Christmas invites us to feel cozy and warm, but to get there, we have to go through the wilderness. In Matthew 3, John the Baptist encourages us to repent so that we can find peace.

The hope we have in Christ, is not just for a future day, though it definitely is, it is also hope that we can lean on today.

Luke 23 details one of the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion and is the only gospel account to talk about the thief on the cross beside of Jesus. Jesus' response to the thief who repents tells us a lot about who Jesus is, and what the kingdom of God is like.

We cannot control most things in this world, but we believe in the one who can. Through the hard times, God is revealing the love and care that he has for us. We are encouraged to trust and not to be afraid. Though the world may fall apart, our relationship with God is not shaken.

In Luke 20 Jesus is confronted by Sadducees. They didn't believe in Heaven, so they were Sad, You See :). Jesus reminds them, and us, that God is the God of the Living. All of us are precious children of God.

This Sunday we took some time to remember the saints who have passed in our community this past year and we were reminded who they were because of their relationship to Christ and who we are now because of it. All of those who have placed their faith in Christ are saints, not because of anything we have done but because of the supreme love that Christ has for us.

Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collectors gives us a couple of do's and don'ts when it comes to prayer. The ultimate lesson is that prayer leads to repentance and changes us for the better. It's best use is when it leads us to not only repent to God but to our neighbor as well as we see in the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19.

In our sermon this week, we look at the story of Jacob wrestling with God and are encouraged to keep holding on in the face of great uncertainty.