The first of a two part series concluding our year with Jesus. We are left with one compelling invitation: devotion to Jesus. Paul becomes one of the first to realize just how deep the this goes. Starting with Jesus' own claim that he is the bridegroom, Pastor Keith provides three stories from church history of people who have embraced devotion to Jesus as a spiritual marriage.

When Jesus ascends into Heaven, his Spirit returns (disguised, unseen, powerful) and has been hard at work for more than 2,000 years ever since. As Jesus's promised eternal presence, the Holy Spirit comes in the form of a descending flame. And then all heaven breaks loose. Pastor Keith explores the connection between the Spirit and obedience.

Before he ascends to heaven, after spending time in Jerusalem with his disciples, Jesus takes one final journey to his home region of Galilee. In the context of Jesus' famous conversation with Peter in which he asks him to lead his sheep, Pastor Keith assesses what it looks like when church is seen as a product rather than a calling, begging the question each of us must answer: to what church are you called to belong to?

After he was raised from the dead, after the women encountered the angelic message, Jesus appeared first to the women, then to two disciples who were leaving town dejected, and then Peter. Then Jesus appeared to the rest of the 11 disciples and then to many more of his followers. This week, Pastor Keith focuses on his appearance to the 11 disciples together, behind closed doors.

It is Sunday. Two days after Jesus died. It’s early. The sun is coming up. The women, as they get to the empty tomb get the biggest shock of their life: an angel appears and gives them a mission. Then Jesus himself, resurrected appears to them.

Pastor Keith focuses on the women disciples visiting the empty tomb at sunrise on the day after the Sabbath. He considers how if God's mission is to undo death, the resurrection should shape our passion for this mission.

This week, on Palm Sunday, Pastor Keith remembers Jesus as King and follows him to the mount of selflessness. Bound by those he would have wanted to please and set free, he bears up under their mockery. Pitted against a killer, Jesus is condemned.  Unable to free ourselves for selfless living, we watch as Jesus dies for us. The question is: how do we handle that?

In Part Four of our series on Jesus’s teachings, Pastor Keith talks about the connections between cares, riches, and pleasures of life and unforgiveness. If life is a series of endless products, when our relationships fail us, we feel free to discard them as well. Exploring Jesus’s parable of the unmerciful servant, forgiveness, boundaries, and reconciliation in the Christian life are discussed.

In Part Three of our series on Jesus’s teachings, we will take some more time with Mark 10.32-45. Stressing Jesus’s call to his disciples to reflect his selfless love, we will explore how the cares, riches, and pleasures of life lead us to believe that life is about us getting served. Pastor Keith reads a few sayings from John of the Cross, a Christian master on selflessness and offers up some ideas about how to live of life of service, simplicity, and mission.