Baptism of Jesus - The Jesus Experience
John was a man from the wilderness who “prepared the way of the Lord.” But when he baptized Jesus, it was not the normal pattern of forgiveness. Rather, this time the heavens opened up, and God said “this is my son whom I love.”
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
What is your favorite part of the Christmas story? Why is it your favorite?
Read Luke 2:1-20. In contrast with the power of the Roman empire, an angel appears to shepherds in the fields. The angel announces that a Savior has been born to these shepherds who were commonly considered to be lowly and powerless. Why do you think the birth of Jesus was first announced to people like these shepherds?
How has your understanding of Christmas changed the last few years as your faith has grown and your life has adjusted to new circumstances?
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Shepherds - Christmas Experience
Mary looks up from swaddling her baby, only to see dirty, wide-eyed shepherds looking at her. When God chose to send a group of people to witness his new Son, He did not send royalty; he sent those who were not able to sleep within the town at night - the outcasts, the dirty, the shepherds.
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
What is your favorite part of the Christmas story? Why is it your favorite?
Read Luke 2:1-20. In contrast with the power of the Roman empire, an angel appears to shepherds in the fields. The angel announces that a Savior has been born to these shepherds who were commonly considered to be lowly and powerless. Why do you think the birth of Jesus was first announced to people like these shepherds?
How has your understanding of Christmas changed the last few years as your faith has grown and your life has adjusted to new circumstances?
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Elizabeth - Christmas Experience
For years Elizabeth had wished for a child of her own. As she grew older, the chances of that happening vanished before her eyes. But then hope of all hope, her husband sees an angel, and she becomes pregnant. Then her much younger and also pregnant cousin Mary comes and visits her. Elizabeth could have said something nasty about Mary getting pregnant so young, but, with the jump of her spirit-filled womb, Elizabeth gives nothing but encouragement.
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Tell of someone who has encouraged you. How did they specifically encourage you?
Read Luke 1:39-45. What role does the Holy Spirit play in this story?
Elizabeth encourages Mary with what God is doing in her life. Tell of a time when someone was encouraged by something that God was doing in their life.
Filled with the Spirit, Elizabeth encourages Mary. Who can you encourage this Advent season? How can you encourage them specifically this week?
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Mary - Christmas Experience
All of a sudden, a messenger of the Lord comes to Mary saying she is highly favored. At first she is agitated at the experience, just like her older cousin Zechariah was. However, when Zechariah’s experience with the angel ended, he was left in forced speechlessness, but Mary leaves with her voice. What was the difference? Perhaps it was one simple mindful stance, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Describe a time you felt unworthy of a task assigned to you. How did you respond?
Read Luke 1:26-38. Mary was an unwed, teenager who would become pregnant and is told by the angel that she is “highly favored.” The angel of God thinks more of Mary than the world would have thought. Describe a time when someone showed you favor and it wasn’t deserved. What impact did that make on you?
Mary is “greatly troubled” when she finds out that she will be pregnant with God’s Son. She doesn’t feel worthy. How does she react? (See Luke 1:38)
How is Mary an encouragement to you to act in faith, when God or the church asks you to do something you don’t feel worthy of?
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Zechariah - Christmas Experience
He has worked his whole life for this one moment. He will be doing the sacrifice and will be blessing the people! However, when God shows up, Zachariah is left speechless, literally. Perhaps God is doing something different that no one expected.
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Tell of a time when a Christmas experience did not go as planned.
Read Luke 1:1-25. How did Zachariah’s experience not go quite as planned when he entered the temple?
In the temple things didn't quite go as planned for Zechariah. An angel of God met him and said his wife, who was beyond childbearing years, would become pregnant with a messenger of God’s Savior. After this extreme experience he was made unable to speak.
What would be going through your heart and mind as you experienced this angel of the Lord if you were Zechariah?
What would you be thinking and feeling about the encounter if you then lost something afterwards, like you ability to speak?
After Zechariah's experience, his wife gave birth to John who would point people to Jesus, the Savior who will serve all of humanity. At John’s circumcision, Zechariah gives a blessing pointing people to Jesus, this servant. Read this blessing in Luke 1:67-79. What are ways you might serve you neighbor or point people to Jesus through your words and actions this Advent season?
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Thanksgiving Sunday
Sometimes our life is filled with chaos all around us. The holiday season shows us this well: Party after party, hand out after hand out, all the traveling, the cooking and gift wrapping. This season is supposed to be a joy-filled time; however, with everything going on we often feel overwhelmed. God’s people were feeling overwhelmed in their situation, and God told them like he tells us: give thanks for everything you have.
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Free To Live - God's Act of Grace
Today God’s act of grace to us is that, though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9
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Free To Live - God's Varied Grace
Today we see that as stewards of “God’s Varied Grace” (1 Peter 4:10), we put the gifts that he has given us in Christ Jesus to work in his kingdom.
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Misquoted - Poor Will Always Be With you
John 12:8 — Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
“John 12:8 — Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.””
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Misquoted - Love of Money and Evil
1 Timothy 6:10
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.”
Money has a way of controlling us. However, Jesus has given us life that is truly life.
“1 Timothy 6:10
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.”
Money has a way of controlling us. However, Jesus has given us life that is truly life.”
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Insiders - Submit Humbly to One Another
“Submit humbly to one another out of reverence for Christ.” With all the language we as modern Christians have gotten stuck on in the Bible, Paul’s “submit” has to be at the top. However, we understand this as mutually serving each other.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - Awake
We no longer emulate the ways of the Gentiles, put aside all of our dark ways. The things we do and think and say which we hope never sees the light of day. The empty words we listen, telling us stay asleep, stay in the dark. The Light of the world has come and we all sing in unity “Awake Oh Sleeper, Arise from the dead, Christ will shine on you.”
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - Under New Management
Paul sits in prison and has told the church of all the amazing things which God has done to bring us all together. Now he switches gears and tells us how we can make an effort to maintain the unity in the Spirit.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Insiders - Effort to Maintain Unity
Paul sits in prison and has told the church of all the amazing things which God has done to bring us all together. Now he switches gears and tells us how we can make an effort to maintain the unity in the Spirit.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Insiders - Go to the Ephesian
Paul sits in prison. He is happily sitting in chains because he openly welcomed the outsider Ephesians inside. The question for us: how would we react if he was to bring the outsiders into our midst?
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Insiders - The Temple God Builds
We love the grace of God. But what does grace actually mean? It means that no matter the names we call people or the barriers we put up between them, God saves them and us by his action.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Insiders - No Racing In A Museum
We love to see classic cars, to look at old race cars or marvel at our car from our youth sitting in the garage. But those machines were not built to just be looked at. They were built to be set free on a track to race the day away.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Teach us to Pray - Hannah's Prayer
Hannah cannot have children, and her husband's other wife is constantly making fun of her. She is not even safe in the temple praying because High Priest Eli thinks she is drunk in the temple. However, we see God uses the humble to point to His true King.
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Teach us to Pray - Deliver Us From Evil
What does this mean? We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.
Events Coming up
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Let’s celebrate our country’s 250th anniversary together with good food, good friends, and good fun!