December has arrived and with it all of the hustle and bustle, chaos and commotion associated with this time of the year. Without disciplined focus, the weeks associated with the celebration of Christ's birth can be easily consumed with parties, presents and Perry Como. We who know Christ as Savior can take a different approach however and one of the best places to experience the real reason for the season is through God's Word. In Philippians 2, Paul reminds us how uniquely special Christ's entrance into the world was 2000 years ago. The Apostle reminds us of a humble Savior who made a humble entrance into a world in desperate need for rescue. In today's message, Pastor Jeff explains how the Incarnation of Christ reminds us that the heart of Christmas is found in one word-humility.

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More often than not, God calls His people to assignments they cannot do in their own strength.  Time and time again, God has asked His people to trust Him with the invisible and believe Him for the impossible. When those assignments come, we can expect to experience  what many of God's saints in Scripture experienced- a crisis of belief. As we resume our study of Exodus, we read how the burning bush encounter with God created an internal struggle for Moses he had never experienced-it became for him a crisis of belief.

Exodus 4:1-17

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People who hear voices in their head are usually considered mentally imbalanced. People who claim to hear God’s voice are considered even more imbalanced; that’s how cults get started! Jim Jones, David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite, Sun Myung Moon, Warren Jeffs, L. Ron Hubbard; the list goes on and on of men who claimed to hear the voice of God and eventually wound up in jail or dead. One of the challenges facing Christians is acknowledging that God does speak to His children today but also acknowledging that not every voice is His. The challenge is to know when the voice we hear is God's voice and not another's. Our series in Exodus provides more insight on how to recognize the voice of God in a wacko world.

Exodus 3

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In the fullness of time, God led His people in Egypt to cry out to Him from their bondage. Because He had already planned a homeland for them in Canaan, He now set into place a series of events that would lead them back to the land of Promise, a land "flowing with milk and honey". Rather than appointing an angel for the task, God chose a man to lead His people. The man He chose was Moses and in Exodus 3, we read about a 3rd reality inspiring and informing our relationship with  God. God invites us to join Him in His work.

Exodus 3:1-10

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One of the ministries of Holy Spirit is helping us identify patterns of God’s activity so that we might discern between the eternal and temporal, between spiritual trash and spiritual treasure.  Nearly 25 years ago, Holy Spirit helped a pastor from a small Baptist Church in Canada identify patterns of God’s work among His people throughout the centuries. As he studied Scripture, primarily the life of Moses in Exodus, he identified 7 patterns that inform and inspire the believer's walk with Jesus. As we conclude Exodus 2 today, we can identify the second of those 7 patterns: God pursues a love relationship with us that is both real and personal.

Exodus 2:23-3:6

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Our mission team recently returned from Quebec. Hear what they learned through service to the Quebecois. Pastor Charles then reminds us to dream big, ask big, and trust God for the results.

Exodus 2 introduces us to Moses, whom against all odds is spared from death as a child in a plot and plan only God could create. Rescued from death, Moses is adopted into none other than Pharaoh’s own family where he is given an education far above what any Hebrew or Egyptian child might receive. God was putting together a plan to rescue His people from slavery and an Egyptian education would help serve that purpose. But for Moses to be the leader his people required, he would need an education on two levels.

Exodus 2, Acts 7

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We come to know God by experience as we obey Him and He accomplishes His will through us. This statement by Henry Blackaby, author of the Bible Study, Experiencing God, has become foundational to many Christians in the last 30 years. What makes it foundational is not that it appears in a popular Bible study written by a man but that it expresses the truth of Scripture, written by God. One of the clearest examples of this truth is found in the story of Moses. As we resume our study of Exodus, we find the story of Moses revealing how God brings His sovereignty to earth. He uses people just like you and me who choose to fight with God, not against Him.

Exodus 2:1-10

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   Just as Good Friday demolishes the mistaken belief that this life is supposed to be fair, Easter Sunday reminds us with breathtaking power that injustice, cruelty and death do not have the final word-God does. Life does. Even more, the good news of Jesus Christ is that He is able to use the worst of life circumstances for our good, right now on earth.
   We may be familiar with those gospel themes in the New Testament but what about the Old? Does the Old Testament provide any glimpses that God uses suffering for our good and His glory? Sure it does and in Exodus 1 we read of God’s people, the children of Israel, experiencing a profound hardship that God not only allowed but used for the greater advancement of His glory on earth.

Exodus 1

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The Bible is more than just a book - it’s God’s Word to us. Though the Bible is primarily about God, not us, it was written for us. It was written for our instruction and participation. The Bible was written to be learned and lived, examined and experienced.  To know the Bible without experiencing God is to fall short of God's original design for the Christian's life. Just as God manifested Himself in the affairs of men and women, boys and girls in "Bible days", He desires the same today. With that truth before us, begin a new series today by looking at how God made Himself real and personal to the sons of Israel living in Egypt as recorded in Exodus.

Exodus 1

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The Bible does not call us to stay in a safe place. We are instead called to go into the world and proclaim the Gospel. Our associate pastor - Jeff Winters - reminds us that as Christians, we are meant to sojourn - to only stay in a place temporarily. God calls us to come to Him, and then to go . . .

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Today we heard from two ladies on how their lives were changed by God; Gabriya Snell, Hali McDonald, and Cori Carnley. Through trials and triumphs they learned of God's great love for them, of freedom from enslavement, and how He loves us even when we think we're worthless.

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We can’t read the Bible without reading of conflict among Christians. A jet tour through the New Testament will reveal Christians continually fighting one another long after Christ's prayer for unity recorded in John 17. What are we to make of the conflict between blood bought, spirit filled, born again, baptized believers? For one, the Christian life is not a bed of roses; it’s hard; it’s difficult; it’s messy. Secondly, conflict can be a good thing when it deepens our dependency upon Jesus and motivates us to turn to Him for guidance. One such example is recorded for us in Acts 6.

John 17; Acts 6:1-7

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There is no aspect of church life that unity doesn’t affect. But the most important result of unity is seeing people dead in sin come to life in Christ. By far, the greatest and most significant aspect of unity is its impact upon our lost world. We resume our study of John 17 today by examining how church unity affects a church's testimony.

John 17:20-23

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In today's message, our youth pastor - Charles Cutrera - teaches us about the parable of the prodigal son. But he doesn't just stop with the sins of the younger brother like many do in this tale. The older brother - though obedient to his father - is also prideful and selfish. Whether we're the younger outwardly-sinful brother or the older inwardly-sinful brother, we still need to repent and ask the Father to do what He always does - run to us and bring us back into the family.

Luke 15:24

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Having established the source of Christian unity, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we must now ask practical questions about the shape of church unity. How do Christians who agree on the most important stuff in church life move forward when they disagree on the important stuff? Is it possible for Christians to live and worship in harmony when they disagree on issues of money, music and missions? Yes, and in John 17, Jesus gives us two very important ways to handle those disagreements.

John 17:11-17

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Far greater than the oneness husbands and wives experience in sexual intimacy or the camaraderie uniting soldiers on the field of battle is the unity Christians can experience when they get their identity and life from their Savior. Sharing the same nature of God, Whom we now call our Father, far exceeds any other common denominator two people can have on earth. As we pick up our study in John 17, Jesus reveals how Christians can walk in oneness of heart and mind, regardless of disagreements.

John 17:6-12

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If you are a Christian, then you are a member of God’s forever family, which makes you unlike any other person on the planet. You are a disciple of Jesus and that sets you apart from the world. In John 17, Jesus prays for His disciples and in this prayer, we are given insight on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in the 21st Century.

John 17:6-11

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We began a new series last week looking at the issue of Christian unity from John’s gospel, chapter 17. In that passage, Jesus prays that His immediate disciples and all others who believe through their word will be united. More than united; they will be perfected in unity. As we pick up our study in verses 1-5, we read how that kind of unity can only be accomplished by constant communion with God, Whom we now know as our Father.

John 17:1-5

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In John 17, Jesus pulls back the veil of His innermost thoughts and reveals His love for God the Father and His disciples. It is a sacred moment forever captured in print as we, like John, are able to eavesdrop upon one of the most important prayers ever prayed. It is within this context - the intimate relationship between God the Father and God the Son - that we are exposed to the foundation of Christian unity. Whatever else we may say about Christian unity, it does not exist apart from knowing God as our Father and other believers as our brothers and sisters.

John 17

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Acts 15 describes a critically important chapter in the 1st century church as conflict threatened to divide believers and cripple their evangelistic witness. The turmoil revolved around whether Gentiles could be saved and if so, what must they do to obtain eternal life. One of the ways God gave clarity and restored unity came through the telling of personal testimonies. As Peter, Paul and Barnabas shared real life experiences of God's work upon Gentile hearts, church leaders saw more clearly the broader scope of God's mercy. In a sense, personal testimonies saved the day!

   What God did through testimonies in the 1st Century, He does today in the 21st. For that reason, we have set aside every Lord's Supper Sunday to hear the testimonies of three of our members who have encountered God's grace in very real and personal ways. Following our testimonies, Pastor Jeff leads us in observing the Lord's Supper.

You will probably never meet a Christian who openly boasts in being greedy, but we have all been guilty of getting our life from our possessions. Until Jesus comes back, Christians will wrestle with the temptation to get their security from their physical resources. The grip of greed is a temptation we all face, no matter how long we have been a Christian. And that is why Paul places emphasis on the dangers associated with money as he concludes his letter to Timothy. He reminds Timothy that the most important riches are the ones we send ahead.

1 Timothy 6:17-21

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