Beltway Weekend Services (Audio)

"The way we see God determines the way we relate to God." Sometimes we believe God is disappointed in us, that we must earn His approval, or that our mistakes have pushed Him away. In Luke 15, Jesus tells a story about two sons who misunderstood their father's heart. One ran away while the other tried to earn his father's approval. Yet the father lovingly pursued both. God's love is not something we earn through good behavior or lose because of our failures. Through Jesus, we are invited to receive His love and live as His children.

We all face valleys: conflict, failure, grief, fear, and circumstances we never expected. When life feels uncertain, our natural response can be to grab for control. But underneath that desire is often a deeper lie: If I don’t stay in control, everything will fall apart. Psalm 23 gives us a different picture. We have a Good Shepherd who leads us, stays with us, restores us, and gives us what we need. As Jennie Allen reminds us (pg. 65), “You were never meant to be in control. But Jesus is, and He is good.” Sheep don’t control. Sheep follow.

We can become really good at hiding, managing what others see and even explaining things away to ourselves. But hiding rarely leads to healing. In John 4, Jesus meets a woman who had reasons to hide, yet He already knew her whole story and still moved toward her. Jesus offers both grace and truth. He loves us enough to expose what is keeping us stuck and gives us grace to bring it into the light. Freedom begins when we name the lie and bring it to Jesus.

We live in the middle of a spiritual battle between two kingdoms: the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of God. As Jennie Allen reminds us, these kingdoms are opposed, but they are not equal. Jesus has already won the decisive victory over darkness! Through Him, we have been rescued and brought into His Kingdom. But we still face lies and deception that try to pull us away from God’s truth. We walk in authority over darkness as we daily surrender to the authority of God, choosing His truth over our own and His will over our own.

Lies rarely announce themselves as lies. They often sound reasonable, feel true, and may have been part of our thinking for so long that we no longer question them. But what we believe matters because the lies we believe shape the lives we live. Jesus invites us to look beneath the “cracks” we see in our lives and discover what we believe underneath them. As we remain in His Word, He reveals what is true and leads us into freedom. The battle for our lives begins with the battle for what we believe.

Following Jesus is a lifelong journey of growth. None of us has arrived, and God does not expect us to have everything figured out. But He loves us too much to leave us where we are. Paul reminds us that spiritual maturity includes recognizing our need to grow, letting go of what is behind us, and continuing to press on toward becoming more like Jesus. We don’t grow to earn God’s love; we grow because we are already loved by Him. “It’s okay not to be okay, but it’s not okay to stay not okay.”

We often think of worship as the songs we sing at church, but worship is much bigger than music. Worship is about what has our attention, affection, trust, and obedience. Something will always sit on the “throne” of our lives. Romans 12 reminds us that because of God’s mercy and all He has done for us our response is to offer our whole lives back to Him. God gets the throne, and we place our lives on the altar. We were built to worship God with ALL of our lives.

God didn't just save us from something; He saved us for something. Scripture describes the church as a body with many different parts, and every part matters. God has given each believer gifts, abilities, and opportunities to serve others. Our role may not always be visible, but visibility does not determine value. When each person faithfully plays their part, the whole body becomes stronger. We don’t serve simply to fill a need; we serve because we follow Jesus, who came not to be served, but to serve. Every believer has a part to play in the body of Christ.

God never intended for us to follow Jesus alone. We were built to belong. In Acts 2, the early believers didn’t simply attend church together, they shared life together. They learned, prayed, ate, celebrated, gave, and cared for one another. This kind of community takes more than being in the same room; it requires us to be known and committed to one another. God uses community to help us grow, experience joy, and show others what Jesus is like. Following Jesus was never meant to be done alone. We were built to belong.

Do you feel like you’re constantly struggling to handle the weight of tomorrow? In this powerful message, David McQueen delivers a surprising truth: none of us actually have what we need to face the possibilities of the future on our own—and that is actually great news. Drawing from the biblical story of manna in the desert and the full armor of God in Ephesians 6, David explains that our modern epidemic of anxiety often stems from a "self-reliance" that was never part of our original design. We weren't created to be independent, but rather to live in a state of daily dependence on God’s provision. Join us as we discover how to stop being overwhelmed by the "what-ifs" of life and instead find strength for today and unshakeable confidence for tomorrow by learning to gather our "daily bread" and put on our spiritual armor every single morning.