Pastor's Corner: WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

  Grace and the Incarnation Matthew 1:1-17 Introduction : A little boy and his slightly older sister were singing their favorite Christmas carol the week before Christmas one year. When they got to the final line, the boy sang, “Sleep in heavenly beans!”   His sister corrected him, “No, no, no, not beans, it’s PEAS, sleep in heavenly peas ! ” Sometimes, in the midst of our celebrations and shopping, we can lose track of the true reason for the season! In one of my favorite Christmas classics, A Charlie Brown Christmas , Charlie Brown asks in the midst of his celebrating friends, “What is Christmas all about?!” Linus answers by citing Scripture.        I decided to start our Advent series this year with the opening verses of the New Testament, the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew.   A genealogy? That sounds riveting! I remember when I first came to faith in Christ, as a new believer, I would typically “skim over” the genealogies in the Bibl...

  Thankful Pilgrims:   Psalm 84 Introduction : Being thankful to God isn’t only for Thanksgiving! A family was gathered around the table for dinner, when the dad asked his young son if he would give thanks for the meal. The boy eyed every dish on the table and then bowed his head and prayed, “Lord, I don’t like the looks of it, but I thank you for it, and I’ll eat it anyway!” Do you ever feel that way? You are not sure what to make of circumstances in your life, you may not like the looks of it, but you choose to be thankful because you know the One who has set the table ? God is good, and He does good, and He gives good things to his own. Somehow, He even causes the hard things to “work together for good” to those who love Him, to those who are the called, according to His purpose.           At Thanksgiving we often think back to the Pilgrims giving thanks for their first harvest in 1621. We’ve learned in our study of I Peter that “...

  Following Jesus and Respecting Authorities I Peter 2:13-17 (cf. Jeremiah 29:4ff.) Introduction: A man of God wrote a letter to exiles, urging them to live peaceably in their place of residency, to pray for it’s leaders, and to seek the good of that nation. Yes, I could be talking about Peter and his first letter, but there was another letter written centuries before with a similar message. In Jeremiah 29 we have a letter written by Jeremiah, a message from God to His people in exile. Let’s read a few lines in Jeremiah 29:4-7… 4 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:   Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray ...

  Pilgrims in a Fallen World: Live the Good Life! I Peter 2:11-12 Introduction : What do you think of when you hear the phrase, "The Good Life"? When we speak of “living the good life” in our American context, it is not a moral or ethical “goodness” that most people are referring to. Often it focuses on our comfort and self-indulgence: our home, our possessions, our excesses. As a friend used to say, “Don’t get too attached, it’s all going to burn!” Sometimes we think more deeply, and in those moments most would want their life to have meaning, to make a difference, to be “good” in a more enduring sense. That is God’s plan for those who follow Him. He chose you, for a purpose. We were created for eternity. And we are deployed on a mission, God's Mission.   We are God’s ambassadors right where we are at. These verses are a summary of much that we have looked at in I Peter 1 and 2. At the same time they prepare us for the practical application: How we can live as pilgr...