The Way, Week 1 THE JOURNEY BEGINS Matthew 4:1-11 4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become…
THE TRANSFIGURATION CODE Mark 9:2-9 Secret codes, mysterious symbols, hidden meanings. Don’t you love this stuff? Did anybody have a Secret Decoder Ring growing up? Or a decoder badge? There’s a scene in the movie A Christmas Story where Ralphie and his brother use their decoder badges to decode a message from Little Orphan…
FOCUS Mark 1:32-39 What would our lives be like if you and I could get more focused? Instead of running around from here to there, here to there, trying to do everything, what if we could be more focused? I love my iPhone because it’s simple, and easy to use. Steve Jobs of Apple Computers…
GRAY AREAS 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Think about some Christian taboos you grew up with. Maybe you grew up being told that Christians aren’t supposed to dance, play cards, or go to movies. You might have been told that Christian men have to have short hair, and Christian women can’t wear make-up. Or that Christian…
GO FISH Mark 1:14-20 The passage we’re looking at today has been done, and done, and done. If you’ve been in church for very long, you’ve heard this passage. You’ve heard that Jesus wants you to fish for people, meaning he wants you to go out into the world and bring people in.…
NO MERE MORTALS Isaiah 139:1-6, 13-18 Do you know any good light bulb jokes? If they’re tasteful and not horribly insensitive, light bulb jokes are some of my favorites. For example: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb has to want to change. How many computer…
REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE Matthew 3:7-17 There’s power in remembering who you are. Marty Johnson was the child of two college students who had a brief affair and gave him up for adoption. As an adult, he wanted to know more about his birth parents, so he started digging through records and he found his…
Herod and the MagiHEROD AND THE MAGI Matthew 2:1-12 King Herod was furious! He pounded the armrest of his throne and thought, “How dare these foreigners come into my city and ask, ‘Where is he who is born King of the Jews?’” I AM KING OF THE JEWS! Did not the Roman Emperor…
Tidings of Comfort and Joy
21After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. 22When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), 24and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” …
The story behind Silent Night is the story of a miracle. December 24, 1818: In the little village of Oberndorf, Austria, Father Joseph Mohr is getting the church ready for Christmas Eve services that night, when he discovers that mice have chewed through the bellows of the organ and destroyed it. In horror, he frantically…
