Resources for Holy Week

Starting Monday, April 6 we usher into Holy Week - the time in the church calendar where we slowly reflect on the last days leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Below are some sermons from Desiring God to better prepare your heart this week.

Also check out our sermons from our Luke series:

• Unholy Week - Hated, Mistreated, Rejected, and Mocked

• Unholy Week - Let Down and Disappointed

• Unholy Week - Oppressed, Marginalized, and Cast Out

Palm Sunday:

Reflect today on these messages.

"Hosanna" - John 12:13

“...when we sing "Hosanna" now, let's make it very personal. Let's make it our praise and our confidence. The Son of David has come. He has saved us from guilt and fear and hopelessness. Salvation! Salvation belongs to our God and to the Son! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!”

"The Sovereign Sacrifice: Foreknown, Foretold, For Faith" - John 13:12-20

“Believer, be strong. There is good reason to stand with Jesus and to live for him this week.”

Maundy Thursday:

Reflect today on this message.

"Being Loved by Christ" - John 13:1:

“This is what we long for, and this is what we have by faith—an experience of being loved with a love that lasts, that is not fickle, or uncertain, or capricious, but durable, constant, stable.”

Good Friday:

Reflect today on this message.

"The Third Word From the Cross" - John 19:26-27 

“If Jesus could provide for the needs of his own in the moment of his greatest weakness and humiliation, how much more can he provide for your need in his present wealth of power and exaltation”

Easter:

For Easter Sunday, we invite each LifeGroup to participate at 6:15am via Zoom or Google hangouts to have a watch party together. At the end of the Easter Sunday sermon, we will invite everyone to go outside to enjoy the sunrise together as a church family.

In addition, you can reflect on these messages. 

"Jesus is Alive to Serve" - John 11:15:

“...because he has overcome death, we can overcome death by faith in him.”

"Irrevocable Joy" - John 16:22

“Joy in being with Jesus is an unbroken line from now to eternity. It will not be cut off by his death or ours.”

"I Have Seen the Lord" - John 20:1-23

“...this world that we love so much, compared to [the new heavens and new earth], will be like a candle compared to the sun”

Below are some extra teachings out of the Gospel of John that connected to pain and suffering and the call to love one another. We found this encouraging and applicable in light of the pandemic.

Additional Resources:

Below are some extra teachings out of the Gospel of John that are connected to pain and suffering and the call to love one another. We found this encouraging and applicable in light of the pandemic.

Look at the book (3 parts) John 11

Part 1: "How Do We Read the Bible Stories" 

Part 2: "Why Did Jesus Let Lazarus Die?" 

Part 3: "God's Love Allows Pain and Loss" 

Sermons:

"Even When it Hurts: How God Reveals Himself in Pain and Loss" - John 11:1-6 

"This Illness is for the Glory of God" - John 11:1-16

Don't Waste Your Easter Ham

Hey, church fam!

We are officially less than two weeks away from our biggest Sunday of the year! As you know, we don’t go out of our way to overhype our Sunday Gatherings. Our goal isn’t to blow your mind with dazzling lights, drop-the-mic sermons, or Hollywood-grade video production. Because as impressive as an event can be, our long-term goal is not to be entertained by a show, but to connect and become a certain kind of people. And so we think of our Sunday Gatherings as a well-balanced regular diet of gospel truth, community, and shaping. Many of our Sunday Gatherings are ordinary, but that doesn’t mean they’re insignificant. 

Why is Easter is such a big deal?

That being said, we really enjoy making a big deal out of Easter. If there’s one Sunday we want to draw attention to, it should be the one that commemorates Jesus triumphing over sin, death and the grave. 

On Easter, we sing loud.

We baptize people and we cheer loud.

We listen to people tell their stories of how Jesus has changed them and we rejoice loud.

And for all of these reasons, we often encourage you to invite people to the Easter Gathering who don’t normally come around church. Friends and family and neighbors and coworkers that you invite will hear the gospel proclaimed, one story after another, as people describe how Jesus saved them and why they’re getting baptized. 

And for this year, we thought why don’t we up the ante on inviting people in? Because as impressive as an event can be, our long-term goal is not to be entertained by a show, but to connect and become a certain kind of people. So what we’re doing is asking you to do is take your invitation up a level. 

Two easy steps to a successful Easter

Step 1: Pray about inviting anyone Jesus may want to come to the Easter Gathering

Take a few minutes right now to pray about who Jesus might want you to invite to the Easter Gathering. Personally, invite them. Pray for Jesus to use the Gathering to lead them towards Himself. And also, spread a broad net. Use word-of-mouth, the invites that we’ll have at our Gatherings this Sunday, share the link to our Easter page on Facebook–whatever it takes. But don’t just stop there:

Step 2: Host an Easter Meal with the express purpose of inviting in new friends to get to know you, your family, and your LifeGroup.

With Easter being what it is in our culture, countless people will show up to our Easter Gathering, and it’ll be one of if not the only time they attend a church service all year long. So let’s leverage the Easter Gathering as a bridge to help people relationally connect with our church family.

Our Easter Gatherings are conveniently placed right before meal times (10:00am & 5:00pm). And who doesn’t love a good Easter lunch or dinner? So don’t just invite your friends, neighbors, and co-workers to an Easter Gathering, invite them to an Easter Gathering, followed by an Easter meal! Get together with your LifeGroup and plan a feast at someone’s house or snag a reservation at a local restaurant. Use that time to treat that friend of yours to some free food. Ask them what they thought about the Gathering. “Did that stuff make sense?” “Did you relate to any of the stories on video?” “Did that raise any questions for you?” And listen well to their answers.

The best part is that as you eat together, your friends get a front-row seat to observe church family in the context of your LifeGroup. Which is exactly how Jesus said people would recognize us as His; based on how we love each other. So let your friends see how you and your LifeGroup relate to one another, how you speak to each other, how you serve and care for one another. Who knows–they might just ask questions about that later.

Make it count

So this Easter, if you can, don’t waste your Easter ham.

Leverage it for the gospel.

Leverage it as an open door for someone who needs Jesus and His family. 

Have a feast, a party, a blast with your closest friends and invite someone else in to be part of the merriment. 

Easter’s our biggest Sunday of the year. Let’s leverage it so that it could be a life-changing moment in some of our friend's, family member's, and coworkers live's. 

Why Brandon is Excited about Easter

During the next two weeks leading up to our Easter Gathering, our pastors will be posting why they are personally excited about Easter Gathering. For more information, head over to the Easter Gathering page.

---

In keeping with the great American tradition of taking meaningful holidays and turning them into commercialized landmarks or well meaning but less-than-intended niceties, many people (and even many Christians) are confused about Easter.

Eggs? Bunnies? Peeps? Chocolate figures?

One of the few times each year you drag yourself into a religious gathering or travel home to eat lunch with your family?

The weight of Easter is lost on so many of us just as it gets lost on me at times. Even in my role as a pastor I too often forget the earth-quaking implications that the resurrection of Jesus has on everyday life.

Though our church family strives to constantly center around the gospel of Jesus and by God's grace we speak this truth to each other and our city regularly, we can still grow numb to how good the news really is.

But Easter? Easter is the most clear reminder of the gospel we have each year.

We celebrate the (too good to be true but true) fact that the God-man Jesus straight up walked out of His grave where He buried our sin and our shame. He both took our punishment and provided our righteousness, then went on to defeat death and hell forever.

We were desperate and hopeless and separated from God by our rebellion and now because of Jesus we are none of those.

Easter is no trite holiday. It is the climax of the most epic story ever told--the fairy tale that is actually true.

We get to hear this over and over each Easter through the stories of those getting baptized. We get to hear about the lightning bolt of Jesus' good news that has wrecked individual lives in the best way imaginable.

"I was lost and now I am found."

"I was blind and now I see."

"I was an enemy and God has made me His friend!"

"I was a runaway orphan, but God adopted me into His forever family."

It is the gospel, over and over, spoken powerfully through the mouths of those rescued & redeemed by Jesus.

That is why we go nuts over Easter.

That is why I can't wait for it to get here.

That's why we clap and yell and scream until our voices crack.

Jesus is alive, and that changes everything.

[button label="Join us on Easter Sunday" link="http://midtowncolumbia.com/events/easter-gathering/" shape="default"]