Sermon text: Matthew 5:1-12

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Today we are going to finish our Advent Conspiracy series and as I mentioned earlier, the topic is “Love All.”

I hope you have followed the progression we have tried to make here. Our theme has been an attempt to return Christmas to its rightful place as a remembrance and celebration of Jesus' birth. We began by saying that no matter what our culture has turned Christmas into, for us to take it back we must begin with worship. Every movement of our being must be oriented towards the worship of Jesus. And when it is, and we faithfully assess our culture, we find some alarming things.

In the Advent Conspiracy we discover that Americans spend billions and billions of dollars more on stuff during Christmas than would be needed to provide clean drinking water for the world. And these stats could go on and on. So we discussed the importance of spending less and spending wisely. That our culture has robbed us and tricked us into believing that we would find joy in consumption.

Once we spend less, we are urged to give more. The Creator of the World, God, is a giver. He gave us Himself. And we are told repeatedly throughout the Bible that we are to be people of deep generosity too.

Sermon text: 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

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Last week we discussed how the messages that our culture has been giving us are lies. Our joy is not dependent upon our stuff. And we have to be vigilant, especially during the Christmas season, to identify the consumerist thieves and robbers around us and to run towards the true shepherd, who is the source of eternal and abundant life.

Last we talked about spending less and that is good . . . but not enough. So you spend less and less and your income keeps coming and sometimes gets larger and larger . . . does your bank account, and your retirement, and your standard of living just get bigger and bigger too . . . or is there something more we are called to.

We are called to be people that give. When you hear this passage and think through what we are called to, you are probably always going to think about money . . . and that indeed a part of how we demonstrate our generosity . . . but it is not all of it. We want to also think about how God is calling us to be generous with our time, with our presence, and with our talents.

Sermon text: John 10:1-10

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I think we are lied to consistently. We have thieves and robbers that are lying to us about what is important and essential in our lives and that we are being deceived into buying things that we do not need with money that we either do not have or could be better used elsewhere. 

We are being sold a very simple message by our culture . . . I want to show you some of what I mean. Show Pics. 1) competition. 2) happing shopping (4).

This . . . will give you life.

A marketing expert on a blog I read this week said this, “As early as two-years old a child can sit in a shopping cart and point to what they want. Companies need to capture that child as early as possible to get a sale today and retain that customer for the future.”

According to the 2001 marketing industry book Kidfluence, the very effective marketing strategy of pestering or nagging can be divided into two categories—"persistence" and "importance." Persistence nagging (a plea, that is repeated over and over again) is not as effective as the more sophisticated "importance nagging." This latter method appeals to parents' desire to provide the best for their children, and plays on any guilt they may have about not having enough time for their kids.

Sermon text: Psalm 25:1-10

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This year for Advent our sermon series is Advent Conspiracy. At some point in our culture we have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.

And I know that many people probably discuss this every year. We mention our consumerist culture and how it distracts us and in a way sucks us into thinking that we need more and more stuff. My goal is not to get us all not to celebrate Christmas . . . to give up buying gifts for each other and to stop spending time with family and traveling . . . that is not the goal. The goal is to help us to find some ways to reprogram our Christmas traditions around the reason for the season.

Sermon text: Matthew 18:15-22

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So this week has been an interesting week. I believe that God changes us. And when I say that - I don't just mean that one day we are doing drugs, drinking beer by the gallons, lying, cheating, stealing, worshiping movie stars, our wallets . . . and everything else . . . and then we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior . . . and bam, life is perfect. We stop all of that and now sit in our houses for hours reading the Bible, praying and sipping decaffeinated coffee.

No, when I say that I believe that God changes us . . . I mean that God never stops changing us. I really mean this. You should know what God is working on inside of you right now. No one is there. We don't figure it all out at some point. I don't care if you are at the beginning of your spiritual journey or the end . . . God is still trying to change you. To mold you more and more into who he created you to be.