Foothills Church [audio] Foothills Church

if you are a Jesus follower, meekness is not optional. Let me demonstrate to you what I mean. Meek in greek is praeis, which carries different levels of meaning. On the surface, it can mean mild or humble. But there’s a deeper meaning to this word, and it’s the one I want to focus on today. In Greek, the word praeis was often used to describe animals whose natural wild spirit had to be broken by a trainer. Why? So the animal could become useful.

That gets us to the second choice in our series. The second choice is in Jesus’ second Beatitude. Look at Matthew 5:4.

4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

The second choice is the hope choice. It is the choice to earnestly believe that God exists, that you matter to him, and that he has the power to help you change. It’s based on this Beatitude – Matthew 5:4. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

One of the games that really stressed me out was Whack-a-Mole. Does anybody remember this game? Whack-a-Mole. In Whack-a-Mole these moles pop up out of holes. You take a rubber club, and you try to knock the moles back down. As soon as you slam one down, what happens? Another one comes up. Then you slam that one down and two come up. You slam that one down and three come up. It goes on and on and on. Okay…Big deep cleansing breath. ☺

And here’s the thing…there’s no winning this game. No matter how many you slam down they keep coming back up. And pretty soon it’s game over…or you just give up and walk away.

Friends, Whack-a-Mole is a metaphor for your life. Just about the time you’ve got one problem whacked down, what happens? Another problem pops up. And you whack that one down and two more come up. You whack that one down and three more come up. That is life. Whack-a-Mole.

Throughout history, the Israelites and Christians have endured the darkness of this world through persecution from governments, wars, plagues, famines, the list goes on and on about the level of darkness in this world.

I mean it’s no different today. We have people in our church family here who have endured six wars in their lifetime, the Great Depression, the 80s! Talk about a dark time! From the clothes, to the hair, to the music! Ah man! Thank God we have Bieber today!

But, Advent…hope, peace, joy, love, those aren’t only for the four weeks leading up to Christmas. They impact our everyday life all year long as we, the people of God, look forward to His second coming.

The culmination of our Christmas Series is here! The true meaning of Christmas is unveiled in the person of Jesus Christ. Join us as our worship team and pastors join together in song and conversation looking at what the hope of Jesus means in our current context.

As we unveil Christmas, today we will be unwrapping the advent of love. I cannot think of a more misconstrued topic. There is a lot of confusion out there today as to what love is. Some say love is a feeling, an emotion that rises out from within us. Others confuse it with compassion or an absence of judgment. There are so many ideas about love.