For the first time in nearly a year, we have stepped out of The First Gospel series and into Advent—not so much a season as an invitation. Advent comes to us as both a memory and a promise, a time to prepare our hearts for the arrival of Jesus—past, future, and daily.

In this sermon, we explored the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Remarkably, Jesus invites us to hold together the awe of God’s holiness and the intimacy of calling Him “Dad.”

What if, this season, our preparation begins and ends in prayerful relationship?

It’s been forty weeks since we launched our journey through the First Gospel series, tracking the thread of God’s goodness woven through every page of the Old Testament. Today, we reach the finale, as exile gives way to return—a story marked not simply by restored walls and temple, but by the rhythms, community, and expectation that define the people of God. The builders in the ruins remind us: true community is essential, worship is central, and our story is still unfinished. We wait, expectant, on the eve of Advent—for the King to make all things new. Let’s build, worship, and watch together.

It's been a little over two and a half millennia since Ezekiel found himself staring into a valley littered with dry bones—a vision both haunting and instructive. Why start here, in utter desolation? Because, as Josh Harrison reminded us, to truly grasp hope, we must first acknowledge the depth of our need. Israel’s story, our story, begins at the end of our own resources, when all attempts to save ourselves have failed. Into this lifeless valley God sends a person—Ezekiel—to speak life, to partner in resurrection. The Gospel always starts in the dark, but in the presence of the Resurrector, there is no such thing as hopeless.

"Exile" is not always a distant historical memory but, in many ways, the present condition of God’s people. Just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego found themselves relocated, renamed, and tempted to bow to powers not their own, so too are we daily nudged toward forgetting who we are. Yet, the story reminds us: our call is not merely to survive Babylon, but to embody a distinct faithfulness within it. And what’s most stunning—God does not stand far off, but walks beside us in every fire, shaping even the flames into freedom.

We are nearing the end of our First Gospel series, having traced Israel’s journey through upheaval, conquest, and exile under empires like Assyria and Babylon. This week’s meditation on Jeremiah 29 casts exile not as abandonment, but as God’s severe mercy—a refining season, not a defeat. In Babylon, God instructs his people neither to assimilate nor isolate, but to become ambassadors: deeply present, building relationships, seeking the city’s shalom, yet never forgetting their true home. We too, as followers of Jesus, are exiles. Our mission is to love and bless wherever God sends us, citizens of heaven living for the good of the world.

Nearly everyone knows Jonah as “the guy swallowed by a fish,” but the real message of this ancient story is far deeper—and, perhaps, more unsettling. What happens when grace is given to people we can’t seem to love? What if God’s compassion extends to our enemies, and our call is not to curse but to bless, even those we’d rather condemn? This sermon invites us to reexamine our assumptions about who deserves forgiveness, about our posture toward those outside our circle, and, above all, about the radical mercy of God.

We find ourselves, once again, tracing old patterns—cycles of faithfulness and failure woven through the story of God’s people. This week, as we listen to Micah, we’re reminded that God’s call remains remarkably unchanged: act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Yet, as Josh observed, our challenge is never the knowing, but the doing. What we need is not a new law or strategy but a new heart. 

Over the past several months, we’ve walked through the Old Testament—not as a collection of moral tales or distant history, but as a living, unified story pointing toward a singular hope. In our new “First Gospel” series, we considered how, woven through the warnings of prophets and the failures of kings, God was preparing a different kind of answer: not simply a fresh set of rules, but a person. Isaiah’s vision isn’t just about a future king or an ethical teacher, but about the astonishing promise of a suffering servant—one who would not shout or crush, but who would bear our brokenness and, through compassion, change everything. This is the gospel according to Isaiah: cycles of striving give way to grace, and the world begins anew with a quiet, gentle hope.

This week, as we near the end of our Old Testament journey, we find ourselves in Isaiah 6, the year when King Uzziah died—a moment marked by grief, instability, and fear. It’s here, in the shadow of loss, that Isaiah encounters the living God. His vision in the temple is not merely a scene of awe and trembling, but a profound lesson in transformation: when the ground shifts beneath us, our illusions of control are shattered, and the horizons of our souls expand. “Holy, holy, holy,” the angels cry—and Isaiah is undone, only to be remade by grace. This is how God shows up.

It’s a story that feels both ancient and strikingly current: a nation in crisis, its people divided by idolatry, distraction, and the slow drift from what once made them whole. In this week’s sermon, we journeyed through the reign of Josiah—an unlikely, young reformer who, at sixteen, resolved to seek God with his whole heart. In a world that prizes busyness and noise, Josiah’s determination to clear away the idols and restore worship offers both challenge and hope. His efforts were monumental, heroic even, but ultimately not enough. The story points us, inexorably, toward the One who can transform hearts.

It’s been nearly seven months since we began our journey through the “First Gospel,” our name for the Old Testament—a title meant to remind us that God’s goodness did not begin with the arrival of Jesus, but has always been since before the dawn of creation. Along the way, we’ve traded isolated stories for a richer tapestry: a single narrative of faithfulness, frailty, and relentless grace. This week, we reached Mount Carmel, where Elijah challenged the idols competing for Israel’s affection. The question hangs in the air still: will we keep limping back and forth, or let our hearts be fully captivated by the grace of God?

In this week’s sermon, we took a step away from the noise and crowds of the “city gates” to sit with the voice of Wisdom in Proverbs 8. We found Wisdom—not as misty abstraction, but a living invitation—calling out above the everyday scramble, promising more than just good advice: a life ordered by knowledge, prudence, justice, and discretion, and shaped by the creative rhythms God wove into the world from the beginning.

To seek wisdom, we must turn aside, listen daily, and receive what God freely offers—ultimately, meeting Wisdom face-to-face in Jesus himself. There is no treasure greater.

It’s been several months since we began tracing the story of God’s goodness from creation through Israel’s history, so perhaps a brief pause for perspective is due. Having explored the rise and fall of kings and the pursuit of wisdom, we now find ourselves at the doorstep of the book of Job—the Bible’s most honest wrestling with the problem of suffering. Here, easy answers crumble. Job’s endurance exposes our tendency to seek formulas for comfort, yet God responds not with solutions but with His presence. The question remains: can God Himself be enough for us, even in pain? We’ll unpack this together.

Psalm 139 stands among the most intimate, vulnerable prayers in all of scripture—an invitation to dwell in the breathtaking reality that we are fully known, fully seen, and fully loved by God. In a world of ceaseless stimulation and performance, this psalm calls us back to a deeper ground: our identity rooted in sacred origin, not public image. Before achievement or failure, before striving or proving, you are—fearfully and wonderfully made, held, and led home.

For the past several weeks, we’ve been discovering the goodness of God on every page of the Old Testament, but this week, we paused with David in Psalm 19 to consider something both breathtaking and intimate. The psalmist is struck by the enormity of creation—“the heavens declare the glory of God”—but even more so by the God who draws near, speaking not only through stars but in whispers and words, reaching directly into our lives. Here, awe is not just a feeling; it’s an invitation. What does it mean for such a God to long for relationship with us? Let’s explore together.

Feeling confident in God on Sunday but struggling by Monday morning? In this week’s message on Psalm 27, Pastor Josh Harrison reminds us that true fearlessness comes from making God our “one thing” above all else. Whether we’re on the mountaintop or deep in the valley, authentic worship is both awe and action—gazing on His beauty and seeking His face. Even when life gets hard, God’s presence is our anchor. Wait for the Lord. Be strong, take heart, and know you will see His goodness in the land of the living!