Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

I never tire of seeing God at work in our lives. Too often (like most), I only want to see the ends, but the means are where the details shine. Leah’s life is a testimony to this. She grew up in a dysfunctional family, the daughter of father who never saw her worth, treating her as a commodity for his financial future. She spent the early years of her marriage frustrated and alone,...

A Sunday morning sermon by Peter DuMont.

What does it look like to be rewarded by God? So far in our “Leah Beloved” series, Brett has shown the ways in which Leah’s story demonstrated to the Exodus Generation that God sees, hears, and responds to his people according to “ways and means” different from our own!

This week we will look at the birth of a fifth son to Leah. She celebrates him as God’s ...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

An amazing thing happened between the birth of Levi and the birth of Judah. It’s as if something finally clicked into place for Leah. For at least the first three to six years of her marriage to Jacob, Leah exhausted herself. She was the tradwife par excellence with nothing to show for it. We can hear the desperation in her prayers. Everything in her world revolved around her husba...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

I think the deeper we step into the story of Leah, the more we find a mirror image of ourselves. We all long to be seen, especially by those closest to us, and we all want to be heard. It can be deeply frustrating when we feel our words are falling flat all around us, unheard. We all want to be held, not just physically, but emotionally. We understandably want secure attachment.

Our earli...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

The Bible is full of so many amazing stories! Obvious right?! Okay, but humor me for a moment. The mind reels as we read of the cosmos created. The pulse races as the rain beats against the side of the ark and then lifts it up into the waves. The heart swells when Noah and his family stand again on solid ground gazing at the rainbow, the soaring symbol of God’s covenant. There are ...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

As I’ve been praying and preparing the summer series for our youth, following the repeating imagery of God’s presence in fire, I'm struck afresh by the faithfulness of God to us across the ages. In the Old Testament, at one of Abraham’s lowest moments, God anchored His promise to the patriarch by making a covenant with Abraham; one for which the Lord alone was responsib...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

In the early church there was a man named Ignatius (30-107 AD). He devoted his life to the way of Jesus, was discipled by John, and served as the bishop of Antioch. In his final years, as a living witness to the rule and reign of Jesus, Ignatius was condemned by the Roman Emperor Trajan. In chains, he was brought to Rome to be executed, torn apart by wild beasts in the Colosseum. On his ...

A Sunday morning sermon by Peter DuMont.

In our movement toward celebrating Pentecost we are examining the Old Testament texts quoted by Peter the Apostle in his powerful Acts 2 message to those gathered in Jerusalem as the gift of the Holy Spirit fell upon Jesus’ followers.

This Sunday we will be examining Psalm 110, which Peter quotes from to demonstrate Jesus’ fulfillment of a long-held hope of King David and the Hebre...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Have you ever felt like the wheels of your life were coming off? A few years ago, Elise and I were hosting family in Dakar and took them to one of our favorite places: Lac Rose. It is a naturally pink lake surrounded by deep flowing sand dunes just off the Atlantic coast. The best way to enjoy it is to get out of the car and get on a four-wheeler. So, that’s just what we did. We ar...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Lent always takes us lower than we could ever fathom. On the journey to the cross we are confronted with our own spiritual deformation—how we’ve exchanged the image of God in our lives for “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life” (1 John 2.16). The Lenten season is like a pumice stone against the cold and calloused death enveloping ...

An Easter Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

These are the final days of our Lenten journey. We’ve spent these weeks marveling at Jesus’ signs. He turned water to wine. What a wonder! He miraculous restored a man’s legs lame for 38 years! What awesome power! He took a handful of fish and flatbread and fed 5000! Only God has done anything like this before (Exodus 16). Jesus made mud and anointed the sightless eyes ...

A Palm Sunday sermon by Kezzie Joyner, Evan Schmalzbach, William Sleeman, Ava Deal

Scents have a way of rapturing us out of our present into a memory. The other day Daphne made beignets, the kind we both grew up eating in Africa, and as I bit into it and the smell filled my senses, I was a 6-year-old boy on the streets of Malabo. I can’t describe how the smell and taste populated my mind and memory with the sights and sounds o...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

We live in anxious times. It can feel overwhelming, like battering breakers on a shattering ship. We live with seasick stomachs as the storm tries to sweep us off our feet. Last week, prayerfully holding the tensions of our national and international uncertainty, driving our teens around felt the perfect time to sing our current unease. Stopped at the light, I pulled up Robert Lamm&rsquo...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Twenty years ago, when I was a young pastor rushing in ministry, a mentor advised me saying, “Sometimes in ministry the best thing you can do is have a nap and a snack.” I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. At its heart, it’s a call to Sabbath, remembering God is God and we aren’t. It challenges where we’ve abandoned His way for our own. When ...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

A week out from Ash Wednesday, we are now well on our way to the cross.

Beloved, Lent is a challenging time in our faith because it strips away the comfortable layers of religion we use to conceal our favored idolatry. This dedicated season of repentance is a pumice stone against the callouses on the feet of our faith. With each sign Jesus scrapes against our soles on our way together to...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

“And the man took Jesus at His word and went on his way,” (John 4.50b).

That has to be one of the most encouraging verses in the Bible if we slow down enough to read it. Seriously, how is this not one of the verses we tell our children to memorize?!

Let’s establish a little context. In John’s Gospel, before Jesus begins to support His teaching through signs of His ...

An Ash Wednesday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, the first of forty days which lead us to Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the start of Holy Week. All across the world, fellow followers of Jesus will make this spiritual pilgrimage—from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday—a time of heartfelt repentance. To aid us in our devotion at Eternity, we will be walking alongside Je...

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus was interrupted? It’s kind of amazing how often people seemingly derailed what Jesus was doing so that He might see their situation. You’ve got to be pretty audacious (or desperate) to interrupt a respected rabbi while He’s teaching!

While Jesus was addressing John the Baptist’s disciples, explaining why His ministry was blowi...