Sermons

Spring (Apr 24-Jun 5) The Ending: The Last Two Chapters of the Last Chapter

I had a little fun with the play on words. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection inaugurates the last chapter or the eschatological Kingdom of God. He begins the last chapter. The last chapter encompasses the whole New Testament. We will spend the Spring looking at the last two chapters of Revelation. We are going to discover that the last two chapters give us the clearest description of what it looks like when Jesus has made everything new. No more death, mourning, crying or pain is the completion of the new creation. Heaven and earth come together like one great temple, or one great Holy of Holies. The last two chapters are full of imagery from the past, including allusions to the Garden of Eden. We will specifically be looking at the last two chapters to discover what Jesus has to tell us about the new Jerusalem, the new covenant, the new (and diverse) people of God, and finally the all-encompassing new creation.

Lent (Mar 6- Apr 17) Dying in the Last Chapter: Being a Peacemaker

We will focus on the trials and suffering of Christ during the season of Lent. This of course ends with his death on the cross for sinners, and his resurrection from the dead. Jesus launches the final New

Creation/Kingdom reign and pours out the Holy Spirit into the hearts of His people. He did all this to bring peace on earth. He then calls us who follow him to be peacemakers. Being a peacemaker requires us to lay down our lives and desires in a manner similar to our Savior Jesus Christ. In addition to the Bible, we will be using some of the material found in the Peacemaker’s Pledge. You can visit rw360.org for more details on the Peacemaker’s Pledge. Additionally, the book by Ken Sande entitled “The Peacemaker” will be an excellent reference. The most helpful words can be found in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew chapters 5-7.

Advent (Nov 28-Dec 24) The Beginning of the Last Chapter: The Story of Christmas

Advent will be focused on the classic Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy & Love. On Christmas Eve we will light the Christ Candle of the Advent Wreath and celebrate one last time before Christmas. The Advent season might be especially celebratory this Christmas as we should all have a greater understanding of the expectations and hopes into which Jesus Christ was born. The beginning of the final reestablishment of God’s Kingdom! The King of all Kings was born. A second Adam was born, who does not fail in the Garden, but rather restores the hope of a permanent Eden!

Fall (Sept 12-Nov 21) The Beginning: The Story of the Old Testament

The title of the Fall season of our Annual Focus is “The Beginning.” As you might guess, we will begin this season at the beginning of the Bible…the very beginning. In fact, we begin our season in Genesis 1. In week two we only get to Genesis 3. These first three chapters communicate much of what we know about the Garden of Eden. The rest of the Old Testament will spend a lot of time explaining how God is looking to regain for us what we lost when Adam and Even were exiled from the Garden of Eden. In week three we will be reading Genesis 12 and discussing the promise that God made to Abraham. The promise of God will be a pillar for the rest of the book of Genesis and the entire Old Testament. The remainder of the Fall season will be spent examining how God progressively reestablishes His Kingdom out of chaos through promise, covenant and redemption. The general application for the faithful will also become evident as we study.

At this point in this summary, I have to acknowledge how much I am leaning on the scholarship of G. K. Beale for this Annual Focus. He is a brilliant Bible professor who has taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Wheaton College, IL. I highly recommend his book entitled, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New. This book is a heavy book (both figuratively and literally in that it is over 1000 pages in length). I will be referencing it throughout the whole year. The last sentence of the previous paragraph is a paraphrase of what he says frequently in his book.