Pastor Chris Seay taught through Isaiah 25, and continued laying the groundwork for our ongoing response following this challenging time for so many; a plan for the next two years that will include serving the poorest in our city, the first-responders who worked tirelessly and selflessly through the storm, and our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico following the devastation of Maria. We're excited for the healing, the feasting and dancing, the rejoicing to come in this season ahead.
Text
Isaiah 25
Luke 5: 33-34
Luke 14: 21-23
Luke 14: 11
John 2: 1-3
There is a difference between believing that God is holy and gracious, and having a new sense on the heart of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness.
—Jonathan Edwards
“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.”
—C.S. Lewis
Thus every year, from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit, Bacchus or Dionysus: or else, like the moderns, they attribute real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off (John 5:19). The miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God: it will have its full effect if whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana.
—C.S. Lewis
Reflection
When we consider serving those locally in our midst, and serving our brothers and sisters in need around the globe; it's never an either/or, but always a both/and. We're not setting a $ goal for our giving through the Advent season ahead. Instead, we are asking 100% of Ecclesians to participate; that all of us would prayerfully consider how we are called to give as a people of abundance. We believe that God will multiply our giving, and lead to celebrations for the hardest hit by the storm, solar power for churches in Puerto Rico that will allow them to serve their communities, and clean water for the most vulnerable across the globe.
Worship Set
I'll Fly Away
All The Poor And Powerless
In Christ Alone
Beautiful, Scandalous Night
Trinity Song
Grace