Pastor Symps starts us out into our summer series on "One Another", guiding us through I Corinthians, chapter 12. Here we learn of the wonderful plan of the Holy Spirit's distribution of unique gifts for all believers, with the commanded reality that the gifts are to serve the One Body, keeping our eyes on the Body's head, the Lord Jesus Himself.

Pastor Bruce Cochran (Pastor Ryan's father) shares with us his passion for corporate prayer and for incporparating prayer as an indelible "DNA" in the believer's life, and in the body's life (i.e., "incorporated"). Using the familiar Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), Pastor Bruce expounds deeply on this rich exhortation for greater prayer in our lives.

Guest speaker Michel Hendricks, co-author of the book "The Other Half of Church" joins us today, delivering a fresh look (with fresh insight) on the personality dynamics that took place between Zaccheus, Jesus, and the surrounding throng (Luke 19:1-12). Rev. Hendricks shares about the personal interactions that took place between Jesus and Zaccheus, and what we could learn for us to become better disciples AND mentors for His Kingdom.

Pastor Ryan closes out our series on Matthew with a teaching on the deeper meaning of the Great commission, and how it can reveal what Jesus wants us to learn, to value and to grow in our faith NOW. what great blessing and calling of resurrection power can we have now? Pastor Ryan leads us through Matthew chapter 28 to discover this during our family Easter service. He is Risen Indeed!

"Jesus drank from the cup - if He didn't do it, we would have to!" Pastor Ryan focuses on the prayers of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46), where Christ confesses that His soul is "exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death". Why? Here the impact of experiencing all the wrath from the Father heaped upon all of our (our!) sins for all-time is coming upon Him, all of its righteous fury, all of its manifest separation from His Father, poured into the cup of wrath that Jesus knows He MUST drink. And He prays three times the very prayer that we always find so hard to pray: "not My will, but Your Will be done."

The youth ministry leads us in worship today, with messages aimed at exploring the relations of three characters to our Lord as He enters the week prior to the crucifixion. We invite you to view our entire service for today on the live streaming component in our "Messages" tag. Here are excerpts from the service - Pastor Symps is joined by two guest student speakers from our youth ministry, Kennedy Dumbacher (who speaks on Mary) and Parker Allen (speaking on Peter). Pastor Symps also joins in, providing an introspective on Judas and summation. All Scripture today is from Matthew Ch. 26.

We look deeply into the storyline of the Parable of Ten Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Pastor Ryan provides the unique perspective that the parable is not about the three servants, but instead is about the Master. Our Master, as defined by this parable, knows His servants, is full of joy, and desires a relationship of maturity, communing with His servants (us!) at a level deep and rich in the maturity of a committed life to Christ and His Kingdom. This kind of relationship is modeled AND rewarded by the first 2 servants, but the 3rd servant is rejected, not because he made no money, but because of his thorough disregard for a relationship with the Master. Again, we hear the overarching heralding cry: BE READY!

Chock full of "end-days" descriptions and descriptions, Matthew Chapters 24 and 25 repeats over and over a single, sober life-changing edict: be ready! Pastor Ryan drills down deeply on the famous parable of the 10 Virgins, and investigates its cultural and spiritual content, eliciting this one glaring and critical warning from our Lord: be ready for Jesus' return! Be ready in two ways: 1) be ready for His return at any moment; be ready TODAY! And 2) be ready for the "long obedience in the same direction." Be ready with a life-long obedient readiness for Jesus.

Matthew 25; 1-13 is our Scripture passage for today.

In Matthew Chapter 23, our Lord Jesus addresses the spiritual and religious conduct of the Pharisees, sharing with the crowd His assessment of their practice - hypocrisy! Jesus condemns the identity of these leaders, those who love the attention of the people rather than the directions of the Father, loving the practice of the Law (including their convenient inclusions!) for its optic rather than the heart of the Law for its mercy. How ready we are to agree with Jesus! So ready, explains Pastor Ryan, that if we are not careful, we unwittingly become the very Pharisee that we hate!

Matthew 23: 1-13 is our passage today.

In Matthew 22:15-45, Jesus is confronted by Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians with riddles. Three times they try to trip Him up-three times they fail - Jesus answers each time from "beyond the sun", beyond the mundane view of Ecclesiastes' perspective of life being "only-earthly". Jesus then riddles them - who is the Christ, the Messiah? Who is He to you? Son of David, or LORD of David (and us)? Pastor Ryan leads us through this intriguing narrative from Matthew Chapter 22.