This Sunday we will be launching into a new worship series called “Family Faith.” I’m really excited about it and wanted to share the news.
The sermons in this worship series will be biblically grounded and practically relevant. Some of the questions we’ll be digging into include: What does our Christian faith have to say to families? How does being a Christian make a difference in how we understand ourselves as husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters? What is the relationship of the church family to the biological family?
My colleague Todd Lovell and I just posted our new podcast on this upcoming week’s sermon — “Covenant.” You can find that podcast online here. (It is an episode in our new “Behind the Sermon” podcast that we’ll be posting weekly. So stay tuned!)
My hope is that the Family Faith series will help people of all backgrounds think about their family relationships as Christians: adults and children, married and single, young and old. The Bible offers a great deal of guidance for families. Our faith in Jesus Christ can be greatly strengthened through the Christian family, just as families themselves can be made stronger by the Christian faith!
Here’s the lineup for the next five weeks on Family Faith:
Week 1: Covenant (Ephesians 2:14-22)
Week 2: Witness (Ephesians 5:21-33)
Week 3: Cultivation (Ephesians 6:1-4)
Week 4: Formation (John 6:60-69)
Week 5: Connection (Colossians 3:12-17)
(For the first episode of our new “Behind the Sermon” podcast, click here. We hope to expand the digital reach of First Church through “Behind the Sermon,” so feel free to share it with others!)
Our third sermon in the Watching from the Walls series is “Elizabeth’s Surprise,” which focuses on Luke 1:5-17 and 39-45. In it, we find that Mary’s cousin Elizabeth receives a double surprise — the jolt of John the Baptist leaping in her womb, and the jolt of knowing that her son would be the herald of the Savior himself.