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The God We Love

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1,700 years ago, the First Council of Nicaea adopted the Nicene Creed. It is preceded by and borrows most of its foundational structure from the Apostle's Creed, written sometime during the 2nd Century. Although the Apostle's Creed is older, the Nicene Creed remains relevant today because it was created to clarify and settle theological differences arising from the Arian heresy, most notably, the deity of Christ.  I did not grow up knowing the Nicene Creed. I was raised in the Evangelical Free Church of America denomination, where the creeds were simply not taught. Either that or I wasn't paying attention that day in Sunday school. Could've been the latter, but we'll never know. Fast forward about 20 years or so, and I bump into an Anglican bishop, now retired, who took the time to speak truth into my life and pointed me in a new direction that would ultimately lead me to the Reformed Faith. You could say he missed the mark on converting me to Anglicanism, but even ...
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As For Me And My House

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Th is   song is based on Joshua 24:15, which is best read in context, beginning with verse 14. "Now therefore fear   the   Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away   the   gods that your fathers served beyond   the   River and in Egypt, and serve   the   Lord. (15) And if it is evil in your eyes to serve   the   Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether   the   gods your fathers served in   the   region beyond   the   River, or   the   gods of   the   Amorites in whose land you dwell. But   as for me and my house , we will serve   the   Lord. (16) Then   the   people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake   the  Lord to serve other gods.”   This passage is preceded by Joshua recounting all God had done for the Israelites until this point of covenant renewal. He recalls for the people that God called Ab...
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Location: Athens, AL, USA
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I Set My Hope On Jesus

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This week, we're learning a new hymn, "I Set My Hope on Jesus," written by Keith Getty, Matt Papa, and Matt Boswell. It's a hymn that addresses the three main areas where our faith is tested throughout our lives; doubt, temptation and failure, and perseverance. How do we respond when our faith is tested? How should we respond? The answer to the first question is largely situational. We may respond to doubt with anger and frustration or more doubt. We may respond to failure and temptation by giving up. And the same response might be ours when we stray from our faith and follow the world's call. I have stood at these crossroads at one time or another, as I'm sure you have too.  The answer to the second question is found below. Verse 1: When this life of trials tests my faith I set my hope on Jesus When the questions come and doubts remain I set my hope on Jesus For the deepest wounds that time won’t heal There’s a joy that runs still deeper There’s a truth that’...
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Joy To The World

It would be hard to imagine the world of church hymns without the influence of Isaac Watts. A master poet with some 750 hymns to his credit, Joy to the World is just one of the many Watts hymns we still sing today. Published in 1719, this marks the 305th year of this hymn. It is a beautiful hymn most often associated with and sung during the Christmas season, but it wasn't based on Christ's birth. No, Joy To The World is the Christmas hymn that isn't.  Watts wrote and published the poem in 1719 as a paraphrase of Psalm 98. At that time, it wasn't set to music. An American named Lowell Mason, regarded by many as the father of American church music (and the father of Henry Mason, who founded the Mason & Hamlin piano company - the most amazing sounding American-made pianos) borrowed some lines from George Fredrick Handel's Messiah to complete a tune called Antioch. Lowell published Joy To The World set to Antioch in 1836 at Christmas time, and the Christmas associa...
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Angels From the Realms of Glory

This beautiful hymn was first published in 1816 in London, England. It was written by James Montgomery, poet and owner of the Sheffield Iris newspaper. You might recognize his name from another of the 400-plus hymns he wrote; Go To Dark Gethsemane. Montgomery was born in 1771 in Scotland to soon-to-be missionary parents. His father was a pastor in the Moravian brethren, and when James was 6, his parents moved to the West Indies to be missionaries. At that time, he went to boarding school, which did not go well for him, and while he was there, his parents died when he was 12. They wanted him to follow in his father's footsteps and become a minister. But he was dismissed from seminary because of his unwavering interest in poetry. James had no shortage of reasons to abandon his faith. After being kicked out of school, he struggled with homelessness and hunger. He sometimes peddled his poems on the street for money to buy food. Eventually, he made his way to Sheffield, where he got a j...
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O Come, All Ye Faithful

"And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:9-11) This week, we're going to look at the centuries-old Christmas classic, O Come, All Ye Faithful. Tradition dates this hymn back to 1743, possibly at the writing hands of John Francis Wade, although that's not 100% certain. The original lyrics were penned in Latin and over the late 1700s through the 1800s, a couple of different people translated the hymn to the English language, among some 40 other languages. This hymn places us all with the shepherds and all who made the journey to Bethlehem to behold the newborn King.  The first stanza is the most well-known. It serves as, quite possibly, the greatest Call To Worship ever s...
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Christ Is Mine Forevermore

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"And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be Still!' And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" Mark 4:37-41 That passage comes to mind as I watch the weather news of Hurricane Milton making landfall just south of Tampa, Florida. The power and fury of these storms is crazy to think about. And with just three words, our Lord and Savior can halt the storm dead in its tracks. In 2016, CityAlight released this song on their Only A Holy God album. It addresses the difficult truth of the Christian...
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