Eternal Church Podcast

Andrew Peterson is a great composer and a great theologian. His recent hit —Is He Worthy?—is wonderful. Based on Revelation 5, he reflects in the lyrics about the worthiness of a God who sets a broken world right, whose light cannot be overcome by the darkness of sin and evil, whose faithfulness pursues a faithless people that he loves so very much. If our God is worthy, then we owe him our lives.

In Acts 6:8-7:60, Stephen quickly goes from serving as one of the first deacons of the early church to dying as its first martyr. What happened?  Who did Stephen tick off?  Why was his sermon so revolting?  What can we learn about ourselves, today? Join us this Sunday as we try to figure out what to do with Stephen and his sermon. 

I’ve always been intrigued by church names. Post WW II European immigrants often named their churches by numbers: First Presbyterian, Second, etc. Theological names soon became the thing: Grace Church, Faith, Eternal. Scandinavian people favored regal names: Christ the King, Prince of Peace. Catholics honored saints: my neighborhood fave was Saint Ignatius (“Iggy” was where friends served as altar...

You don’t love me” cried the child in the grocery cart. Mom had said “no” to candies the little one had grabbed from shelves. The interaction revealed a common belief in the parent-child relationship. And in our relationship to God. Either we get what we want OR moms don’t love us, OR God is judging us with an angry scowl.  Wise parents see through the faulty logic, and teach children the importan...

How do you pray? It seems like an elementary question, but in light of the Resurrection of Christ, Luke draws our attention to prayer in the second half of chapter 4. How did the early church pray? What did they pray for? And what impact did it make on their faith community?  Join us this Sunday as we look at this elementary topic together!

When Pollsters ask non-Christian people what Christians believe, they get a wide variety of answers. They can be encouraging, or uncomfortable, for us to read. Christians are self-righteous. Christians are kind and loving. Christians believe that Jesus saves them from hell and is their ticket to heaven. Christians think they’re right and everyone else is wrong. When Pollsters ask Christian people...

Greetings, Eternal Church! It's my joyful opportunity to serve the gathering at 1650 O’Henry Lane this Sunday by bringing the Word of God to the people of God, so that we, by the Spirit of God, might look more like the Son of God for the Glory of God! This week, we will continue the journey through the book of Acts by considering Acts 3. With that, I’d like to ask you to prepare your hearts by rea...

His name is Fang Si.,an orphan of the Hmong mountain people of Vietnam who had been adopted by Vietnamese refugees and members of our congregation. His family had been slaughtered before his eyes, and he had escaped into the jungle. He had lived for a decade in an overcrowded orphanage. No family at all. No Mother’s Day. In fact, the idea of a loving mother a pipe dream.  When he arrived, we were...

Have you ever waited and hoped for something for a long time and then, when it finally comes, it is … different than expected? Setting eyes on the Rockies for the first time. The arrival of a baby and the changes she would bring. In everything! A new marriage filled with joys … and challenges. Who knew? The people at the temple on that Pentecost had waited for centuries, waited so long that they f...

Language is the key to any culture. But without understanding a foreign language, you can’t understand a foreign people. Stare at the sights, eat the food, listen to the music, buy the souvenirs—but at the end of the day, you’re an outsider looking in. The recent explosion of language learning systems like Rosetta Stone and Babel have attempted to bridge the gap between ignorance and fluency. We n...

“Skip Recap?” The little button appears in the bottom left corner of the TV screen when the next episode begins. If you’re binge watching, you won’t need the recap. But if it’s been a while, you probably do.  After 65 sermons through Luke (!) you probably don’t think you need a recap. But Doctor Luke does. The one he offers here is quite explicit. Jesus came as King. He suffered. Jesus was raised...

This Sunday we gather together to celebrate the conclusion of our journey through the Gospel of Luke (Luke 24:36–53) as the risen Jesus meets His disciples, speaks peace over them, and sends them out as His witnesses. What began as promise is now fulfilled: Jesus is alive, and this good news is for all people. 

He walked seven miles with them. He opened the entire Bible to them. He sat down to dinner with them. And they still didn't recognize him. This Easter Sunday, we're tracing the road from "we had hoped…" to "our hearts were burning!" — and asking how two dejected disciples went from walking away to sprinting back. What. Just. Happened?!

In an age when trials of well-known people are often touted as media events, it is becoming common for a nation to hold its breath while waiting for a jury to return a verdict. Some of us are old enough to remember the OJ Simpson trial. More recent ones have involved celebrities from Hollywood and Washington politicians. The words “the jury is in” carry weight, whatever “side” of the issue you mig...

This Sunday we’re in Luke 23:26–43, where the cross seems to declare “the end.” But this story is only getting started. As Jesus suffers, the crowds see defeat, but one man sees a King. Join us as we explore what it means to truly see Jesus, and how His death opens the way back to life in His presence even today.

I’ll let you in on a secret. Pastors these days spend too much time trying to figure out the “relevance” of Bible passages. Ours is, of course, a world vastly different than the one in Bible times. Jesus never faced time traffic issues, blatant individualism, or rapid technological change. But relevance is hard to find and is often forced. Should we seek emotional relevance between the way Jesus f...

Dramatic irony is when the audience clearly understands something the characters in the book, play or movie do not. We say or think things like, “Don't open that door!” "Don't get on that plane!” “He’s not who he says he is!"  We have a fair amount of dramatic irony at play in Luke 22:47-65. No matter how many times I read about Jesus’ betrayal and denial, or see it depicted in a movie or a TV sho...

I had just gotten my driver’s license, and was excited to borrow my parents’ car for an evening out with my friends. Dad set me down at the kitchen table. “I made you memorize the Chicago city map,” he began. “Yea, dad, I know it back and forth.” I said, squirming in my chair. “Ok” he said. “Here’s what you need to do when you get lost, or when you have an accident.” And he went through — yet agai...

The Second Temple of Israel was once thought to be a wonder of the ancient world. Its stone walls were a sight to behold, towering over 130 feet high and over 16 feet wide. The giant blocks of stone each weighed an average of ten tons! And yet as his disciples marveled at the sight, Jesus told them that not one stone would be left in place. The age of the Temple was coming to an end. The dawn of t...

Jesus made it back to Jerusalem!. After years of traveling and teaching, Jesus finally enters the familiar streets for the last week of his life on earth. It’s a monumental moment: crowds ran out to meet him and to accompany him back into the city. It’s a provocative moment, too, for the crowds are waving palm branches, rejoicing, shouting and saying “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of t...

You’ve no doubt heard the phrase, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” In Luke 18, Jesus knows times are about to get desperate for himself and his followers. He wants them ready to respond in faith; keep praying, and never give up. Every parable, miracle and interaction in the chapter comes back to this mantra for desperate faith. Have you ever been desperate? Have you ever been in dang...

One of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories, "The Capital of the World,” opens: "Madrid is full of boys named Paco, which is diminutive of the name Francisco, and there is a Madrid joke about a father who came to Madrid and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of El Liberal which said: PACO MEET ME AT HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY ALL IS FORGIVEN PAPA and how a squadron of Guardia Civil had...

Luke 16 is full of topics most of us don’t enjoy discussing: money, dishonesty, manipulation... making it difficult not to read as a list of do's and don'ts. But Jesus didn't come for our moral improvement, he came for our life transformation. So what is He up to in this passage? As we work through chapter 16 together, we’ll explore themes of faithfulness, obedience, and a righteous reward. My pra...

I recently re-read a old story about a grandmother who was prayerfully completing her last will as she approached life’s end. Some of her descendants would inherit cars or money or favored furniture or jewelry. But to one grandson, who had struggled with addiction and long rebelled against God and the family, she gave only a Bible. He, not walking with the Lord then, was angry, justified anew in h...