A Weekend for Community
This weekend is all about community. We’re gathering as a community in our community to gather our neighborhood community together. We’re gathering as a community to support young members of our community as they confess their faith. It’s all about community - the community that God has gathered and will gathered. Here are the highlights:
Saturday at 8:30 am: Women’s Bible Study
Saturday at 10:00 am: Food Pantry/ Set up for Festival
Saturday at 4 pm: The Hampton Heights Festival. Learn more here.
Sunday at 9:30 am: Confirmation Sunday. Some of our young people will be confirmed in their faith. We hope you can stay after for a cake reception to give thanks to God for them and to encourage them in their faith.
We hope you can come and share in the fun. Read on below to learn a little more about our new sermon series below.
New series: Loved + Sent
We are constantly in search of identity and purpose. We’ll try to find it in all kinds of places. We’ll try to find identity and value in what we have or do. We’ll seek meaning and purpose in what people think or say about us. We’ll even define ourselves by our best or worst moments. What we find, however, is when we seek our identity and meaning in these places, we will only by wanting. Our God points us elsewhere. Instead of pointing us to our doing for identity, he points us to what Christ has done for us. Instead of highlighting the things that we have, he shows us what we share together with Christ.
You are loved and sent. This identity is not one that you are earn or deserve. It is an identity that is not measured by what you have in your life or by what people think about you. It is an identity given: loved. At the same time, this is a purpose that we do not seek out. It is a purpose given: sent. You are loved and sent.
In this series, we want to explore these two words and learn spiritual practices to be able to keep these two words at the center of our heart, life and faith.
1 Peter 1:17-21 - How much are you worth?
Who am I? Why am I here? At the heart of much listlessness and depression are questions like these. Do I even matter? As we kick off the series at the Hampton Heights Festival, we want to simply say this: Everything in life is empty and meaningless apart from the value and identity given by our God. This empty life is the one handed down to us from those around us. Yet, there is another life. It is a life for which we have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. In fact, he was chosen for that life. He was chosen to give his life for you, for me, even for the whole world.
Do you see what this means? This means that you have a God-sized value. How much are you worth? God! God himself was the price for you. This means that your identity is secure: Redeemed! Purchased for God and by God.
Deuteronomy 7:7-11 - A Tale of Two Words
There is a tendency, even and maybe especially for us, that we would start to find confidence in what we do or how things are going for us. We’re Christians; that’s why! God knew that this tendency and temptation existed for his people, the Israelites too. He knew that they might (even would) become self-confident. So, God reminded them: “Its not because of you! Its not because of your righteousness, or your size, or anything about you. Its because of me! I loved you. I am doing and giving this to you. And I have set you here so that you might live as my people in this world.”
Here are the two words for Christian life: Loved and Sent. Notice the passive. This is not something we do. It is something done to us and for us. God chooses to love us. God, then, in mercy sends us as his loved children into the world.