Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus was interrupted? It’s kind of amazing how often people seemingly derailed what Jesus was doing so that He might see their situation. You’ve got to be pretty audacious (or desperate) to interrupt a respected rabbi while He’s teaching!

While Jesus was addressing John the Baptist’s disciples, explaining why His ministry was blowing up their paradigms—they were trying to put His new Messianic wine into their old culturally acceptable wineskins—Jesus was interrupted. While Jesus was talking, Jairus knelt before Jesus, desperate for Jesus to raise His daughter back to life (Matthew 9.18). Jesus dropped everything and went with Him. He wasn’t angry. He didn’t make Him wait. Jesus heard his interruption and went with him. But no sooner did Jesus turn the corner when He felt a tug on His tunic. A woman with a persistent hemorrhage, which had plagued her for twelve years, was desperate too. She crouched through the crowd believing if she simply touched the hem of His garment she would be healed (an interruption inside an interruption!).

We might be tempted, if we were Jairus, to tell her to get in line, take a number, and wait her turn. Our situation is time sensitive. But the truth is, Jesus is able to address all our needs. He can speak resurrection and restoration into all our lives (28.18). Reading these miracles again, as if for the first time, we see a Savior willing to be interrupted because He cares. His love for us is so great He goes with us. Even if all He needed to do was speak a word, He still walks with us to bring resurrection into our world. He still draws close enough to us where we can reach out and touch Him.

Beloved, Jesus understands our needs and is willing to be interrupted and walk with us, to care for us, to turn to us and speak encouragement into our lives. Yes, Jesus is fully God, so He’s able to meet our need. In the Gospel, we also see He is fully human, like us “in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest” (Hebrews 2.17). Friend, don’t be shy today. Jesus is waiting to be interrupted.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Jesus has such a powerful way of showing us who we are in the Father’s eyes. His disciples are perfect examples of this truth. Where Mark wrote of John and his brother as the “Sons of Thunder”—which has to be the most woefully under-utilized rock band name of all time—because of their fiery tempers (Mark 3.17), John saw himself in Christ as beloved (John 13.23; 19.26; 20.2; 21.7; 21.20; 21.24). The same is true for Matthew. Mark and Luke tell the story of Matthew’s calling, but they intentionally refer to him as Levi (that designation is important). But for Matthew writing his gospel, remembering the day Jesus found him despised and disdained by his countrymen, sitting in a tax collector’s booth, Matthew shares the name which Jesus used to redefine his life. The former tax collector tells us, “As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me’" (Matthew 9.9a).

At the heart of this story is man who the world called anything but “Matthew.” The Hebrew name Matthew means, “Gift of the Lord,” which was the last thing his neighbors saw. He was called a tax collector. He was called a sinner. He was an embarrassment, a sellout. He worked for Herod the Tetrarch, subservient to the Roman Empire. He was, to the Pharisees and the people around him, irredeemably unclean. But to Jesus, he was Matthew. Stop and read that again. To Jesus, Matthew was a gift from God, a purposeful creation made in the hands of the Master (Psalm 139.14-18).

Friend, maybe you feel like that despised tax collector today. Maybe your soul is sporting a black eye from the blows of a broken society. You feel frozen by your sin in the eyes of those around you. But Jesus, the Son of God, sees you as a gift of God. He sees you where you are and calls you by name to follow Him. Jesus loves you. He passed by your way to reveal God’s love for you, and for those around you. Beloved, today, hear Jesus’ personal call to discipleship and walk in His way.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

It’s natural when we experience sickness, or see someone we love suffering, to long for healing. We go in search of relief. We ask others if they’ve encountered similar symptoms. We book appointments. We even search for answers from websites and computer collations (ironically referred to as intelligence). The reality is when we suffer, we want solutions.

But often because we don’t know the depths of our maladies, we end up treating symptoms on the surface rather than the inner, unseen disease. Like the woman hemorrhaging blood for twelve years, we go from doctor to doctor desperate for a cure, spending everything we have, only to find ourselves worse off than before (Matthew 9.20-22; Mark 5.26). Cosmetic remedies leave us emotionally depleted when they fail to fix what’s broken within.

When we come to the end of ourselves, when the solutions of the internet and the internist leave us without answers, we look beyond the natural to the supernatural. Scripture tells us Jesus came to heal us, and not just the sickness on the surface but the sin deep within. Jesus speaks over us with all authority and restores us with all gentleness, healing our broken hearts and binding up our wounds (Psalm 147.3).

Matthew wrote of a paralytic man brought to Jesus who’d been “thrown” onto his sick bed (Greek: balló). He wasn’t tossed roughly there by his friends who brought him to Jesus but violently thrust there by his disease. No doubt, knowing the nature of crowds, some thought they knew this man’s sin, and saw his sickness as just punishment (Exodus 15.26). Forgiving little, they loved little, feeling the pain of the paralytic little (Luke 7.47). But for those of us who’ve found great freedom and healing in Jesus Christ’s love, we rejoice in His command to get up and walk! We bow down in awe and praise God (Matthew 9.8)!

Beloved, may we, who have been greatly loved, love all people with the good news of our Great Physician. May we speak straight to the heart of the hurting that Jesus our Healer also forgives our sin!

A Sunday morning service by Pastor Brett Deal.

It’s interesting to ask people what they know about Jesus. When you get a chance this week, slip it into conversation and see what they say. Most people who are asked about David will know about Goliath. Those who are asked about Joseph might mention his coat of many colors. Many, when asked about Jesus, think about the sea. Jesus in the boat with his disciples. Jesus walking on the water. Jesus calming the sea. That’s a great place to start!

You might know the story of Jesus calming the sea well, but what might be surprising to you, even if you've followed Jesus for years, is the immediate context of the story. After delivering the Sermon on the Mount and healing several outsiders (the Jewish leper, the Roman Centurion’s servant, and Peter’s mother-in-law), Jesus told His disciples it was time to “go to the other side” (Matthew 8.18). The Gospel tells us when Jesus “got into the boat, his disciples followed Him” (8.23). That’s a beautiful sentiment. It’s worthy of being stitched onto a grandmother’s throw pillow or one of those fancy calligraphy paintings in a crafts store. It’s beautiful, but dangerous!

No sooner do they follow Jesus from shore (and Jesus finally gets a moment to rest from the constant demands of ministry) all hell breaks loose! The Sea of Galilee was known for extreme storms, but this is something else. Matthew says a mega seismos swelled up. The word seismos is most commonly associated with earthquakes (8.24). This is no ordinary storm, and following Jesus led His disciples right into it.

Perhaps you’re in the middle of a storm, and you feel like you’re not going to make it through. You’re angry with God because following Him led you here and you’re losing hope! Take a breath. Cry out your prayer to Jesus in the storm and anchor your faith Him anew because, friend, it’s in the storm where we meet with Jesus who is fully God and fully man. He knows what we’re going through. He’s been through it too. Yes, and Jesus is fully God because by the power of His voice He commands the winds and waves to be still. It is in the boat beyond the safety of shore we behold Jesus who is our Savior (Jude 1.24-25).

A Sunday morning sermon by Peter DuMont.

How has God made you uncomfortable this week? We all have preferred ways of doing things, the ways in which we might like to definitively order our lives (and the lives of others) if we had the means to do so.

As we continue our Epiphany series in Matthew 8-9, we see Jesus raising some questions and some hackles by what he is doing: “Why does the teacher eat with sinners?” “Why aren’t his disciples fasting like John’s and the Pharisees?”

Jesus answers these questions by describing his ministry as marked by joy and a stretching agent. His message and actions provoke change, and this will be uncomfortable for those who want Jesus’ arrival to fit into comfortable ways of doing things. Conversely, for those at their wits end with nowhere to turn, Jesus’ arrival will mean rescue, deliverance, resurrection.

What are we to make of a Savior who promises to reconcile and transform everything for good, but also promises to not leave us unchanged in the process? Are we willing to see our apple carts upset--our preferences overruled--as part of sharing in the advance of God’s Kingdom, or will the work of God stretch rigid places within us to the tearing point?

Let’s come to worship this Sunday amazed at the power and life that Jesus brings, hungry to partake in his gospel reality, and willing to be formed and stretched by the oncoming movement of his kingdom.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Tonight, we sit on the water’s edge of a new year. With the sun set and moonlight piercing the darkness, we watch the slow ripple on the waves of yesterday and watch for dawn. It may not seem it, but the hours before sunrise are some of the best for fishing. This silent time lit soft by stars is the perfect time to cast wide our net into the new year.

I’m not talking about new year’s resolutions that only last a day or two. I’m talking about epiphany! Epiphany is the culmination of prolonged effort—like wisemen from the East making their long journey to Bethlehem or a faithful fisherman patiently casting out His net.

At the beginning of last year, Jesus enlightened us with his preaching (Matthew 5-7). On a mountainside He spoke light and life, opening our eyes and ears and illuminating our hearts. Now, Jesus will come down from the mountain and walk among us, living His message into our world (Matthew 8.1). As we set out with Jesus the Messiah, would you enter this new year challenged by our fourth century sibling, Chromatius of Aquila, who wrote:

“‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ So do you want the kingdom of heaven to also be near for you? Prepare these ways in your heart, in your senses and in your soul. Pave within you the way of purity, the way of faith and the way of holiness. Build roads of justice. Remove every scandal of offense from your heart. For it is written: ‘Remove the stones from the road.’ And then, indeed, through the thoughts of your heart and the very movements of your soul, Christ the King will enter along certain paths,” (emphasis added).

Beloved, the King and His Kingdom are near, so let us begin this new year intently going through the gates, preparing the way for all people, building up the way of the Lord to dwell among us (Isaiah 62.10). Let us join Jesus in the journey as He casts the net wide.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Time is a funny thing. Think about it. There are times minutes feel like months, and seconds unending seasons of waiting. Then, there are sparkling decades which rush by in a blink of an eye. When our kids were little, the constant refrain we heard was “Don’t blink, before you know it…” You know the rest. Friend, I blinked. When my eyes opened, our newborns were all teenagers!

Tonight is Christmas Eve. It’s been one short trip around the sun since our last candlelit service, singing our Advent songs. It’s also been two millennia since Jesus was born to a virgin and placed gently in a manger (Luke 2.7). For two thousand years we’ve celebrated that Christ has come, born among us, bringing salvation into our world (John 3.17). Our present is anchored in this past tense fulfillment! But now, consider what it must have been like for those eagerly awaiting the first Advent! Let’s not take for granted how blessed we are to have seen and heard this good news (Matthew 13.16)! “For truly,” when we stop and think about it, many prophets and righteous people longed to see and hear what we have seen and heard (Matthew 13.17).

Day after day, century after century, they waited for the Messiah to arrive. They set their hope on the prophetic word the Holy Spirit was speaking into their lives. They believed for what they did not see, trusting the faithfulness of God. And then, in Bethlehem, all of a sudden—long-awaited—Christ was born. Are we surprised a weary world rejoiced with this thrill of hope?!

Friend, we gather this Holy Night, placing ourselves with the prophets of old, expectant for the first Advent (1 Peter 1.10-12). And with a thrill of hope in His first Advent we wait all the more expectantly for His return! Indeed, His second Advent might be today! So come rejoicing for "His law is love and His gospel is peace." Let’s take the time, while there is still time before us, and "let all within us praise His holy name!"

Merry Christmas!

A Christmas Eve sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Can you imagine what it must have been like in Jerusalem when the wise men showed up? Children fetching water. Merchants selling in the market. Scribes dutifully copying the biblical scrolls for synagogues near and far. Priests serving in the Temple. Meanwhile, King Herod, is looking over his shoulder to see what family member he needs to kill next. Like a neurotic groundhog, whenever Herod saw his shadow, someone suspiciously drowned, was strangled, or ended up in a vat of honey. Maybe that day started out like any other…that is until these foreign wise men rolled into town seeking a royal audience, searching for the new king of the Jews. This sent Herod—the current king of the Jews—into a rage, and everybody in Jerusalem felt it (Matthew 2.3)!

Upsetting news like this required a general assembly of the religious elites. Herod called for the chief priests and scribes to reveal through their scrolls where this Messiah was to be born (2.4). Steeped in Scripture, they unveiled the answer from Micah the prophet (Micah 5.2). They knew the promise of the Messiah, foretold to David who would reign over God’s people forever (2 Samuel 7.14). He would be a Shepherd King (2 Samuel 5.2), born in Bethlehem, the little hamlet of David’s own birth.

How unnerving it must have been to tell the temperamental Herod the answer to his question! The stark contrast must have been unsettling to share. According to Leslie Allen, “It is within this drab frame of royal misfortune that Micah sets a glorious picture of royal majesty. The figure of failure of verse one stands as a foil to his radiant counterpart here.” The Lord was bringing a true king for His people, a Shepherd King for His sheep in Israel and among all nations (Micah 7.14-15; John 10.16). If you’re Herod, or someone benefiting from his governance, this news spells disaster. But, if you are poor, seeking relief, oppressed in search of solace, if you are wise men from the East following a star, this is absolutely good news! The Advent of the Messiah is the promise of a Shepherd who cares, who brings healing with His touch and peace in His reign (Malachi 4.2; Matthew 11.28-30).

A Sunday morning sermon by Peter DuMont.

Advent is a season of wonder, an opportunity to consider encounters between Heaven and Earth with renewed amazement: a young girl overshadowed by the Spirit of God, wise men pursuing signs in the stars, shepherds surrounded by angelic rejoicing.

This third week of Advent, we look at Simeon and Anna—two figures marked by deep connection to God and a burden for the heartbreak of their people. Their recognition of the newborn Christ in the Temple demonstrates an extraordinary spiritual attunement. They do not require angelic visitation to recognize the Rescuer they are seeing and what his arrival will bring. Led by the Spirit, they see Jesus’ arrival as the culmination of their life’s labors of intercession before God.

Simeon and Anna function as two of the final prophets to Jesus’ coming. Their responses equip Joseph and Mary for their own extraordinary callings and point toward the global life of Christ’s church into which we have been adopted.

This week, may their lives challenge us in new ways, calling us into a greater attunement of our own hearts to God’s heart. May we receive new eyes to see God among us in the turmoil, heartache, and kingdom movement of our own moment in redemption history.