asking you to do 3 things: Pray, Give, and Go. Every Sunday, we’ll give you ways you can pray for and serve with our missions partners. This year, we’ve set a goal to raise $25,000 to support our partners here in Cobb Country, across the county, and around the world. We’re asking that you sacrificially give over the next four week to help meet the needs of those on the ground with local partners, NAMB, and IMB.

This week, we started with a joint service with our friends at Comunidad de Fe. If you’ve not been with us for a joint service before, you’re in for a treat. Our joint Sundays are some of my favorite Sundays of the year.

We had a special guest join us this Sunday, my pastor, Dr. Owen Bozeman. Owen was the pastor of Central Baptist Church in Warner Robins, GA for over 20 years. Central is the church that sent me and Mitchell to start Mercy Hill. As the pastor of our sending church, he has been a tremendous supporter of Mercy Hill and has played a huge role in the establishment of our church.

After God rescued His people from slavery in Egypt, he gave them a set of rules that would define how they were to relate to God. These rules are known as the 10 Commandments and you can read about them in Exodus 20. This Sunday, Owen taught us about the 10 Commandments and how they help us understand how we relate to God today.

As we begin Chapter 2 of The Story of the Bible, we see that while God has been faithful to His promise to multiply Abraham’s descendants, the Hebrew people are in trouble. They flourished for years in Egypt, but now we find them enslaved and suffering. What is going to happen to God’s promises of blessing and a land?

In Exodus 3, we find that God has a plan to rescue His people out of slavery and to bring them to a place of flourishing. The plan involves a new character, Moses, who is riddled with self-doubt, but the Lord calls him and promises to go with him. I’d love for you to listen to this Sunday's message as learned more about God’s character from his interaction with Moses.

In Japanese culture there is an ancient artform known at Kintsugi, which translates into something along the lines of “join with gold”. The philosophy behind this artform is that broken things can still be used and be beautiful, and is often demonstrated in Japanese pottery where broken shards of clay will be joined back together with Gold; resulting in beautiful creations.

Like Kintsugi, in scripture we see God weaving the brokenness of this world into the grand tapestry of redemptive history. As we continue our walk this year through the story of the bible, we will see this truth played out over and over again. This week we will see that the descendants of Abraham are a mess worthy of reality TV. But, God will rescue a young man named Joseph from this brokenness so that His promise to Abraham will continue to be fulfilled.

This week we are fast forwarding to the story of Abraham. God has blessed him with a son, Isaac, who is the fulfillment of God’s promise to give he and Sarah a son. Not only does Isaac represents God’s faithfulness, but also the future of God’s promises. If God is going to create a great nation in the line of Abraham, it will be through Isaac.

Then, in Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to do the unthinkable; sacrifice Isaac. How could any father agree to sacrifice his son? How can God keep his promise of blessing if Isaac is dead? How are we to make sense of what God asks of Abraham? This passage is one of the most controversial in all of Scripture.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “blessing?” For some, perhaps you immediately think of praying before meal time. For others, maybe you think of ways God has provided for you in a time of need. And still others, may think of a lists of possessions or accomplishments that lead to prosperity.

In Genesis 12, we meet a new character, Abram. God initiates a relationship with Abram and promises to bless him with a great land, a great name, and a great nation. God also tells Abram why. He will bless Abram so that Abram will be a blessing to others. God has a purpose behind blessing and it is not the accumulation of things.

Genesis 2 leaves us with a compelling picture of a good world created by a good God who is in a relationship with his good people. But, that is not our current experience with our world. We experience hardship, pain, suffering, and sorrow. We interact with people who are not all that good, and, if we’re honest, we have to admit that we’re not that great either. We struggle with anger, jealously, pride, overconsumption, and more. What went wrong?

This Sunday we will turn our attention to Genesis 3, which explains what went wrong in our world and what is wrong in our heart.

The story of the Bible begins with the origin story of our world. The author is answering the question that has intrigued people for generations: How did it all begin? The answer is that our world began with God,  who is the main character of the story of Scripture.  Genesis 1 also contains our origin story. People were created by God in his image and likeness.  John Calvin explains that “man resembles him and that in him God’s glory is contemplated, as in a mirror.” Most significant of all, the image of God in man involves our creation for an identity in communion with our Maker.

“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is one of my favorite Christmas songs. Why is Christmas a wonderful time of year? Well, as Andy Williams croons, there are “kids jingle belling and everyone telling you be of good cheer.” Plus, we’ll be going to parties, roasting marshmallows, caroling Christmas tunes, and, of course, “much mistltoeing.” It truly is wonderful.

But doesn’t it seem like there must be more to than just family celebrations and great music? Why is Christmas filled with so much wonder? Why is it any different  than other holidays? Why don’t we experience the same wonder on President’s Day or Thanksgiving?

This Sunday, we’ll finish our series through John 1, by looking at the why behind Christmas and why it is so wonderful.

A good neighbor is irreplaceable. Knowing that there is someone nearby who can be trusted to take care of our homes and pets when we travel, or who can help us put up a fence in the yard, or who will loan us a cup of flour when we're baking brings security to our lives. Conversely, many of us know what it can be like to have a difficult neighbor. Who we live with can deeply impacts our everyday lives.

In John 1:14 we read about Jesus coming into the world by taking on flesh. He became like us. That is an incredibly mysterious and wonderful idea to explore. Beyond that, he drew near to us by entering our world. The image John offers conveys the idea of Jesus moving into a community. One translation literally says, "The Word became flesh and took up residence among us (HCSB)." As you can imagine, God moving in completely changes the neighborhood.

Join us on Sunday as we consider what it means that God himself entered into our world as one of us. Things will never be the same.