On Easter Sunday, the angel at Jesus’ empty tomb gives the women there three instructions: “do not be afraid,” “come and see,” and “go and tell.” These instructions are still fitting for Christians today who want to live out their faith in response to Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus invites us to come to Him without fear, with all our questions, and then tell others about the life found in Him.

Good Friday 2020

We all follow someone, but we may not always realize who we are really following. Most Christians would recognize that we want to follow Jesus above anyone else - but how do we actually do that? In this passage, John the Baptist shows us how to follow Jesus and then John the Evangelist shows us why we should be following Jesus rather than anyone else.

Sometimes it can be very hard in our Christian life to take lessons we’ve learned intellectually and actually live them out experientially - to get things from our head to our heart and then to our lives. One of the ways that God often helps us really learn these lessons is by taking us through trials that show where we are weak and need God’s strength to help us.

Most people live their lives trying to avoid as much suffering as possible, but if we look at the life of Jesus we find something very different. Jesus came to earth to suffer and to serve us, and this is the call He gives to those who follow Him. We need to learn how to reorder our way of thinking about suffering and our view of what serving looks like - especially in our current circumstances.

Global pandemics like COVID-19 can easily make us wonder: where is God in all of this? Why would God allow this? And what should our response be to the Coronavirus? In this message, we are reminded that God is still in control amidst all the chaos and uncertainty and that we have an opportunity as Christians to respond in love towards our community around us.

We, like Nicodemus, often think we understand new life and are in the light. In John 3:1-21, Jesus slowly shows that Nicodemus is actually deceiving himself. But the grace of God is that rather than condemning someone like Nicodemus, Jesus enters into the darkness and brings light into his life. He shows that new life comes from God above and is not based on anything we can do.

In their testimony, people often tell about their lives “before Christ” and then the change that happened “after Christ”. In Colossians 1:21-23, we see Paul describe the drastic difference Christ makes in our lives as He reconciles us to God. We often forget about that before and after difference and need to remember who we were then and who we are now because of Christ.

Most Christians recognize that God should hold the highest place in their lives but what does this look like practically? We can often affirm the supremacy of Christ in principle but not actually live it out in practice. We can become so familiar with God that we lose a sense of His great majesty. Paul shows us a glimpse of the wonder of Christ who is our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer.

Many of us recognize the power of the gospel to bring us into a relationship with God, but soon forget that same power in our everyday Christian walk. This results in our being burned out, worn out, and discouraged because we try to live in our own strength - which we were never designed to do. The gospel gives us the power to endure whatever life brings with joy and thankfulness.