Eternity Church

06/21/2026

Beloved People of God,

Our onion layer adventure may be coming to a conclusion! A few weeks ago you may have noticed it was a little warmer in the sanctuary than usual. We've been hard at work chasing down the various rabbit warrens of coolant leaks, broken machine pieces and old electrical wiring. All that to say, this morning you may want to bring a jacket!

Okay, maybe not a jacket, but it will be a much cooler room that we've experienced the last few weeks. I want to extended a hearty thanks to the church staff for all the hardwork they put into this early summer escapade!

For Christ the King,

Brett

06/18/2026

“Preaching is not so much what we say about God, but rather what God says about God's self. And Scripture is not so much an account of our history of God, but God's history with us, not our experience of God, but God's experience of us!” — William Willimon

06/17/2026

Beloved People of God,

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 husband. Lonely in a patriarchal society, she did everything in her limited power to get him to see her, hear her, love her. If we slow down long enough, we can hear Moses' subtle critique against Jacob his forefather for his neglectful treatment of his foremother.

After three attempts to get Jacob’s love and attachment, Leah appears to be at the lowest point of her life. Every time she prays it’s a variation on, “now my husband will love me, now he’ll care, now he’ll hold me in love.” That may not be our exact story, but how many of us have bent ourselves out of shape desperate to be appreciated, cared for, loved. But something happens in her prayer life after the birth of Levi when Jacob fails to change (again). Her focus shifts. Her eyes are opened to the One who’s seen her all along, heard her every cry, and held her through every sorrow. I believe while she was carrying her fourth child in her womb she realized she was more than a womb. She was more than a second-class citizen. She wasn’t an ignored daughter in the house of her father or a neglected wife in the tents of her husband. She was loved. She was beloved.

No longer breaking her life, wrecking her soul, chasing after the impossible affections of others, she experienced the rich fullness of the Lord who loved her all along. We see this shift, this joyous relief, as she named Judah, praying: “This time I will praise the Lord” (Genesis 29.35).

Friend, if your story feels like a mirror image of Leah’s, I pray you would find the same reason to praise today. Allow God to shift your perspective. Trust Him to show you how His grace is sufficient for you, even if your circumstances don’t change (2 Corinthians 12.9). Leah was beloved by God and so are you.

For Christ the King,

Brett

06/15/2026

Have you ever felt alone in a dark room? Our first instinct tends to be to find a light, if that is using our phone’s flashlight, opening a door, or maybe a window. This is our fire, our light. Except we aren’t the ones holding it. When we feel like we are in a new place or when we are lost, the Lord guides us with His light in the same way He led and protected the Israelites.

This Wednesday we will be talking about Exodus 13. Where Moses and the Israelites are wandering in the desert after escaping Egypt. How the God provided them both light and shade, keeping His people safe. Let’s ask how were the Israelites Following Fire and how can this relate to us?

Sometimes we tend to get used to the dark and feel no need for a light guiding us (John 3.19). We feel comfortable doing things ourselves without other people’s help. But as Christians we aren’t supposed to walk alone. We are supposed to walk with God, He has plans for us are good and we need to trust him (Jeremiah 29.11) . Even when it feels like there is no cloud or pillar of fire, God is always with us.

As we continue to go into summer enjoying our vacations and breaks from school, how is the Lord calling us to follow him? And also what is keeping us from seeing God’s light? We should pray to better hear God’s voice and see His path He has prepared for us while limiting distractions. Even when we can’t see the end of the path we continue to follow and trust the Lord’s light.

See you Wednesday!
Chris

06/12/2026

06/10/2026

Beloved People of God,

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 earliest disconnections happen in childhood. Although the Bible does not give us a full biography of Leah and Rachel’s upbringing, it does give us a clear image of their father Laban. He’s a trickster just as much as his son-in-law, grifting his way through life. You see this first glimmer of gold-fixed eyes when Abraham’s servant came looking to find a wife for Isaac. The sight of silver and gold and a caravan of camels had Laban off his feet and running toward this finance-securing opportunity (Genesis 24). When we find Laban again years later, it doesn’t seem to appear that He has grown past his desire to build up his wealth or bend others to his own financial advantage.

When Jacob expressed interest in marrying Rachel, Laban leapt at the chance to get more than what was culturally expected. He saw the desire in the young man’s eyes, and although the bride price at the time (remember this was a heavily patriarchal society) was equivalent to two or three years of labor, Laban locked Jacob in at twice the price! Then, when the wedding night finally came, switching Rachel with Leah, he doubled his already exorbitant fee. He wrote checks for himself in the lives of those who should have been the most precious to him.

Beloved, it is understandable why Leah would have deeply longed to be seen, heard, and lovingly held by her husband, knowing the kind of childhood and youth she’d experienced in the house of her father. But, Jacob didn’t have the love to give that Leah longed for. All the same, Leah kept trying, praying for a secure attachment with her husband, even naming her third son, Levi, which means attached.

Leah was on a long journey of discovery each of us will walk. In the end, Jacob doesn’t change, but Leah does. In her sustained place of prayer, God was showing his beloved daughter, He always saw her, heard her, and held her close.

For Christ the King,

Brett

06/06/2026

Holy One, [Guide me]
into an unclenched moment,
a deep breath,
a letting go
of heavy expectancies,
of shriveling anxieties,
of dead certainties,
that, softened by the silence,
surrounded by the light,
and open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
upheld by the unfathomable,
entranced by the simple,
and filled with the joy
that is you.

— Ted Loder

06/03/2026

Beloved People of God,

It’s hard to read Leah’s story. Overlooked. Ignored. Lonely. Reading her story, it’s hard to not to get mad. We shout, “How could God allow this!” Haven’t we all felt like that at one time or another? We look at the despised circumstances in our lives and—like good Americans—we set out to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Speaking of which, have you ever actually tried pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? It doesn’t work. A century ago, we forgot the idiom was a sarcastic critique of the impossible and not a Cinderella “rags-to-riches” fantasy. But we love an underdog, so we since the 1920s, we’ve repurposed this phrase, like Leah, seeking to accomplish the impossible through their own self-reliance and hard work. We strive, thinking we’ll be the exception, but it doesn’t take long to realize this kind of bootstrap success comes from outside ourselves.

Speaking to the Exodus generation, Moses wrote, “When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, ‘Because the Lord has seen my affliction; for now my husband will love me,’ (Genesis 29.31-32).” Guess what…it didn’t work. So, “She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, He has given me this son also.’ And she called his name Simeon,” (29.33). She was half right. The Lord saw her and He heard her, but not for the reason she envisioned. Leah thought she could lift herself up by her marital bootstraps, making Jacob love her through the sons she gave him. This way only leads to tripping ourselves up; but that doesn’t keep us from trying.

Beloved, when we’re busy grasping at shoestrings, we miss why God sees and hears us. We conflate His blessings with our ambitions. Eventually we come crashing down—either on our face or our knees—seeing that we’ve missed out on what His presence was saying to us all along. Truth is, the Lord listens to our prayer (Psalm 34.18). Even more so, He answers us in accordance with His will (1 John 5.13-15). And that is the lift we long for.

For Christ the King,

Brett

06/01/2026

Hey Eternity Youth and Parents!

Moses saw a bonfire! Okay, that’s not so strange. We’ve all seen fire. Tending Jethro’s sheep in the wilderness, fire couldn’t have been that out of the ordinary to spot in the distance. Another shepherd, another wilderness wanderer, stopping to cook or clean. But this fire was different. No one was nearby. Not only wasn’t this a regular brush fire, it was a bush, burning but not consumed! When Moses’ clocked that, he had to get closer to check it out.

Reading Exodus, we know it was the angel of the Lord appearing in the burning bush, and when “the Lord saw Moses turn aside to see,” God called out to him (Exodus 3.2-4). Across the distance, God called Moses by name. Just as in the life of Abraham, God was using fire to symbolize His presence (Genesis 15.17). Seen as “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch” the Lord passed through Abraham’s sacrifice and made a covenant with His servant and His people. Now, on Mount Horeb, God was fulfilling His promise to redeem Abraham's people, and He was expressing His presence through fire.

The older we get the more we realize how often we miss God’s presence. We “know” that God is omnipresent (everywhere at all times), but we get distracted. Thankfully, there are times God wants us to be aware of His nearness; times when we’re confused, when we’re tired, when we’re hurting (Isaiah 30.21; 40.31, 10). When we’re blinded by “our” plans, “our” vision for our lives, “our” feeling trapped by past mistakes, the Lord lights a signal fire, calling us back to Himself.

As we step into summer, how does God want us to be more aware of His presence? How is He calling us by name, inviting us to stand together on holy ground and carry His refining holiness in our lives and into the world? I know there are a million things we want to do, a billion things vying for our attention. Even still, I pray, we would see the light from a burning fire and turn aside to see what God’s doing.

See you Wednesday!
Brett

05/27/2026

Beloved People of God,

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 so many big stories with big heroes (Abraham, David, Elijah to name a few) whose stories are packed with adrenaline.

There are also hundreds of “minor” characters, men and women we find in only a handful of verses, that—if we stop and think about it—have outsized testimonies of God’s faithfulness. One great example of someone in the Bible often looked over—just as she was in life—is Leah (Genesis 29.15). Left to our own rushed reading we’d be excused for missing her. If Jacob and Rachel’s love story is a chapter, Leah is an easily lost footnote. Rachel is described for her striking beauty, but only Leah’s eyes are noticed (29.17). Which is poetically telling. Leah alone sees how unseen she is. She's overlooked by everyone around her, and she sees it. She’s a side character in the story of her own life.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, Leah tries to be seen based on the best ideas of her place and time. Barnabe Assohoto insightfully shows us how, “Leah’s reasoning is a product of her culture. She was sure that Jacob would love her if she bore him sons. That is why she greeted Reuben’s birth with the words, ‘Surely my husband will love me now’ (29.32).” Reuben’s name literally translates, “See, a son!”

Leah’s story is amazing, but not in the ways we might expect. She doesn’t win over her husband. She doesn’t gain the respect from others she deserves. What she gains is something far greater: she is seen by God (29.31). It takes Leah a while to get past her best efforts to discover the One who sees her and loves her. (Sound familiar?) Seeing Leah’s life, we find an amazing truth for our own: we too are seen and beloved by God.

For Christ the King,

Brett