Mary - Christmas Experience
All of a sudden, a messenger of the Lord comes to Mary saying she is highly favored. At first she is agitated at the experience, just like her older cousin Zechariah was. However, when Zechariah’s experience with the angel ended, he was left in forced speechlessness, but Mary leaves with her voice. What was the difference? Perhaps it was one simple mindful stance, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Describe a time you felt unworthy of a task assigned to you. How did you respond?
Read Luke 1:26-38. Mary was an unwed, teenager who would become pregnant and is told by the angel that she is “highly favored.” The angel of God thinks more of Mary than the world would have thought. Describe a time when someone showed you favor and it wasn’t deserved. What impact did that make on you?
Mary is “greatly troubled” when she finds out that she will be pregnant with God’s Son. She doesn’t feel worthy. How does she react? (See Luke 1:38)
How is Mary an encouragement to you to act in faith, when God or the church asks you to do something you don’t feel worthy of?
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Zechariah - Christmas Experience
He has worked his whole life for this one moment. He will be doing the sacrifice and will be blessing the people! However, when God shows up, Zachariah is left speechless, literally. Perhaps God is doing something different that no one expected.
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Tell of a time when a Christmas experience did not go as planned.
Read Luke 1:1-25. How did Zachariah’s experience not go quite as planned when he entered the temple?
In the temple things didn't quite go as planned for Zechariah. An angel of God met him and said his wife, who was beyond childbearing years, would become pregnant with a messenger of God’s Savior. After this extreme experience he was made unable to speak.
What would be going through your heart and mind as you experienced this angel of the Lord if you were Zechariah?
What would you be thinking and feeling about the encounter if you then lost something afterwards, like you ability to speak?
After Zechariah's experience, his wife gave birth to John who would point people to Jesus, the Savior who will serve all of humanity. At John’s circumcision, Zechariah gives a blessing pointing people to Jesus, this servant. Read this blessing in Luke 1:67-79. What are ways you might serve you neighbor or point people to Jesus through your words and actions this Advent season?
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Thanksgiving Sunday
Sometimes our life is filled with chaos all around us. The holiday season shows us this well: Party after party, hand out after hand out, all the traveling, the cooking and gift wrapping. This season is supposed to be a joy-filled time; however, with everything going on we often feel overwhelmed. God’s people were feeling overwhelmed in their situation, and God told them like he tells us: give thanks for everything you have.
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Free To Live - God's Act of Grace
Today God’s act of grace to us is that, though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9
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Free To Live - God's Varied Grace
Today we see that as stewards of “God’s Varied Grace” (1 Peter 4:10), we put the gifts that he has given us in Christ Jesus to work in his kingdom.
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Misquoted - Poor Will Always Be With you
John 12:8 — Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
“John 12:8 — Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.””
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Misquoted - Love of Money and Evil
1 Timothy 6:10
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.”
Money has a way of controlling us. However, Jesus has given us life that is truly life.
“1 Timothy 6:10
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.”
Money has a way of controlling us. However, Jesus has given us life that is truly life.”
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Insiders - Submit Humbly to One Another
“Submit humbly to one another out of reverence for Christ.” With all the language we as modern Christians have gotten stuck on in the Bible, Paul’s “submit” has to be at the top. However, we understand this as mutually serving each other.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - Awake
We no longer emulate the ways of the Gentiles, put aside all of our dark ways. The things we do and think and say which we hope never sees the light of day. The empty words we listen, telling us stay asleep, stay in the dark. The Light of the world has come and we all sing in unity “Awake Oh Sleeper, Arise from the dead, Christ will shine on you.”
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - Under New Management
Paul sits in prison and has told the church of all the amazing things which God has done to bring us all together. Now he switches gears and tells us how we can make an effort to maintain the unity in the Spirit.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - Effort to Maintain Unity
Paul sits in prison and has told the church of all the amazing things which God has done to bring us all together. Now he switches gears and tells us how we can make an effort to maintain the unity in the Spirit.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - Go to the Ephesian
Paul sits in prison. He is happily sitting in chains because he openly welcomed the outsider Ephesians inside. The question for us: how would we react if he was to bring the outsiders into our midst?
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - The Temple God Builds
We love the grace of God. But what does grace actually mean? It means that no matter the names we call people or the barriers we put up between them, God saves them and us by his action.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Insiders - No Racing In A Museum
We love to see classic cars, to look at old race cars or marvel at our car from our youth sitting in the garage. But those machines were not built to just be looked at. They were built to be set free on a track to race the day away.
“Paul is encouraging us, saying through Jesus, the promise of Abraham, has come true, that those who were once outsiders are now insiders; those who were lost are now found. “A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10 ”
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Teach us to Pray - Hannah's Prayer
Hannah cannot have children, and her husband's other wife is constantly making fun of her. She is not even safe in the temple praying because High Priest Eli thinks she is drunk in the temple. However, we see God uses the humble to point to His true King.
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Teach us to Pray - Deliver Us From Evil
What does this mean? We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.
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Teach us to Pray - Lead us not into Tempation
What does this mean? God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.
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Teach us to Pray - Forgive us our sins.
What does this mean? We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins, or deny our prayer because of them. We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. So we too will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us.
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Teach us to Pray - Our Daily Bread
What does this mean? Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.
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Giving To Jesus Thankfully From The Heart
MOST BELIEVERS have questions about life. Sometimes there are answers, sometimes there aren’t. When life doesn’t seem to make sense, when we are tempted to rationalize our circumstances or explain our situation according to reason or Christian principles, the lesson from Job reminds us how far God is beyond our understanding. Our life in relationship with Him is more about trust than understanding. Trust is God’s gift that reminds us of our humanity and God’s incredible power, power that loves us and makes us His own.
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