Discipling Life

This Easter Sunday I decided to do something different. I wanted to focus on the epistle lesson for the day. The first four verses of the third chapter of Paul's letter to the Colossians. 1 Since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. The Hidden Life Date: April 5, 2026 Speaker: Alan Swartz Scripture: Colossians 3:1-4 1. Introduction In the quiet of this Easter morning, we find ourselves standing at a   threshold. It is the intersection where the silence of an empty tomb meets the our profound expectation for a word that actually matters. We gather with a deep hunger, hoping that the story of the resurrection might do more than occupy our minds for an hour; w...

Where are you in your daily walk with God? Some people still feel lost or disoriented after COVID. Things in their home church may seem so unfamiliar that it is almost a different church than the one they called home. All the divisiveness in our society and congregations have only added to the feeling of ennui many of us have experienced. That brings us to today’s text: Ezekiel 37:1-14 Many churches today know what Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones feels like. After COVID closures, some congregations returned to sanctuaries that felt emptier than before. Pews that once held familiar faces now hold silence. Programs that once brought energy now feel harder to sustain. It is easy to look around and quietly echo the words of Israel: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely” (v. 11). Ezekiel is taken by God into a valley filled with bones—scattered, brittle, long forgotten. God asks him, “Mortal, can these bones live?” (v. 3). Ezekiel doesn’t pretend t...

As we continue our journey through Lent, we slow down and listen carefully to the words of Jesus. In John 3:1–17, we are invited into a quiet, nighttime conversation between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. It is a deeply personal exchange, and it speaks to our own need for renewal. Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the dark. He is a Pharisee, a leader, a teacher of Israel. He knows the Scriptures. Yet he senses there is something more. He says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God” (John 3:2, NRSV). He sees that God is at work in Jesus. Jesus responds with words that must have startled him: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3:3). Nicodemus is confused. How can someone be born again? Jesus explains, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (John 3:5). He goes on to say, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). During Lent,...