Unity Baptist meets for worship on Sunday mornings at 11 a.m. We worship through music, prayer, giving, preaching and the response to preaching. You are welcome to join us. See our about page for more, read our history, listen to sermons going back to 2015.
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We made the decision a few days ago to not have service at Unity Baptist this morning and we are not going to change that. Very few of us live in Plainville, most of our people drive in from Calhoun or as far out as Oakman. I am not going to complain that the power is on, the heat works or that Mr. Coffee automatically made us a full pot this morning. If there is no black ice on the road or tree limbs across your street, be thankful. I have recorded a short word of encouragement. Read your Bible, pray for one another, love God and love others. Hope to see you next Sunday!
It wasn’t mentioned in the sermon (because although I thought about it the idea never made it into my notes). Some of you know that I work a demanding on-call schedule during the week. But even then we are on call for five consecutive days then take two days off. I am on call 24 hours, I never work 24 straight hours. There are fire fighters and EMT’s that sometimes do things like that. We live in a world where some people have to; but it’s not what we were made for and it isn’t healthy.
Most people are busier than they need to be, filling every available moment with work, family, hobbies and entertainment. Technologies meant to make our lives easier often convince us that we need to get even more done. Take a breath. Find a moment of calm. It doesn’t have to be a nap every afternoon but find time during each day to be still and acknowledge God.
It sounds simple. It should be simple. But making these things a part of one’s regular routine on an ongoing basis is a different matter. 60% of Americans say they wish they read the Bible more. Reading is not the problem, routine and time management is the issue. Once these things become a matter of course they should actually be hard to quit.
The Gospel is for everyone; rich and poor, scholarly and uneducated, and for those near and those far away. There are many apparent differences between the shepherds and wise men but both groups looked for Jesus, found him, and then rejoiced in worship.
After four Sundays of Advent, I preached a Christmas sermon this morning. While I would usually try to avoid fielding questions during the sermon I went ahead and dove in head first when asked about Bethlehem and other first century locations still existing today.
We continue in Luke 2 with the shepherds response to the angels message from on high. Today we light the Shepherds candle and the theme is Peace.
The focus this week is on the angels and their message. Next week we will look at how the shepherds respond.
The theme for the second Sunday of Advent is Faith and we light the Bethlehem candle. Advent is something of a journey as we moved toward celebrating Christmas Day. Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem involved a huge leap of faith and should make us examine ourselves and consider where our faith might lead.
The first theme of Advent is Hope and we light the Prophet’s Candle on the Advent wreath. There are many examples of messianic prophecy in the Old Testament as well as symbols and images that help us understand who Christ is and what he does. We are going to mention Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6 then take a deep dive into Genesis 22.
*Note: For a few years, the congregation at Unity consisted of a few senior widows. They had spent a lifetime in church, loved and supported their pastor, but that is not the makeup of a healthy growing church. Today we have a very different demographic, including families with young children. Teresa has often said that if you don’t hear babies crying then the church is dying. You may hear some crying babies in this sermon audio but that is a necessary function of a multi-generational congregation.
This parable from Luke 15 does not begin with the words “The kingdom of God is like…” but it illustrates the Gospel in simple terms that are easy to understand. This story should really be called “the parable of the forgiving father” because he had two sons, both wrong in different ways, that he loved and offered forgiveness to. We only know for sure that one accepted.
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