Reign of Christ
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 93
John 18:33-38a
November 24, 2024
Though he came as the earth’s true and rightful king, Jesus allowed himself to be pushed out of this world. As he said, his kingdom isn’t the sort that originates in this world. And yet, as the crucified and risen king––the one who truly reigns in heaven and on earth––he calls those who belong to him to live in the world listening to his voice, as witnesses to his way, and seeking him for what is finally true. In a world with many voices and allegiances that compete for the allegiance of our hearts, listening to Jesus above all is no easy thing. But as we do, we open ourselves to the King who died even for his enemies, and for you and me, and who reigns for the world’s healing and abundant life.
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26th Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
November 17, 2024
At some point, anyone with earnest faith in Christ has to ask, “So what?” Christ has died and risen, which we say is world-transforming good news. And yet, the world goes on seemingly as though nothing has happened. Sin and suffering haven’t abated. Proclaiming the good news doesn’t draw people to worship. Living in the way of Jesus in a world that disregards him is a day-to-day challenge. The letter to the Hebrews was addressed to people that faced such things. Its message is, stay steadfastly focused on Jesus––who he is and what he has done. As we dedicate gifts for 2025, we set our eyes on Jesus, the victory he has won, and the value of persisting in faith.
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25th Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 72:1-7
Acts 4:32-35
November 10, 2024
It was one of the most dynamic moments in the church’s life. There were eyewitnesses to the risen Christ and people filled with the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Thousands were believing in Christ and receiving baptism. The community shared worship and fellowship. And “they sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” Seeing oneself as bound to those in need and giving generously to the poor is a sign of Jesus’ risen life filling the church. How is Jesus leading us to needy ones in our community? How is he leading to bless others through our giving?
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All Saints Sunday
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 24:1-4
Genesis 2:4-9, 15
November 3, 2024,
We come into the world claiming nothing as our own. But quickly that changes as toys became “mine,” then cars, property, possessions and so much that we can think of as “ours” to do with as we please. But Scripture, including the teaching of Jesus, tells us another, truer, more gracious story: all that we have is from God, for our enjoyment and for using in ways that reflect God’s purpose. The biblical word for this is “stewardship.” When we understand ourselves as stewards of God’s gifts, our hearts are set free to enjoy God’s generosity and to be likewise generous with what God has given.
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Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 49:1-7, 10-20
Luke 12:13-21
October 27, 2024
For many of us, we don’t have to think hard to name some thing we want or something we want more of. We live in one of wealthiest cultures in history, in an economy geared toward consumption and acquisition. But to Jesus, the desire for more––greed––is perilous to our souls. Thus he taught, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” If this convicts us, that is grace, for then we may discover how our lives and true happiness are derived from God, not wealth. How is Jesus inviting us today to receive our true richness in God?
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 85:8-13
Acts 20:32-38
October 20, 2024
Our hearts can crave receiving––getting––things. A paycheck. Return on investment. Experiences. Material things and more. There’s the bumper sticker that says, “The one that dies with the most toys wins.” But in his last words to Ephesian believers in Jesus, Paul quoted Jesus as saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The gospel brings us into a way of seeing the world that is full of the grace and abundance of a God who loves to give. The more we trust this message of grace, the more that we ourselves become generous like God and learn the deep blessing of giving.
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Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-16
October 13, 2024
For some it might be a worst nightmare: everything about them, inside and out, seen, known, and judged. But in the Letter to the Hebrews, this is simply how it is: God’s living word knows us intimately and thoroughly, better than we know ourselves. Since the one who knows us is Jesus, who stands before God on our behalf and empathizes with us in our weakness, in the end this knowing is full of mercy and grace, and the help we need to live freer, more fully God-alive lives.
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Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 8
Hebrews 1:1-4
October 6, 2024
God can be easy to miss, caught up as we can be in problems, to-dos, wants and desires, and a world in which God’s reality doesn’t flash in neon. The recipients of Hebrews faced the same struggle. They were tempted by spiritual malaise in which God loomed small, just one “thing” among many. So the writer of Hebrews began with a hymn extolling God’s majesty, glory and word to us Jesus Christ. This word of God’s world-sustaining majesty and glory is one that we ourselves may long to hear.
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29;
Psalm 19:7-14;
James 5:13-20
September 29, 2024
James seeks to bring us into the wisdom and fruitfulness of the God within all life. In the last verses of his letter, he emphatically commends a practice that can get lost in the crush even of the attempt to live as fruitfully as one can; prayer. Eight times in six verses, he commends prayer as though it is not simply a periodic activity but a whole way of being in life. When we pray, we are in the space where Jesus lived, where heaven and earth meet and God’s life enters all of our life: its trouble, vulnerability, wonder and gift––truly all that is.
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 54
James 3:13—4:3, 7-8a
September 22, 2024
To put trust in Jesus is to come into the source to true and lasting life peace. It is also to contend with all that offers false peace and insufficient life. It is to struggle with how to live in the world with competing desires within us. James is honest: “spiritual life” includes the battles with envy, selfishness, impure motives and more. As we celebrate confirmation, we speak honestly about the challenges of life in the world with Jesus as Lord and claim the promise that God, who has won victory for us in our struggles, draws near to us as our friend in them.
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 50:4-9
Psalm 116:1-9;
James 3:1-12
September 15, 2024
We live in a culture awash in words. Text messages, emails, 24/7 news, social media, advertising, not to mention the words that can flow in ordinary relationships. James takes seriously that words can both bless and damage, and even be full of the power of hell. The fruitful life he holds out to followers of Jesus involves care with our words and perhaps using fewer of them, in order that we may follow Jesus with our whole being––in the depths of our hearts and in the words that flow out of them.
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Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 35:4-7a
Psalm 146
James 2:1-10, 14-17
September 8, 2024
We live in a world that plays favorites. Those with wealth can get better treatment than others. Men can be paid more than women. People with differently shaded skin can have different prospects for the future. But God, says James, is different. God does not play such favorites, and in fact has a preferential option for poor ones who must live with a particular kind of faith. If God rules in the world through King Jesus, those who follow him––especially those with wealth or status––are challenged to befriend and honor those who are less advantaged.
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Psalm 15
James 1:17-27
September 1, 2024,
We long for a fruitful life in which the way we actually live is resonant with what matters most. But we can lose touch with this longing and live confused about what “fruitful life” really is and how to receive it. The Letter of James is largely about what it means to actually live the kind of life God gives. The first thing we hear is that God is generous and faithful, and is planting in us a word that grows God’s fruitful life in us. Living as a Christian is much about becoming in outward life the “word” that God has already planted within us.
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Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18
Psalm 34:15-22
John 6:56-71
August 25, 2024
At the beginning of John 6, a crowd of 5,000+ seeks Jesus––a megachurch! In response to his teaching, by the end of the chapter, his followers are down to 11 of whom he asks, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus held himself out as the Bread of Life who gives true, eternal life, and nearly everyone sought other options. Jesus is not the only option for life-seekers today. Where else do we look, even as we live as the church? Nevertheless, the Spirit draws us to belief that Jesus is who he says he is, the one come from God to give life to the world.
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Proverbs 9:1-6
Psalm 34:8-14
John 6:51-58
August 18, 2024
LISTEN TO SERMON
People today seek “spiritual life” within and increasingly beyond the church. To the shock of his hearers, Jesus taught “spiritual” things about the “higher” life of heaven by speaking of seemingly crude “earthly” things: eating his flesh and drinking his blood. For followers of Jesus, receiving the eternal, spiritual life God gives isn’t about getting away from fleshly realities or learning secret knowledge but receiving Jesus as the God who comes down into our basic human existence and meets us at the level of our flesh.
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
Psalm 78:23-29
John 6:24-35
August 4, 2024,
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To be human is to be hungry for more than food and survival for another day. This hunger is a gift from God but can be misdirected into insatiable searching for more: comfort, respect, money, accomplishment, entertainment and so much else. Jesus spoke about this when he told crowds that sought him because he fed them with bread, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” God gives Jesus not simply for what he does for us but for who he is: the one who himself satisfies our hunger for true life.
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-18
John 6:1-21
July 28, 2024
LISTEN TO SERMON
When a great crowd saw all that Jesus was doing, healing the sick and feeding 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish, they intended to make Jesus king by force. But Jesus would not have it and withdrew to a mountain. Those who worship Jesus can be tempted to control him, trying to fit him to their political purposes and claim him for their “side.” Jesus truly is King, but of a kingdom not from this world. A king given not the love of power but to the power of love
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Alan Smith
Exodus 33:18-23
Psalm 23
Galatians 5:22-26
July 21, 2024
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Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
- Preaching by Frank Lyon, Sue Gear, and Chuck Smith
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-4
July 14, 2024
Sometimes we say, “They don’t know good they have it.” What if that’s true for all of us, not because of our circumstances but because of who God is for us? Apostle Paul began his letter to the Ephesian church by going on and on about the grace, love, mercy and blessing that God has lavished on us in Jesus. Do we live as though such an abundantly graced life is true? How are we experiencing it in CPC?
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 53:4-6
Psalm 119:169-176
Luke 15:1-7
July 7, 2024
If there’s one word to describe Jesus’ relationship with us, it’s love. No matter how often or in what ways we wander, regardless of how we get lost, Jesus is the loving shepherd who seeks us out.
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Mark 5:21-43
Psalm 130
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
June 30, 2024
Israel’s King Saul was obsessed with killing David, hunting him down to the extent that David spent years in hiding and on the run. But when Saul died alongside David’s beloved friend Jonathan, David lamented the loss of them both and called all of Israel to join him. Lament keeps our hearts alive to God in the midst of loss and clears space in them to trust God with a new future. Living as spiritual people in a political world requires lamentation. Whether it is over a national tragedy, political defeat, or just grief over a state of affair, lament resists bitterness and blame, hate and despair, and helps us to trust that what hurts doesn’t have the final word.
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Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Mark 4:35-41
Psalm 9:9-20
1 Samuel 17:57-18:16
June 23, 2024
After his covert anointing as king, even before he publicly assumed the throne, David became a blessing to Israel, defeating the mighty enemy warrior Goliath in battle and leading troops to victory. King Saul, however, became jealous of David and increasingly led out of anger and fear. The temptation to steep in anger and fear has long been part of politics, both for those in power and for ordinary people. Just as God was with David in his trying time, we may trust that God is with us, working out God’s good purpose and inviting us to live from the presence of the God who is not afraid.
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Mark 4:26-34
Psalm 20
1 Samuel 15:34—16:13
June 16, 2024
Jesse must have been proud of his sons––at least those he remembered. When the prophet Samuel arrived to anoint one of Jesse’s sons to replace King Saul, whom God had rejected, he brought out seven of his sons, leaving the eighth and youngest in the field with the sheep. Yet this last son, David, is the one God wanted. In a world that can laud position, power, and appearance, God chooses and works powerfully through ordinary people, particularly those whose hearts seek after God.
Third Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Smith
Mark 3:20-35
Psalm 138
1 Samuel 8:4-11, 16-20
June 9, 2024
People dissatisfied with their leadership. Institutions showing their flaws. People calling for political change, a strong leader to get things on the right track. If this sounds like today, it’s because it’s a story as old as Israel’s early life with prophets, priests, and eventually kings. God warns of disasters to come from lodging hope and loyalty to human rulers. But people want it and God relents. In our day, when questions about faith and human political power remain, we need to keep hearing that the only safe place for our hope and loyalty is in god.
Second Sunday after Pentecost
- Pastor Aland Smith
Romans 15:12-13
Psalm 33:17-22
Hebrews 6:17-20a
June 2, 2024
People “hope” in all kinds of things, but hope is more than wishful thinking. With God, hope is what you can take to the bank. Christians are people who can live with God-anchored hope that can’t be moved.
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Trinity
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
May 27, 2024
Human beings have all kinds of power to live in all kinds of ways. But if we try to make a self-sourced life, a do-it-yourself life, this ability to do can leave us feeling obligated to a life that crushes us, leaves us afraid, and feeling as though we’re not enough. Paul’s word to the Romans is for us: our obligation is not to self-sourced life, but to God’s centered, Spirit-powered life opened to us by Jesus. This life is our freedom and releases into the very humanity that Jesus lived, in which God is our power and who we are is sourced in the riches of God’s life.
Pentecost
- Pastor Matt Reeves
John 15:26-27;16:4b-15
Psalm 104:24-34,35b
Acts 2:1-13
May 19, 2024
LISTEN TO SERMON
Jesus prayed, and in John 17 he prays for us who are in the world. It is a hopeful thing to trust that Jesus prays for us, and to trust that the protection, joy, holy-making Jesus prays for is in fact being accomplished in our lives.
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Seventh Sunday of Easter
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
John 17:6-19
May 12, 2024
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Jesus prayed, and in John 17 he prays for us who are in the world. It is a hopeful thing to trust that Jesus prays for us, and to trust that the protection, joy, holy-making Jesus prays for is in fact being accomplished in our lives.
Sixth Sunday of Easter
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
John 15:9-17
May 5, 2024
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In the church’s early centuries, Irenaeus said, “Because of [God’s] measureless love, he became what we are in order to enable us to become what he is.” We set our hearts and minds on becoming many things, but above all we are meant to become people of love. Jesus is the one in whom we can know ourselves as truly and infinitely loved, and he enables us to share in the way that he is loving the world. The essence of a joyous, fruitful human life is to become people of love like Jesus.
Fifth Sunday of Easter
- Pastor Matt Reeves
John 15:1-8
Psalm 22:25-31
Acts 8:26-40
April 28, 2024
LISTEN TO SERMON
In recent generations, many churches have prided themselves and sought to be “active.” While activity can be a sign of vitality, Jesus tells us his disciples that the source of vitality, and their care in remaining in that source, is what really makes for fruitful life. How is the church receiving the gift of Jesus’ abiding presence? How are we sourcing our life in him and relying on his life for being fruitful as his disciples?
Fourth Sunday of Easter
- Pastor Matt Reeves
John 10:11-18
Psalm 23
Acts 4:5-12
April 21, 2024
After Peter and John healed a man who could not walk, they testified to the power or name behind as, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth…. There is no other name…by which we must be saved.” “Salvation” is all about God’s healing, whole-making power taking hold in the earth. In how many ways is Jesus’ saving today, even among those that might not recognize him as Savior? How is God leading us to participate in and testify to it?
Second Sunday of Easter
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
John 20:19-31
April 7, 2024
LISTEN TO SERMON
On the day of his resurrection, when Christ appeared to the disciples, they were overjoyed, except for Thomas. For whatever reason, he wasn’t here. After a week in which Thomas simply couldn’t believe with the rest, Jesus appeared again specifically for him and gave him what he needed to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. When it comes to faith in Christ, we are all different in what we “need” to believe. How is Jesus coming to each of us to share his presence and how his resurrection life is real?
Easter Sunday
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Acts 10:34-43
Mark 16:1-8
March 31, 2024
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In the Gospel of Mark, the risen Christ never shows up. The people who hear that he is risen don’t say anything to anyone because they are afraid. This is an odd proclamation of good news, but perhaps one that fits people like us who do not see the risen Jesus and can look to the future with all kinds of fear. It is precisely for people like us that Mark’s promise can take hold: the risen Christ is going ahead of us. Because he conquered death, the future is in his hands. Wherever we go, however life goes, he is there to receive us into his life.
Fifth Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“Jesus’ Glorious Sorrow”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 51:1-12
John 12:20-33
March 17, 2024
Jesus came as the fullness of God’s life, for the sake of giving others fullness of life. For Jesus, his fullness of life meant moving toward suffering, both that of others and his own. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” he said, “it remains just a single grain, but if it does it bears much fruit.” Jesus plants himself––his love-filled life––in the ground of our lives, so we might become more present to others in their suffering, as seeds of God’s love.
Fourth Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“So Loved”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22;
John 3:14-21
March 10, 2024
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For all its beauty, we live in a world that’s also pretty miserable. The harm we do to each other, the condemnation we receive and dole out, the alienation we can feel from life that’s deep and lasting. Jesus knew this world from the inside and said that the truth that most defines it is that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” and that “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.” Do we know God’s love as the most essential truth about yourself? The most essential thing about whoever else?
Third Sunday in Lent
- Amber Balista
“Already Enough”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 19
John 2:13-22
March 3, 2024
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It was one of the most radical things Jesus did, entering the temple and upending the tables for changing money to buy animals for sacrifice, pouring the coins onto the ground and driving out the animals with a whip. When asked why, he said that the Temple was God’s home, not a marketplace. In the end, God’s true temple––God’s dwelling place––was in the human life of Jesus. God raised Jesus from death to count us worthy as God’s own home, recipients of the fullness of God’s presence.
Second Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“Losing is Everything”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 22:23-31
Mark 8:31-38
February 25, 2024,
Mary Oliver famously asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Jesus’ response was: to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and after three days rise again. Then he called his disciples to the same. At the heart of Christian faith is a struggle: that we would keep losing a self-sustaining, self-serving, self-satisfied life to gain a Jesus-sustained, Jesus-serving, Jesus-satisfied life.
First Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“In the Wilderness”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 25:1-10
Mark 1:9-15
February 18, 2024
LISTEN TO AUDIO
The first thing after his baptism, Jesus walked into the wild, driven there by the spirit. This was no posh retreat. It was full of wild beasts and testing by Satan, but also where “angels waited on him.” Before he could be our savior, Jesus had to accept the fragility of human life and to experience being saved. Where life feels uncertain and fragile to us, we are in company with Jesus and do not walk in the wilderness alone.
Transfiguration of the Lord
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“The Voice Worth Listening To”
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
Mark 9:2-9
February 11, 2024
Day to day life is mostly marked by ordinary things. But every so often, something happens to pull back a curtain on deeper layers of existence. For Peter, James and John, Jesus’ transfiguration––when he was transformed to shine with brilliant light––was one of those moments. It showed them that day to day, Jesus above all others is worth listening to: all of God’s love, power and fullness––the depths of what is finally real––was caught up in him. If Jesus is worthy of all the attention we can give him, are we listening?
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Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“A Village at Jesus' Door”
Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c;
February 4, 2024
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In Mark, Jesus begins his ministry by preaching and healing in a synagogue. By the end of the day the entire town was seeking him out, looking for his restoration. Did neighbors look at each other differently––”I had no idea you struggled with that?” The message and ministry of Jesus belong in services of worship, but their power is meant just as for the places and people we live with when we walk out the door. How is Jesus present in our neighborhood, releasing his power to restore?
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
- Mike Mahon
“Faithfulness Under Adversity”
Genesis 50:19-21
Psalm 67
Matthew 28:18-20
January 28, 2024
Mike and Nancy Mahon, missionaries with SAMAIR Peru, have an aviation ministry that serves the needs of people in hard-to reach places. Whether providing freshwater wells, medical transportation, or other services, it is all for the sake of the gospel of Christ. Their testimony is to God’s faithfulness under adversity.
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Third Sunday after Epiphany
“The Story Written in Us”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:5-12
Mark 1:14-20
January 21, 2023
Jesus began his ministry by announcing the nearness of God’s kingdom and calling ordinary people to “repent”––to change their minds and lives by living in this kingdom following him. When four fishermen responded to his call, they were consenting to Jesus’ writing the story of God’s kingdom in and through their lives. How is Jesus calling us to trust the nearness of God’s kingdom today? How is he writing a new story in our life as a church?
Second Sunday after Epiphany
“God and our Thought Bubble”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
John 1:43-51
January 14, 2023
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A sentence that begins, “Can anything good come out of…” is likely not difficult to finish. We can have opinions, tendencies to think we know, and perhaps a bias toward negative thinking. When Nathanael’s friend Philip said they’d found the Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth, he was skeptical, saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But Jesus knew Nathanael better than Nathanael knew Jesus and offered him a vision of how God can be present and work for good in unlikely places, whether Nazareth or somewhere that we’d never think good would come.
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First Sunday of Christmas
“Joy To The World”
- Pastor Aland Smith
Psalm 98
John 15:9-17
December 31, 2023
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Fourth Sunday of Advent
“You Are Favored”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Luke 1:26-38
December 24, 2023
We can place a lot of stock in “having a good Christmas.” Indeed, in all kinds of ways, we live with a desire to make a “good” life, achieve what we think we want, and prepare for the life we think we should have. When the angel came to Mary announcing that she would conceive a son by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Son of the Most High, there was no mention of her worthiness, preparedness, or achievement. She hardly could have managed the situation. She simply said yes and graciously received, which is what Christmas opens us to: receiving God’s life housed in ours––not because of us, but because of God and great diving love.
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Third Sunday of Advent
We celebrate our Christmas Light Show drama, proclaiming Jesus as light of the world!
December 17, 2023
Second Sunday of Advent
“God's Patience”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 40:1-11;
2 Peter 3:8-9
December 10, 2023
When the seeming delay in the coming of Christ concerned Peter’s community, he reminded them that God inhabits time differently than we do: “with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Advent waiting reminds us that our lives aren’t ruled by time but promise, from a present God who meets us, in time, in Jesus. A God who is patient and offers us each moment as fresh opportunity to turn to God.
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First Sunday of Advent
“Waiting Again”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 2:1-5a
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
December 3, 2023
We wait for Christmas, celebrate the holiday, and find ourselves waiting for Christmas again, because Christmas is not enough. The grace given in Christ at Christmas needs to be received again and again, until the coming of the day that all creation awaits: the revealing of Jesus at his return. Advent helps us to live by grace with a sense of incompleteness, confident that God will finally bring to completion the life giving purpose of Jesus.
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Christ the King/Reign of Christ
“All Things. Really. All Things.”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
November 26, 2023
The ails of life and the world can feel heavy, especially as “the holidays set in.” As we acknowledge this, the reign of Christ as creation’s true king also lead us to wisdom, hope, and power not always apparent in the day to day. The gospel promise is that all things, including what weighs us down, are under the authority of Christ and that the power of his resurrection is what finally holds sway in the world and in each of our lives. It can take training to claim this hope and to see the world in this light, which is what Christ the King Sunday is about: training to live trusting that the power that raised Christ also lives in us and our world.
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25th Sunday after Pentecost
“Too Precious to Bury”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 90:1-8 [9-11] 12
Matthew 25:14-30
Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
November 19, 2023
Jesus knew God as a generous, joyous giver to be received and enjoyed by all. This comes through in a story about a man who departs on a journey and leaves large sums of wealth to his slaves, some of which recognize the blessedness of the gift and partner with the master in multiplying it. But another is afraid, both of the master––wrongly––and of the responsibility he received, and buries the wealth, thus missing out on the nature of the gift and sharing in its joy. The church is given to know and share the riches of God’s mercy in Jesus. Do we grasp the gift we have received? Are we entering and risking God’s joy in multiplying mercy in the world?
24th Sunday after Pentecost
“The Life We’re Not Prepared For”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Matthew 25: 1-13
Psalm 70
Amos 5:18-24
November 12, 2023
Many today feel they’re living in a world they aren’t prepared for––with their kids, in their jobs, as the church, in how the world seems. For Christians, the role of faith in such a world isn’t just to receive an invitation to believe. It’s to take responsibility for what their faith means––to actively live as Jesus’ disciples as they wait for his coming again. This was the message of Jesus’ parable about wise and foolish bridesmaids invited to a wedding party. The part of wisdom isn’t just to accept the invitation. It’s to take responsibility for its demands in the situations they find themselves in.
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All Saints Day
“A God Who Wipes Tears”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Matthew 5: 1-12
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
Revelation 7:9-17
November 5, 2023
We live in a world of tears. On All Saints Sunday, we see John’s Revelation vision of white robed “saints” that have come through life’s tribulation to behold and worship God with every tear wiped from their eyes. The center of the worship is the Lamb that has brought them through and that itself looks to have been slaughtered. As we claim Jesus’ hope for ordinary saints that have gone before us, we also trust that Jesus is in the midst of our suffering to see us through our ordeals.
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
“A Way of Being"
-Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 84: 1-7
Luke 10:38-42
October 29, 2023
We live in an age marked by anxiety and distraction. We are not the first to be afflicted by these. Jesus noted them in Martha who frantically prepared a meal for Jesus while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to him. When Jesus commended Mary for doing the one essential thing, he wasn’t minimizing the importance of activity but underscoring the necessity of openness to God’s presence. Jesus continues to offer this gift today: not to learn how to get more done but how to source all our life, including our activity, in God’s presence and being.
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Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
“Listening Prayer"
-Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 95:1-51-8
John 10: 1-5
October 22, 2023
Jesus calls himself the good shepherd whose sheep hear his voice. But hearing Jesus’ voice isn’t straightforward, especially in a life filled with noise, busyness, and distractions. In a life of prayer, our talking with God is joined with pausing and listening for God, in scripture, the events of our lives, and the quiet of our hearts.
One of the first things Genesis tells us about human beings is that we are made in the image of God. What is the gift of this? What is the calling?
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Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
“God Loves Us and so Loves Us to Ask”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Luke 11:5-13
Psalm 20
October 15, 2023
When Jesus taught about prayer, he encouraged coming to God with boldness, like one friend going to another with what they need. He reveals a God who wants us to ask, to seek, to live open handedly to God with our needs and those of others. For Jesus, prayer is a way of living with God as a companion in life, and a way to companion God in seeking the good of the world.
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Prayer to Grow Into”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Luke 11:1-4
Psalm 63:1-5
October 8, 2023
Jesus prayed. All through the Gospels, in his active life of teaching and healing, Jesus sets time apart to pray. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he gave them a prayer that is a simple, accessible, sure basis for our own prayer to God. The Lord’s Prayer helps us talk to God, and more than that, it helps us receive our place in a world that is full of God’s presence, goodness, and beauty.
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Authority”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Ezekiel 18:1-4
Psalm 25:1-9
Matthew 21:23-32
October 1, 2023
We live in a world with many claims to authority, thus the many who feel pulled by “demands” of work, family, activities, and just the desires of their own hearts. When religious leaders confronted Jesus about the authority in which he sourced his life, he responded with a question about the authority of John the Baptist in whose baptism he was anointed as God’s Son and given the Holy Spirit. In our baptism, Jesus is given to us as the true authority in our lives––the only one who can finally tell us who we are and whose Spirit we must finally obey in how we would live.
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Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
“God's Crazy Ledger”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 138
Matthew 20:1-16
September 24, 2023
We live in a world that trains us to compare: resumés, skill sets, efforts, accomplishments. We can say that we want equal opportunity and fairness of reward for all. But Jesus tells a story about the kingdom of heaven in which workers are all paid the same even though some worked an entire day while others only a few hours. It reveals that the heart of the kingdom of heaven is a God who doesn’t compare or reward according to merit but who chooses to be generous to all. What does it mean for us to live under the rule of God’s generosity?
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“All or Nothing”
- Pastor Aland Smith
Genesis 12:1-7
Psalm 138
Luke 10:25-28
September 17, 2023
When tested about what it means to have eternal life, Jesus gave a traditional Jewish response: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” For Jesus, life comes as we give all of ourselves to the God who gives all of himself to us.
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Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Made in God's Image”
- Rev. Carmen Cox Harwell
Genesis 1:26-28
September 10, 2023
One of the first things Genesis tells us about human beings is that we are made in the image of God. What is the gift of this? What is the calling?
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Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“The Question”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Matthew 16:21-28
Psalm 26:1-6
Exodus 3:1-15
September 3, 2023
Life is precious, so we can spend much of our lives trying to shore it up. So does Jesus startle us in saying, those who would save their life must lose it and that those who would lose their life for him will find it? Maybe it depends on what we think is our “life.” Jesus brings us into a life of which we are not the center. The heart of our life is the God whose Son has passed through death into life and who brings us with him on that journey. What would it be like for us to take Jesus' words about finding our lives by losing them for him absolutely seriously?
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