An Invitation to Come Home
First Sunday in Advent: Hope
Isaiah 64:1-9
1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! 3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. 5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? 6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. 7No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins: 8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.
- Are you home this morning?
- What is ‘home’?
- What is ‘family’?
- Scripture
- Who we haven’t been
- How we’ve fallen short
- Our true relationship with God
- Coming home this Advent: resetting our lives…putting it back on track; re-railing
- Hope
- God provides a re-railer: his name is Jesus Christ.
- How has your life gotten off track?
- An invitation to come home this Advent…what does this mean? What will be your answer to the invitation from God?
TODAY'S PREACHER
Debbie Reese is Co-Directing Pastor of Calvary UMC