Do we need a backup plan for when it seems like #God's Word is being defeated by “#evil"? https://youtube.com/live/6tJ5I7k1Qeg

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The manuscript for today’s #sermon, “Believing Is Seeing,” is on my blog. https://jeffsjottings.wordpress.com/2026/04/12/believing-is-seeing/

In this sermon, I explore how doubt is a vital part of being a person of faith, even our doubt about the resurrection, and that faith helps us see the resurrection, the “glimmers of holy keep interrupting our gaze.”

[Worship Service] Sermon - “Jesus Triumphal Ascension Into Heaven” Apr 12 2026

https://youtu.be/okFDRFiL6II

https://odysee.com/@firstfilipinobaptistchurchtoronto:3/apr122026

https://rumble.com/v78eme4-worship-service-sermon-jesus-triumphal-ascension-into-heaven-apr-12-2026.html

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Jesus’ resurrection and our atonement with God leads us to recognize that we are reconciled not just to God but to each other as well. And more than that — it isn’t simply a remaking of our personal relationships. The Easter event is the foundation for a new way of living in community. It begins a process, still ongoing, of moving us from a world ordered around the way of the Ruler of this World to one in which the Reign of God is made increasingly manifest.

You can sense this by hearing the words Jesus speaks to the disciples in the Upper Room, and to Thomas himself, in light of an earlier moment in the Gospel accounts: the sending of the seventy-two to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near.

What Jesus has those disciples do closely parallels the proclamations made regularly by Roman Emperors. But Jesus changes one crucial element, and that change points to an alternate reality that is slowly dawning.

You can watch the sermon by using this link.

The manuscript for the #sermon from today’s 10:00 Easter service, “The Good News Is … Alive in the World,” is on my blog. https://jeffsjottings.wordpress.com/2026/04/05/the-good-news-is-alive-in-the-world/

Looking at Matthew’s version of that first Easter morning (Matthew 28:1-10), I remind us to embrace the fears we may have about sharing the Good News that we know is alive in the world, and share that Good news anyway.

[Worship Service] Resurrection Sunday - "Raised to Eternal Life" Apr 5 2026

https://youtu.be/JcsM-oekIqQ

https://odysee.com/@firstfilipinobaptistchurchtoronto:3/apr52026:f0f4d657af

https://rumble.com/v783kz6-worship-service-resurrection-sunday-raised-to-eternal-life-apr-5-2026.html

#Church #SundayMorning #Sermon #SundayService #ChurchOnline #EasterSunday

When we have completely given up, God has not. God acts and out of the darkness, new light bursts forth. Easter is the proof that death and despair do not win in the end.

Here is something we easily forget about Easter morning: nobody was expecting it.

The women walking to the tomb in the dark were not going to witness a resurrection. They were going to finish a burial. They carried spices. They were already wondering aloud who would roll the stone away. Their category for what was about to happen did not exist. It wasn’t something that they could anticipate. None of Jesus’ followers did – even though he had told them.

The disciples hiding behind locked doors were not waiting for news of an empty tomb. They were waiting for the knock that would mean the authorities had come for them next.

Even those who had heard Jesus speak of rising on the third day had apparently filed that away as metaphor or misunderstood it entirely. Because when the news came, nobody said: yes, of course, just as he said. They said: this cannot be. Mary Magdalene’s first instinct was that someone had moved the body. The disciples on the road to Emmaus were walking away from Jerusalem — the direction of defeat and resignation.

What this means is that the resurrection was not wish-fulfillment. It was not the disciples’ grief generating a vision that matched their hopes. It shattered their categories rather than confirming them. Nobody was primed for it. Nobody produced it. Nobody even asked for it in quite that form.

God acted. Unilaterally. In history. In a way that required nothing from those first witnesses except that they be present to receive it, and even then, they barely could.

You can view the sermon here.