I Am Well Pleased / Matthew 3:13-17 Artwork

The Painted Door Church - Chicago

The Painted Door Church is church family that gathers in Chicago, IL. We are a people who share the same story; we are sinner, saved by grace. We draw our name from the Exodus account in the Hebrew Scriptures, when God spared his people from judgement, passing over all homes that had the blood of a spotless lamb painted across their doorways. Jesus is the new spotless lamb, his death on a Roman cross sparing the people of God from judgment once for all. He reconnects us to our Maker and to each other and invites us to participate in his grand work of restoring all things.

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The Painted Door Church - Chicago

I Am Well Pleased / Matthew 3:13-17

January 12, 2020 • The Painted Door Church - Pastor Mark Bergin

We were made to be approved. When God first formed humanity from the dust, he pronounced us very good. And in that pronouncement, we have life. But our first parents, and all of us after them, have stepped away from God’s free approval to go in search of something we might earn, something that might differentiate us from the rest of our dust-born clan, something that would elevate us to the place of the approving one. We have tried to be God and approve ourselves. And from this vapid quest flows all that is dark in our world: malice, deceit, pride. We scratch and claw for the power we need to make something of ourselves, to prove that we are more worthy than our neighbor. But then a man from Galilee came to the Jordan River and was baptized there. And the Spirit of God descended and came to rest on Him like a dove. And a voice from heaven spoke again with the approval that is our life: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus came into the world to bring these words to our ears. Not to lord his divine approval over us, but to invite each of us to live in it with him.