Emmaus Road Church | Fort Collins, Colorado

The Church matters because it is the epicenter of God’s movement to announce the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. The Church is that gathered people of God, so when God moves, he is moving within the Church.

When Jesus is cornered in the temple and asked a loaded question, he says to give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar and to God what belongs to God. The brilliance is in the image. The coin has Caesar's image on it. We are the image-bearers of God! The story is about the tension of how to live in the world as the people of God. As bearer's of God's Image, we are to bear prophetic witness to the age to come as we lean into this tension.

Not only does God have a truly beautiful plan for restoring humanity and all of creation back to his original design. Not only does that plan include you and I and all mankind, but he invites us, he implores us, he empowers us, and he expects us to be a part of that plan! Like Paul, he invites us to see the world with new eyes! To dream about each of our spheres of influent being redeemed and reimagined as God sees them!

Preaching from 2 Corinthians 5:14-20, Pastor Daniel Pape shows us how new creations begins within each of our hearts, and from there it expands and grows, bringing redemption and reconciliation into all the world.

God takes pleasure in bringing all things to unity in Christ. This is what God is up to in the world. This is where the story is heading - a rewriting of the story so that all things are brought into perfect unity in Christ. And this brings God pleasure. He delights in redeeming, restoring, renewing, retelling.

The sacraments help us re-enact the story of our redemption. They become physical metaphors for our journey of faith. The sacraments help, that which seems so far away, to be brought close, near to us.

Baptism is an identity-forming act that marks us as belonging to Christ. In baptism, we join Christ in his death SO THAT we may also join him in our resurrection. Through baptism we re-enacting the story of our salvation.

Communion is a re-enactment of the last supper and a foretaste of the wedding supper of the lamb. Through this meal we tell and enact the Gospel story and the unity it bring.