HAPPY NEW YEAR: SHINING STARS IN 2021

Happy New Year!  We hope you can join us for the first Sunday of 2021.  We come to the start of this year hoping to leave the difficulty of 2020 behind and find a brighter future for 2021.  The unfortunate consequence of enduring difficulty is that it can give us a bleak outlook for the future.  As hard as we may try, we see only the despair and not the hope.  It is important to break our focus upon the darkness, so that we can find the points of light that can lead us to our true spiritual home.  In the sermon “Shining Stars in 2021” we want to help you see the light of Christ that will be shining for us and can lift us from the “twilight zone” of misery!  True to the sermon’s title, the scriptures are various points of light that nurture our hearts and strengthen our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.  It is our prayer that your soul will be restored as you read these points of light for 2021: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.” Philippians 2:14-16 NIV “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalms 139:13-14 NIV “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39 NIV