(April 17, 2022) “The God We Can Know: I Am the Resurrection and the Life”

from John 11:17-26

On this Resurrection Day, we hear Jesus’ statement, “I Am the Resurrection and the Life.” Jesus speaks this hopeful truth into the midst of disappointment and sadness and loss. It is not only a promise of the possibility of eternity with Him, but an invitation to life in which there is hope in the midst of our darkest place and our deepest confusion.

“Do you believe this?”

w/ Vern Collins

(April 4, 2021) “Redeeming Our Hope” Easter Sunday

from John 20:1-18

Are those things in this life in which you have placed your hope able to bear up under the weight that you place on them to hold you up when you face life’s challenges?

There is One Who will not only always bear up under the weight, but will bear you up when the weight is too great!

Jesus Is Alive!

w/ Vern Collins

(April 12, 2020 Easter) “Trusting God’s Resurrection”

from Matthew 28:1-10

The story of Jesus’ resurrection is familiar to so many, but if we allow the story to become to familiar, we run the risk of no longer expecting that we can be surprised by Jesus…we run the risk of losing sight of the fact that Jesus might just be showing up right where we are.

May the hope of the resurrection meet you in a very real way this Easter season.

w/ Lory Beth Huffman and Vern Collins

“Encountering Jesus: On The Journey” (April 28, 2019)

from Luke 24:13-35

Without encounters with the Risen Christ, the empty tomb would be nothing more than the place where Jesus WAS…instead, as Luke and the other Gospel writers attest and as the early church bore witness to…the reality was Jesus was on the loose!

Does it feel that way in your life? Is Jesus on the loose, free to shake things up, free to redirect, free to reorient, and inspire, and challenge, and love, and meet you where you are…? Or has Jesus simply gone missing?

As we begin our new series, “Encountering Jesus,” we invite you open yourself up to the places that Jesus might just be showing up in your life…the place where He might already be at work.

w/ Vern Collins

“Resurrection Repair” (April 21, 2019) Easter Sunday

from Luke 24:1-12

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

So often we think of what the Cross of Christ means we are saved FROM, but how often do you consider the empty tomb of Christ and ask the question, “what am I saved FOR?”

Why do we look for life in dead places? What if the resurrection isn’t just something that happened 2,000 years ago…what if the resurrection can happen in your life NOW?

w/ Vern Collins

Easter “Hope Beyond Fridays” (April 1, 2018)

from John 20:1-18

We have a great tendency to hope for things that will not last.  Sure, like the end of the week, they may bring relief or rest for a brief period of time, but ultimately they are as fleeting as Fridays.

What if, instead of hoping for temporary newness, and the wrong kind of resurrection…you dare to believe that Jesus brings lasting hope and a new life that will not spoil or fade?

Imagine the possibility.

Jesus is RISEN!

w/ Vern Collins

“Easter: Not the End” (April 16, 2017)

from Mark 16:1-8

In each of the Gospels we are given an account of the resurrection of Jesus…that moment, that event which took place on the third morning when Jesus walked out of the tomb.  The event that changed everything.  The hope of the church, and the world hangs on that one event.  The one that says death and sin DO NOT have the final say.

We hear that story each year on Easter morning…hear that hope proclaimed.  But how do you make more than just the retelling of an account of something that happened 2,000 years ago?  How do you, like Peter for example, EXPERIENCE the resurrection…the LIVING HOPE of the resurrection…the hope that affects your life NOW right where you are?

Mark’s Gospel gives us an idea of how we might go from hearing an account to be transformed by this Savior!

w/ Vern Collins

“Disordered Love: Pride” (April 9, 2017)

from Matthew 21:1-11

Pride affects not only our relationships with others, but our relationship with God.  It divides and pits us against the One Who came to meet us at that very point of our weakness…at the point of our need to be at the center…that our lives and our love might become rightly ordered.

w/ Vern Collins

“Rhythms: God’s Symphony” Easter Sunday (March 27, 2016)

from Luke 24:1-12

Whether you’ve grown up in church or not, the story of the Resurrection is at least mildly familiar.  Each year the church looks to an empty tomb and proclaims the Hope that walked out of it…but by the end of the week is the hope still a reality, or have we allowed life to dull the song of salvation and cloud the light of a new dawn?

How is it 2,000 years later the Resurrection might still have the power to transform, the power to call us to life, the power to break the chains that bind us, and the power to send us into the world?

Perhaps it is time, like the first disciples, to allow ourselves to be surprised…maybe even confused by the Resurrection again.  Perhaps it is time to stop stopping short at an empty tomb and look for the One Who walked out of it.

w/ Vern Collins