Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

You ever have one of those songs you learned as a kid come back to you and get stuck in your head? It’s too random to be random! 

As we move toward the conclusion of our Sermon on the Mount series, I’ve been thinking about mountain passes. In boarding school, our fourth-grade dorm was on the edge of the school, and a narrow pass was cut into the cliff rock wall for the track. On a few occasions, we were able to get up close as the train chugged by. It was something to behold, the great train carefully steaming up and down the tracks. At least once, we heard a train derail and dangle dangerously there until it was rescued.

It feels like we just walked up this mountainside with Jesus. Here, surrounded by his disciples and the crowd, we’ve listened to Jesus unpack for us the Law and the Prophets in new and profound ways. Now, before we know it, we are already making our way back down a narrow mountain path. So imagine my surprise when—while I’m sitting with all of this—the most unexpected song started playing in my head. As if a distant train whistle coming closer: “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes.” Where in the world did that come from? Did I ever know it was an old negro spiritual about Jesus’ return?

Looking at Jesus’ words on the mountainside, walking the tracks of His narrow way, I hear the distant whistle of His return. Are we ready? Along this mountain pass I see trees and their fruit. I see sheep and wolves. I see the way of Jesus and the ways we say are His but aren’t. They start out looking like the tracks beneath our feet but veer in time, derailing us on the mountain pass. All the while, the whistle blows. Jesus is returning and the words we sing are true: “King Jesus, he’ll be driver when she comes / She’ll be loaded with bright angels / She’ll neither rock nor totter / She will run so level and steady / when she comes.”

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

I’m always amazed when someone can encapsulate a big idea with a small word count! It’s incredible! I could write 40,000 words on just how powerful that talent is… but I digress. Sitting with the many thoughts Jesus presents in Matthew 7.1-12, I find myself once again in the presence of master wordsmiths. Reflecting on Jesus’ inspired words, Michael Card wrote, “Our confidence in prayer is not rooted in our ability to pray but in the manifestly loving nature of our Father.”

Forgive the pun, but what a Mic drop! How often have we stained our prayers with insecurity. At times, we might even become the primary audience for our entreaties, forgetting prayer is not thoughts that swirl in our hearts and minds, but our invitation to dialogue with our God and King!

Like in our times of misdirected fasting, our insecurity in prayer is due to our making too much of ourselves, too much of our ability. Praise God he doesn’t measure our prayers on our verbal embellishments or lyrical eloquence! As a matter of fact, the fewer words the better. 

Our confidence in prayer is rooted in the manifestly loving nature of our Father. This is real security. This is the confidence of a child safe in his mother’s arms. This is the assurance of a daughter held tight by her father. This is a sweet surrender of our false sense of control to the One who forever holds us and surrounds us with His love.

May this confidence be the basis by which Jesus guides us into His teaching this week on judgment and hypocrisy, worth and wisdom, prayer and aspiration.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

In the middle of Jesus’ sermon on the Mount we find ourselves being challenged in countless ways. With a simple statement of when and where we give to the poor and pray, He has called our hearts to deep reflection on the why beneath our benevolence and piety. It isn’t enough to give; we must examine why we give. It isn’t truly satisfying to pray in public to garner the praise and admiration of others. These rewards are hollow and fleeting. Instead, when we give and forgive, when we pray and fast, we should practice righteousness quietly because our actions are prayerful expressions of worship to God.

I love how African theologian Tertullian (from the second century) encouraged us: “Fasting possesses great power. If practiced with the right intention, it makes man a friend of God.” That’s what it’s all about! When we give to the poor, we are giving to Christ, because He is our beloved. He has called us friend (John 15.15)! We don’t fight against social ills to make a name for ourselves but to be more like Jesus. When we pray to the Father, we fix our eyes on the God who sees us (Genesis 16.13). When we fast, we give physical expression to our spiritual hunger for His righteousness in our lives. 

Reading Matthew 6.16-34, we discover fasting changes our relationship with our possessions and with the oppressed. We aren’t driven by the meager rewards of being seen by others because through fasting we realize we are forever seen by God! This realization drives us to tell others this marvelous gospel truth! Fasting changes our relationship with ourselves and the circumstances that surround us. Fasting is one way to bring our anxieties to the feet of Jesus and trust the Father’s love for us.

The power of fasting is how it reorients us toward God and toward others. If you’re able, take some time this week to fast, leaving your anxieties on the altar and resting in the arms of your Father.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Pools are amazing. There is something so refreshing and enlivening about swimming in a pool. The various depths make the waters accessible to young and old. Because the pool was intentionally designed, it removes the dangers of currents and debris. But pools are amazing for one particular reason. Without fail, any time families gather around the community pool, at some point you will hear a kid shouting, “Mom! Watch this!” Followed a few seconds later by a confirming, “Are you watching?” 

As kids, surrounded by family and friends, bounding in and out of the water, nothing matters more to us than to know our parents are watching the aquatic wonders we’re achieving! There is something so beautiful and pure about this. We want to share our newest discoveries, to have an audience of one, almost completely oblivious to everyone else around us.

What makes this even more amazing is the mother’s ear that hear the child’s call over all the other voices, over all the commotion and noise. Her ears are tuned in to the cry of her children. No lifeguard knows her son's and daughter's voice as well as she does.

In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6.1-15), Jesus tells us how we should practice our piety and give voice to our prayer. We don’t give to the poor to be honored by those around us. We don’t pray to be heard by the crowd. We don’t give to get attention from others. We don’t raise our voice to God to be heard by anyone else. No, we give to the poor before an audience of One. We pray to be heard by the One who is always listening. We care for the marginalized and disenfranchised because we want to be like our Father and know, like a child who calls out to her mother at the pool, His loving eyes are watching.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

I remember like it was yesterday how long it took me to read through the whole Bible. I must have read the New Testament through a few times, but after the amazing stories of Genesis and the adventures times of Exodus, I, like many, got lost in the slog of Leviticus! Finally, I made it through, only to find myself surrounded by some sort of never-ending census in the book of Numbers! Would relief ever come!?

One such lifeline that kept me going on my way back into the action-packed story of God’s people was Numbers 35. The heading in my student study Bible stood in bold letters: Cities of Refuge. In a time where people exercised vengeance and meted out justice on their own, here were Levite cities scattered among the tribes of Israel, dedicated to being harbors of refuge against the violence of retribution.

Like most kids my age, I’d seen my fair share of vigilante justice movies, from the classic cowboy films to Batman the caped crusader. But here, on the page before me, was a vision of something different. It put justice back into the hands of God. 

Envisioning these cities of refuge, Jesus' addressing of our human forms of justice took on all kinds of deeper meaning. The same God who called His people to establish refuge for others calls us to endure the imperfection of humanity as we strive to be conformed to the perfection of our heavenly Father (Matthew 5.48). He calls us to endure the insulting slaps of others without slapping back. He calls us to carry the burdens of others further and farther than we are forced to. He calls us to love and intercede for those who make our lives miserable (Matthew 5.39-45).

Here in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in the context of pain and persecution, vengeance and retribution, Jesus speaks the only word that shows us the way back to God our refuge in troubled times: Love. Today, may others know we are Christians by our love (John 13.35).

A Sunday sermon by Peter DuMont.

Jesus’ earthly ministry broke some of the favorite rules of religious leaders in his day.  Rules about what you should do on the Sabbath, or who you should associate with, or what rituals you should follow. Because he was breaking their rules, some people thought Jesus wanted to abolish all of the rules, even the Law of God given to Moses on Mount Sinai.

 

Jesus surprised his critics on this second mount by saying, “I have not come to abolish [the Law and Prophets] but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5).

 

This last phrase raises an important series of questions: 

What role does the Law play in accomplishing God’s redemptive purposes?  Didn’t God send grace through Jesus because we couldn’t keep the Law?  Then why does Jesus say that nothing will pass away from the Law until the end of time?  

Could it be that grace in Jesus does not reduce the importance of the Law, but rather sets in motion a heart transformation that enables us to increasingly keep the Law without being condemned by it?

  

 Let’s gather to worship before our living God this Sunday, and to let His Word and Spirit cleanse, inspire, and form us into clearer reflections of His glory.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

In the middle of the second century, around AD 160, a Christian by the name of Justin found himself in a deep discussion about the Messiah with a Jewish teacher named Trypho. For two days, they dialogued back and forth about the belief of Jesus’ people that He was the long-awaited Messiah. Together they discussed from the richness of the Old Testament. Justin expressed the gospel of Jesus as the fullness of the Law and the fulfillment of the Prophets. Whole chapters of his record, passed down through the centuries as his Dialogue with Trypho, are little more than long recitations of Scripture.

At one point, Justin entreats Trypho and those with him to “learn of us, who have been taught wisdom by the grace of Christ.” Having just had a great conversation about word order and the implication of how we read them, this phrase lights up the page. Justin could have said he’d learned grace by the wisdom of Christ; this might even fit our approach to biblical learning better. But instead, he says he learned wisdom by the grace of Christ, and now he longs to share what he’s learned with others!

At the base of the mount with Jesus, where He will begin to unpack for us wisdom, we are taught by His grace. Reading Matthew 5.1-20, we find the Beatitudes which challenge our understanding of blessedness. We are charged to take to heart what it really means to be salt and light in this world. Jesus’ grace is the key which opens the door to true wisdom. Craig Keener challenges us when, reflecting on these verses, he says, “Religious people without transformed hearts will have no place in the kingdom.”

Beloved, as we learn at the feet of Jesus our Messiah on this mountainside of life, may we learn the wisdom that only comes to us by the grace of Christ, for that is the way to true spiritual transformation.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Beloved People of God,

The older I get the more I’m convinced the longing for “new” is universal. I can’t think of a culture or language that doesn’t hold dearly to the experience of hope and promise of newness. This longing is inherently human. It brings out the best and worst in us. Our eagerness for the new leads us out into the cold of winter, surrounded by strangers into culs de sac and city squares. We want hope and we want it with others!

I remember our family climbing up on the flat roof our home in Dakar to ring in the new year, with sparkling grape juice generously poured into plastic flutes, waiting for the fireworks to shower the skies. Somehow—although at times it felt like it would never come— 2020 had finally coming to an end! From a distance we waved at neighbors and hoped for the beginning of something new.

In the same way, 2000 years ago the masses flocked to Jesus in search of the new. Nothing about Jesus was status quo. He taught with authority. He proclaimed the kingdom of God. He healed every disease and affliction (Matthew 4.23). Everyone wanted to witness the teacher walking around Galilee. Matthew tells us how the people (laos) and the crowds (ochlos) followed Him from place to place. It may be surprising to us how Matthew makes a distinction between these two groups. For Matthew, the people are a unified entity. They are like the citizens of the same city-state. The crowd, however, is a mixed menagerie of seekers and skeptics, a mob with shifting allegiances that could turn at any moment. Like wheat and weeds, they may be hard to tell apart here at the start of his gospel (Matthew 13.24-30).

Together, the people and the crowd are led to the foot of the mountain, and together they receive the truth. Here at the start of this new year, we find ourselves moving with the masses toward the place where Jesus is sitting, bringing to all of us the fullness of the Law and the fulfillment of the Prophets. Beloved, may the Lord speak to us as His people amid the crowd. May we be united as His disciples, ready to receive His Word and serve all the men, women and children who gather around us this new year.

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Beloved People of God,

Today is Christmas, and with it Christide follows in its marvelous wake! Christide, also known as the twelve days of Christmas, carries us on its waves of rejoicing into the new year. Beloved, perhaps this past year has felt like a rocky shore that has shaken your faith or like a desert island scarred by loneliness. I pray the days of Christide would sweep you into the newness of a new season. Maybe 2024 was your best year, and the thought of tomorrow fills you with anxiety. I pray the year ahead would be one illuminated by the nearness of Jesus, no matter what lies ahead.

Friends, Christide is the best possible way to enter the new year. Don’t let the Spirit of Christmas fade from our lives when the last piece of wrapping paper is dutifully piled into the trash or the final slice of turkey’s been consumed from our Christmas table. May our song be that of David as we glory in the arrival of Jesus, our long-awaited King: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” (Psalm 103.1).

I pray today’s celebration would truly be the beginning of something new. Christmas morning is a time of wonder and glory. Beloved, the Christ-child is in the manger! But Christmas morning is followed by Christmas afternoon and evening. It’s then matched by the next day and the day after that. Each fresh dawn is followed by a new noonday awash in the presence of the Christ-child, God born among us!

In the name of Jesus, the Son of David—who is our Great High Priest—I bless you this Christmas: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace,” (Numbers 6.22-27).

A Christmas Eve sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.