12/06/2019
The words of the Advent wreath...Peace, Hope, Joy and Love. Isn’t that what all of us want in our lives? If we had those, could we feel like we had it all? I thought that I would spend my midweek blog for the next 4 weeks of December reflecting each week on one aspect.
This second week of Advent, let’s light the candle of hope.
I ask myself...what do I hope for? I certainly can respond that I hope for peace, hope, joy and love in my life. I can also tell you that my kids roll their eyes when they hear my response! Then I ask myself...what do I need to hope in to receive what I hope for… (that may be a bit wordy so read it slowly).
I know without a doubt that to receive what I hope for, I must put my hope in Jesus. Anything else I would hope to receive would only be temporary or as they often say in Scripture, they would be “false gods”. Living in a country and a community where we have so “much”, we can so easily be tempted or distracted to believe that all of the other “stuff” can fill us. But it doesn’t.
What happens when the toy or gadget we hoped for so badly breaks? What happens when the new car we got with a red ribbon on top gets hit by another car? We had hoped for something that is temporary. It is not a real source of real hope. That hope will only last for a season at best.
Hope this season for HOPE, that is real and everlasting...evergreen! When you receive peace, hope, joy and love you cannot help but share all of that with others. We then become filled and changed and our world will change too.
May your life be filled with hope this Advent season and always, Pastor Patti
Archived Posts
Gandhi and the Sugar
I wasn’t preaching Sunday, Reverend Jackie Chandler was. And she talked about the power of influence you get when you practice what you preach. This famous illustration came to mind. It fits Jackie’s points quite well. Enjoy!
Not Just for Parents
Our current sermon series is about How To Talk Parent, but it doesn’t require any of us to be parents to appreciate the bits of wisdom OUR parents shared with us growing up.
If Not Higher
Here’s a story I wanted to use when talking about ‘what you do when no one is looking’ yesterday. It’s a wonderful illustration of what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6:1-6—do what you do because of who you want to be, not so that others will take notice and praise you.
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”
One of the Longest Benedictions I Ran Out of Time to Share
Maybe you know the story of how Joseph and Mary accidentally left Jesus at the gas station on their way home from Jerusalem. Well, not the gas station bathroom in Jesus’ case. Joe and Mary are far down the road before they realize Jesus isn’t with them...