This lesson centers on a simple but challenging question: “What’s in it for me?” We live in a culture that constantly encourages us to think about what we can gain—more money, popularity, comfort, recognition, or success. While that mindset is common in our culture, it can be dangerous when we allow it to shape our walk with Christ. A self-centered mindset can keep us from growing spiritually because we become more focused on what we want than on what God wants.

We looked first at the rich young ruler in Matthew 19. He was already trying to live faithfully and obey God’s commands, but Jesus challenged him to go further: sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow Him. The young man couldn’t bring himself to give up the things he valued, and he walked away grieving. His possessions had become more important to him than completely following Jesus. The lesson is that we can appear faithful while still allowing our own comfort, possessions, desires, or priorities to take the place that belongs to God.

From there, we considered how easily this happens in our own lives. We may compromise at work because we want to keep our position, change the way we act around friends because we want popularity, or even become self-focused in worship when things aren’t happening the way we want. The problem is that the more we make ourselves the center, the smaller God becomes in our lives.

The positive example came from John the Baptist in John 3. John had developed a following, but when people began leaving him to follow Jesus, he didn’t become jealous or try to hold onto his popularity. Instead, he recognized that his entire purpose was to point people toward Christ. His response was, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John understood that his life wasn’t about his own popularity, status, or personal gain. His joy came from seeing people turn toward Jesus.

That leads to the mindset we are called to have: moving from self-centeredness to self-sacrifice and humility. Jesus said that anyone who wants to follow Him must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Him. Following Christ requires a daily decision to put God first rather than ourselves. Instead of constantly asking, “What can I gain?” we should begin asking, “What can I give?”

Ultimately, Jesus is our greatest example of self-sacrifice. Philippians 2 points us toward Christ’s humility. Jesus had every right to choose Himself, but He willingly humbled Himself, served others, and gave His life for us. His life demonstrates what it looks like to stop living for ourselves and instead live for the good of others and the glory of God.

The challenge is to examine our own lives and ask: Where am I making things about me? Is it at work, school, in relationships, in worship, or in the way I use my time and possessions? Wherever self has become too important, we need to make a change. The goal is the same one John the Baptist gave us: Jesus must increase, and I must decrease. When we make that shift, we become more humble, more sacrificial, and better able to point others toward Christ.

Stop asking, “What’s in it for me?” and start asking, “What can I give for Jesus?”

Our faith grows when we become less focused on ourselves and more focused on Christ.

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Jesus had just called his followers the salt of the earth and the light of the world. If we’re supposed to show the world a different way to live, one of the clearest places that difference should show up is in the way we handle anger and difficult relationships.

He begins with the commandment, “You shall not murder,” and takes us beneath the outward act to the condition of the heart. Most of us can say, “I’ve never murdered anyone,” and feel pretty safe. But Jesus won’t let us check that commandment off so quickly. He’s not saying that every angry feeling is identical to murder. Instead, he’s showing us that murder grows in the same soil as anger and contempt. The murder before the murder begins when we decide that another person is beneath us.

Some things should make us angry: abuse, cruelty, injustice, and exploitation, for example. But much of the anger that causes trouble in our lives is far more personal. Someone offended us, embarrassed us, overlooked us, or failed to give us what we thought we deserved. Our anger often has a lot of me in it.

So we need to ask what our anger is doing inside us. What story am I telling myself about the person who hurt me? What conversation do I keep replaying? Whose failure would secretly make me happy? Anger can turn us into screenwriters. We invent arguments we always win, assign motives we cannot possibly know, and cast ourselves as the only reasonable person in the story. When that happens, Jesus calls us to look beneath the behavior and examine the heart.

Jesus then addresses contempt. He mentions insulting words such as “Raca” and “You fool,” but the issue isn’t a list of forbidden vocabulary. The issue is what the words reveal. There’s a difference between saying that someone did something foolish and deciding that the person is worthless, ridiculous, or beneath consideration. Contempt doesn’t merely disagree with a person; it looks down on the person.

That is painfully relevant in a world saturated with political and social-media contempt. We can use labels such as liberal, legalist, progressive, fundamentalist, woke, MAGA, or Calvinist as shortcuts for dismissing people. A label may describe a real difference, but it becomes dangerous when it keeps us from seeing a human being who bears the image of God.

That leaves us with some uncomfortable questions: Who have I allowed myself to despise? Whose embarrassment do I enjoy? Whose motives do I automatically assume are bad? Who have I reduced to a label? Whose humanity have I stopped seeing because my anger feels justified?

Jesus next says that reconciliation matters enough to interrupt worship. If we remember while bringing a gift to the altar that a brother or sister has something against us, we are to leave the gift, go and be reconciled, and then return. Jesus isn’t minimizing worship. He’s telling us that we cannot separate our relationship with God from the way we treat people.

In Jesus’ picture, the worshiper remembers that someone has something against him. The text doesn’t say that every complaint is valid or that every relationship can be fully repaired. It does say that we should take the initiative when we know a relationship is broken. We can seek peace even when we don’t think we caused all of the problem. Reconciliation takes two people, but obedience can begin with one.

Finally, Jesus pictures two adversaries on their way to court and urges them to settle the matter before the judge hands down a sentence. The warning is concrete: unresolved conflict has consequences, so don’t let alienation harden. Time doesn’t automatically heal every wound. Sometimes a disagreement that could’ve been addressed with one hard conversation becomes a ten-year estrangement. Resentment grows, memories shift, and each person becomes more convinced that they were right all along.

Jesus never asks us to walk a road he refused to walk himself. He was mocked, insulted, lied about, beaten, and crucified. Yet from the cross he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He did not answer contempt with contempt.

This doesn’t mean pretending that anger doesn’t exist, excusing wrongdoing, or acting as if trust can always be restored immediately. It means allowing Jesus to change the way we respond to difficult people and broken relationships. We can’t simply shrug and say, “That’s just how I am.” If we’re going to be salt and light, our relationships should display the same grace we’ve received from him.

For some of us, the next faithful step may be turning to Christ and becoming his follower. For others, it may be asking the church to pray for us. And for some, the most important thing we can do is have an honest conversation with someone and take the first step toward peace.

Jesus isn’t satisfied merely when we refrain from hurting people physically. He wants to remove the anger, contempt, and alienation that make us willing to diminish another person in the first place, and he calls us to take the difficult path of reconciliation.

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In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus tells his followers, “You are the salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world.” These familiar words can become clichés if we hear them too often, so we need to stop and consider what Jesus actually meant.

The first thing to notice is that Jesus says “you are,” not “you should be.” Salt and light are an identity Jesus gives his followers. They’re not something we earn through talent, wealth, influence, or accomplishment. The early Christians are a good example. They had little political or cultural power, yet their movement transformed the world because they lived out the identity Jesus had given them.

That matters because we can become anxious about the declining influence of Christianity in our culture. We worry about politics, secularism, church attendance, and losing our “seat at the table.” But Jesus never told his followers that they were supposed to control the earth or rule the culture. He told them to be salt and light.

Salt is useful because it is distinctive. If salt loses its saltiness, it loses its effectiveness. In the same way, Christians lose their influence when they become indistinguishable from the culture around them. Our concern shouldn’t primarily be that the world is becoming less Christian; our concern should be whether we are becoming less like Jesus.

Following Jesus should affect the way we handle anger, money, sex, pride, anxiety, relationships, enemies, forgiveness, and even what we do when nobody is watching. We’re not supposed to be different merely for the sake of being strange or to make sure everyone knows we are Christians. We’re different because following Jesus changes us.

A good question to ask is, “Is there anything about the way I live that makes sense only because I belong to Jesus?” If we know the Bible but are cruel to our families, if we worship faithfully but cheat people in business, or if we sing about grace while refusing to extend grace, then our salt is not very salty.

Then Jesus describes his followers as light. Light is meant to be visible. Our lives will be seen by the people around us, but that doesn’t mean we do good things so people will praise us. Jesus isn’t calling us to put on a religious performance or advertise ourselves. We do good because we follow Jesus.

Ultimately, our good works are supposed to point beyond us. Jesus says that people should see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. The goal is not “Look at me” or “Look at how good Christians are.” The goal is “Look at Jesus.” We want our lives to make Jesus visible to the people around us.

So the challenge is not to regain political power or cultural influence. The challenge is much simpler: follow Jesus, do good, be salt, and be light. If we faithfully live as people who look like Jesus, loving, serving, forgiving, showing kindness, and living differently, God can use that to change hearts and communities.

The early church changed the world without political power or cultural control. They simply lived as the people Jesus called them to be. We can do the same. We don’t need to make ourselves impressive. We need to make Jesus visible.

And the final question is one worth carrying with us: Is there anything about the way I live that only makes sense because I belong to Jesus?

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Sermon Summary:

Today I want us to spend some time in Psalm 22, one of the most honest prayers in Scripture. It begins with words that are immediately familiar to us because Jesus spoke them from the cross:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

One of the things I love about the Psalms is that they give us words for experiences and emotions that can be hard to put into words ourselves. David doesn’t pretend that everything is okay. He feels alone. He’s hurting. He doesn’t understand what God is doing, and he says so.

He asks the kinds of questions God’s people have been asking ever since: Where are you, God? Why aren’t you answering me? Why does it seem like you’ve helped other people, but you aren’t helping me?

Most of us have probably had moments when we’ve wondered about some of those same things. Maybe it was in a hospital room or after someone we loved died. Maybe it was when we got news we weren’t prepared for or went through a season when nothing seemed to make sense. We believe that God is good and that God is powerful, and yet sometimes he seems silent.

Psalm 22 reminds us that there’s nothing faithless about taking those questions to God. In fact, David takes them to God precisely because he has faith. He doesn’t understand what God is doing, but he keeps talking to him.

And as Christians, it’s impossible for us to read Psalm 22 without thinking about Jesus. Jesus quoted its opening words from the cross, but the connections go much deeper than that. The psalm describes the mocking of the sufferer, the piercing of his hands and feet, and the casting of lots for his clothing.

Jesus didn’t simply quote Psalm 22. He experienced the suffering it describes.

That matters because it means that God has not remained distant from our suffering. In Jesus, he entered into it. Jesus knows what it is to hurt, to grieve, to be rejected, and even to feel abandoned.

But Psalm 22 doesn’t end where it begins.

Near the end of verse 21, something changes. David has been crying out to God to save him, and then suddenly he says, “You have rescued me.”

The lament becomes a song of praise.

David realizes that God has heard him. Beginning in verse 22, he starts telling other people what God has done. His praise spreads to the congregation, then to Israel, then to the nations, and finally to generations that haven’t even been born yet.

And that includes us. Thousands of years later, we’re still singing the song.

The writer of Hebrews even puts the words of Psalm 22 on the lips of Jesus. The one who cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is also the one who declares God’s name among his brothers and sings his praise among God’s people.

The cross wasn’t the end of the story. Jesus rose from the dead.

That doesn’t mean the Bible minimizes suffering. It doesn’t tell us that everything will work out the way we want if we just have enough faith. Psalm 22 itself won’t allow us to say that. It begins with real pain and real questions.

But it also reminds us that suffering doesn’t get the last word.

I especially love the way the psalm ends. It begins with the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But the final words are essentially, “He has done it.”

And from the cross Jesus said, “It is finished.”

So if you’re hurting right now, or if you’re walking alongside someone who is, our hope isn’t that Christians somehow escape suffering. We don’t.

Our hope is Jesus.

He entered into our suffering. He died. He rose again. And because of him, we know how the story ultimately ends.

The cry becomes a song.

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Sermon Summary:

Following Jesus was never meant to be a solo journey. In Hebrews 3:12–13, we are warned that sin is deceptive—it quietly convinces us to distrust God, believe lies, and slowly harden our hearts. Left unchecked, those lies can pull us away from faithful living.

God’s answer to that danger is not simply trying harder or becoming more self-reliant. Instead, He gives us the gift of Christian community. We need brothers and sisters in Christ who know us well enough to encourage us, challenge us, comfort us, and point us back to Jesus before sin gains a foothold.

Sin does its greatest damage in isolation. While solitude with God is healthy, isolation from God’s people leaves us vulnerable. Christianity is built on “one another” relationships where believers bear burdens, confess struggles, encourage faithfulness, and lovingly speak truth into each other’s lives.

Encouragement is more than offering kind words. Biblical encouragement means coming alongside someone to help them respond faithfully to God. Sometimes that involves comfort, and other times it requires loving correction. The goal is never to prove we’re better than someone else, but to remind one another that Jesus is better than anything sin offers.

As a church, we are called to cultivate meaningful relationships—not merely attend worship together, but truly know and care for one another. God uses His people to strengthen our faith, expose the lies of sin, and help us persevere until the end.

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Sermon Summary:

After God delivers Israel from slavery, parts the Red Sea, provides food and water in the wilderness, and gives the Law at Mount Sinai, the people quickly turn away from Him by worshiping a golden calf. Though God has rescued them from Egypt, Egypt still lives in their hearts. Their idolatry reveals a deeper problem: they want God’s blessings more than they want God Himself.

In response, God tells Israel that He will still fulfill His promise to bring them into the Promised Land, defeat their enemies, and give them everything He promised—but His presence will not go with them. It is a startling moment. They can have the destination without the relationship, the gifts without the Giver.

Moses refuses to accept that offer. He declares that if God’s presence will not go with them, they would rather remain in the wilderness than enter the Promised Land without Him. God’s presence is what makes His people distinct. Without Him, even the greatest blessings lose their meaning.

This raises an important question for every believer: if God answered every prayer, provided every blessing, healed every hurt, and fulfilled every dream—but His presence was absent—would that truly satisfy us? Too often, our prayers focus on what God can give rather than simply longing for Him.

Beneath every desire for success, security, healing, relationships, financial stability, or achievement lies a deeper longing. Every human heart carries a hunger beneath every hunger—the desire to know and experience the presence of God. Temporary accomplishments can never satisfy an eternal longing.

Moses’ request to “show me Your glory” reveals that deepest desire. God’s glory represents His true substance, goodness, and majesty. Although Moses cannot fully behold God’s face because of humanity’s sinfulness, God graciously reveals enough of Himself to remind Moses that knowing God is far greater than receiving His gifts.

Encountering God’s glory changes the way we see everything else. It reorders our priorities, exposing the false idols we often place at the center of our lives. Like Israel’s golden calf, modern idols may look different—career, family, money, success, health, comfort, or reputation—but they cannot bear the weight of being ultimate. Worship redirects our hearts, placing God back where He belongs and allowing everything else to find its proper place.

The story ultimately points to Jesus Christ. Throughout the Old Testament, God’s presence is always mediated because sinful people cannot fully enter His holy presence. In Jesus, however, God comes to dwell among humanity. John declares, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.” The glory Moses longed to see is fully revealed in Christ.

Jesus is the answer to humanity’s deepest hunger. In His compassion, holiness, sacrifice, resurrection, and victory over sin, He perfectly reveals the heart of God. Through Him, people no longer simply seek God’s blessings—they are invited into a restored relationship with God Himself.

Main Takeaway

Every longing in life ultimately points to a deeper longing for God. Success, comfort, relationships, and achievements can never fully satisfy the human heart because we were created for His presence. True fulfillment is found not in receiving God’s gifts, but in knowing the Giver through Jesus Christ.

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Sermon Summary:

When we think about the book of Exodus, we usually remember the dramatic moments: the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, water from the rock, and God’s thunderous presence on Mount Sinai. Yet the book doesn’t end with any of those events. It ends with the construction of the tabernacle—a detailed description of a portable tent where God would dwell among His people.

At first glance, that ending can seem anticlimactic. But it’s actually the climax of the entire story.

Everything in Exodus has been leading to one purpose: God dwelling with His people. The Red Sea wasn’t the destination. The Law wasn’t the destination. The Promised Land wasn’t even the ultimate destination. The goal was always God’s presence.

The tabernacle represents that reality. Once it is completed, the glory of the Lord fills it. God has come to dwell in the midst of His people. That reminds us of something we often forget: more than we need God’s blessings, we need God Himself. We spend so much time asking God to solve our problems, heal our bodies, provide for our families, and ease our anxieties—all good things to pray for—but our greatest need is His presence.

However, immediately after God’s glory fills the tabernacle, we’re given a surprising detail: Moses cannot enter.

Even Moses—the friend of God, the leader of Israel, the one who spoke with God face to face—is unable to enter because of God’s overwhelming holiness. That moment reveals a painful truth about humanity. Sin has created a barrier between us and a holy God. Just as Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden, humanity remains separated from God’s presence because of sin.

The tabernacle points beyond itself to something greater.

In the New Testament, John writes that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.” Jesus became the true tabernacle—the place where God’s presence lived among His people. When Jesus declared on the cross, “It is finished,” He completed the work that the tabernacle only foreshadowed. At His death, the veil separating people from God’s presence was torn from top to bottom, symbolizing that through Christ, the barrier of sin had been removed.

Because of Jesus, access to God is no longer limited to a building or a single high priest. Through His death and resurrection, we are invited into God’s presence.

The story doesn’t stop there.

After Christ’s resurrection and ascension, God sends His Spirit to dwell within His people. The New Testament declares that the church is now God’s temple. We are the place where God’s presence is made visible in the world. Wherever we go, we represent Him. Our love, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, and holiness become the ways people encounter the presence of God today.

The biblical story traces a beautiful progression:

* God’s presence with humanity in Eden.

* God’s presence in the tabernacle.

* God’s presence in the temple.

* God’s presence in Jesus Christ.

* God’s presence in His church through the Holy Spirit.

One final chapter still awaits. Revelation promises a day when God will once again dwell fully with His people, when every barrier caused by sin will be removed forever, and heaven and earth will be united. The longing every human heart feels will finally be satisfied because we will live forever in the unbroken presence of God.

Main Takeaway

The greatest need in every human life is not success, comfort, healing, or even answered prayers—it is the presence of God. Exodus ends with the tabernacle because God’s ultimate desire has always been to dwell with His people, and through Jesus Christ, that invitation is now open to all who come to Him

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Sermon Summary: The Heart of the King for the Lost (Luke 15)

God’s heart has always been to restore humanity into a relationship with Him. From the moment sin entered the world, His mission has been to seek and save those who are separated from Him. Throughout Scripture, God repeatedly uses imperfect people to accomplish His purposes, demonstrating that no one is beyond His reach.

In Luke 15, Jesus is surrounded by tax collectors and sinners who are eager to hear Him, while the Pharisees criticize Him for welcoming them. Rather than distancing Himself from broken people, Jesus intentionally receives them because they are the very ones He came to save. Religious pride often becomes a barrier that keeps people from experiencing God’s grace, but true discipleship is measured by closeness to Christ and by reflecting His love toward others.

Just as a shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep to search for the one that wandered away, God values every soul. People often become lost through sin, pain, confusion, or life’s distractions, and followers of Christ are called to actively seek those who have wandered rather than waiting for them to return.

The parable of the lost coin further emphasizes the immense value God places on every person. Though the coin may have seemed insignificant to others, it was precious to the woman who searched diligently until she found it. Likewise, many people believe they have little worth, yet God sees immeasurable value in every life. Christians are called to remind others of that value and to pursue those who have drifted away from faith.

Intentional relationships within the church are important. Those who are absent, struggling, or entering new seasons of life—such as college students—need people who will consistently encourage, pray for, and stay connected with them. Small acts of care, such as a phone call, text message, visit, or invitation, can have a lasting impact on someone’s faith.

Heaven rejoices whenever one sinner repents. Bringing someone to Christ is one of the greatest works a believer can participate in because it reflects God’s own heart for the lost. Every Christian has the opportunity to share the gospel, demonstrate Christ’s love through actions, and help others begin or restore a relationship with God.

Main Takeaway

God passionately pursues every lost person because each one is precious to Him. As followers of Christ, believers are called to share His heart by intentionally seeking the lost, caring for those who have wandered, and helping people discover their immeasurable worth in the eyes of God.

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Christians were never meant to follow Jesus alone. In a culture that prizes independence and self-sufficiency, the church is called to be a community where believers actively care for, support, and restore one another.

1. Restore Those Who Fall (Galatians 6:1)

When a fellow Christian is caught in sin, the church’s responsibility is restoration, not condemnation. Paul compares restoration to mending a broken bone or repairing a fishing net—done carefully, patiently, and gently. Rather than gossiping, distancing ourselves, or feeling morally superior, believers should lovingly help one another return to faithfulness while remembering that they, too, are vulnerable to temptation.

2. Bear One Another’s Burdens (Galatians 6:2)

Everyone carries heavy burdens—whether sin, grief, illness, anxiety, family struggles, financial stress, loneliness, or doubt. God designed the church to help carry those burdens together.

Bearing burdens is practical. It looks like:

* Listening without judgment.

* Praying together.

* Bringing meals.

* Watching children.

* Sitting with someone at a doctor’s appointment.

* Checking in long after everyone else has moved on.

The church fulfills “the law of Christ” when it loves others in these tangible ways.

3. Pride Prevents Community (Galatians 6:3–4)

Pride is one of the greatest obstacles to genuine Christian community. It can appear in two ways:

* Feeling too important or too busy to help others.

* Comparing ourselves to others, thinking, “At least I don’t struggle like they do.”

Paul instead calls believers to examine their own hearts rather than measuring themselves against someone else’s failures. Every Christian has weaknesses, so humility—not comparison—should characterize relationships within the church.

4. Individual Responsibility Still Matters (Galatians 6:5)

Although Christians are called to carry one another’s burdens, each person must also “carry his own load.” This refers to personal responsibility before God.

No one else can:

* Repent for you.

* Believe for you.

* Obey Christ for you.

* Remain faithful in your place.

The church can encourage, support, and strengthen, but each believer is personally responsible for following Jesus.

Practical Applications

* Build meaningful relationships within the church rather than remaining anonymous.

* Ask deeper questions than “How are you?”

* Create safe spaces where people can admit struggles without fear of gossip or condemnation.

* Listen with grace instead of shock or judgment.

* Remember that authentic discipleship happens in community, not isolation.

Main Takeaway

Becoming a Christian is an individual decision, but it immediately places a person into the family of God. Long-term faithfulness depends not only on personal devotion but also on living in genuine Christian community.

Key message: You cannot faithfully follow Jesus alone. God designed the church to restore the fallen, carry one another’s burdens, reject pride, and walk together toward Christ.

Sermon Notes:

Bear One Another’s Burdens (Galatians 6:1-5)

Restore the ____________________ (6:1)

Carry the ____________________ (6:2)

Reject ________________ (6:3-4)

Shoulder your own ____________________ (6:5)

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