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The Star: A Journey to Christmas: 5 Week Church Kit: A Complete Advent Series and Christmas Eve Experience

• DVD —

Product Description

• Week 1: A Journey of Hope
• Week 2: A Journey of Love
• Week 3: A Journey of Joy
• Week 4: A Journey of Peace
• Christmas Eve: A Journey to Christmas
• 10 videos: (4 sermon bumpers; Advent promo video; Advent invitation video; and countdown plus a Christmas Eve promo, invite and welcome)
• 5 Customizable sermons
• Planning Guide
• Web and social media graphics
• PowerPoint and bulletin insert templates
• The Star: A Journey to Christmas Gift Book
• Sample invitation tools including 3 posters
• A coupon book with over $200 in product s

Product details

• Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.6 x 6.1 x 8.9 inches; 12.8 ounces
• Item model number ‏ : ‎ 1635105609
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1635105609

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The Star: A Journey to Christmas

The gifts jesus brought at his birth (hope, love, joy, and peace)..

1 John (5) , John (84) , Romans (5) (Part of the Advent (9) series) by Stuart Johns (233) on December 24, 2017 ( Sunday Evening (1) )

Hope (7) , Joy (3) , Love (18) , Peace (14)

Christmas Eve

The Star: ​​ A Journey to Christmas

INTRODUCTION

Welcome and Merry Christmas! ​​ Tomorrow is the big day, just in case anyone has forgotten that or your children have neglected to remind you since getting out of school for Christmas break. ​​ I’m excited that you’ve joined us this evening as we prepare for one of the greatest days all year. ​​ Tomorrow marks the culmination of a journey we’ve been taking together over the past four weeks. ​​ The four weeks leading up to Christmas are called Advent, which means “coming.” ​​ We’ve been learning about Jesus’ coming that very first Christmas. ​​ We have also been talking about His second coming, which will complete God’s ultimate work of redemption. ​​ We’ve used the star as our guiding light toward Jesus. ​​ This same star guided those wise seekers toward Jesus long ago.

How many of you love a good story. ​​ Si Robertson explains in his book, Si-Cology 1: ​​ Tales and Wisdom from Duck Dynasty’s Favorite Uncle , he was taught never to lie. ​​ He says that he never lied, but the Robertson’s are good storytellers.

Growing up, my family had an Advent time after dinner every evening

My father made an advent wreath that had a place for a daily candle

There were the three purple and one pink candle for each Sunday, but we had white candles for the other days of the week

My father has written several daily Advent devotionals

Judy’s family has some pretty humorous stories that they’ve told multiple years, which I why I know them now

These stories are so funny that we’ll all start laughing and can’t stop

Judy’s Grandpa and Grandma Young would come to their house on Christmas Day to celebrate with them

One Christmas morning as they were driving down the country road to her house, they saw something on the road

Once they arrived, Judy’s Grandma told them that they saw something on the road and thought that Santa had dropped a package

The item on the road was a dead squirrel

Don’t ask me why that story is so funny, but it is

Another Christmas story from Judy’s family was about one of the dogs

Marvin was a mutt and he would do some pretty funny things

He would walk into a room, pass gas, and then walk out like he was disgusted

One Christmas morning, the family got up to find that Marvin had added something special to Judy’s father’s gift – a long, brown, log (poop!)

Again, when that story is told we all begin laughing and can’t stop

Electronic Rugby game

I don’t remember how the story got started, but one year leading up to Christmas my father kept telling me that I was going to get an electronic rugby game

This would have been in the 1970’s and some electronic games were already being produced (the old red football and basketball games)

I played soccer on an intramural team and baseball in the summer, but I had never played rugby

As Christmas morning arrived I opened all my gifts, but never got the electronic rugby game

They probably didn’t make an electronic rugby game

I wish I could remember what I got that Christmas, but all I remember was what I didn’t get

Family stories

Perhaps each person here tonight has family stories that will be told tomorrow

It’s stories that have been told multiple times, but they make us laugh until we cry

We tell of God’s goodness and healing

Hunting and fishing stories

Those who hunt and fish can tell some pretty wild stories

They talk about the huge buck that got away, as they gather in the evening at the hunting cabin

They also tell the big fish stories without having any proof that the story is true

Black Friday shopping stories

Perhaps some of you ladies have some great stories of success while Black Friday shopping

You had your strategy all planned out for who was going to which stores and what they were supposed to get

Maybe you were standing in line and were the last person to get a particular item before the store ran out

Throughout the world, stories have been the means of preserving history, passing along beliefs and values, inspiring, entertaining, and motivating us. ​​ Stories move us. ​​ Shared stories connect us and link us to each other. ​​ They bring meaning to our lives and help make sense of our experiences. ​​ Good stories are messy, full of conflict, suspenseful and moving. ​​ They are filled with victory and defeat, struggle and triumph, fear and courage, conflict and love. ​​ They draw us into bigger and broader story lines and they make us curious about the storyteller.

As we think about stories, I’d like us to imagine that we’re outside, somewhere wild and open, maybe a mountaintop, maybe a sweeping meadow set against a flowing stream or rolling hillside. ​​ It’s a clear night long, long ago. ​​ We’re back at the very beginning. ​​ This is creation, and into the inky darkness above suddenly God is flinging stars into the sky. ​​ Where there was only darkness, now there is gleaming, glittering light.

The Creator knows each one of these lights. ​​ He knows which ones we’ll be able to see as human beings. ​​ He knows how long they will last before burning out. ​​ He also knows about one special star.

This star would pierce the darkness with a unique purpose. ​​ It would serve as a herald and a celestial marker. ​​ It would signal the birth of Christ, the coming of the long-promised Messiah, come to earth at last to change the course of eternity forever.

This star guided wise men. ​​ It lit the night for shepherds. ​​ It signaled the way of Immanuel, God with us. ​​ It announced the arrival of the bright Morning Star whose light shines brightest, calling us to see Him, drawing us to Himself to seek and find Him.

God’s story is ongoing. ​​ The Christmas story spans all of history from creation to Jesus born in Bethlehem to us gathered here tonight. ​​ It will continue into the future as we wait for Jesus’ return.

Tonight as we complete our journey to Christmas, we will be look at each of the four elements of the story. ​​ These are the four gifts that Jesus brought to us when He came from heaven to earth that Christmas. ​​ We will be lighting each Advent candle on our wreath as we talk about the four elements of hope, love, joy, and peace. ​​ We’ll also light the center candle, which is the Christ candle.

We began Advent with a journey of hope

Through many years and centuries of history, hope burned for a Savior

The Israelites had waited for the Messiah to come

God had been silent for 400 years

They were anticipating His coming, but they didn’t know when He would arrive

I’m sure as they waited there were times of great hope and times when they struggled to understand why God was waiting

But hope was fulfilled

Christ has come!

God’s promise to send a Savior was fulfilled with Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection

Jesus is our ongoing source of hope

We also live in the future hope of Jesus’ second coming

His second coming will complete the story of redemption

The story is not over yet

When darkness rages and deepens around us, we can hold onto hope that Christ will complete His ultimate work

Application

Not everyone is currently hopeful

You might be feeling like you’re hanging on by the last threads of hope

You may be struggling with financial stresses, relational dysfunctions, memories of loss, or commercialized expectations

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 , Therefore do not lose heart. ​​ Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ​​ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ​​ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. ​​ For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (NIV)

The great news is that Jesus brings hope in the dark times of life

The second week we went on a journey of love

This journey also spans eternity, because God is love

Love is part of God’s nature – it’s one of His many attributes

His love fueled creation

Love drove God to make a way to restore the relationship between Him and humanity

God demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus from heaven to earth (Rom. 5:8)

God’s love fuels our relationship with Him – it is through His love in us that we are able to love others as He does

We look forward to the future when God’s love story is complete

We saw on this journey that God has a lasting, conquering, and overflowing love

1 John 4:9-11, 16 , This is how God showed his love among us: ​​ He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ​​ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ​​ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another . . . And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

We are able to love others because God first loved us

Our third journey was a journey of joy

Jesus’ birth was a joyful event

Luke 2:9-12 , An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ​​ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. ​​ I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ​​ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. ​​ This will be a sign to you: ​​ You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

The good news of great joy was that Jesus, the Savior of the world, was born

The joy for us today is that the same message of good news is for us today – Jesus offers His salvation to us

While we still live in a world where joy and pain coexist, God’s promise is that our joy will be made complete in the future when Jesus comes again

You may not be experiencing joy today

Instead you are experiencing fear (health, finances, relationships, employment, education, spiritual, government, society, etc.)

Those concerns may be stripping you of joy – they may be consuming your waking hours and keeping you awake at night

Through Jesus Christ, we can have joy in life’s journey

Peter told us our walk of faith with Jesus brings us a sense of joy

1 Peter 1:8-9 , Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

We looked at the journey of peace this morning

Peace can be so elusive in our world, our families, and our own minds

Yet we see God’s peace throughout the story line of eternity

Jesus came in the past as the Prince of Peace – that is what we’re celebrating at Christmas

Jesus’ peace remains today through the gift of the Holy Spirit

When Jesus returns the second time, we will experience perfect and complete peace – ultimate peace for the world

Peace may be alluding you today because of pain, struggles, anxiety, and stress

You may appear to be at peace outwardly, but inwardly you are a mess

Jesus’ life was filled with hardship

He knew that His disciples and us would experience hardship also

So, He gave them and us the gift of peace

John 14:27 , Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. ​​ I do not give to you as the world gives. ​​ Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Philippians 4:6-7 , Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ​​ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

God’ presence provides peace

Throughout this journey to Christmas we have learned some very important things about Jesus:

Our greatest HOPE in the darkest times of life comes from having a relationship with Jesus

1 John 1:5-7 , This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: ​​ God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ​​ If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. ​​ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

The greatest LOVE we’ll ever feel is the love Jesus expressed when He died on the cross to take our punishment for sin

John 3:16 , For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The greatest JOY we’ll every experience comes from knowing that Jesus willingly came to save us from our sins

John 3:17 , For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

We can have PEACE with God by believing in Jesus by faith

Romans 5:1 , Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Relationship with Jesus

Before we can have a relationship with Jesus, we have to recognize and admit our need (I am a sinner)

Everyone is born with a desire to have their own way

We reject God and His authority in our lives

Romans 3:23 tells us that we have all sinned

Romans 6:23 tells us that there is a consequence for rejecting God and it is to be separated from Him

We have to be willing to reject or turn from sin (repent)

We must believe that Jesus died for us on the cross and came alive again in three days

Through prayer, we have to invite Jesus Christ to come in and control our lives through the Holy Spirit

Perhaps you are ready to experience the hope, love, joy, and peace that is a result of being in a relationship with Jesus Christ

Repeat this prayer after me

Dear God, I have been rejecting You and Your authority in my life. ​​ I have chosen sin over a relationship with you. ​​ I am ready and willing to reject sin, turn away from it, and begin to follow You. ​​ I believe that Jesus died, was buried, and came alive again to take my punishment for sin. ​​ I choose to be at peace with You today and to be saved from my sins. ​​ I accept Your eternal life. ​​ In Jesus’ name. ​​ Amen.

​​ 

We have lit all of the Advent candles. ​​ We have completed the journey to Christmas. ​​ It’s time for us to let our light shine. ​​ As a visual representation of that, Pastor Marc Webb and our Elder Laurin Fleming will be lighting their candles from the Christ candle in the Advent wreath. ​​ They will be coming down the center aisle and lighting the first person’s candle. ​​ That first person will then allow the next person in the row to light their candle. ​​ Continue to pass the light down the aisle until all of the candles have been lit. ​​ Once all of the candles are lit, we will close our service by singing “Silent Night.”

Weekly Schedule

Wednesdays at 7:00 pm

• Children’s Bible Club
• Youth Bible study
• Worship, Praise, and Prayer

Sunday Morning

• Sunday School, 9:00
• Worship Service, 10:15

Contact Information

3590 Carlisle Road Gardners, PA 17324 Get Directions

(717) 323 0335 [email protected]

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Product Identifiers

• Publisher Outreach, Incorporated
• ISBN-10 1635105617
• ISBN-13 9781635105612
• eBay Product ID (ePID) 13038805662

Product Key Features

• Book Title Star: a Journey to Christmas : Devotions Through the Season of Advent on Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace
• Author Outreach Inc
• Format Trade Paperback
• Language English
• Topic Devotional
• Publication Year 2017
• Genre Religion
• Item Length 6.8in
• Item Height 0.3in
• Item Width 4.9in
• Item Weight 4 Oz

Additional Product Features

• Target Audience Trade

Nonfiction Devotions Paperbacks Books

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The Star A Journey to Christmas

• Week 1: A Journey of Hope
• Week 2: A Journey of Love
• Week 3: A Journey of Joy
• Week 4: A Journey of Peace
• Christmas Eve: A Journey to Christmas
• 10 videos: (4 sermon bumpers; Advent promo video; Advent invitation video; and countdown plus a Christmas Eve promo, invite and welcome)
• 5 Customizable sermons
• Planning Guide
• Web and social media graphics
• PowerPoint and bulletin insert templates

The 4-Week THE STAR Movie Advent Series for Kids (a $29.95 value) is included! This digital kit that contains 4 movie clips from Sony Animated Pictures movie THE STAR. It’s perfect for Sunday school or mid-week classes, with lessons and activities for ages 3-6 and 7-10. Note: this kit does not contain THE STAR movie.

All kit contents are licensed for online use and streaming.

To download a sermon sample of The Star click here.

Subtotal:$69.00

The Star Church Kit has all the videos that you need! Videos are a fun and memorable way to get the people in your church excited about Advent. From inviting people to making them feel welcome, all the videos in this Advent event kit are designed to engage and entertain everyone while getting them talking.

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Powerpoints! Want to have beautifully designed content to pair with sermons but don’t want to spend hours creating powerpoints? We have got you covered with engaging powerpoint slide templates in this The Star Church Kit!

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Get more resources to promote your Advent campaign! Videos, powerpoints and social media graphics are all great tools to use for your Advent event, but our list of products does not stop there. We also have postcards, bulletins, banners and so much more to help you invite people back to church and make them feel welcome. The inviting starts here. Browse all of our products now!

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The Star: A Journey of Love – A Love That Never Gives Up

• December 4, 2022
• Pastor Trisha Guise
• The Star: A Journey to Christmas
• 1 John , 1 Peter , Ephesians , Romans

Welcome to the second Sunday of Advent. Advent can be an amazing season, an amazing journey, if we use it as it was designed. The word advent is a Latin term which means “coming.” Advent was designed to be a season of great expectation as we look forward to celebrating Jesus’ first coming at Christmas as well as looking forward to His second coming, the day He returns to make all things right. So we use these weeks leading up to Christmas to prepare for His coming by focusing on the four gifts of Christmas delivered through Christ: hope, love, joy, and peace.

Our series this Advent is called “The Star, A Journey to Christmas.” I mentioned last week that out of the four Gospels where Jesus’ life is recorded, the Star of Bethlehem was only recorded in the book of Matthew. The star today receives a whole lot more attention in Christmas pageants than it ever got in the Gospel accounts. But maybe that’s because we realize today how important this simple star really was. Over 2,000 years ago, it appeared as a symbol of hope, as a guide to the long awaited one, the newly arrived Messiah. It was a star that led people to Jesus then, and it still leads people to Jesus today.

So together we’re following the star this Advent looking for those four gifts of Christmas. Last week, the star led us to hope, that even if we can’t see it very well, hope is always there. This week we’re on the journey towards love. It’s a love that never gives up, a love that conquered sin and death, a perfect love that surrounds us daily and fills us eternally.

As we continue our exploration this morning, let me ask you a few questions and see a show of hands: How many of you are finished with all your Christmas shopping? How many of you haven’t started yet? How many of you plan to just skip the whole shopping thing and go straight to the Christmas dinner?

Well, wherever you stand on Christmas gift shopping and giving, let me tell you this, Americans spend a lot of money on Christmas. Retail sales from November through December in 2022 are expected to grow 6% to 8% over 2021’s record sales despite all the inflation. That’ll make a new record between $942 billion to $960 billion.1 At that rate, we’ll be over $1 trillion next year. Do you know how many zeros that is? ($1,000,000,000,000)

But while that number is a bit mind-blowing, here is another fun number for you: $124 billion. That’s how much Americans spent on their pets last year,2 compared to $60 billion in 2016. Which leaves me with one question: Why?!?! Don’t get me wrong—I love animals as much as the next person, but $124 billion!?! That’s equivalent to buying 2,638,298 new cars! All for animals that really just cause a lot of work—we walk them, clean up after them, vacuum up the hair, give them allergy pills, apologize to the neighbors…. Really, our pets should be paying us. But we love them, so we spend our hard-earned money and time caring for them. It’s not because of anything they’ve done for us, but simply because we love them.

Okay, I admit this is not the best comparison. Please don’t leave here thinking that I’m telling you God loves us like we love our dogs and cats. But the example does start us down the path of recognizing some things about love.

So let me ask you to consider several other questions: How do you perceive God’s love for you? Do you feel you need to earn His love? Do you wonder if God’s love is really meant for you? Do you see the overflow of God’s love in your own life toward others?

If we take a deeper look at God’s love, we see it’s a love that was present from the beginning of time, a love big enough for each and every one of us, and it’s meant to overflow in our lives…my cup runneth over (Psalm 23). It’s a love so deep that caused God to physically enter our dark world that first Christmas. Let’s look at the first point.

• God’s Love was Present from the Start

We often talk about Christmas as the time “when love came down.” We say God’s love entered the world as a baby. And that is all true. But we would be mistaken if we didn’t take a deeper look back in time to the beginning of the world. The history of our entire world, the story of the entire Bible, is a love story from the very first day of creation. It is the story of God’s love for His people and His plan of redemption to bring us back into relationship with Him.

God is not some distant uncle who suddenly shows up with a gift nobody knows what to do with. Nor is He a cold and stingy distant figure grudgingly offering us an occasional token. Yes, love came crashing into that stable in Bethlehem, but Jesus’ birth was actually the culmination of a long history of love. And His love for us today, this Advent season, is not something new.

The apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians: Ephesians 1:4–6 4 God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world. 5 God destined us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ because of his love. This was according to his goodwill and plan 6 and to honor his glorious grace that he has given to us freely through the Son whom he loves.

God’s love does not depend on us. It’s not something we have to earn or perform for to maintain. It starts with God, not us. God is love. It is His nature and character. His love for us was there from the beginning of time and will continue throughout eternity. It can be a mind-boggling concept to grasp, I know. But as we pursue the journey of love, let me encourage you to simply accept that God’s love for us exists beyond the constraints of time, space, and our limited understanding. It’s a love worth focusing on and meditating on during this season of preparation.

• God’s Love is Enough

Do you ever have a hard time loving God? Do you ever have a hard time accepting His love for you? Do you ever doubt that His love is enough to cover all the pain, hurt, selfishness, and evil of our world? Or that His love is enough to cover the pain or hurt in your own heart?

Cause if we’re honest, I think most all of us would have to answer yes to all those questions. Despite what we may know in our heads or believe in our hearts, there is a daily struggle to live in the reality of God’s love for us. It’s so different from our own ability to love. It may be vastly different from the love—or lack of it—that you’ve experienced in your human relationships and life overall.

But let me remind you of some good news this morning—the best news. God loves you! Not because of anything you’ve done or anything you have to do. Not just for today, and then He’s going to take it all back tomorrow. Not like the father or mother or spouse or ex-spouse or friend or enemy who let you down, who hurt you or abused you or twisted the concept of love to inflict damage and heartache that can seem so hard to heal from and let go of.

God loves you purely, perfectly, wholly, extravagantly. You don’t have to earn points to get love from God. He pours love out on us—no matter how unlovable or unworthy we may feel. And He pours out love continuously.

Think of the Christmas story characters. They didn’t fit into the “most lovable people” box. They were a bewildered, young, average, and humble engaged couple, a band of smelly shepherds, a group of foreign mystics. Dig a little deeper behind the bathrobes and kid animal costumes of the typical Christmas pageant scene, and you’ll get the picture.

No matter where you are on the journey of life, God’s love is for you. It is more vast and perfect than you can ever fully and completely grasp this side of heaven—and it’s so worth opening your heart and mind and soul to.

Maybe that was the reason behind the apostle Paul’s prayer that he offered for the Ephesians when he wrote…

Ephesians 3:17–19 17 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

God’s love is deep, wide, long, and high. And it doesn’t change even if our feelings do. Even when we feel distant from God’s love, He is there beside us.

The people of Israel must have felt abandoned many times. They must have struggled to believe that God still loved them when it took so long for the promise of a Messiah to be fulfilled. But even when they grew weary of waiting and questioned God, His love still never failed. It was there all along to carry and sustain them through uncertainty. And in the right timing, God’s love was delivered in full through the birth and person of Jesus Christ, God in flesh.

Nothing can change that love. Nothing can tear us away from it. And that love will never fail us as we wait for Jesus’ second coming to earth to complete His ultimate work.

In Romans, Paul gave us a description worth clinging to when we struggle or doubt or simply need a hopeful reminder:

Romans 8:38–39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• God’s Love Overflows

Does anyone have company coming this Christmas? Anyone have company that might be staying for a couple of days? Christmas is such a wonderful time to be together, but here’s the real question—will anyone be sick of their guests after day three of their visit?

It’s the very nature of God’s unending and unlimited love that it cannot be contained. God doesn’t want it to be contained. The Bible tells us to love others, even the people who seem unlovable. Sometimes that is easy, and sometimes it’s the hardest thing in the world. And those holiday houseguests—sometimes the unlovable are the people closest to us. They can be the people we truly love most, but who also have the most power to drive us crazy, remind us of our weaknesses, and even bring up our deepest pain.

So on a very practical level, this Advent journey of love is also about God’s love in us overflowing to others. In reality, that’s not something we can do—or do for long—on our own effort. It must come from the source of love, God.

Peter describes it like this. 1 Peter 1:22 Now you can have real love for everyone because your souls have been cleansed from selfishness and hatred when you trusted Christ to save you; so see to it that you really do love each other warmly, with all your hearts.

That doesn’t mean it is easy, but it shifts our focus from trying hard to love others to experiencing the depth of God’s love in a way that allows it to overflow in our lives to the people around us.

Today, we are going to celebrate the love and relationship we have with God through Holy Communion. And as we get ready for that, I want to read to you a passage of Scripture from 1 John that sums up that connection between God’s love and our love for others:

1 John 4:7–19 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us.

There is so much that could be unpacked in that passage, but I want us to capture and take away three main things today:

• God is love, and He sent His Son as a sacrifice for us. This was Jesus, God’s love from the start and His gift to each of us.
• We can know and rely on God’s love—God’s love is enough for us today, tomorrow, and always.
• We love because God first loved us. God’s love overflows within and through us to others.

God’s love is truly the whole reason we celebrate this season. So let me encourage you to dwell on it and abide in it throughout Advent. Read these Scriptures we’ve discussed over and over again, and let their truth wash over and through you. Then walk in God’s love as it penetrates and changes your heart.

This journey of love is not just about words and feelings of acceptance—it’s also a journey of action and truth. The gift of Jesus was God putting love into action. His love is an overwhelming love that calls and moves us to similar action. Look at it this way….

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That’s God’s gift to you, His action. Then He calls us into action.

1 John 3:16 tells us, This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

As we prepare our hearts for the celebration of Christ’s arrival, let allow His love to penetrate our hearts, and let’s put into practice His love flowing through us.

Prayer: God, thank You that in this season of Advent, that You invite us to follow the star on a journey of love. Help us to experience the depth of Your love, which has been there from the start, is enough for all of us, and overflows in our lives to others. Please continue to fill us with expectation as we live in Your love and wait for the complete fulfillment of that love when Christ comes again. Amen.

Benediction: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17–19)

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The story of faith is often reflected as a journey from darkness to light. The Old Testament speaks of Israel living in bondage and darkness, awaiting the light of the promised Messiah, and His coming is punctuated by light every step of the way: a bright angelic host proclaiming the news to Judean shepherds keeping watch over their flocks; a shining star inviting Magi from afar to the young Christ-child in an act of worship and praise. The book of John refers to Jesus as the "light of all people" (Jn 1:4). Jesus even referred to Himself as the "light of the world" (Jn 8:12). It is this imagery of light that provides the unifying thread for "Behold the Star!" This extended work for choir, narrators, and congregation is a blend of original and familiar carols. It may be performed in a single worship experience or in smaller segments over the weeks leading to Christmas. "Behold the Star!" is an inspirational reminder that Jesus, the light of the world, has indeed come!

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