Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

I boarded the little Cessna on the hot tarmac of the Yaoundé international airport. I had just received the grace of the customs and border patrol I surely didn’t deserve. I’d been an illegal alien in Cameroon for several months, assuming—as most naïve teenagers are wont to do—the school would keep my papers in order. After a few hours, however, the man behind the desk forgave me. He wiped away my debt and stamped my passport, releasing me. He didn’t even block me from renewing my visa to finish my junior year of high school.

Remarkably, the plane waited for me. The other passengers waited patiently. The pilot watched the clock but refused to leave until the last possible minute. Once I was released, I joined them as the propellor kicked to life and the wheels began to roll. As everyone else, including the pilot, were more than ready to go, there was only one seat left: the co-pilot’s chair. As the little plane took off, climbing into the sky, I gained a vantage point I’d never experienced before. I’ve flown in countless planes. I’ve even been in the cockpit of several planes over the years. But never had I faced the oncoming skies from the front row! The view before me wasn’t a sideways glance oval. It was a panorama sweeping across my full field of vision! And that is where the trouble began.

As we flew toward the clouds, the logical part of my brain said, “Nothing to worry about here. Clouds are just coalescing drops of water gliding around the atmosphere,” but my less logical side—the I’ve-watched-too-many-Wile-E-Coyote-cartoons side—was sounding off alarm bells! I asked the pilot through the headset if we should be concerned. He wasn’t worried at all. He’d flown headlong into clouds before. I’ll be honest. I heard him but I still struggled to really believe his testimony! I was like Cleopas on the road to Emmaus, having heard the witness of the women and the apostles, but still struggling to discern what it all meant. We’ve all been there. We’ll all be there again. The question becomes: will we keep moving?

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Back in 1999, I found myself in hot water. As a high school junior, I was living in Cameroon, going to school in Yaoundé. For most of my schooling years I’d benefited from the meticulous care and attention of a much larger academy in Kenya. That year, however, I attended a much smaller school, closer to home. Everything seemed fine until I went to fly home for break. That was when I discovered, much to my surprise, my visa was long expired! Where the other school worked to keep all the student visas in order, this smaller academy did not. I found myself detained, penniless, and wondering how I was going to talk myself out of the country! 

There was a Cessna on the airfield waiting for me, a flight plan scheduled to leave, but I was being held in a back office, presented with a fine I couldn’t possibly pay and threatened with worse. My hope of a school break began to fade from view. I barely had enough for the taxi to the airport! Seriously, where was I supposed to get the kind of money they were demanding?

I did everything I could. I went through all the mental gymnastics I could, looking for ways to appease their justifiable frustration. At the end of the day though, the decision didn’t rest with me. It wasn’t in my apology. It wasn’t in my efforts. It ultimately wasn’t what I said or did that would determine my fate; that decision rested with the man behind the desk listening. After a few hours, he did something unexpected. He gave me mercy. He forgave my debt. He forgave my expired visa. He didn’t even hold it against my re-entry a few weeks later to finish the school year.

I learned several things that day. One is that some of the best learning doesn’t happen in the classroom or in a books. It happens in the friction of life that calls forth everything we know and exposes the things we don’t. Sometimes the best classroom is a dusty road where we wrestle out our biggest questions with a friend. It’s together in the unexpected journey we can become eyewitnesses to hope.

An Easter Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Have you ever noticed how each Gospel speaks from a unique vantage point? Matthew and Mark, Luke and John all speak from a distinct place in the story. Eyewitnesses have shared their personal experiences of being with Jesus. They take several others’ testimonies of Thursday’s washing and communion, of Friday’s execution, of Saturday’s traumatic silence. Each Gospel arrives at the dawn of the next day.

This Sunday we will take up Luke’s account (Luke 24.1-12) as we gather to celebrate Easter, but for today, let’s take heed to Matthew’s telling of the empty tomb (Matthew 28.1-10). His witness begins at first light, as Mary and others arrive at the tomb. The earth shakes, the stone is dislodged, and the Roman soldiers collapse stunned! Into the women’s understandable terror, an angel proclaims Christ is risen from the dead! He has gone to Galilee, and there “you will see Him!”

These women give us a perfectly recognizable response! They were “afraid and yet filled with great joy.” Who hasn’t felt that strange combination of emotions?! Bursting exhilaration cloaked in fear. Great anticipation tempered by anxiety. These disciples watched their teacher thrashed and mocked and nailed bleeding to a torturous cross. They witnessed the stuff of nightmares, the kinds of violence that make us fight the darkness of sleep. They’ve been traumatized by the violence of Friday and the silence of Saturday. They are experiencing real fear.

Easter morning, their fear is not ignored or denied. It isn’t minimized or mocked. It's there, like the heavy clouds of dawn dissipating in the light of day. The clouds are still there, but the rising sun is pushing the gray to silvered edges by irrepressible joy. They are still afraid, but the sense of gladness and joy is breaking through!

Walking through Holy Week, knowing that Easter is coming, don’t be afraid to feel. Don’t try to hide your fears, anxieties, afflictions, or pains. Bring the gray clouds of your experience through sorrow and grief to the empty tomb where we witness the good news together!

A Palm Sunday morning sermon by some of the youth at Eternity Church.

One of the best questions anyone ever asked Jesus was, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” 

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, with great fanfare and acclaim, as the long-awaited Messiah of Israel, people crowded along the roadside. They raised up palm branches and laid their cloaks beneath the foal’s footfalls. In the gathering were children, singing and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” These boys and girls were witness to the arrival of the Messiah!

We can hear the intense indignation and disdain as the religious leaders ask Jesus, “Do you hear what these kids are saying?!” The resounding answer is “Yes!” Entering the Temple courts, hearing the children’s repeating refrain, Jesus' heart swelled with the words of Psalm 8. In Israel’s song book, the eighth psalm is the first song of praise celebrating God’s glory over all the earth! As Jesus’ heard them worshiping, He saw the fulfillment of David’s song, as God established His stronghold through the praises of children (Psalm 8.2).

This Sunday we rejoice in Christ’s triumphal entry led by our children and youth. Come prepared to follow their reenactment of Zechariah’s prophesy. Be ready to sing with them as they lead us in song. Prepare your hearts to receive from God’s word in their pulpit reflection. In their witness we will find ourselves asking the same question, “Do you hear what these children are saying?!” but with a very different posture in heart because our answer will be, “Yes, and Amen!”

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

There’s no excuse for my sense of humor. That’s an important place to start. It pops up in the strangest of places. For example, in high school my best friend and I named our dorm room. No, that wasn’t a normal practice. Dorms had names. Rooms didn’t. But I’d been spending dedicated time in the Psalms of Ascent, and I was taken by the thought of pilgrims crossing arid valleys to reach the Temple (Psalms 120-134). Some would pass through valleys like Baca (dehydrating places of weeping), and in the heat and distance, they’d become faint and thirsty (Psalm 84). Priests, therefore, would go into the plains and dig pits so when the rains came the pilgrims would be met with refreshing water along the way. Inspired we named our dorm room “Baca.”

I wanted to be like those priests, meeting people in their lowest valleys. But I’m also a sucker for a good play on words. Our dorm’s name was Chui, so when people asked where we lived on campus, we said… “Chui baca.” (I’ll see myself out.)

This week, we find ourselves climbing our way up the Psalms of Ascent, the songs pilgrims sang nearing Jerusalem. But, with the Temple in sight, instead of another song of mountainside praise, we find ourselves giving voice to a psalm of lament (Psalm 130)! It’s as if the closer we get to the presence of God we become more aware of what we’ve carried with us in the valley. It isn’t just the thirst the arid place produces or the weeping that’s left us weary, but our deeper need of sanctification. It’s in the valley we realize our increasing thirst for God’s righteousness (Matthew 5.6). That’s a more important place to (re)start. 

Marcus Mumford describes these emotions beautifully in a new song describing his own journey of faith. How “walking through the valley was what brought me here / I knew I would never make it on my own / And I don't know how it took so long to shed this skin / To live under the shadow of your wings / You are all I want / You’re all I need / I’ll find peace beneath the shadow of your wings.”

As we journey through the penitential psalms, these songs in the valley, may we find the peace of lament beneath the shadow of God’s wings (Psalm 57.1; 91.4).

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Have you ever heard a great song or watched an incredible movie then afterwards learned the inspiration for it, and it made it all the more powerful? Years ago, Elise and I were in a little art shop in a mall. Among all the large and impressive art for sale, there was a fairly small oil replica of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers. So simple. Flowers in a vase. I walked out with that little framed painting for my office. Later I learned Van Gogh painted the original to display in a room to show his gratefulness for his friend, Paul Gauguin, who was moving in with him. The painting was more than just vibrant impasto colors of liberal oil paint. The paint was more than just a still life of top-heavy sunflowers. The painting was friendship, closeness, gratitude.

Psalm 102 is a powerful song we can sing in the valley. It is a song of suffering held deeply in the heart of the singer. Not wanting this to be missed, the compilers of Israel’s song book kept a short superscript before the lyrics. It is one of a kind. The superscript of 102 is the only one in Psalms which, according to Rolf Jacobson “describes a psalm as intended for a particular instance in a person's life.”

Psalm 102 is Van Gogh’s sunflower with the backstory of gratitude. This fifth penitential psalm is at first glance a moving song of sorrow and shadow. It is does not hide its suffering. But holding gently the superscript at the beginning brings a deeper resonance: “A prayer of an afflicted person who has grown weak and pours out a lament before the Lord.” There is a backstory. There is an affliction that has left the voice parched and in pain. This lament is sung from the little remaining, the last drops of oil in the widow’s jar, the rasping voice of the thirsty soul. Like the sunflowers, it is a song for someone…and that someone is divine. He is enthroned on high. He is God Almighty. He is the eternal Father, merciful and compassionate. He is the Sovereign King, who builds and rebuilds. He is the Lord who hears our prayers sung in the darkness and responds with the radiance of hope.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Have you ever lost the thread? I imagine the phrase “lose the thread” began in a time when tapestries were still primarily made by hand and the careful design required mindful attention to the weaving. Despite the fact most of us do not mind the literal progress of thread, we still use this phrase to indicate we have lost focus, that the task or talk at hand got jumbled.

As we as Christians have walked penitently through Lent for nearly two millennia, I think we have sometimes lost the thread of the season. We sent the thread ahead of us, but lost track of its movement. Gary Castor once observed, “Lent is a solemn season, it is not a somber one.” Talk about nuance! Did we really lose the thread or are we just splitting hairs (another great idiom, but we’ll save that for another day)? Looking around, I see a lot of spiritual apprehension, a nervous shift from the feasting of Fat Tuesday to the ashen gloom of the following morning. I think we’ve lost the thread. Castor believes, “the forty days [of Lent] are not structured to foster morbid gloominess and debilitating self-loathing; they are meant to thrust us into the heart of divine love.” That’s the thread! Sincere lament which leads us back to love.

When we read Psalm 51, if we aren’t careful, we lose the thread. We get caught up in the drama of the backstory and miss the meaning. We miss the peace of lament that turns us toward our Creator in whom we find re-creation and restoration. Psalm 51 is a restart, a tracing back of the thread to the beginning. Lent isn’t a dour day, pointless and moody. Lent is a thread of grace which leads us to renewal.

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

All of us know what it feels like to fail. The sear of shame, the burning against the skin of our neck born of embarrassment or humiliation. Some of us may hide it better than others, but we’ve all fallen short of our intentions. We all know what it feels like to regret. Whether it was the weight of our actions or the expense of our words, we’ve all played back the minutes riddled with guilt, at times unable to break the loop that keeps our minds spinning out. We all know these feelings (whether a little or a lot) because we’ve all sinned. We’ve all come to a point in our lives where we recognize the Lord’s displeasure with how we’re living.

King David experienced this and was open about the ups and downs of his life with God. He knew his guilt. He felt his shame. Wisely, he knew better than to suffer long in silence. Knowing he’d sinned against God, he asked for mercy, he requested gentle discipline empty of wrath. He confessed his sin and the weight of iniquities. At times, all he could muster was a sigh, a grief-stricken groan, but he gave it voice before God all the same. Why? Because he knew God alone was his salvation. God alone was the help he needed.

In the third century, the North African theologian Athanasius wrote: “When you feel the Lord’s displeasure, if you see that you are troubled by this, you can say Psalm 38.” For Athanasius, singing David’s song of remembrance was a pathway through penitence to restoration. With David, we admit our failure, lament our sin, and entrust ourselves once more to God.

Today, join your voice across the ages with David's voice in Psalm 38, passing through the joy of confession into the peace of lament.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

As far back as the sixth century in recorded history—and probably even further back than that—Christians have reflected on seven psalms as they enter Lent (Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143). These songs in the hymnbook of Israel sing over us the joy of confession and the gift of repentance. As followers of Jesus, we find in these lyrical prayers the peace with God found through lament.

Today, as we kneel before the Lord our God, taking the shape of the cross gently outlined in ash on our foreheads, we internalize the words of Psalm 6. Knowing that we are dust and to dust we will return, we sing with the psalmist, David, starting with a single word: Lord! David wrote this song in the valley of suffering. He was wracked in pain and weeping over his life. He lamented his state, but lest he drift from God’s faithfulness, he anchored his experience within the Lord’s revealed nature. The first word he sings is the name of God spoken to Moses: Yahweh.

As we begin this Lenten season, let’s begin our valley lament within the character of Christ. He is the Son of God, the Lord of Moses, the sovereign of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God who hears and responds. He is the One who hears our confession and forgives our sin. He heals our sickness and delivers us from evil.

On Sunday, we will continue with David’s penitential psalms, reflecting on Psalm 32, his song of forgiveness. Lamenting we will also sing rejoicing how God’s “steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.”

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Do you ever find yourself asking, “now what?”

I was recently at a conference, and during a follow up session, with the main speaker alongside two respondents, the moderator of the discussion voiced those words. Repeatedly as he was walking with people he was counseling, he would find himself thinking, “But now what?” He’d given them all he had to give, all the best listening he could render, all the best empathy he could muster, all the counsel he could offer, but time and time again he found himself with them at a moment of decision that asked, “now what?”

I’m sure we’ve all been there; a tire blew up on a dark and lonely road; an unexpected change caught us unprepared; a breakdown we don’t know how to get past. We’ve all asked, “now what?” It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Here at the close of Jesus’ sermon on the mount we might be asking “but now what?” Jesus has fulfilled the Law and the Prophets in ways we didn’t see coming. We look at the upside-down world around us, and as Jesus has been setting it aright in His Words, we find ourselves discombobulated. We want security. Jesus calls us to trust. We want peace from our enemies. Jesus calls us to pray for them. We want moral philosophy to sit quietly in the back pew of our minds. Jesus calls us to actively live His word (Matthew 7.24-29). 

Friends, if we will be still before the Lord, we will realize our “now what?” is an echo of His question to us! What will we do now with what He has given us? He’s told us the way of wisdom. Now that we know it, we have a responsibility to live it. Now that we’re on the solid rock, it’s time to start building.