Author: Pastor Geoff Patterson
1 Corinthians 15:1-2
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”
With these words, Paul transitions in this first letter to the believers in Corinth from extensive discussions of specific things (the Christian life, the Lord’s supper, spiritual gifts, love, to name a few) to refocus them, as he is reaching the end of his note, on the things “of first importance,” to use his phrase.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,”
So after all the talk about being the church, with all its complications and struggles, Paul says, in essence, “All these things matter, but don’t lose sight of what matters most!” And what matters most? The Gospel. And what is the heart of the Gospel? Christ died for our sins, Christ was buried, and Christ was raised to life again on the third day, all in accordance with Scripture.
It is upon this that all of Christianity, all of your faith, is based. If this isn’t true, then, well, here’s what Paul says:
1 Corinthians 15:14
“If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”
So yeah, it’s a pretty important point (can you say, “of first importance”?). Is the resurrection of Jesus as important a point in your life as it should be? When was the last time you spent time reflecting upon this reality, and letting it the fact that “Christ is risen” empower you for daily living (not to mention that it is because He is raised that we have hope that ourselves and those we love will also be raised)?
To the end that this item of “first importance” to Paul ought to matter to us, the elders of the Boulder Adventist Church have written meditations, thoughts, and reflections on the resurrection of Jesus, and these will be coming to you this week. I hope you will take time, as we lead up to our special Easter Sabbath celebration, to reflect on this Gospel, as Paul states: “by which you are being saved.” Because here is the deepest truth:
1 Corinthians 15:20
“In fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
This is our deepest truth. May God enable us to live in that truth today, this week, and forever.
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Family Devotional
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Hey Families! This week we’ve designed daily devotionals specifically for your family to engage in scripture and with each other! Each day has a short thought to read together as a family, coupled with an activity for further fellowship. I pray this week draws you in closer connection with each other and deeper friendship with Jesus. We love you, and most of all, Jesus loves you.
Family Worship Activity:
Read all the verses listed below as a family. Each person in the family chooses their favorite passage and explains why they chose it. If you want to make it a week-long activity, try memorizing your favorite verses from the list this week as a family.
• John 14:27
• Philippians 4:6-7
• Colossians 3:15
• 2 Thessalonians 3:16
• Psalm 4:8
• John 16:33
The Peace Jesus Gives
Author: Vanessa Alarcón
Text: John 14:27 – “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”
Earlier this year, I downloaded a mood-tracking app called How We Feel. It was designed by scientists to help people name their emotions and learn coping skills. You start by rating your energy level—high or low—and whether you feel pleasant or unpleasant. Then you choose from a list of specific emotions.
I love this app. I will admit, as a licensed therapist I probably find this app way more fun than the average person. The emotions I have felt most frequently this year are feeling nervous, fatigued, and pressured and they are typically during the workweek. But after church on Sabbath? I typically feel connected, fulfilled, and cheerful. Then, like clockwork, the cycle resets.
The app has 144 emotions to choose from, but there’s one I haven’t marked yet: peaceful. It defines peaceful as “quiet and calm; free from disturbance.” That one’s a little harder to come by.
When I start therapy sessions with new clients, the most common goal I hear is, “I want to feel peace.” I have probably written that in thousands of treatment plans after really defining what feeling peace means to that person. I have also explained to thousands of new clients that I can’t exactly give them the feeling of peace but that we can create a wellness plan that helps them manage their emotions in a healthier way.
Everyone wants peace.
What if the peace of Christ is closer than we think- just a moment away, waiting for us to slow down and spend time with Him? In my own life, I’ve noticed that through the fatigue and pressure I often feel during the week, it’s in those quiet, unrushed moments with Jesus—whether in prayer, Scripture, or simply sitting in stillness—where I finally breathe deeply and feel His peace settle over me.
Because the peace Jesus gives is not about perfect circumstances—it’s about His perfect presence.
Family Devotional
Sunday, April 13
The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Author: Pastor Mollie Dupper
In studying the Bible recently, I’ve been really noticing that God is a giver. From the very beginning of scripture and all throughout, He’s giving.
God gives light.
God gives trees.
God gives a garden.
God gives companions.
He gives and He gives and He gives until He gives us His one and only Son, Jesus.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
--John 3:16
And turns out…Jesus is the gift that just keeps on giving…
Jesus gives salvation
Jesus gives freedom
Jesus gives victory
Jesus gives His Spirit
Jesus gives peace
The list goes on and on…
Family Worship Activity:
As a family, discuss how you can give peace to someone this week. come up with an idea and plan a day this week to give someone peace. For example: You know your grandma has a long to-do list this week — maybe you give her some peace by teaming up as a family and cleaning grandma's house this week.
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A Piece of Peace in the Absence of Peace |
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Text: John 16:33 – “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
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Hi. My name is Tony. And I'm not good at finding peace in the middle of terrible things. If you too are someone who struggles to find peace when everything is awful, congratulations. You’re not alone.
It turns out that there are a lot of us who aren’t great at locating peace in the middle of “tribulation.” Whatever that word means to you.
Maybe we should form a club or something.
I wish there were some sort of 3-step, surefire process to finding peace at the worst of moments. I suppose I could just make stuff up, but I’d rather not lie to you.
Sure, there are lots of people who have written lots of things about finding peace amidst the storm. Some of those thoughts and ideas might even work for some people. Maybe they will work for you. I certainly wouldn’t know.
Some might tell you, “Just pray hard and give it to Jesus!”
The idea isn’t without merit, but what does that even mean? If you figure out what “give it to Jesus” means, let me know. I understand all the words, but the execution of them seems to be lacking for many people, including me. And it's not for lack of trying.
Sometimes you can pray and pray and beg and plead and the trials keep coming and you don’t feel any better.
Ask Jesus about His experience in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And yet there are people who have lived lives of oppression and persecution and torment and still somehow manage to find lightness and calm in their soul. Those people are better than me.
That said, I'll give you my “3 steps.” They go like this:
Just Breathe. Choose love. Repeat.
They may not bring you absolute peace. But they might give you the clarity to see that, when everything around you was unjust, you did what was right.
And maybe that’s enough.
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Family Devotional
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As a family, Read & Reflect on the passage below and then take it a step or two or three farther by participating in the worship activity for the day. Have a blast and be blessed.
Read & Reflect:
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” --Psalm 23:1-6
Family Worship Activity:
Go on a walk with your family. It could be on the neighborhood trail, through the woods, in a park, up a mountain, wherever you want to journey. During your walk or when you return, take time to reflect with each other how Jesus has journeyed with you in the past year. How does that give you peace?
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Find Peace Together |
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Text: Luke 24:13-35 – [The Road to Emmaus]
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Two disciples were on the road to Emmaus. The word Emmaus translates closely to warm bath or hot spring. Perhaps Emmaus was an escape. A way to forget the terrible events of the weekend. Their Christ was crucified at the hands of an oppressive empire and it was logical to think that they could be next. Rome didn’t take kindly to the followers of the people they thought posed a threat to their empire.
An experience like this would rattle most anyone to their core and rob them of any sense of peace.
As they walked the seven miles to Emmaus, they couldn’t help but talk about all that had happened. As they processed their pain-filled reality, they unknowingly encountered the Risen Christ, who journeyed with them, listened to them, and shared the scriptures with them. It wasn’t until Jesus sat down to eat with them that they realized who had been with them all along.
As we live in this world, we will experience the deep sadness of losing someone dear to us. That experience can be rather lonely. Many of us reading this have been through this sorrow and despair–and some more than once. While we can feel lost on how to move forward, Jesus gives us insight into how we can help each other.
Deep listening, sharing of sacred stories, and experiencing meals elbow to elbow is how Jesus spent most of His ministry. It is how He brought peace, comfort, and healing to the hurting, aching, grieving Gentile and Jew. It is how He brought peace, comfort and healing to His disciples.
If you are in need of peace today, may you find it in the compassion of a listening ear.
If you are in need of peace today, may you find it in the chair next to you at fellowship lunch.
If you are in need of peace today, may you find it in the reassurance of the resurrection story of Jesus.
Family Devotional
Tuesday, April 15
Encourage to the Left
Author: Pastor Mollie Dupper
I remember the first time I had made the goal to run a half marathon. I signed up for a half Marathon in Orlando, FL. It was race day and it was sunny with a side of sun. In other words, it was hot! As I was running, I got to mile 12 and truly wanted to give up. It’s kind of ridiculous because I only had one mile left, but the finish line felt so far away. However, right as I lost endurance and energy, I looked up and saw encouragement. My husband, Carl, was cheering me on from the sidelines! He had placed himself in a spot in the race where he knew I would need the most encouragement to make it through.
Maybe peace somehow feels far away today. Maybe you feel like giving up on something today. But before you decide to give up, I encourage you to look up. Look up and see your eternal encourager. Look up and see your Prince of Peace.
Family Worship Activity:
How can you encourage each other? Take this time to practice. Sit in a circle. Then go around the circle and take turns giving a compliment or word of encouragement to the person to your left. Try this even if there are just two of you in the family — I guarantee the words of encouragement will give life, love and peace.
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Set Right and Kept Right |
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Text: Romans 5:1-2 – “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”
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Paul would be confused.
In the hereafter, if you were to approach Paul and ask him to explain his use of the word justification, he would be baffled. The word appears in the King James Version only three times, each time in the book of Romans. Paul most likely never heard the word. Paul wrote in Greek. Justification is a Latin word.
It’s a word we don’t use much outside of the religious arena. I remember the word justify, one of its relatives, being used in my typing class in high school, but even that term is rarely used. In typing and typesetting it means to adjust the text so that it fills a space evenly, or so that the margins form a straight edge in a document. It means things have been set right or put right.
Ellen White writes that “the whole purpose of (Christ’s) own mission to earth” was to “set men right through the revelation of God…. When the object of his mission was attained, - the revelation of God to the world, - the Son of God announced that his work was accomplished.” 1
Justification has often been equated with being forgiven, but Jesus promises much more – being put right with Him means being “born again.” It means a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone. It means a new creation in his image.
Our key text magnifies this. In Today’s English Version, it reads, “Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has brought us by faith into this experience of God’s grace, in which we now live. And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God’s glory.” 2
Being set right with God, through the grace filled revelation of the character of God in Christ, takes away all fear. It brings everlasting peace.
1 White, Ellen G. God Made Manifest in Christ, Signs of the Times, Jan. 20, 1890.
2 Romans 5:1-2. The Good News Bible, Today’s English Version.
Family Devotional
Wednesday, April 16
We Got the Win
Author: Pastor Mollie Dupper
I didn’t grow up with sports,
didn’t watch sports,
didn’t play sports…I was born and raised in the woods of Minnesota.
But wow…it’s amazing what 8 years of marriage will do to you.
There are some noticeable changes in me…
Like now I find myself listening to sports radio…on my free time!
But the biggest change I noticed was last summer when the Denver Nuggets were in the NBA Championship Finals. It was game 5 of the finals and I found myself pacing back and forth in the kitchen. It was such a close game between Denver and Miami, I couldn’t handle it. With three minutes left I had to turn off the tv. Then I proceeded to ask Alexa what the score was. Miami was up, then Nuggets were up, then Miami…at 14 seconds left, the Nuggets were up, so I turned the tv back on… to see the Denver Nuggets become NBA Champions for the first time in history!
The next day it was like all of Colorado, or especially all of Denver, was celebrating!
On sports radio, grown men were crying.
I remember the radio guys said, “Whether you have been a fan for a lifetime or you just got on the bandwagon today, ALL are welcome to the winning team.”
Trader Joe’s cashier - We looked at each other and we were like, “I can’t believe it - We are the Champions!!”
As I was driving away, I thought, “Why are we all saying ‘WE are the champions. WE are the winners…’?”
I didn’t play any basketball.
Trader Joe’s guy didn’t shoot any hoops.
Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic…MPJ…THOSE were the guys who did all the work.
I thought, ”Isn’t it wild that somehow - THEY did the work, but WE got the win?”
Jesus dying on the cross and raising from the grave is a reminder to me that I’m on the winning team!
WE are on the winning team!
JESUS did the work, but WE got the win!!!
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Peace of the Resurrection |
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Text: John 20:19 – “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’”
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Jesus often uses the metaphor of a door. In the Sermon on the Mount, He says, “knock and the door will be opened to you.” In the letter to the church in Laodicea, He reverses the metaphor, saying “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with Me.” He does not say that he will break down the door, but simply that He stands knocking, waiting to be admitted and welcomed.
In today's story, Jesus took a different approach. Imagine the disciples—they had gathered together and locked the doors in fear. Only a week ago they had thought that Jesus was about to begin His reign as Messiah. Then on Friday, two days earlier, Jesus had been executed by Roman soldiers at the behest of the chief priests and the Pharisees. Confusingly, Simon Peter, John, and Mary had all reported that the tomb was empty that morning—Mary even claimed to have seen and talked with Jesus! But those were merely words—they had seen His death with their own eyes, and feared that those who had condemned Jesus to death might seek to harm them as well. Then, into this locked room of fear, Jesus came. He didn't knock; He simply stood among them, bypassing barriers physical and spiritual. Had he knocked, they might not have opened. But Jesus took the initiative, meeting the disciples in their fear, not waiting for them to overcome it.
Consider any locked rooms in your heart—places you've hidden away due to fear, anxiety, doubt, or past wounds. As Jesus came to stand among the disciples, so He stands with you today. What fears or doubts do you need to surrender to Him? Jesus is already present, so what does it take to surrender? Believe His word to you: "Peace," and receive it as His gift to you.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank You for entering my locked rooms. Thank You that Your presence is my access to grace. I acknowledge my fear of [mention specific fear/doubt]. I turn to You and receive the resurrection peace You offer. Let Your "Peace" fill this space. Amen.
Family Devotional
Thursday, April 17
Because He Lives
Author: Pastor Mollie Dupper
Every Easter I like to make a “Because He Lives… list.” It’s okay if you don’t know what it is, because I made it up. It’s a little tradition that every year at Easter, I take time to reflect on the resurrection of Jesus and write out a list of how life, the world, and everything for that matter is changed because Jesus lives.
I’ll give you an example of my list:
The empty tomb literally changes everything…
Because He Lives… It means He’s not just the powerful, present God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…It means He’s the God of Mollie. He’s the God of Pastor Geoff… of Caspian... and …Abigail and each one of you.
Because He Lives… Death is not the end of our story…The grave has no claim on you or your loved ones. Death does not have the final say for us.
Because He Lives… We don’t have to live in shame, guilt and fear. We can walk in love, hope, freedom and peace.
Because He Lives…
He’s restored our past,
He given us everything we need for the present,
And He holds our future in His hands.
Because He Lives…it means whatever situation, circumstance, or season you and I go through in this world, we can have God Given Peace - because we know that JESUS has overcome the World.
If that doesn’t make you want to worship… I don’t know what does!
Family Worship Activity:
As a family, make your own “Because He Lives” list.
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His Promises Offer Peace |
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We know all the adages for being a trustworthy person. “Say what you’ll do and do what you say.” Or, “underpromise and overdeliver.” In Jesus’ short life on earth He did this better than anyone ever has before or after. He built trust with His followers and those who didn’t yet believe by giving them more than they ever dared to expect. He told the man who was lame from birth, “Rise up and walk,” and he walked. He said to Lazurus’ sisters, “You will see your brother again,” and they did. We have access to multiple eyewitness accounts from people who heard Jesus make good on His promises.
Jesus is speaking to His disciples in the upper room during the last supper when He makes a new promise to them. He says, “I am going to prepare a place for you so that where I am, you may be also.”
These words, though so beautiful and hopeful, are often reserved for funerals. We hear Jesus’ words to soothe the crushed spirits of those experiencing loss. But His promise that we will be with Him someday is so much more than that.
This promise that He shared with the disciples before His crucifixion offers us assurance in our everyday lives as well. When it is so easy to get bogged down by the stressful and mundane, we can remember that there is more to this life. When we are struggling to find answers and long to ask our questions, not just in prayer, but face to face, we can have joy knowing that one day that will be a reality. Most importantly, when we fully grasp the extent of Jesus’ promise to provide for us not just in this life but the one to come, we will experience peace.
One day the aching of our hearts will be soothed when we are finally with Him, and that’s a promise.
Family Devotional
Friday, April 18
Praise About Peace
Author: Pastor Mollie Dupper
Easter has hands down become my favorite holiday. However, instead of celebrating it one week out of the year, let’s live it out all year long. Jesus gave us more than a holiday and heaven, He gave us a resurrected life in Him today. I am going to invite your family to read and reflect on the Word below and then worship.
Read & Reflect:
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
--John 16:33
Family Worship Activity:
As a family, choose a praise song - and play it on your Spotify or ask Alexa to play it (however you listen to music) and wherever you’re all at - in the car, in the kitchen, in the loft… turn it up and PRAISE