This Sunday's Worship Materials can be found in the "Featured Sermon" below. We meet in person at Harper Park Middle School, and the service is also livestreamed on our YouTube channel.

Heart Prep for the First Sunday in Advent

Wow, autumn has flown by, and winter is almost here.  We’ve finished with the Book of Philippians, we’re about to feast on Thanksgiving turkey, and then, starting this Sunday, we move into the season of Advent.  Thus, we’re going to start a short Advent series on “Meals with Jesus.”  And we’ll begin in John 2:1-11 with the feast at a wedding in Cana, the scene of Jesus’ first miracle.

The Gospel of John has lots of sevens in it – seven “I Am” statements, seven miracles, seven parables, etc., etc.  In the other gospels, we see that many of Jesus’ parables are really miracles or “signs” in spoken form.   In John’s gospel, we see that many of Jesus’ miracles or “signs” are really parables or sermons acted out.  Therefore, it’s important for us to realize that there’s always something significant in a “sign.”  There’s always a “moral of the story” so to speak. 

So if this miracle is a “sign” of something more significant than Jesus loves to party, we have to ask, “What is the miracle pointing to?  What is the miracle a sign of?  What is God trying to teach us in the story of this miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee?”  Thankfully, John answers these questions for us, and that’s what we’ll be learning this week.

Of course, we will then celebrate the Lord’s Supper together, and even though we have a small cup and smaller wafer, Jesus refers to this as a feast.  And tells us that it points ahead to a greater feast to come.  I hope you’ll join us, see you Sunday, Dr. Dave