Easter message includes faith, forgiveness
The sun was out and with mid-morning temperatures in the 50s, Sunday turned to to be a perfect morning for Easter services.
People did just that at Harvest Baptist, as the 8:30 a.m. service was full Sunday morning, a far cry from last year when virtually everything was going into lockdown.
Once the service started, the praise band - led by Joel Harrell opened up worship with a number of contemporary songs.
And after roughly 15 minutes of singing, Gary Bragg, senior pastor at Harvest, started his sermon by addressing Mark 28:1-8, the traditional retelling of Mary Magdalene discovering the rolled away stone to Jesus' tomb.
Then Bragg addressed the fates of the other two men who were hung at the same time as Jesus, men he addressed as Rebel One and Rebel Two.
As they too hung on their crosses, Rebel One - otherwise known as Gestas - couldn't accept Jesus' teachings and cursed him. This then meant he remained lost and descended to Hell.
Rebel Two, Dismas, asked Jesus to remember him and became humbled. After Jesus asked God to forgive him, he was sent to Heaven.
Bragg likened the situation to the real world. He said the world tends to direct people on what to do and who to believe.
But then he got to the heart of his message, explaining to the congregation it was followers with pure hearts and who didn't worship idols who would be saved.
Rather, Bragg said it was faith, a gift of God's grace. He quoted Mark 8:34-38 to make the point that anyone who wanted to save their life - instead of being ashamed - would lose it. And the way to receive salvation is by being a servant, humble and obedient.
Bragg ended the sermon explaining forgiveness is the way to Heaven, quoting scripture from Matthew 28 with scripture where faith healed a woman touched Jesus in order to stop 12 years of pain, restored sight to a blind man and removed a demon from a man who couldn't speak.