2025-12-14: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: Advent 3 – Joy: God’s Salvation in Christ is Cosmic and It Looks Like Joy  

God’s salvation in CHRIST is COSMIC and it looks alot like JOY.  I’ve been thinking about this; a big thing in a small package.  Jesus’ coming was unbelievably small and by all indications insignificant – a small town called Bethlehem, born out back away from the inn, placed in a manger… yet, this was God’s plan.  The Son of God came to us incarnate, born as a vulnerable little baby.  And babies are small packages.  Yet, this was a big ‘happening’ with a cosmic effect.

During the Advent season we celebrate gifts like hope, peace, joy and love.  How do we understand these gifts?  I wonder if we see them as little packages that bring us some personal comfort, benefit, and direction in living.  And they do bring these things.  However, think about it.  God’s gift of salvation and the evidence in hope, peace, joy, and love aren’t only for us individually (small packages).  Think bigger, they are God’s gifts for the entire world (BIG package).  It’s COSMIC.

Hear it in the proclamation of Isaiah 35 and 52, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.” What?  “The world will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.”  Huh?  “All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.”  That sounds BIG.  From a baby boy born in a manger in no nothing Bethlehem?  Yep.

Advent Joy!  The angel says to the shepherds, “I bring you Good News that will cause great joy for all the people! A Savior is born to you!”  Is this joy a personal joy only, or is it joy for the whole world?  The cosmos? If so, how so?

See you Sunday,
Pastor Mark

2025-12-07: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: Advent 2 – Peace: God’s Salvation in Christ is Cosmic and It Looks Like Peace

Sunday is Advent week two, a focus on Peace.  In Isaiah 52, the prophet Isaiah speaks of a coming Savior, who will bring salvation, and this salvation will go out to the ends of the earth.  What does this mean?  In John 3:16, we read, “God loved the world so much, he sent his Son…” A Savior, bringing salvation!  What does this mean?

I used to think of God’s salvation mostly as a personal thing… God comes to my heart, saves me from my sin and gives me a new life.  Salvation certainly includes this, my personal salvation.  Yet, I’ve come to understand from God’s Word that his salvation is much, much bigger – it’s COSMIC!  That’s right, God’s salvation in Jesus is a big announcement, big happening, with big affect – it’s COSMIC!   A salvation that proclaims, “Our God reigns!”  How big is God’s reign?  It’s COSMIC!

So there it is, a wild claim about Jesus and his rule over all things.  Take a look at Colossians 1:15-20.  Can you see it?  Question for Sunday and into the next week to ponder: If God’s salvation announced and fulfilled in Jesus birth, life, death, and resurrection has brought the Kingdom of God near to us, actually brought it to us and is here now, what does this mean for our living, obedience, faithfulness to God’s rule in all things?  Is it just some of my life or all of my life?  Some aspects of the world we live in or aspects?

See you Sunday,
Pastor Mark

2025-11-30: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: Sin: Pervasive and Progressive – Natural, Moral and Societal Evil

Sunday is the 1st Sunday of Advent 2025, a great day to turn the page!  For in the fullness of time, God stepped into time, at just the right time, to redeem ALL time!  As Galatians 4:4 says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might be adopted as God’s children.”

Isaiah speaks of a light dawning.  Of those walking in darkness, living in the land of darkness, seeing a Great Light.  We are (or were) those people walking in darkness in the land of darkness, and Jesus is this GREAT LIGHT.

As we ‘move into’ our time of Advent, anticipating Jesus’ 1st coming in salvation and now, to his 2nd coming in glory ‘making all things new’, we see our need for a Savior then and now.  For 4 weeks God has revealed our need for salvation from our sin (lawlessness, mis-direction, depravity and foolishness).  Sunday, we will look at another truthful aspect of sin – it’s corporate societal reality.  Most important on Sunday is an illustration God gives of how best to overcome societal sin and evil.  A clue?  It begins with the Light of the World and God’s salvific calling to be ‘light in the world.’

See you Sunday!
Happy Thanksgiving – The Lord bless you and the name of the Lord be praised,
Pastor Mark

2025-11-23: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: Sin – Foolishness, Such Folly Is

Happy Thanksgiving!  “Give Thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever!”

Divin’ in, to understand sin… for 3 weeks, we have taken a look at our problem of sin.  We know we break God’s good law of love, a law for our flourishing, to love God and neighbor, and break it.  We know even our best efforts miss the mark of God’s desire and intention for our flourishing.  Last week we understood this problem of our sin goes deep, the depravity is total in ‘every part of us is tainted.’  These things are true, undeniable, and inescapable.  Simply put, our sin separates us from God.  And often separates us from one another.  This makes sin and its engagement utter foolishness… but we can’t seem to help ourselves.  If God is our source of all life (and God is) why would we separate ourselves from God by sinning?  If our design is for unity in community, why do we sin in our relationships causing so much separation?  That’s an age old question to an age old problem… a squirrelly one.

Ever watch two squirrels chasing after each other, almost in lock step as they run from branch to branch yet never quite catching each other?  Maybe, this is similar.  The Apostle Paul says it well in Romans 7, “What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer myself who does it, but it is sin living in me.  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep doing.”  It’s a human struggle… always.

Let’s meditate on the foolishness of sin this Sunday.  Simply do a search of the book of Proverbs and you will have all the wisdom needed to wrap your head and heart around the foolishness of sin.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Mark

2025-11-16: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: Human Depravity – Totally!

Diving in, to sin – it’s understanding, reality, and scope.  Sunday we wrap our heads around the doctrine of TOTAL DEPRAVITY.  Now lest you roll your eyes, you need to try it on for size.  My renewed look into this doctrine of the church provides a firm Biblical foundation for another doctrine, one called GRACE.

We believe in grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the Glory of God alone.  An important part of this beautiful truth is that we cannot save ourselves.  And that is good news, even though it sounds like bad news, because Jesus has become the GOOD NEWS for us.

Check out these passages from Scripture for Sunday and ponder their truth.  (Jeremiah 17:9, Isaiah 1:5-6, Romans 3:9-18, 23; Mark 7:15-23, Ephesians 2:1-3, John 3:5-7, Psalm 51:5) Human depravity is everywhere, we see it outside us and it’s definitely within each of us.  Is human depravity total?  Totally!

See you Sunday for communion and potluck fellowship meal, bring someone with you and something to share, as we hear the Good News, and feast in God’s presence, yahoooooo!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Pastor Mark

2025-11-09: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: Sin – Missing the Mark – Misdirection

Diving in to sin… last week, we saw in Scripture the understanding of sin as the breaking of God’s SHALOM.  God’s command of love (of God and our neighbor) is broken everyday in multiple ways.  This week, we dive deeper into sin by exploring sin as missing the mark.  As good as we try to hit the bullseye of God’s law of law (of God and our neighbor), our best intentions miss the mark.  No matter how much effort in our thinking, planning, and executing toward God’s call of love, we take every good design and created structure and take it in a direction other than God’s direction.

Deone Quist, Sydney Yapoujian, and Roger Tinklenberg will be bringing the message this week in 3 parts.  Thank you team!  Some scripture for Sunday to prime the pump: Genesis 3:6-7, Isaiah 53:6, Galatians 5:17,  Proverbs 14:12, Hebrews 12:1, and Joel 2:12.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Mark

2025-11-02: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: Sin – Breaking God’s Law

We are turning a page, a rather significant one.  We move from Genesis 1-2 to Genesis 3.  And so many things change.  God nor his love changes, we change.  As sin enters the world, we begin to realize that ‘things aren’t the way they are supposed to be.’   We begin to struggle in so many ways as sin affects (infects) every aspect of human existence.

Genesis 1-3 explains so much on a fundamental level.  We can recognize goodness, even taste it at times… and yet, we see and experience so much brokenness.  Not only that which is outside us, around us, also within us.  So what went wrong?  How are we to understand our sinful condition and our resulting sin?

Many approaches to understanding it come from God’s word and from our own experiences.  Over the next 4 weeks we will explore 4 understandings of sin: lawlessness, missing the mark, total depravity, and foolishness.

Don’t be afraid.  This journey is necessary.  As we understand the depth of our sin, we will understand the depth of God’s love.  The more we know about ourselves, the more we will know God. And the more we know God, the more we will know ourselves.  And God is good, gracious, and compassionate.  So we are in good hands so to speak – Do not be afraid.

Our culture doesn’t like to talk about sin.  And it’s too bad.  We like to think we are pretty good, and that’s not so good either.  In our avoidance of the conversation of sin, our hiding from the truth of sin, just may be holding us back from greater unity, community, courtesy, humor, and finding much common ground with others.  It also keeps us from having a gracious attitude toward others and toward ourselves.  (Thank you David Zahl, Low Anthropology)

So let’s dive in, and talk about sin,
Pastor Mark

2025-10-26: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: In the beginning, VERY GOOD – God rested  SHALOM!

What’s so special about the 7th day of the week (Sunday)?  Or is it the 1st day of the week (Sunday?)  How do you see it?

In Scripture, God sees the 7th day as an unbelievable day of joy, rest, play, and beauty!  The Sabbath Day is closely associated with another Hebrew work ‘SHALOM.’  Shalom is a powerful and profound word, communicating wholeness, completeness, well-being, things as they are supposed to be.  On the 7th day, after creating, separating, giving form and shape, purpose and meaning to all living things, to humanity, he says “SHABOT!”  Stop!  Rejoice and rest, everything is very good.

Yet, we all know that everything is not very good.  So what happened… well, that’s for us to take a closer look at after this Sunday… so for this Sunday, we will enter into the very good of God’s creation ‘in the beginning.’

Here’s what I’d like you to do in preparation for Sunday.  Answer this question, and feel free to answer it as many times and in as many ways as you can think of… write em down – bring them to church.  Simply complete this thought: “If things were the way they were supposed to be, it would look like _________.”  Fill in the blank with a word or a phrase or an idea.  Think of what you see as ‘not right, not the way it’s supposed to be’ and answer it in the positive, as it should be.

Read Genesis 2:1-3.  See you Sunday!

Pastor Mark

2025-10-19: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: In the Beginning, CREATED in GOD’S IMAGE

Everyone has a worldview.  What is yours?  I’m keen on the Biblical worldview because it speaks so much truth into our reality.  Both the good and the bad of this life are contained in it.  The best expression of our present reality is found in the Biblical worldview.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and everything in it.  And when God created humanity, all human relationships were in perfect harmony.  Our relationship with God was good and very good.

God created us to be fruitful and multiply and to bring the creation to all its created potential through stewardship, cultivation, and development of it all.  Magnificent, fulfilling, and fun – very satisfying and God glorifying, all of it.

It’s so good to know from the Biblical worldview how all was in the beginning.  Because in our present reality, we have to wonder, what happened?  Things are not the way they are supposed to be.

See you Sunday as we explore the profundity of God creating humanity ‘in his image.’  So much is spoken in so few words.  Sunday is communion Sunday and our fellowship meal!

Pastor Mark

2025-10-12: Pastor Mark Quist – Discipleship: In the Beginning, GOD… Something Out of Nothing

Following Jesus… What do we need to know?  What is it we believe?  How are we to live?  Questions… I’m so thankful for the revelation of God in both the universe/creation/physical world and in Scripture.  Two marvelous books of revelation about God as our Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.  I’m also thankful for people who have spent their life following Jesus and plumbing the depths of God’s relationship with the created world and specifically, humanity.

Today, (this coming Sunday) we dive into a deeper understanding of the Biblical Worldview.  Theologians have looked at God’s Word over the centuries and can see God’s revelation of a plan for all created things, a ‘worldview’,  based on Biblical revelation, that helps us understand our place in God’s world.  It has everything to do with God’s creative and redemptive love for all that he has made.  It speaks of God’s ongoing faithfulness to us in our trouble, his sending of a Savior, and the very presence of God ongoing with us (Holy Spirit) for as many days God gives us.  Knowing God’s plan and our place in His world leads us to meaning, beauty, joy, and purpose in our lives.

In brief, God’s redemptive plan in history unfolds in simple terms of Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation.  If this sounds confusing, do a google search of this framework and find out what the categories mean.  For our purposes in this series, we will use phrases… “In the beginning… not the way it’s supposed to be… Now! but not yet… all things new!”  This is a bit more descriptive.

We begin with 3 weeks of “In the beginning…”  Read Genesis 1-2 for these three weeks of sermons.  Dive into some of the attached discussion/application questions.  And see you Sunday!  Ready for take off, ready to dive in, Lord lead.

Pastor Mark