The End Revealed

This is the first Sunday of my Lent 2015 sermon series called Revealed: What Once was Lost can Now be Found. The main goal of this series is to take a look at the book of Revelation, and not read it like we’ve been told to, but to read it for what is actually there.  It should be a book of hope and promise, not one of judgment and despair.  

An Easter Reflection

As I’m writing this, we’re one Sunday past Easter, and I’m sitting up at the Iron Skillet in Oak Grove. I’m enjoying breakfast, and getting ready to go into a couple of meetings for today. There’s something about Monday mornings that are relaxing and enjoyable for me. I know most of you probably think that I’m crazy, but Mondays are my day off….sort of. I don’t normally get in a hurry on Monday mornings, and it gives me a chance to sit back and think about things.

Finding a Way

Start by reading Isaiah 2:1-5 and Matthew 24:36-44

Now I want you to imagine a new world.  But this isn’t a world that we often imagine at Christmas. We can get caught up in the snow-covered, pristine back country woodlands and fields, and we begin to lose what that world really might be. For so long we’ve idealized the Norman Rockwell version of Christmas that it’s hard to see might also be possible.

This first Sunday of Advent we lit the candle of Hope. What I want us to find this season is real, genuine hope. Begin to get at this from the song below. It’s from a Christmas album by Jason Gray, and hear the message.

Prophets & Prophecy: Apocalypse of Hope

Start by reading Revelation 3:14-22

In this session we’re going to start taking up part of prophecy that gets overlooked a lot.  Now, you may be wondering, when I have a title with the word “apocalypse” in it, how can it be overlooked?

Indeed, that is something that is hard to overlook.  As a culture, and society, we are obsessed with apocalypses, apocalypti, apocalypseseses, or whatever the plural form of apocalypse is.  All you have to do is look at one of the most popular shows on TV right now, which is The Walking Dead which takes place during and after the zombie apocalypse.  Just to show how much of a fixation we have on this topic, look at what wikipedia has to say about apocalyptic fiction.