Brian's Sermons

Throughout Advent, as we have been preparing for Christmas and for Christ’s return, we have been focusing on the four words of the Advent candles: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. Today, as we celebrate Christmas Eve, we lit the most important candle, the Christ candle. And as we light the Christ candle, it is only fitting that we would focus on Christ and his place within this wreath. Jesus Christ is not only the center candle for his obvious central role in the Christmas story, but his spot in the center of the wreath is because he is the fulfillment of all of the candles. We began Advent with hope. Fitting, that Hope Church would focus on hope. For a people caught in the “in between” times, Micah’s prophecy includes these words of hope: But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7) In the Old Testament, when you find the word “hope” it is almost always characterized not simply as “hope” b...

Luke 8:19-21 Now Jesus' mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you." He replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." In P.D. Eastman’s classic children’s book Are You My Mother , a baby bird hatches from his egg while its mother is out finding food.  Lonely and abandoned, the baby bird goes in search of his mom. What makes the story cute is how naïve the baby bird is – how he asks everyone and everything if they are his mother – he even asks a steam shovel.  He looks everywhere for his mother. It was one of the first books I learned to read (after P.D. Eastman’s other classic, Go, Dog, Go ), and it has a classic theme; the search for belonging.  Most of us can relate to this search; one of our fundamental needs is to belong.  “There are an endless number of symbols of be...