Theme: God Keeps His Promises to Deliver Us

God promised his people a special land to live in, and promised to deliver them from sin. But their sin led them into being taken captive as slaves in Egypt. However, God was faithful, and when they were cornered against the sea, he simply parted the sea so they could escape! Then he brought the sea down on top of the evil people who wanted to hurt God’s people. This shows us that God keeps his promises to deliver us. And as wonderful as this story is, it is even more wonderful to think of all the people Jesus saved when he passed through death and rose again to save us all! Do you think that we can trust Jesus to come back and deliver us from sin once and for all? Thank him for his promise to bring us safely to the promised new world he is making for us.

 

Sunday, we’ll celebrate Holy Communion together and continue our meditation upon Mary’s song as it comes to us in the gospel of Luke.  “Mary is all heart! Evidently her soul is on fire! While she muses, the fire burns. Then she speaks with her tongue. May we, too, call home our wandering thoughts and wake up our slumbering powers to praise redeeming love. It is a noble word that she uses here—”My soul does magnify the Lord.” I suppose it means, “My soul does endeavor to make God great by praising Him.” He is as great as He can be in His Being—my goodness cannot extend to Him. But yet my soul would make God greater in the thoughts of others and greater in my own heart.”  –Charles Spurgeon

 

Last week, we learned a new confession that will shape our services throughout Advent. Trisagion was written by Fernando Ortega, an accomplished song writer and worship director. Ortega is an Aglican minister and recently released a new album titled “Come Down, O Love Devine”. You can listen to some samples from this beautiful work here. We will sing these simple words together this Sunday:

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy
Immortal One, have mercy, have mercy on us

The word Trisagion means “thrice holy” – we sing it to ackknowlege the holiness of our Triune God, just as we acknowlege our own unworthiness. As always, a corporate or private confession should point us to the cross, to the work of Christ that will make all things new. We are comforted by his word:

The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.

 

Parents: If you’ve been around for a while, you are used to walking with your children to the welcome station just before the sermon. From now on, we are going to encourage you to do so at any time during the song that precedes the sermon. This should give you more time to get them checked in and still make it back for the entire message. We hope this will be encouraging to you!

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Theme: God Wants to Call Many People into His Family

God called Abram to move all the way across his world! Have you ever moved? God wanted Abram to trust him, and come to a land just for God’s people. Abraham believed God, and God gave him what he promised. Even more — he said, “I’ll give you more children to share this land than you can count, more than the stars.” Look at the stars; how many are there? Well, the New Testament tells us that ultimately this promise is fulfilled in Jesus. He will come back some day to the world God has promised him, and all those who believe in him will live in a new creation. Can you imagine what perfect a world would look like? Would you be willing to move to live in it, like Abraham did? Thank God for his wonderful invitation to live in the new world he is going to bring when Jesus comes back, and thank him that he wants billions and billions of people to be there with us!