Are You Ready for Advent?

What is Advent?

Advent is a period of spiritual preparation in which Christ-followers prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We celebrate when Jesus was born as a baby 2000 years ago. We look forward with anticipation to the second coming of Christ. And we celebrate His presence with us today through the Holy Spirit. God is with us – He has already come, He will come, and He IS come! May we welcome Him in our hearts and lives and families and communities and nations. Thank you to those of you who are here in this room today, and thank you to those of you who have tuned in online. May we each grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ today.

The word “advent” means arrival or coming, especially of one who is awaited. It is formally the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas, observed in commemoration of the coming of Christ into the world. Today, November 30th, marks the first day of Advent according to Church calendars all over the world. Advent concludes on Christmas Eve. I invite you to pay attention to what God is showing you today. He speaks to each of us so personally and uniquely. I want to open with a crafted prayer based on the Ignatian first principle and foundation:

Lord God, the goal of our life is to live with You forever. Thank You that You love us and gave us life. Help us to respond in love to You to allow Your life to flow into us without limit. Thank you for your blessings without number – all the things in this world are gifts from You, presented to us so that we can know You more easily and make a return of love more readily. Thank You. We appreciate each gift. May we use them wisely and allow them to help us develop as loving persons. Please keep us from placing any gift at the center of our lives. We don’t want to displace You, our God, as the center and circumference of our lives because that would hinder our growth in You. Please give us the wisdom and grace to balance our lives, to make good choices, to fulfill God-given obligations. We welcome whatever Your will is for us in times of health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one. We focus on You, Jesus Christ, and Christ alone. Thank You that everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God. We desire and choose One thing only: that which better leads to the deepening of God’s life in us. Please give us the grace to live a life of love with You today and forever. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Amen.

Let’s begin by reading today’s traditional first-day-of-Advent Scriptures. These are all from the New Living Translation.

Micah 5:2 – “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.”

Isaiah 7:14 – “All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).”

Luke 1:26-33 – “In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.  Gabriel appeared to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!’ Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ‘Don’t be afraid, Mary,’ the angel told her, ‘for you have found favor with God!  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.  He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!’”

Luke 1:39-56 – “A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth.  At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, ‘God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed.  Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me?  When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy.  You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.’ Mary responded, ‘Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.’ Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then went back to her own home.”

Matthew 1:18-24 – “This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. ‘Joseph, son of David,’ the angel said, ‘do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: ‘Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means “God is with us.”’ When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.”

Luke 2:1-12 – “At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire.  (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.)  All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census.  And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born.  She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he said. ‘I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.’”

Entering into Advent

You know I love making acronyms, so here are some ponderings about the season of Advent we’re entering into today.

A – Anticipation [We look forward to celebrating Jesus’ first advent with anticipation – Christmas is coming! We also look forward with great anticipation to the day when Jesus will come again, when He will, as N. T. Wright says, “put the world to rights.”]

D – Desire [God wants us to wait for Him, not with boredom or frustration as we wait in a government office for our number to be called, but with eager expectation, with desperate desire, as someone stumbling across a vast desert thirsts for a drink of water.]

V – Value [This is a great season in which to ponder what we really value. We and those close to us can tell what we value by what we spend our time on, what we spend our money on, what we dream about, what we invest in. It’s good to take a good hard look at what we really value. To use a car analogy, we all need regular recalibrating & repairs because life’s roads are bumpy, we get worn out, and we leak.]

E – Experience [God invites us to not only know about Him, but to experience Him. One of the key values in our Vineyard community of churches is to experience God. Here’s an excerpt from the Vineyard core values and beliefs: “God is eager to be known and experienced by all. We believe that God is searching for lost humanity in order to draw us into intimate relationship with Himself. In response to God’s initiative, we value the life-changing power of the experience of His presence.” Our faith walk with Jesus is not just theoretical – He invites us to experience His presence and His power every day, to live naturally supernatural lives and welcome His Kingdom rule and reign in the here and now.]

N – Nativity [The word “nativity” refers to the birth of Jesus Christ. Each time we see a nativity scene, each time we hear a nativity song, let’s remember Jesus’ birth and pray for His coming again which He has promised. 1 Timothy 3:16 (NLT) – “Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.” Revelation 22:20 (NLT) – “He who is the faithful witness to all these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon!’ Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”

T – Time [God isn’t looking at the clock the way I am. We tend to get caught up in schedules and alarms and counting how long until something happens. From God’s vantage point, the time is now. 2 Corinthians 6:2 (NLT) – “God says, ‘At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.’ Indeed, the ‘right time’ is now. Today is the day of salvation.” John 5:25 (The Message) – “It’s urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived—I mean right now!—when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive.” Let’s live in the reality that God’s Kingdom has already come, although not fully here yet. He invites us to be present in the present in the presence of God.]

So today, as we begin advent, I ask you to consider: What is God’s invitation to you today, on this first day of Advent? To what ADVENT-ure is God inviting you to make a step forward, whether the first step or the next step in a journey you’re on? An adventure is defined as “an exciting or very unusual experience.” There’s nothing more exciting or more unusual than living in the power and presence of God and giving our lives away to live for Him! God is calling each of us out of same old, same old into a life of adventure. Recently I watched one of my favorite documentaries again, probably for the tenth time, “Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure” – it never fails to inspire! Ernest Shackleton had a dream, to explore Antarctica. His invitation to others to join him on an adventure to cross Antarctica from sea to sea is one of the most memorable advertisements ever published: “MEN WANTED: FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS. SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON” Today God is inviting us to embark on a hazardous journey with Him. It’s called the Kingdom of God. Our wages here are small. Like the apostle Paul, we may experience extreme conditions, extreme adversity, extreme disappointment, extreme distress. But God is with us. He is our very great reward! He measures success by our faithfulness to Him. May we remain faithful to Him in word and in deed, so when we stand before Him face to face in eternity we will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Advent = interruptions

Advent. The first advent could be summarized as a series of interruptions, as we saw in the Scriptures we read.

• The little town of Bethlehem was interrupted from being a small village to becoming a prominent place in the best known story of all time. Even today, with a tiny population of 25,000 residents, Bethlehem receives 2 million visitors each year.
• The priest Zechariah had been taking his turn to offer incense at the daily sacrifice (his one and only chance in his lifetime) when God’s angel Gabriel interrupted him and told him he would have a son even though his wife was well past childbearing years.
• Elizabeth was settling into old age when she was interrupted by a very unexpected, very impossible, but also very welcome pregnancy.
• Mary was going about her life, likely a life devoted to God, when she was interrupted by the same angel, Gabriel, and told she would have a son even though in the natural it was not possible or believable
• Joseph decided to do the honorable thing and break off his engagement with Mary, when he was interrupted by God in a dream
• The young couple was obediently traveling to Bethlehem, Joseph’s hometown, to register for a national census, when the contractions of full-term pregnancy interrupted them, so Mary ended up giving birth in a  place that was probably far quite different from what she may have hoped for
• The shepherds were tending their sheep when they were interrupted by sights and sounds that blew them away.
• The people of Israel were expecting a Messiah to come as a powerful leader who would deliver them from the Roman oppression. They were interrupted by someone who came instead in weakness and poverty. Many did not recognize Him.
• The world was rushing towards destruction when it was interrupted by the birth of One who would change everything. Even the global calendar was sliced in two. Before Christ. Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord. Everything has changed.

If Paul and I have had a theme verse for our life together, it’s probably this one: Proverbs 16:9 (NLT) – “We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.” God wants us to plan. He has given us the ability to think, organize, plan for the future. But he wants us to hold our plans in the light of His presence and submit our thoughts to His higher thoughts, submit our ways to His higher ways, submit our plans to His higher plans. As the Lord of our lives, He reserves the right to interrupt us. He sees the big picture. He knows what is best for us. The bottom line is that He wants us to trust Him. We can trust Him because He is all good, all knowing, all seeing, all understanding, all powerful, all love. I put it to you today that just as a skilled editor transforms ordinary words into beautiful writing that can be read, understood, and received by others, God transforms us by interrupting us. When I see a toddler break away from his parents and run towards traffic, I’m going to interrupt him because I don’t want him to get hurt, even if I’ve never met him before. How much greater is our heavenly Father’s love and care for us. There are many reasons why He may choose to interrupt us, but I am convinced that because He loves us and because He is making each one of us new and beautiful, He punctuates our lives with interruptions. He knows the best way to write His message of life and love and liberty on our lives.

Punctuation marks of God

Here are some of the punctuation marks of God, some of the ways in which He interrupts us:

• Apostrophe (’) – signifies ownership or omission of something or marking of some plurals. In God’s interruptions He shows that we belong to Him. In the places where we lack either because we don’t have or because we’ve experienced loss, He fills the gaps with His presence. We are never singular, never alone – He is always with us.
• Brackets ([]) – to set apart or interject something. The interruptions of God often set apart a period of our lives in the same way that words or phrases are bracketed. We remember our stories as seasons that are forever set apart: “before I lost my job”, “after my mom died”, “when I was in hospital”, etc. He brackets things for us so that we will notice, listen, learn. When I think back to seasons in my life that in retrospect were clearly bracketed, set apart, I wish I’d paid better attention!
• Colon (:) – to explain or start an enumeration. Sometimes God announces interruptions by explaining them ahead of time. In Luke 2, we see a suddenly and then there are angels and the radiance of the glory of God. When God starts to explain something to us, we will do well to listen to what He has to say. When He speaks, it’s important!
• Comma / Semicolon (, 😉 – to separate in some way. Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd, and likened us to sheep. Sheep, left to their own devices, tend to easily get matted wool, learn bad habits, acquire worms, lice, and foot rot, stress out, etc. They just need constant care to be in good health. God graciously gives us many commas in our lives, frequent interruptions in which He draws us aside in order to tend to our needs, because we are usually rushing headlong and not noticing or able to tend to our own needs ourselves.
• Dash (–) – to differentiate something in some way. God says in 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV) that we are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” He has differentiated us from the rest of the world. His interruptions come sometimes as reminders of whose we are. He wants us to be confident sons and daughters of the King!
• Ellipsis (…) – to indicate an intentional omission. When I talk with teens about caring for little children, I remind them that they can easily see the dangers of roads and sharp knives and fires that little ones may not realize could hurt them. God sees everything, vastly more of the big picture than our limited vision ever could. When God takes something away from us, or takes us away from something, it’s for a good reason. He knows what’s best.
• Exclamation mark (!) – to indicate strong feelings or high volume or a warning. God loves us so much that sometimes His interruptions are large and loud and designed to get our attention and to protect us. These kinds of interruptions are hard to miss and may come large and loud if we’re in denial or need jolting awake in some area.
• Period (.) – to indicate the end of a sentence. It’s so much easier to start something new and exciting, and much more challenging to bring something to a conclusion. God interrupts us to let us know when it’s time to move forward. When I was teaching my kids to read, I would say, “when you see a period, you stop.” God is so kind to punctuate our lives with periods of rest and reflection before we embark on the next new adventure. Without these, our lives become a jumbled mess of sentence fragments, which are not very meaningful for those who read our lives. When God interrupts us and indicates that it’s time for something to end, let’s receive God’s invitation to stop and rest before moving on to the next beginning.
• Hyphen (-) – to join words or separate syllables of a single word. God says about us that we are a unified body, His family, living branches attached to the vine of Christ. God’s interruptions are sometimes for the purpose of joining us in community, connecting us in relationships, inviting us into healthy interdependence with other Christ-followers. God’s highest and best for us is to come out of the isolation that is so common in 21^st century city living and do life together in community. What a blessing it is that in a world so often characterized by separation and loss, God is bringing unity and restoration?
• Question mark (?) – to indicate an interrogative sentence, clause, or phrase. We notice in conversations that Jesus had, when people asked Him questions, He so often responded with a question. God interrupts us with questions that point us towards truth, whether the truth about God, truth about ourselves, truth about reality. God’s desire for us is that we would live in freedom – free to love God, free to love others, free to be and do all that He created us to be and do. As Jesus said, it is truth that sets us free.
• Quotation marks (“”) – to indicate a quotation, direct speech, or literal title. Sometimes God’s interruptions to us are deeply personal words spoken by Him to you or to me. He wants us to hear His voice. His promise to us that His sheep hear His voice is not meant to make us feel like we’re not very good at listening to Him, but rather a calming reassurance and encouragement to rest in Him and listen to what He’s saying.
• Slash (/) – to indicate a choice. Life is full of forks in the road. Sometimes the fog is so thick we can’t see the forks, much less the road itself. But each day, each hour, each moment, we have a choice, as we prayed earlier. God interrupts us to ask us to choose – to choose life, to choose that which better leads to deepening life in Christ.

Responding to interruptions

Are you ready for advent? Are you ready to be interrupted? When we’re interrupted, we have choices in how we respond:

CLOSED or OPEN:

Am I closed to the possibility of interruptions because I’m so attached to my plans that I don’t entertain any other possibilities? We see a contrast in how Zechariah and Mary responded to the angel Gabriel when he spoke to each of them about becoming parents. Do I have room in my schedule for unexpected or unplanned opportunities? Do I respond to God with doubt or trust? I wonder if the inn keepers and bed and breakfast proprietors in Bethlehem realized what they had missed out on after Jesus was born. Am I so convinced of my own correct beliefs that I am no longer teachable? Many of the leaders of Israel missed the significance of who Jesus was because they were holding so tightly to their own understanding and consequently missed the revelation of God standing right in front of them. Am I focusing on the clock and hurrying on to my next appointment? The shepherds may well have planned to move on to another field on the morning of Jesus’ birth. What if they had stuck to their schedule and hadn’t visited the newborn Messiah? Am I trying to be in control or my circumstances, or am I open to hearing God’s voice and allowing Him to do something in my character, my heart, my mind? Joseph had decided what his course of action would be, but he listened to God and obeyed him, even though he knew it would be very costly.

Zac & Nancy have been talking in recent weeks about giving thanks, as 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NLT) reminds us, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” By giving thanks, we are agreeing with God that He is the One who orders our steps, not we ourselves. We may think that “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,” but consider this – William Ernest Henley, the poet who penned these lines in his poem, “Invictus,” Nelson Mandela, the future 1st President of South Africa who recited this poem to other prisoners during his 27 years of incarceration because of his stand against apartheid, and every other person who has ever breathed the breath of life has a 1-for-1 chance of “going the way of all the earth” as the Old Testament euphemistically puts it! The illusion that we have any control at all over our circumstances is short-lived at best. The sooner we surrender to God, the sooner our hearts can be fully and truly open to whatever interruptions God sends our way.

Story of interruption: Natasha, our lovely visitor from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, this past week, messaged me at 11pm Thursday night to say she would be arriving at the Greyhound station downtown at 7am Friday morning. God interrupted my plans – to have her dropped off at our home, to be able to get a full night’s sleep 😉 – with these gems:

• I visited the Greyhound terminal for the first time in over a decade
• During my hour-long wait (the bus was late), I realized that conveniences like up-to-date schedules such as we enjoy with airline travel are not available for low-income travel options like buses
• As a fluent English speaker accustomed to a wide variety of modes of travel, I saw how difficult it must be to find one’s way with little assistance from employees or signs – opportunities to show hospitality
• I saw many people in need of a smile or kind word, both workers and travelers

This tiny interruption made me realize how often I am just on my own little track and plans and miss whatever it is that God is trying to show me. How many people have I walked past without noticing because I was too busy thinking about what I was on my way to do? May the Lord give us open hearts and open hands to receive whatever and whomever He sends our way.

REJECT or RECEIVE:

Do interruptions offend me? Or can I receive them as something that I can then offer back to the Lord in service? Mary could conceivably have rejected God’s plan for her to carry the Son of God in her womb. She may have done that if she had valued her own reputation or her own desires more than God’s will. Let’s get real. How is it possible to not be offended by some of the things God does? Pregnant out of wedlock with no rational explanation? It’s so easy for us to get offended with one another; we can even get offended with God. Each time we realize we’re offended, let’s thank God for the chance to humble ourselves before Him and to practice forgiveness towards others. Life seems to give us plenty of opportunities to practice humility and forgiveness!

Another benefit of giving thanks in ALL circumstances, is then being able to see interruptions the way God sees them, and to receive them as gifts and opportunities and adventures to love people and bring glory to God. This passage in Romans puts it beautifully.

Romans 8:15-28 (The Message) – “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

18-21 That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

Story of interruption: When I was a freshman in college, I decided during Orientation week, actually, I made one of those inner vows (which never seem to be a good idea), that I would not marry. My reasons were varied, partly I had a sincere desire to devote my life to God, but I think more than that, I was sick and tired of the ups and downs of dating, having had my heart broken several times already. Within a week, I met Paul, and God spoke to me (even though I believed at the time that I never heard Him speak) . . . He told me the first time I saw Paul that he would one day be my husband. Talk about interruption of MY plans! But God’s plans are so much better than anything we could come up with!  I thank God for giving me Paul and giving me the grace to receive His gift – today we are celebrating our 29^th wedding anniversary J I shudder to think what my life would have been like if I had rejected this blessed interruption from God. Paul and my children are the delight of my heart. I would not be who I am today without each one of them.

DEAD or ALIVE:

Consider this – how would you define what are the most common traits of people who get interrupted? The truth is, the only people who don’t get interrupted are dead ones. [now show graphic] To live is to be interrupted, so our response to interruptions, says a lot about how we view life.

C.S. Lewis understood how to view interruptions and how they were a part of the real life God has for us: “What we must do is to stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life. The truth is that interruptions are real life, the real life that God sends us day by day. What we call our real life is but a phantom of our imagination.“

Story of interruption: In a minute, I want to give you a chance today to tell what you were doing when you were interrupted and made the transition from dead to alive. A few of us might have a miracle story like Lazarus of being physically dead and made alive again. But all of us who are in Christ have experienced a being made alive spiritually. This passage from Ephesians describes how this happens.

Ephesians 2:4-10 (NLT) – “But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much,  that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)  For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.  So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

So in a couple of sentences, please share with us how God interrupted you and gave you life. Please describe briefly these three things:

• Before
• What happened?
• After

Everyone share . . .

Conclusion:

Notice God’s interruptions

Open your heart, mind, schedule, resources

Receive opportunities and adventures, receive each person as a gift from God

Live!

Let’s give thanks and praise to God for interrupting us.

FOUR WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

SUNDAY: Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2
MONDAY: Matthew 1:18-24 and Luke 1:26-33
TUESDAY: Luke 2:1-5
WEDNESDAY: Luke 2:6-7
THURSDAY: Luke 2:8-9
FRIDAY: Luke 2:10-12
SATURDAY: Luke 2:13-14

THREE WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

SUNDAY: Luke 2:15-16
MONDAY: Luke 2:17-18
TUESDAY: Luke 2:19
WEDNESDAY: Luke 2:20
THURSDAY: Luke 2:21
FRIDAY: Matthew 2:1-2
SATURDAY: Matthew 2:3-6

TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

SUNDAY: Matthew 2:7-8
MONDAY: Matthew 2:9
TUESDAY: Matthew 2:10-11
WEDNESDAY: Matthew 2:12-15
THURSDAY: Galatians 4:4-5
FRIDAY: Ephesians 2:8-9
SATURDAY: 1 John 4:7-16

ONE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS (You may or may not have a full week before Christmas Day.)

SUNDAY: Ephesians 2:12-22
MONDAY: John 7:37-38, and 14:6
TUESDAY: Matthew 28:19-20
WEDNESDAY: John 8:12
THURSDAY: John 9:4-5 and Matthew 5:14-16
FRIDAY: Psalm 98:1-6 
SATURDAY: John 1:1-3, 14 and Romans 6:23

CHRISTMAS DAY

Psalm 100, Revelation 3:20-21