Mar
24
Quick Hits: Easter Edition
Posted in: Harmony Church- We had a great service on Easter Sunday.
- Our attendance was down, as expected. We were at about 50% our usual attendance (45ish). I think we counted 20?
- Here’s the set list:
- Go Outside by Robbie Seay
- Into Marvelous Light by Charlie Hall
- Spring of Life by Kristian Stanfill
- Nothing But the Blood (Hymnal Intro) by Matt Redman
- Beautiful the Blood by Fee
- The band sounded wonderful today.
- It was awesome hearing Donald’s operatic voice sing “Nothing But the Blood”. Very touching for me ( I love that hymn ).
- I feel like I preached my guts out. Here’s a rough outline:
- John 19 - A lot of attention paid to the clothes of Jesus. He goes through a purple robe, a crown of thorns, has His Jewish clothes ripped off of Him, and ends up dead wrapped in linen clothes.
- Genesis 41:37-45 - Joseph, after having a coat of many clothes ripped off of him, saves an entire land and is adorned with linen clothes (v42). So between having clothes ripped off and being adorned with linen comes a saving act. Jesus has His clothes ripped off, dies on the cross, and is then adorned with linen. Following the Biblical pattern, the death of the cross is synonymous with Joseph’s dream interpretation: they save the people.
- Leviticus 16 - The High Priest was to, once a year, offer a sacrifice for the atonement of the people. There were two goats involved: one to be killed to appease God, and another to bring the sins of Israel into the wilderness, to be forgotten forever. During this whole process the High Priest would wear…. linen. Jesus is not only the High Priest who wears linen, but He is both the goat who is sacrificed, and because of the Resurrection, He can take our sins into the wilderness to be forgotten forever. When the entire work is done on the part of the High Priest, the High Priest removes all the linen from his body, and exits the temple.
- John 20 - Jesus has left the building. All that remains is…. the linen clothing. He is naked. No longer needing the linen clothing. The work is finished. So if He left the tomb naked, and is still alive…what does He wear now?
- Revelation 19 - He wears a robe dipped in blood. This is King Jesus. He is not only a great prophet who died, not only a high priest who offered Himself as sacrifice, lived to be our scapegoat, but in the end, He is the eternal King who will rule over us for eternity.
- I gave a challenge to men and women in light of Revelation 19: is this the Jesus you serve, or have you wrapped Him in clothing of your own construction (purple robe, rabbi clothing, linen of a dead man?)
- I got chills a couple of times while preaching. Our drummer was near tears. And this is a fireman who has fractured a guy’s skull with a single punch.
- One of the most exciting things to me the entire day was having the bar employees stop what they were doing and listen…to the entire service, including the message. I don’t know if they were able to open at 12
. - By my count we have 100% of Easter’s attendance involved in Echo Groups. While not large in number, we are on our way to great health so far.
- Looking forward to April!
- He is risen indeed!
I have to say that this was by far your best sermon ever… You should write a book on it. Call it “My Best Sermon Now”… Really good. I give it a 9.95 out of 10. And thank you for the compliment on my operatic voice… I think…
You’re welcome. By the way, what was the .05 points missing?
Oh… Nothing is perfect… A perfect sermon (ie. 10 out of 10) would be given by Jesus… So I wouldn’t fret too much about that .05… If you preach a sermon in Heaven I’ll give it a 10… But if Jesus preaches a sermon in Heaven, I’ll give him a 12 out of 10…
Fair enough. When are you going to resume blogging?
When my coworker gets back and relieves some of my stress…
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