Matthew 21:1-11

John 12:18-19

How to not get lost in the sauce of whatever you want God to be that he's not being.

1 - What do you need saved from today? In this story they thought it was Rome, until Jesus made it about greed in the temple. They thought it was an oppressive government until Jesus made it about sacrilegious conduct. They thought he was the second coming of a king on a warhorse with a hammer and an army, until he showed up on a donkey with a bunch of teenage boys.. Your expectations will oftentimes be very different from God’s reality, and it is done to expose the depths of lordship and faith in areas God wants us to go past the surface in.

2 - If you want to celebrate him in the streets but not let him cleanse your spirit you will be in for a rude awakening. Jesus allowed the palm branches to be waved and then walked directly into the temple and cleansed it of anything but the worship it was intended for. External behaviours and performance will never exempt you from internal development of the surrendered and sanctified soul. Celebration is not the same as surrender, and waving a palm branch is not the same as carrying a cross. You can celebrate him publicly while still resisting him privately.

3 - The tipping point of it all… the secret of Palm Sunday that turns from celebration to the slaying of our Savior. A God who has no favorites anymore. Jesus finishes off his final week before crucifixion making space and a place for those who historically had no space, or place in the kingdom of God. We love a Savior who includes us—we struggle with a Savior who includes ‘them’. Jesus will offend your expectations, by including people you wouldn’t… because Jesus will cross lines that religion tries to draw.

Luke 7:18-28

Isaiah 35:3-6.

Revelation 6;7-8

Three Tips from a “Recovering” Cynic

1- Don’t Let What You See Define What You Believe.. If we allow the lens of how we see the world to become unhealthy, we start to point out the unhealthyness of everyone and everything. We often say “seeing is believing,” but the bible says we walk by faith, not by sight. Cynicism creeps in when what I see doesn’t match what I believe, or what I don’t see becomes me walking in unbelief. John saw heaven open, but prison closed his perspective. The question of it all… “will I let my circumstances rewrite my convictions?”

2- You Better Have Jesus’ Perspective Before You Build Yours.. John questions Jesus, but Jesus responds by affirming John—He speaks identity, not insecurity. Cynicism grows when God moves for others but not for me, and I’m left sitting in the tension of unmet expectations. At that moment, I have a choice: harden my heart or keep it tender. Cynicism isn’t just wrong thinking… it's a wounded perspective. If I let my flesh become my lens, don’t be surprised when my spirit starts dying.

3- Where Cynicism Lives, Resurrection Dies.. Cynicism doesn’t just make you negative—it makes you numb, draining the life out of everything. Promise turns into prison, hope into hopelessness, joy into heaviness. That’s why Revelation calls it ashen—grey, pale, stripped of color. Cynicism says nothing changes, no one’s real, and nothing new is coming. But the Gospel says dead things don’t stay dead, so I refuse to let my pain become my lens…I will not let a ‘prison’ season shape my sight.

John 14:6

Luke 24:13–35

1. ROAD – Even when we don’t recognize Him, Jesus is walking with us.
2. WORD – Before Jesus opens our eyes, He ignites our hearts.
3. TABLE – At the table the crucified Christ is revealed.
4. REVELATION – One moment with Jesus changes how we see everything.
5. MISSION – When Jesus becomes real our direction changes

Revelation 6:1-6

Matthew 18:21-35

How to Let Go of the Memories of What's Been Done to You

1- Forgiveness is not a feeling, it's a choice… Your life must be lived in a way in which you never forget what Jesus did for you, so that you make the choice to give out freely what you feel like you don't even possess. If you wait for the feeling, your faith will slowly wither, as forgiveness is foundational to what it means to be a child of God.

2- The speed of your forgiveness reveals the depth of your understanding of grace; the quicker you forgive the more it reveals how deep the cross has touched your life... “He who has been forgiven much, forgives much..”.. Some of the reason we struggle to forgive others is because we struggle to receive forgiveness for ourself. We lock people in the prison of shame, guilt and self hatred that we struggle to believe that God has freed us from. If your not free, you cannot give freely.

3- If you do not choose to forgive from the heart, your heart will always go through the torture of unforgiveness…. Waiting for people to pay for something that they could never repay, choking people for what they have done to us… Even when the test isn’t reconciliation, its can we move forward. We must choose to have patience with those who we want to have no part of patience with, and trust that as our sins have been washed, so too God can wash there sin away from our subconscious as well.

Revelation 6:1–4

Mark 11:15–18

John 2:13–14

Knowing the Difference Between Toxic and Righteous Anger

1- The anger of man cannot produce righteousness of God (James 1:20).. but the zeal of sons and daughters for the Father’s will, Word, and His house is the exception to the rule.. Jesus made a whip. You don’t get to. You get a towel and a basin. We do not destroy people in anger, we channel any selfless and righteous anger we have to orient people back to the ways of God, to the justice of God, to the importance of the Word of God.. in order that they may find life in God… and if your anger is not that type of anger.. it's sin.

2- Unsubmitted anger can become an apocalypse of your faith quickly– eroding trust, killing your prayer life, poisoning community, and slowly evacuating the presence and proximity of the Spirit of God from the soul. If your anger shows no tears, no love, or no compassion it is not the righteous anger, it is destructive anger. I burn in anger against darkness… I do not burn in anger losing my light. That anger better be felt and not just heard, acted on, and not just talked about, calling people higher not kicking them down.. or you're in trouble.

3- In an age of agitation, and condescending rage we must become zealous for the righteousness of God to be made visible in the world we live. Greed, business, and power in the place of prayer and sanctuary is what the whip was made for. We must take personally the call to drive darkness from the sanctuary of our hearts and become angry within our own souls at what we have permitted as godliness that is anything but. You either fixate now or fix later.

Revelation 6:1–2

Jonah 3 & 4

How to Make Sure You Have the Right Shoes On

1- Check the Heart. The white horse and crowned rider looks righteous—but anything that hardens your heart to your neighbor, and doesn’t open your heart to your neighbor, is riding against the Kingdom of God. The reason we like bitterness is it makes us feel like we’re right, even when we're wrong… because bitterness is fake purity and false righteousness.

2- Check Your Posture. It’s hard to walk in grace while dragging resentment, and no matter how much you try to dress up unresolved pain as discernment, to a mature person they see a heart of stone. You might think holding on protects you, but it actually gets you numb to what bitterness is doing… slowly unmasking the reason it's so powerful: getting you bitter at God. Jonah's story ends not with just him bitter at Nineveh, but actually the root of the bitterness is toward a God who doesn't do things how he wanted them done.

3- Check It in the Light. If bitterness is keeping you in the dark… alone and in isolation with your thoughts… it's slowly draining you of the healing power of letting things go and allowing God to redeem and restore. I am not worried about the outside; I’m worried about my inside… and no one has power over that space that I first did not hand that power to. I am not God, and I am not the healer… and in that place of humility, I release people to God and hope one day they find the healing they need as I pursue my own.

Matt 26:51-54

Mark 14:45-50

Luke 22:49-51

John 18:3-11

How to Pass the Test of True Boldness for God

1- Respect Over Retaliation. ‘You may be against me, I'm not against you’. This story is about 3 people Jesus has every right to disrespect and doesn’t. Judas the betrayer, Peter the denier, and Malachus the accuser (high priest servant). In all of these we never see disrespect.. Rather a God who exemplifies humility and holiness no matter where the story arc goes. You can swing a sword for Jesus and still miss the heart of Jesus

2- Engagement Over An Escape Route. Jesus engaged in 4 different ways in each of the stories; one story he engaged his disciples, another he engaged the religious leaders, the other the man whose ear was cut off, even allowing affection (a kiss) from his betrayer… in all of them he didn't even need to engage but he did. Your boldness should lead to a life of engagement of all people, inviting them into the relationship that you share, and that they can have, with Jesus.

3- We Must Practice the Sensitivity Necessary to Be Healing Not Harming. In what ways are we engaging the broken and hurting of society and showing them the healer? When the spirit of God meets someone and heals… we then are given an opportunity to disciple into a relationship. If our boldness is cutting off ears and not healing them, we have missed the example of Jesus. Our theology and relationship needs to be strong enough that when we encounter pain we engage that pain with the power and presence of God.

Acts 19:21

Acts 23:11

Acts 28:30–31 2

Timothy 4:6–8

How to Live a Faith That Engages the Far and Dark Margins

1. Self-preservation hollows out your witness. You cannot save yourself through money, success, influence, or power. Cost-analysis kingdom work will leave you spiritually bankrupt. I bet Paul did not know his journey to Rome would lead not to more churches planted, but to more books written. Rome defined his legacy—but it cost him his life. In all of us, we have to ask the question: What do I want my legacy to be remembered as, even if it costs part of the life I envision?
2. Self-idolization steals potential and robs people of the Spirit flowing in you. How good you are at something doesn’t mean God is in that something. When you measure everything through the idol of self, you miss the sweetness and fullness of the surrendered life. In what ways do we push against a culture that worships self over the Savior? Our Savior was found among those who needed one—are we?
3. Self-reliance won’t get you far in chasing Jesus. If His power is made perfect in weakness, we must embrace weakness in order to understand power. So often we are trapped in training: “I don’t know enough, I wasn’t raised in it, it’s not natural to me…” and we forget that what fueled the move of God in the early church was uncommon, uneducated men who had been with Jesus. If you have truly been with Jesus, you become passionate about Him meeting those around you.

Matthew 9:9–13

Matthew 14:14

Luke 10:35–37

Luke 18:38–42

Luke 17:11–14

Mark 9:20–23

Matthew 5:7

Luke 7:12–15

John 11:35

Three Thoughts on the Mission of Compassion and Mercy

1. Your heart must be moved before your mouth is used. Our hearts must break before our words are used to heal. It all starts with feeling as Jesus did in order to live as Jesus did. The quickest way to spiritual amnesia is to stop feeling how Jesus felt toward the broken world around us. We must fight to feel.
2. We step into the breach by becoming the net our neighbors fall into. Before they can be caught by Jesus, they must be caught by you. We cross the street, we touch the wound, we sit in the pain, we point the way.
3. We have to build a life that knows how to catch. Our lives cannot be too busy for the pain of our neighbors. Jesus did not have moments of compassion; he had a life that was willing to be interrupted, and eyes that saw those who needed someone—anyone—to hold onto.

John 11:14–16 John 14:5–6 John 20:19–29

How to stand back up if your evangelism has been sitting down

1. Longevity is not an excuse for passivity. Proximity isn’t true proximity unless it’s getting others proximate.
2. You cannot be inwardly formed and not outwardly facing. You cannot be inwardly formed and outwardly silent. Holy moments birth holy sacrifice, holy sacrifice brings holy life, and holy life brings a holy voice—a voice that brings others to the Holy One.
3. Loving God and not loving neighbors is apostasy.
4. Most of Jesus’ ministry was seeing the needs of others, meeting the needs of others, and reframing what they think they need (food/water, relationships, health, wealth) into what they actually need (him). We meet the needs of the world while also acknowledging the greatest need is wholeness, contentment, and peace that Jesus brings through his Holy Spirit.