City Of Light Anglican Churchaurora, Illinois

The church is a family, a place where generations of disciples are raised and parented by spiritual fathers and mothers. For those raising children to follow Jesus in their home, their family is a domestic church where Dad and Mom's first work is to raise disciple-makers. For all who have been invited to follow Jesus, who have been spiritually parented in the faith, will we be that for the next generation?

Jesus invites us to come and see, come and follow, and come and die. He continues to invite us deeper into making his life mission of making disciples our life mission. To follow Jesus is to invite others to follow Jesus. Will you join us in praying, "Jesus, teach me to make disciples?"

From his infancy, Jesus calls all peoples from all nations to follow him. That means that each of us are invited to personally follow him as King and God and Sacrifice. When we follow Jesus the bright and morning star, he leads us into light and makes us stars that invite others to follow him.

Jesus puts on our humanity so that we can put on his righteousness. He becomes like us so that we can become like him. He takes our muddy clothes, washes them by his sacrifice on the cross, and gives us clothes of white.

Jesus and Santa are different. They wear different clothes. Santa has 8 reindeer. Jesus has 12 disciples. But the biggest difference is that to get presents from Santa, you have to earn them by being good enough. Jesus gives us the gift of himself not because we're good enough, but because we could never be. He carries the sin of the whole world so that he can move us from the naughty list to the forgiven list. This Christmas, don't try to earn love by being good, receive the goodness of Jesus poured into you because of his love.

When you face a need, who do you want there with you? In Isaiah 7, we read about a king named Ahaz who does not want God with him and a king named Immanuel who will be God with us. Immanuel is God coming to be with us now in our need. Who are you trusting to be with you in your need?

We are all in exile and cannot find our way home to God. In Isaiah 35, we see that God provides that way home by the advent of Jesus. Jesus is the safe highway that brings us back home to Zion, and as we wait, the Spirit dwells in us to guide us.

In Isaiah 11, we see that a little shoot from the stump of Jesse is the hope of the world, and Jesus is that hope. When Jesus comes, he brings his perfect wisdom, perfect integrity, and perfect justice to show us a glimpse of the the better world to come.

As we begin a new church year, we place our story inside the story of God. In Advent, we remember Jesus' first coming and anticipate his coming again. In between those two arrivals, we hold onto the hope that though we are surrounded by war, God is bringing his way of peace, transforming weapons of death into works of life.

The poor widow who gives all that she has teaches us what it means to follow Jesus. The religious people want to look like good, strong people who have it all together, but the widow admits that she is weak and then gives all of who weakness to the Lord. We want to be a church of inner poverty by admitting that we are like that poor widow, meeting our smallness without embarrassment because God takes our weakness and bring new life. Jesus' offering on the cross was small, foolish, and weak, but God uses weakness to save. As it was for Christ, so it is for his church; so it is for us.

When we relate our work to God's work, our work is redeemed. God designed work but it has been distorted so that it is frustrating instead of fulfilling. In Isaiah 6 and Luke 5, we see God redeeming our work when we see him and turn to him and inviting us to be part of his kingdom work

Today was All Saints Sunday, but what is a saint? In our creed we say each week that we believe in the communion of saints, but what is that? And what difference does this make in our lives? God sets us apart as saints in baptism and brings us together in communion to make us the finger of God in the world.

“The way that God relates to us in friendship teaches us how to be friends. In John 15:12-17, God calls us and chooses us for friendship, he reveals himself to us, and sacrifices himself for us as friends. Jesus asks us to love others as he has loved us, and therefore we are to be “first-befrienders”, truth-telling friends, and sacrificial friends.

Forgiveness releases love for God and the love of God releases forgiveness. The sinful woman who comes to Jesus in Luke 7 experiences a combination of joy and sorrow, the love of Jesus accepting her in her vulnerability. We have been forgiven by a God who deals gently with us into a lifestyle of forgiveness as a church.

Words have the power to hurt or to heal. Words come from the overflow of our hearts and extend to the work of our hands. When the Word of God that saves is planted in our heart, it grows a good tree with good fruit. When the word of the world that pollutes is planted in our heart, it grows a bad tree with bad fruit. When you hear evil words out there in the world, don’t be deceived; evil words come from an evil tree. When you speak words that hurt, don’t be deceived; your heart has been polluted. But there is good news, the word of God can be planted in you to purify your heart and bring forth good if you will humble yourself and receive it.

Because God relates to us, we can relate to him. God is not an unknowable force, he is a person, so he comes to us incarnationally as the person of Jesus to rescue us. He does away with evil without doing away with us, but by inviting us into a relationship with him.

Christian marriage is a place of grace for everyone—a sacramental sneak peak of the love of God in Christ for his people the church. It is a place of grace for those who are married because they need grace when they find out that they are more selfish and sinful than they realized. It is a place of grace for the world when husbands and wives enter into the mission of God to bring new kingdom of God life into the world. It is grace because while we love imperfectly, God showed his love to us on the cross.

Whether you have biological kids, adopted kids, whether you’re married or single, if you’re a 20something or a 50something, you are a spiritual parent, you are a disciple-maker, you are the celebrant of a liturgy. 1. Every man is a father, every woman a mother. Sometimes biologically; always spiritually. 2. As spiritual parents we make disciples who make disciples for generations. 3. We are all celebrants of a liturgy, leading into habits that teach us what to love. So write down your mission as a Father or Mother to generations, ask the Lord who he is calling you to disciple and how you can read the Bible and pray together, and start and stack habits in the morning, evening, at meals, on sabbath day, traveling, and in your home.

Our families pass on blessings and curses, good things and bad things. But in the family of God, he gives a blessing that breaks the curses. Through Jesus, he defeats the power of the curse and brings us again into his blessing. We can invite his blessing by bringing our generation curses into the light where the story changes from shame to grace. We can invite his blessing by rejecting the curse, not the person, and receiving the blessing.

We often feel a longing for deeper relationships and the hurt of broken relationships. In a divided world, the Bible teaches us that God is the perfect and loving relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit. He creates us to share in his relationship, and even when that relationship is broken he will stop at nothing to reconcile us back to himself and bring healing to all our relationships. We can put our hope for better relationships in the Lord, and those who hope in the Lord are never disappointed.