Andy Talks

In our Christmas Eve message, Andy shares with us from Luke 2: 1-20.  The Gospel is Good News!  For unto us a child is born!  That is Good News!  That is the Gospel. God responds to all our human brokenness and needs with Love!

Today’s passage is one that we have heard read a million times. We know it. We’ve heard it.  We’ve experienced it.  This story reminds us of our parents and grandparents, it reminds us of our home, of Christmases of old. Remember those times. Remember those stories. Remember God’s goodness in the original story, but also in the retelling, over and over again, of this story. And today, take time to...

We look at Matthew’s telling of the Christmas story.  We see how, from the very beginning, Matthew is tying everything into the Old Testament.  Jesus is not a new thing, but He is the very fulfillment of what God was doing from the start.  He was the plan all along. He wasn’t God’s last option. He was what God was doing before the foundation of the world. We read all the Bible looking for Jesus. H...

Over the next three days, we will look at the Christmas story as found in the Gospels. Today, we look at John’s.  This is my personal favorite.  Now, when we read John’s Gospel, we don’t see the normal things we are used to seeing in a Christmas story. We don’t see sheep or Wise Men or Mary, or anything. We see a Christmas story that is cosmic, the very God of creation coming to undo the cosmic ef...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings Today, We read how their hearts burned when Jesus opened the scriptures to them. Fire is a common thing in scripture; sometimes, it is seen as bad (James and...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings Psalm 130 is a psalm of ascent. It is a psalm that is given to be sung as worshipers walk up to Mt. Zion, to the temple. Yet, it starts off not with a note of...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings Jesus tells us to keep awake.  Keep awake, keep watch. We are called to be active in these things.  Keep watch, looking for His soon return. Keep watch, looki...

In our Blue Christmas Service, Andy shares from Psalm 130 and Lamentations 3: 22-26.  Lament is a Christian virtue. We wait upon the Lord. We hope in the Lord. But there are times when all we can do is lament our pain, our loss, our hurt. And know that our Lord is with us, in the midst of all of our hurt. 

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings We see a beautiful picture today of what things will be like one day.  All things will be restored. Because of the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, all...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings Today, we are told to wait on the Lord.  We have confidence, not in ourselves, but we have confidence in the Lord. We wait upon Him, and we know that we will...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings CS Lewis once said, “All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of m...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings Paul gives us repeated passages from the Old Testament today and tells us this. God has been at work, in all this, to bring the Good News to all the world. Th...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings Today, we see Jesus’ sermon to His hometown folks.  He reads from Isaiah and shares that the Lord has anointed Him to bring good news to the poor.  This is fu...

Today, we look at Mark 1: 1-8. What does a Christian look like?  We see in our Confirmation Sunday, as these young persons confess and confirm their hope, what a Christian looks like.  Where Jesus is, there is peace.  Peace is found in the person of Jesus Christ.    

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings In our reading today, we are reminded that Jesus preached peace to those who are near and those who are far. And through the cross, he has ended the division,...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings Today, the prophet asks us a question. Why are you spending money on that which is not bread and laboring for that which does not satisfy?  We are busy, we ar...

Throughout the season of Advent, we’ll have a weekday reflection based on suggested scriptures from a great resource entitled The Common Rule. You can find a calendar of the daily readings here - https://www.thecommonrule.org/advent-readings .   Today, we hear the words of Isaiah, “Comfort.”  I recount how, as I kid I was always puzzled by Mr. Rogers putting on comfortable clothes at the beginning...

Advent teaches us so very much.  It teaches us hope. And peace. And joy.  And love. But above all else, it teaches us trust. Advent, at its core, is about waiting and it is about trust. It is about trusting in God to make all things wait. Advent is about when we remember the waiting of the people of God for Jesus’ first coming. And it is where we wait now for His second coming. Today, we’ll talk a...

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent. What does that mean?  For some of us, we may be familiar with Advent, but we aren’t sure what it is really about. For others, we may have no idea. Advent is the first season of the church year, and while we talk about it (more tomorrow), today we talk about the church year. What are the seasons?  How do they work? What are they about?  Why should we even c...

In our Traditional message for the first Sunday of Advent, we look at this truth - Jesus is hope. Not that Jesus brings hope, but that hope is found in the person of Jesus. Andy shares with us from 1 Corinthians 1: 3-9.  Join us as we learn hope is found fully in Jesus!     

We often see Palm Sunday as an act of humility by Jesus. It was, yes, but it was kingly humility. Jesus is declaring for all to see that He is the Messiah. He is the one prophesied about. And when He rides that donkey into town, all can see He is declaring Himself King of Kings and Lord of Lords. As one of my mentors once told me, Palm Sunday was the most messianic thing that Jesus did upon the ea...

This is a beautiful example of how the Bible all fits together.  Hosea is reminding us of Israel’s past, how God called them out of Egypt back to the promised land in the book of Exodus, while also pointing to Jesus.  In the same way that Israel fled to safety in Egypt, Jesus and the Holy Family fled to safety in Egypt.  We see this beautiful connection.  In Israel, we see that pointing to the wor...

The prophet Malachi says that a prophet will come before the Messiah to make things ready. We see this in his prophecy today.  In Matthew, Jesus specifically quotes that prophecy when talking about John the Baptist.  He says that John is Elijah. In doing this, Jesus does two things. First, He shows us that John is the fulfillment of that prophecy. But secondly, if John is the one who will make thi...

The Wise Men come looking for the new King of the Jews. They didn’t know where He was born, so they went to the place that seemed appropriate, the palace. When they got there, they found out from the religious scholars that the prophet Micah, centuries ago told us that Bethlehem is where the messiah was to be born. O Little Town of Bethlehem. It would be easy to miss if you weren’t paying attentio...

Isaiah wrote hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. Yet today, we see one of the most beautiful images of what it was that Jesus did upon the cross.  He was beaten, bruised, and died for our sins.  He suffered for the sins of many.  Today, through Jesus, our sins are forgiven.  He has atoned for our sins.  He has paid the price that we could not pay. We are forgiven.  God’s wrath is satisfie...