Echoes of Grace

  Themes of the Bible: Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15) Okay, I don't know if you know this, but the chapter I had you read this week, 1 Corinthians 15 is the single greatest chapter in the Bible covering the topic of resurrection. Last week, we left Jesus in the tomb, we had the thief on the cross in Luke 23, and this week, we're seeing his resurrection, and we’re doing that with the most profound chapter in scripture on resurrection. Last week, I mentioned to you that all of us are theologians in the sense that all of us have a theology, we all have something that we believe about God. And if you remember, I stressed that one of the things that I’m desperate to do at this church is to make sure that our theology as believers is a biblically based theology. People base their theology on all kinds of things, and shifting sands and we want to make sure that what we believe about God is what He has revealed to us about Himself in His Word, and not some other ph...

  Themes of the Bible: Church (Acts 2) Okay, so next week, for those of you that are doing the prereading for next week, we’ll be looking at the armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6. Today we’ll be in Acts chapter 2, but before we dive in, I want us to go back about 600 years before the day of Pentecost, 600 years before the events of Acts 2 took place. You have the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel is speaking to the divided nation. If you remember back to the summer, we talked about how Israel had a civil war, they split, with the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Ezekiel is prophesying and he's speaking to both of these kingdoms, and he says these words that they didn't fully understand at the time, “ For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Mor...

  Themes of the Bible: Believe (John 11) Next week we will be in chapter of Luke 23, that’s the crucifixion of Jesus. and there is a part of this that we will focus on for next week. Luke chapter 23. Now, it's probably super inappropriate that I'm going to start this week’s sermon, given the day that it is on our calendar the way that I'm going to start it, but, I don't know how many of you are familiar with Alfred Hitchcock. Those of you that are older are probably more familiar. I actually had heard of Alfred Hitchcock, but I never watched any of his stuff until I was in college. At the time, I was also working nights, so my sleep schedule was all messed up, but what it meant is that I got to watch a lot of things on TV that I wouldn’t normally watch. So, I start flipping through the channels and I come across an all-night Alfred Hitchcock festival. So, I thought, I'll give this a shot. So, I sit there and I start watching one of these shows al...

  Themes of the Bible: See for Yourself (John 1) For those who are doing the homework and prereading for next week, next week we’ll be in Matthew chapter 5. Matthew, chapter 5 is the beginning of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. For this this week though, we’ll be in John chapter 1. If you remember when we first started this series, I said that whenever somebody comes to me, and they say, ‘I'm new to the Bible, where do I start reading it?’ Different people have different answers, but there’s a pretty common answer, and for good reason, and I always tell them, John, read the Gospel of John. John is the book that you want to start with, and again, there's no right or wrong answer, but that's what I always say. And preparing this message from John chapter 1 I was reminded why, because this book is dynamite. It is pure gold from start to finish. When they compiled the New Testament, I really wish that they would have put the book of John first, because afte...