This final week of our Epiphany sermon series, we conclude in our focus on God’s enduring promises with one that perhaps ties all the others together: God’s promise of wonder. Wonder and awe and amazement is our response to being in the presence of something overwhelming; something that we cannot explain; something we did not make happen. I think of wonder as one of the first characteristics that are present in children, and so maybe it is no accident that Jesus tells us to have faith like a child. Perhaps only when we surrender to wonder in our lives will be nourished in our spirits enough to embrace all of God’s other promises: new life, faithfulness, ministry, blessing, guidance and freedom.

This is also Transfiguration Sunday; the ultimate Epiphany of who Jesus really is; the bridge between this season of Epiphany and the season of Lent. We read about God’s glorious reveal of luminous divinity, but it is bookended by the somber realization of the inevitability of the cross and of struggle. Can we hold the struggles of life in tension with the glories of life?

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This week, we consider God’s promise of freedom. But does that look like the kind of freedom we talk about in our country? (“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free”). Are we just free from all constraints? Free to do whatever we please? What exactly are we free FOR? And how does this promise tie in with God’s promise of guidance about how to live these lives of faith together in a way that honors God? Let’s keep asking ourselves these challenging questions together in community, and see where God may lead…

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This week in our sermon series exploring the sustaining promises of God, we focus on the promise of God’s GUIDANCE. How do we make our decisions? How do we know what is the right thing to do, or the right direction for us? How do we practically live out God’s call on our lives, and know that it is what God wants from us? These are questions that every Christian asks, and works out in their faith journey. We believe that these types of questions are best considered in community, so we intend to think through them together using the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and the prophet Isaiah’s directions to the nation of Israel. God is lighting the way for us this Epiphany. Are we prepared to follow?

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This week, we continue on in our sermon series and consider that God has promised blessing to us, BUT what do we consider blessing? What does God think of as blessing? Do we imagine something more like the “prosperity gospel” promises of health, wealth and flourishing in the ways of this world? Or can we imagine blessing that looks more like Jesus’ Beatitudes? How can our walk with God help us to see more clearly how blessing is a part of every bit of the human experience precisely because God has experienced humanity as well? Can we entrust ourselves and our lives to a God who can bring blessing out of even the hardest things?

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This week in our Epiphany sermon series, we consider a promise of God that may intimidate us more than comfort us: the ongoing promise of ministry. If that confuses you, we will think it through more together because it is important for you to know that we all have a ministry! Not just pastors! Our tradition stands on the “priesthood of all believers” (1 Peter 2), whereby every one of us at every age and stage of life, no matter what we have done, no matter how much we may doubt, are called into God’s work of transforming the world. We are also all equipped for our unique work to do! Today we explore these ideas using the Biblical stories of Micah the prophet telling God’s people what God really requires of us and also of Jesus choosing fishermen to be His very first disciples. As we continue on our own journeys, where might God be calling us? Because God has promised a ministry and a purpose for us. Let’s pray about this and walk the path together!

NOTE: Pastor Jessie was out at the last minute with Covid, and so COA Clerk of Session Lawrie Gardner read her sermon and masterfully led the service. Thank you Lawrie!!

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