At this time of the year for many people, emotions move to the fore, as we anticipate once again the coming of another Christmas.  Our thoughts turn to days long ago, to family members now far away, to the underlying excitement which comes from hearing Christmas carols and old, familiar scripture passages.  God injects Himself into the increased pace of our activities, as a baby is born in a land far removed in every way from our own.  And so, with Christmas confidence, let us worship God.

Today the Christian world begins a time of preparation.  Advent leads up to Christmas, when once again we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Different people prepare differently, for not all believe the same things about Jesus.  However any of us individually may perceive the birth of Jesus, together we let us look forward to the hope and joy represented by his coming into the world.  Therefore let us, with Advent confidence, worship God.

Thanksgiving of one sort is now behind us, and thanksgiving of another sort lies ahead of us.  We are a people whose hearts and minds should be filled with thanks to God for gifts which never end, and especially for THE Gift, the gift of Jesus Christ.  We gather in worship of a God whose kindness never fails, and whose beneficence is without end.  Everything of value we have ultimately comes from God, and to Him we offer our praise and gratitude.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

God calls all of us, whoever we are and in whatever state of grace or disgrace we find ourselves, to worship Him.  When we do so, we are refreshed, renewed, and restored to a proper relationship with God.  We gather in gratitude to God for His continuous and unfailing love of us, asking Him to inspire us to seek to become new beings by His spirit working within us.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

The American Episcopal bishop and hymn writer Arthur Cleveland Coxe said in 1842, “We are living, we are dwelling in a grand and awful time.”  The slavery issue was drawing to a head, and the Mexican War was clearly looming up in the very near future.  In times of uncertainty and warfare, people often imagine that the world is in a precarious position.  That is the theme we are addressing today.  Therefore let us with confidence worship the God who is with us in the beginning, in the end, and beyond the end.

Everyone has a story.  Some of us are married, some are widowed, some divorced, and one never married. We all came from a particular place, with particular parents and families and values.  All of us bring our individual backgrounds into the world and nation and community.  The God who made us individually unique also made us part of the one human community.   Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God who makes all of us one.

Everyone has a story.  We all came from a particular lineage, and a particular place, with particular parents and families and values.  All of us bring our individual backgrounds into the world and nation and community.  The God who made us individually unique also made us part of the one human community.  As different and disparate and disunited as we may be, we who are here today gather as one people to give praise to our one God.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God who makes us one.

Time passes, events occur, we all make decisions.  Where is God in this entire uncertain process?  We gather in praise of a God whom we are convinced can bring good out of anything that happens: a personal decision gone terribly astray, wars or national or international conflicts in which the outcomes are very much in doubt, a political crisis through which most or all political leaders serve their constituents very badly but from which good nonetheless can somehow emerge.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God of providential hope.

We are a people who come and go, who appear and disappear, and never do we have exactly the same group of people on any two Sundays.  But God is always here among us, and it is to Him that we turn when we gather to worship and to praise His name.  We come far more at His unseen and unfelt bidding than through our own volition, but He receives us whether or not we ever think about that, let alone affirm it.  Therefore let us, with the confidence He graciously provides to all of us, worship God.

All we, like sheep, have gone astray.  We have turned, every one, to his own way.  Nonetheless we have a Shepherd, one who never loses sight of us or gives up on us.  He becomes the Hound of Heaven, the herder who seeks us and finds us wherever we go and whatever we do. In gratitude to Him for His steadfastness toward us and sorrow for our inconstancy toward Him, we gather to give thanks and praise to the God who created us, sustains us, and redeems us.  Therefore let us, with chastened confidence, worship God.

God is not just the God of our nation, but of all nations.  He is not just the God of certain peoples, but of all peoples.  He wills that we should live in peace and harmony with one another, and that we should work out our differences and disputes as amicably as possible.  For that reason God wants the leaders of all countries to guide the affairs of state, rather than merely to follow others and to react to what happens.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God of all nations.

In the bright sunlight we see Him.  In the mists and shadows and growing darkness we see Him.  Even when we can neither see nor sense nor feel His presence, we somehow know He is there.  In every moment of our lives, in every act and activity and action, we trust God is with us, however meandering or uncertain our way evolves along the path we tread.  We gather in praise of the God who leads each of us, seeing His hand in matters both large and small.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

On this day, three weeks after Easter, we shall re-visit why Easter became the holiest day in the Christian year. The apostle Paul wrote, “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The cross demonstrates that profound truth, and Easter becomes its verification. Therefore let us, as people who have so recently celebrated Good Friday and Easter, once again worship the God who showed His love for us by means of the cross of Jesus Christ.

In these days it seems the news is all very important, all engrossing, and all potentially ever more disastrous.  We are a people who acknowledge that we live in a very tenuous world.  Yet through everything God is still present, watching, brooding, wondering how we shall deal with whatever confronts us.  He moves us each week to gather in His name and to seek His assistance for our daily lives.  Therefore let us, with renewed trust and confidence, worship God.

We live in a pocket of the world in which there is very little thought or emotion devoted to contemplating the end of the world.  But at various times and in various places, that issue has been uppermost in the minds of many people.  Today we will ponder how Jesus perceived the future of Jerusalem.  Though Jerusalem was destroyed, God ultimately continues to govern the universe , and all people continue to live under His reign.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

What a difference a day makes.  When we woke up this morning, the sun came up an hour later than it did yesterday, and this evening it will go down an hour later.  The seasons come and go, aided and abetted by government decisions.  It is when we are most aware of the cycles of the seasons that we also may be most aware of the perpetual grace of God, which is with us in every moment and day of our lives.  Therefore we gather in confidence to worship the God of both time and eternity.

When we worship, we gather with other people, and together we lift our hearts and minds to the God who made us.  When we worship, we recognize that we are not sufficient in ourselves, and that we need help from beyond ourselves.  When we worship, we acknowledge our need of God, and of His guidance in our lives.  When we worship, we affirm that God alone is worthy of our ultimate thanks and praise.  Therefore, let us with confidence worship God.

The God who sent Jesus calls us together in worship.  God alone is worthy of worship, and Jesus made that crystal clear in all that he said and did.  Christians are people who believe that in Jesus we see God made visible in the form of one born most fully in the likeness of God.  Both God and Jesus are worthy of our worship, and to them we now turn in thanksgiving and praise.  Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.