The first week of Advent leads us straight into the tension we all feel: we’re people living between promise and fulfillment. Scripture shows generation after generation waiting in the dark for God to move and when the Light finally breaks in through Jesus, we see the shaping power of hope.

In this message we explore:

• Why Advent begins with waiting
• How the 400 “silent years” form the backdrop of Jesus’ arrival
• The messy human experience of hoping for what hasn’t yet come
• The stories of Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, and Anna
• How hope shapes us, not after the waiting, but in it
• Why Jesus’ coming reframes our deepest questions and disappointments
• How we open our tables, time, and generosity to embody Hope this season

If your story right now carries longing, silence, unmet hopes, or deep questions, we invite you to watch this teaching. Advent gives language to the in-between places we often don’t know how to name.

“We live in unshakable hope of the coming dawn.”

This week at Living Waters, we closed our Foundations series by exploring a Kingdom perspective on the end times — one rooted in Jesus’ words, historical context, and the unstoppable hope of His Kingdom.

So many of us grew up with fear-based teaching about the end: tribulation, escape plans, rapture anxiety, the Antichrist, and a world destined to fall apart. But what if Jesus meant exactly what He said in Matthew 24? What if the “great tribulation” He described was fulfilled in A.D. 70, just as He promised it would happen within that generation? And what if that changes everything about how we see our future?

In this message, Ryan walks through:

🌿 A fresh look at Matthew 24 through the eyes of the disciples

🌿 Historical events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem

🌿 Why Jesus’ warnings mattered for the first century—and what they mean for us today

🌿 How fear-based futurism has shaped modern Christianity

🌿 Why a Kingdom worldview leads to hope, mission, and courage

🌿 How the Gospel frees us to believe that things can get better, not worse

If the Kingdom really is increasing…

If Jesus really is reigning…

If His government has no end…

Then our future is filled with purpose.

This week in our Foundations series, we explored what it means to be Kingdom People—a Spirit-filled community called and empowered to represent God to the world.

From Babel to Pentecost, Scripture tells the story of a God who restores what was divided. At Pentecost, His Spirit was poured out on all people—sons and daughters, men and women—empowering each one to carry His presence and proclaim His Kingdom.

At Living Waters, we believe that men and women are equally created in God’s image, equally redeemed by Jesus, and equally empowered by the Spirit. Together, we reflect the fullness of His heart and mission.

This week, we explored what it means to live as people filled with God’s Spirit — a people of Kingdom authority, power, and presence.

The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now lives in us, empowering us to know Him deeply, to make Him known boldly, and to walk in victory over anything that stands against His Kingdom.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not a one-time experience but an ongoing reality. He is with us to guide and comfort, within us to transform and bear fruit, and upon us to empower us to bring the Kingdom near.

Let this message stir a deeper hunger for His presence — that we would not live by our own strength, but by the Spirit who fills us without limit.

In this week’s message from our Foundations series, we explored the unseen battle between truth and lies, a spiritual reality that shapes how we see God, ourselves, and the world.

Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) The enemy’s strategy is deception. Subtle lies that distort reality and keep us bound by fear, shame, or confusion. But through the cross, Jesus disarmed the powers of darkness and gave us authority to stand firm in His victory.

When we bring every thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), we break agreement with lies and align our minds with truth. Freedom begins when we stop believing what the enemy says about us and start standing on what God says is true.

You don’t fight for victory, you fight from it.
The battle belongs to Jesus, and He’s already won.

In this week’s message from our Foundations series, we explored what it means to love God with our whole being — heart, soul, mind, and strength — and how spiritual maturity cannot happen apart from emotional health.

When we’re born again, our spirit is made new, but our history, habits, and emotional patterns often remain unhealed. Many of us live with spiritual dissonance, believing God is good but still feeling anxious, numb, or disconnected. Jesus doesn’t shame those places; He meets us in them.

This teaching invites us to stop living divided lives and allow God’s love to bring healing and alignment to every part of who we are. As we face our pain and patterns with honesty, we’re being loved into wholeness.

This is the whole gospel for the whole self for the whole world where transformed hearts become instruments of transformation in homes, communities, and beyond.

As we closed our gathering, we listened to “Come Out of Hiding” by Steffany Gretzinger. Take a few quiet moments to do the same. Let the words wash over you, inviting you to step out from hiding and rest in the love that makes you whole.

This week in our Foundations series, we explore what it means to love God with our whole being — heart, soul, mind, and strength.

We aren’t meant to live divided lives. Spiritual in one part and disconnected in another. God’s love is meant to fill every room of the house, bringing healing and wholeness to our entire being.

Discover how loving God with all that we are shapes how we love others and live in the world. When His love fills us, it changes everything.

🎧 Listen as we unpack what it means to live whole, not compartmentalized, but fully alive in Jesus.

In this teaching, we explore how the entire story of Scripture is a covenant journey between God and humanity, culminating in the new and better covenant Jesus established through His death, resurrection, and ascension.From Noah to Abraham, Moses to David, each covenant revealed more of God’s heart, but it’s in Jesus that we see the full picture. He didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, transforming our relationship with God from law-based religion to love-based communion.Discover how this better covenant frees us from the weight of performance and invites us into partnership with God where we get to live as His sons and daughters, filled with His Spirit, and shaped by His love.

In this message, we begin the next movement of our Foundations series—shifting from spiritual practices to the core beliefs that shape how we live.

Jesus announced a Kingdom unlike any other. In His Kingdom, the sick are healed, the forgotten are seen, the oppressed are valued, and the table is open to all.

This Kingdom is not built by power or politics but by love flowing from hearts that have been made new by His Spirit.We are invited to kneel before the King, to let His rule begin within us so that His Kingdom can flow through us.

In this conclusion to our Foundations practices, we explore how prayer slows us down, places us before the Father, and shapes us into people of love in a culture of distraction and division. Romans 12 calls us not to conform to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds—and prayer is where that transformation happens.

From Acts 12, when the church prayed earnestly and chains literally fell off Peter, we’re reminded that prayer is not empty ritual. It is communion with God that changes us and the world around us.