Is there someone in your life or in the world that you can’t imagine ever turning and following Jesus? Alice Cooper was known as the Godfather of Shock Rock; his father was a Presbyterian pastor, and after God continued to pursue him through addiction and the lifestyle of a rock star, Cooper gave his life to Jesus in 2006. The Chicago Tribune called Brian “Head” Welch’s rap metal band Korn “perverts, psychopaths and paranoiacs” because of their dark and explicit lyrics; in 2005, fans were shocked when Korn parted ways with guitarist Brian Welch because Brian had “chosen the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior.” More famously, 250 years earlier, a mutineer, thief, and slave trader named John Newton also gave his life to Jesus. Newton had joined the slave trade at the age of 21 until one day he picked up a copy of Thomas a’ Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ; he had never read anything like it and in 1748 he surrendered his life to Christ. After forty years of following Jesus, Newton published Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade, describing the horrors of slavery, repenting of his personal responsibility for it, and calling for its abolishment. Newton would later write one of the most famous hymns in history: “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound.” All of these were some of the last people you would imagine that God would get ahold of, but God continued to pursue them despite their sinful and rebellious lives. In our study of Daniel, we see God pursuing King Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful king in the known world. He conquered God’s people, boasted that no god could stop him, and tried to kill the only faithful servants of God in his empire. No one could ever imagine Nebuchadnezzar bowing the knee to anyone, let alone the God of heaven. Until one night he had a dream.

In 1798, the shattered remains of a statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, also known as Ozymàndias, were found in the Egyptian desert, upon which was the inscription: “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.” By 1798, the Pharaoh’s “works” were nowhere to be seen and his statue reduced to rubble in a forgotten desert wasteland. In Daniel 2, the God of heaven called King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon the king of kings, whose power and glory were unmatched on earth. But He reminded the king that he only had power, glory and authority because God had given it to him for a time. In Daniel 2, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of a colossal statue made up of gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay—the kingdoms of the earth—all of which would be reduced to chaff and blown away by a rock cut by no human hands—by the kingdom of God which would fill the earth with the rule and reign of Almighty God. If you remember, King Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom of Babylon were the head of gold. Let’s take a look at his response to this dream in Daniel 3.

There are times when we want to know how things end, and there are times when we want to be completely surprised. We are in Daniel this morning, going through this amazing book of the Bible together as a church, and in chapter 2 King Nebuchadnezzar wants to find out the final score. He is afraid; he is trying to hold on to his kingdom, to hold on to control, power, glory, strength and splendor. And God showed him, and shows us His people this morning, the final score. Not to annoy us or cause us disappointment, but to give us uncrushable hope!

We all want to know the future; we all want to solve the mystery of what will be. If only we knew the future we wouldn’t be anxious; if only we knew the future we could save ourselves pain and suffering; if only we knew the future we wouldn’t have to pray or have faith. We like mysteries, but only mysteries that we can solve. Mystery comes up a lot in the Bible. There are things that God knows and we don’t know, until and unless He chooses to reveal them. Mystery is why our life lived here is lived by faith. The idea of mystery found in Daniel shapes much of the meaning and understanding of mystery and God’s will throughout the rest of the entire Scriptures. Mystery helps us understand why Jesus speaks in parables to the crowds. It helps us understand more of who God is and how we can trust Him even when we don’t know what He is doing. We are in a series looking at the Book of Daniel together, and in Chapter 2, King Nebuchadnezzar has a problem. He is confronted with a mystery only God can reveal.

It’s a terrible feeling to feel out of place. Maybe you have felt out of place at a new job or a new school; maybe traveling abroad. My family lived in China for ten years and every day was a reminder that we were out of place. But you don’t have to live in a foreign country to feel like a stranger and exile; oftentimes you can feel like an exile in your own land. And that is what it can feel like as a follower of Jesus or a person of faith in a culture like ours. Exiles ask different questions than people in their own homeland, like: how did we get here? Will we ever feel at home? How do we keep our identity in this land of exile? We are starting a series on the Book of Daniel as a church. The name of the book makes us believe that it's a book about Daniel. But really, from start to finish, the book of Daniel is a book about Daniel’s God. Who is He? Where is He? And what is He up to? It’s about the power, mercy and sovereignty of Daniel’s God and our God. And it begins with God’s people living in exile in a foreign land.

Join us this Sunday as we look at the competing forces of wisdom and folly in Proverbs 9, discovering how Jesus and His example are the ultimate expression of God’s wisdom for our lives (ft. Colin Campbell, Member at Elevate Hope Centennial).

It’s the last day of 2023; the dawn of 2024! It has likely been a year full of both the ordinary and the unexpected I imagine; a mixture of unforeseen blessings and trials. How have you grown or changed? We like to think about change and resolve to change on the last day of the year. So what would you like to change this year? Change can make us hopeful if we are in control of what changes we make, or it can make us anxious if we are not in control of what changes come this year. Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew exactly what changes this new year would bring, if we knew the future? We all want to know what the future will bring; what changes will occur and how we should respond. And I want to predict the future for you today to help you avoid some anxiety for the coming year; there are three things that will absolutely happen in 2024. The world around us will change in some way. You and I will change in some way. But God will not change and will remain the same yesterday, today and forever. No matter how you feel about change, you can know for certain that in this coming year, God will not change. And that helps us in two ways: it helps us dwell secure amid all the changes around us and it helps us to truly change all the things about ourselves that we want to. We have an unchanging God even in our ever-changing world. Even amid all the crazy things we saw this past year, even as we face down the uncertainty of 2024, He will not change.

The best gifts are those that totally take us by surprise, but with a surprise gift comes the risk of disappointment. Have you ever been disappointed with a Christmas gift? Maybe you didn’t get the thing on your list but got something else instead? A surprise gift makes a great Christmas; a disappointing gift can ruin a Christmas. That’s the great thing about Santa Claus, right? He gets you exactly what was on your list. He doesn’t deviate, he doesn’t try to get creative or sentimental or go out on a limb and improvise; Santa never disappoints you. But he never really surprises you either. But when it comes to gifts, I think that the sweetest and best gift is actually the gift that you never knew you needed, a gift you didn’t even know to put on your list. But someone who knows you best gives it to you, knowing deep down that it is exactly what you need and want. And that is exactly the kind of gift we celebrate at Christmas. The record of the events of the very first Christmas tell us that those who came to the cradle and the manger were seeking something, but they found something they never expected. And ultimately, that is our question on this Christmas. Do we want a Heavenly Father who doesn’t always give us everything on our list, who risks disappointing us in the short term in order to surprise us with a gift we didn’t know that we desperately need?

If you are not a follower of Christ, the idea of resurrection may sound completely unbelievable; indeed, even Jesus’ closest followers struggled with His claims that He would die and be raised. But Christians also have two challenges when it comes to resurrection: some Christians will over-emphasize the cross at the expense of the resurrection. And other Christians still will declare the importance of the resurrection, but can only imagine its significance as having future value for believers awaiting the new creation. It can be easy to miss, but the miracle of resurrection is clear and evident from the very beginning of the Christmas story. Join us this morning as we look at Simeon’s prophecy in Luke 2 and are brought to understand and appreciate the true gravity of the miracle of resurrection.

The phrase “deafening silence” could adequately describe the 400 years of history between the last book in the Old Testament and the angel announcing the birth of the promised Savior on that first Christmas morning. Imagine your experience of God as a burning bush, an audible voice, a pillar of cloud and fire traveling before you. He parted the sea and provided bread from heaven; He consumed your enemies and went before you in battle in miraculous ways; He spoke clearly and often through His prophets. And then silence. Do you feel that way sometimes in your walk with God? The gospel writer Luke, in recounting the Christmas story, wants God’s people to once again know that the Spirit of God has awakened; that the early rays of dawn are showing themselves in our darkness. Luke opens his gospel with the Holy Spirit at work, filling His people. Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit; the baby in her womb is filled with the Spirit and leaps for joy; Zechariah is filled with the Spirit and once again begins to praise and prophesy. But the biggest miracle of Christmas is what the Holy Spirit does in Mary, the mother of Jesus. I know this can seem like a familiar text, but let’s listen with fresh and expectant ears.

This week starts the season of Advent, the season of waiting for and anticipating the coming of Jesus which we will celebrate at Christmas. And for the kid in all of us, it begins the season to think about giving and getting gifts. It can sound unspiritual and worldly to talk about presents at Christmas. But isn’t that what we are celebrating? The joy in receiving the greatest gift ever, Jesus Himself. We are getting ready to celebrate this miracle of Christmas, but when we look at the whole of Scripture, that first miracle of that baby born on Christmas night was just the beginning of other miracles that would come. Because in that manger was not only the greatest gift the world has ever known, but also the greatest gift giver the world has ever known. Sometimes we don’t see it, because we stop at the manger; we stop at the cross. But Jesus is present with us every day in even more miraculous ways than those. So this season we are going to look ahead to all the miraculous ways that Jesus comes to us starting with the fact that He is Immanuel, God with us.

Join us this Sunday as we look at Psalm 22 and discover that sanctification means learning to say thank you to God in increasingly difficult circumstances (ft. Ryan Beerwinkle, Deacon at Elevate Hope Centennial).

Most often, we treat prayer as the work of internal processing. We try to compose, sanitize, and spiritualize our thoughts before we turn them into prayer requests. Or worse yet, we have a conversation about our needs with ourselves first and only after do we talk to Jesus. But Jesus wants us to be external processors in prayer. To just start asking before we even know what we need or want, before we even know how to complete the sentence. He will begin to shape us, and even more joyous, He will bring us into fellowship with Him. In the last petition in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus wants to teach us also how to pray in “real time” as temptation, trials, and evil unfold before us. This petition is one that is to be prayed both before difficulty arrives and also to be blurted out immediately as temptation strikes. In times of temptation, like all other times in prayer, we are to be external processors with our Father in prayer. Let’s look at this last petition in the Lord’s Prayer as we close out our series on prayer this morning.

Can you think of a time when it was hard to ask for forgiveness, or hard to forgive someone? Our culture has a forgiveness problem, and my guess is that all of us struggle with forgiveness at times. We become super sensitive to all the ways others have hurt us and insensitive to the ways we hurt others. Even though the Bible says that Jesus has, “forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us…nailing it to the cross,” we find it easier to cancel someone than to cancel their debt against us and do the long work of forgiveness. Jesus was often asked by his disciples about forgiveness. No one really asked, “Should I forgive someone?” But the question was, “What should be the LIMIT of my forgiveness?” Surely mercy has boundaries; the river of grace must have banks. And surely forgiveness should have its limit before someone doesn’t deserve to be forgiven anymore. Join us as we continue looking at the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.

Praying for daily bread can seem like a throwback to Biblical times. In modern times we have savings accounts, retirement funds, a spare car, a side hustle, and a plentitude of banks willing to loan us money for next year’s bread if we don’t have it today. But we as the modern church, the modern people of God, must somehow learn to pray this line. It’s part of Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ begging Him: “Teach us to pray.” Because no matter what century we live in, God does not help those who help themselves; He helps the helpless. Prayer happens when we realize we have no skill great enough to pull the strings of the cosmos. We have no education so great that it allows us to mine the depths of all wisdom. We are owed no wages for living for God and whenever we need something we only have to go to our Father and ask like a child. Let’s once again dive into The Lord’s Prayer.

We are in a series on prayer, and this morning we are continuing to look at what is called the Lord’s Prayer in the the gospel of Matthew. When Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, He begins His prayer with “Our Father.” If we are going to pray like Jesus prays, He knows that we really need to understand fathers and what they are like. In fact, in both Matthew and Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus follows the prayer with a story about a good father so that we can know what a good father is like. To address God as Father in prayer was not anything unique with Jesus; Jews often addressed God as “Our Father” in prayer. We see that in Isaiah 63 and other places in Scripture. What was unique about Jesus teaching us this prayer in response to the heart cry of “Teach us now to pray!” is that the one teaching us to pray “Our Father” is actually the true son of God. So, when the only begotten Son of the Father is asked about how to pray, His first thought is, “I want you to know that My Father is also your Father.”

“Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You, since You have given Him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” - John 17:1-3 (ft. David Rapp, Church Planting Resident at Deer Creek Church).

Since Jesus first taught the Lord’s prayer, it has been a comfort to many. It’s so simple that it’s been the prayer companion of children, and yet it’s a prayer that grows with our growth so that even the wisest and oldest of Christians would never dare to say they have mastered the treasures of wisdom it contains. The Lord’s prayer remains calm and even tempered throughout all the changing scenes of the past two thousand years, suited just as much for stained glass high church cathedrals as it is for an infant’s bedside. The Lord’s Prayer seems to anticipate every difficulty and danger, seems to answer every problem, and seems to offer every comfort to Christ’s disciples in every tribulation the world has known for the past two thousand years. Its petitions are serious and yet they bring a lightness to the heart when they are prayed. In spite of all the subtle and simple grandeur of this prayer, for some the Lord’s prayer is associated with things like penance or just vain repetition. But whether your heart shuts off or comes alive when you hear the Lord’s prayer, it remains how Jesus taught His disciples to pray when specifically asked.