Pastor Dana begins this Lenten sermon series in Hosea 4:1-3 and Hosea 11:1-4, 8-9. God calls Israel into account for their lack of acknowledgment and God laments about us, refusing to abandon us. The lament of Hosea finds fulfillment in the suffering of Christ: divine heartbreak becomes divine sacrifice so that sin does not get the final word.

The final spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is prayer. Jesus teaches us how to pray in Matthew 6:6-13, with privacy and sincerity to nurture your relationship with God. In Philippians 4:6-7, Paul assures us that we can take our concerns to God in prayer and receive His peace in return. The Lord is near! And when we cannot find the words to pray, Romans 8:26-27 comforts us. The Spirit intercedes for us when we call out.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is teachability. Moses addresses Israel in Deuteronomy 6:1-9 to teach them how to listen before entering the Promised Land, and Jesus explains to His disciples in Mark 4:22-24 that revelation is meant to be disclosed and made clear. Teachability is how God’s light is allowed to be revealed, received, and lived. We practice teachability by returning to scripture, being willing to receive correction, and recognize that it is a lifelong pursuit.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is hospitality. Paul writes in Romans 15:4-13 to welcome one another because hospitality is how people glorify God and dwell in hope with each other. Jesus also comforts His disciples in John 14:1-3 that God prepares space for them. Hospitality flows from God’s abundance. When God fills us, we are able to make room for others.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is compassion. Luke 10:25-37 shows the compassion of the Good Samaritan, who went out of his way to care for the robbed man. Then, Luke 16:19-31 tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, where the rich man showed no compassion to the poor Lazarus while alive. Compassion cannot be proved by our belief in it, but by proximity: who we are drawn to and how we disrupt our lives to tend to their needs.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is silence and solitude. Matthew 14:22-23 and Mark 1:35-37 show us that Jesus made time to pray in solitude, while James 3:6-10 and Psalm 46:10-11 continue to teach us that silence is valuable. We need silence to teach us to quiet the world around us, to listen, and rediscover the weight of words. To practice silence and solitude, we must confront our fear of silence, schedule it, find somewhere to be attentive to God, and be patient.

Pastor Dana’s first series of 2026 begins in Colossians 3:12-17, which contains Paul and Timothy’s call on God’s people to gratitude, and Luke 17:11-19, where the Samaritan leper returns to Jesus to give Him thanks. Gratitude as a discipline of worship focuses our attention on God’s beauty and is defined by a loving and thankful response to God for His presence within us and the world around us.

Steve Tramel brings us to Luke 2:21-35, in which a righteous man named Simeon meets the infant Jesus, who he recognizes as the Messiah that he was promised to see in his lifetime. We can learn the ways that those who do and don’t recognize the Messiah differ with three tests: detecting deeper meaning in the scriptures, responding appropriately to God’s other evidence, and earnestly seeking to know God.

The fourth Sunday of Advent represents love, so Pastor Dana takes to Matthew 1:18-25, which shows love through Joseph’s obedience, and John 1:1-18, which shows love through the divine initiate of the Word made flesh. When we follow the ways of Christ, the way we love others includes visibly showing how we care for one another. Darkness only flees if it is broken by the light. When we show our love, we stamp out little pieces of darkness over and over again.

The third Sunday of Advent represents joy, so Pastor Dana takes to Psalm 146:5-7 and Luke 1:46-55 (Mary’s song), which both sing praises of God’s goodness. The anticipation of Christ coming into the world is about joy, not fear. When we are downcast or weary or see grief in others, do we point them (and ourselves) back to our source of joy? God has chosen us to usher Christlikeness into the world and that is a joyful gift.