In this summer interview episode, Matt and Brian welcome their wives, Jessica and Glenda, to the table for a conversation that longtime listeners have never quite gotten to hear before. After a lighthearted round of get-to-know-you questions, the group settles into the real stuff — sharing how they each grew up, how they met their spouses, and how they first came to faith in Christ. Glenda recalls hearing the gospel for the first time at a tiny church during a summer with her dad, moved by the simple truth that Jesus was a "stay" — someone who would never leave. Jessica, who grew up at Hope Church, describes watching people come to Christ as just a normal part of childhood, and later having her faith solidified through hard providential moments, including the loss of her little sister and two summers on the mission field overseas.

The deeper thread running through the whole conversation is how walking with Jesus looks different in every season, but always involves the same essential movement: a step of trust, God coming through, and then a call to trust him further still. Brian describes bumbling forward in faith like a toddler on a balance beam, with God's hands on either side. Glenda reflects on learning that whatever assignment God has her in is the assignment she needs to be fully present for. Matt draws it all together with the image of a foundation — the higher you want to build, the deeper it has to go — and reminds everyone that uncomfortable obedience is often exactly how God does his best building work.

Continuing through the book of Acts, Pastor Luke focuses on the beginning of Paul's third missionary journey, where the emphasis shifts from simply planting churches to strengthening the disciples already in them. The big idea driving the sermon is that the gospel doesn't just save — it transforms every part of our lives. Pastor Luke illustrates this first through the story of Apollos, a brilliantly educated man from Alexandria who nonetheless lacked a full understanding of the gospel. When Priscilla and Aquila — ordinary tentmakers — took him aside privately and explained the way of God more accurately, Apollos humbly received their correction. That humility, Pastor Luke argues, is what made him teachable, and his teachability is what made him wise and ultimately one of the most impactful teachers in the early church.

The second half of the sermon turns to the Ephesian believers and the contrast between genuine and counterfeit spirituality. When the seven sons of Sceva tried to invoke Jesus's name as a spiritual technique without any real relationship with Him, they were overpowered and publicly shamed. The Ephesian believers, by contrast, responded to what they witnessed with deep repentance — publicly confessing their practices and burning their magic books, valued at the equivalent of several million dollars. Pastor Luke draws a clear line between syncretism — treating Jesus as one spiritual resource among many — and true discipleship, which declares Jesus as Lord alone. He closes by calling the congregation to ongoing repentance and surrender, reminding them that transformation isn't a one-time event but a lifelong process powered by Christ Himself.

In the first episode of the Sunday Extra Podcast Summer Interview Series, Matt sits down with Pastor Harold Bullock — the man who founded Hope Church in Fort Worth in January of 1978 — to give the growing number of newer members a chance to get to know the man behind the church's beginnings. Harold shares his story of growing up in northeast Tennessee in a blue-collar family, coming to faith at around age seven during a church revival, and then spending much of his college and graduate school years spiritually adrift. It wasn't until January 1970, while pursuing his doctorate in chemistry at USC, that God used a young pastor and a community of believers to finally get Harold's feet firmly on the ground. From that point, Harold sensed a clear call into ministry, and by October of that same year, the Lord had made it plain that he was headed into pastoral work.

Harold goes on to describe the early years of Hope Church — from the chaotic first meeting where a blaring radio derailed their worship service, to the "Tour de Loop," when the church bounced from hotel to hotel around Fort Worth without a permanent home for years. Through all of it, Harold and his wife Deborah held to a simple, gutsy commitment: there was no Plan B. They had surrendered every other option to the Lord and pressed forward in obedience. Harold also reflects warmly on the leadership transition to Matt in May of 2020, describing it as a genuine joy — a moment of passing something he had always understood to be God's, not his own.

Closing out the conversation, Harold offers two pieces of counsel to the people of Hope. First, he urges every believer to take their walk with Jesus seriously, because this is not one option among many — it is how reality itself works, since God runs life. Second, he encourages people to focus on their own stewardship rather than everyone else's, and to learn to cooperate with the leadership God has placed over them. And for anyone wondering whether following Jesus is worth it, Harold's answer — shaped by decades of hard roads, including the loss of a daughter — is an unqualified yes. As he puts it, the good lies around the next very difficult bend in the river.

In this message from Acts 17–18, Pastor Jeremy unpacks Paul's evangelism in Athens and Corinth, anchoring everything around one central truth: the gospel must be faithfully communicated in every culture. In Athens, Paul doesn't wait for his traveling companions before acting — when the Holy Spirit spurs him, he moves. And rather than defaulting to Old Testament history as he would with Jewish audiences, Paul meets the Athenian philosophers right where they are, using their own altar "to the unknown God" as a springboard to proclaim the living God, the resurrection of Jesus, and the good news of the gospel.

From there, Paul moves on to Corinth — a bustling, morally notorious trade city — where he meets Aquila and Priscilla, two ordinary tentmakers who become the backbone of his ministry. Pastor Jeremy draws out a powerful lesson from their example: you don't have to be a gifted speaker or a called pastor to play a significant role in God's kingdom. When ordinary people are faithful, God makes them extraordinary. Paul is eventually kicked out of the synagogue, threatened by Jewish leaders, and in need of God's protection — and God delivers on every front, even using the Roman official Gallio to shield Paul so he can spend 18 fruitful months in Corinth.

Guest speaker, Josh Hofford, opens with a word of encouragement to every father in the room — reminding them that their assignment was given by God Himself, that it is eternal and essential, and that God will not run out on them or their children. From there, Josh anchors the message in a sweeping passage covering Acts 15-17, tracing Paul's second missionary journey across roughly 1,300 miles on foot. The big idea Josh returns to throughout the message is this: God often redirects our plans to accomplish His greater mission, and faithfulness matters far more than our comfort.

Josh walks through a series of moments where everything seemed to be going wrong for Paul and his team — the painful split with Barnabas, closed doors from the Holy Spirit, imprisonment in Philippi — and shows how God was not moving them out of the way, but moving them into position. Through each setback, God provided: Timothy joined the team, Lydia and her entire household became the first European converts to the gospel, a demon-possessed slave girl was set free, and a Philippian jailer on the verge of suicide came to faith along with his whole family. None of this was what Paul had originally planned.

Josh closes by bringing the message home with two pointed questions: Where are you tempted to quit? And what would obedience look like if you pressed on anyway? Drawing from Acts 17:6 — the declaration that Paul and his companions had "turned the world upside down" — Josh reminds the congregation that the gospel still has that same radical power today, and that Hope Church's own mission teams, both in Folsom, California and Southeast Asia, are continuing that very same mission.

In this bonus episode of the Sunday Extra podcast, Pastor Matt fills in some important context before the church moves into the second missionary journey in Acts 15. Specifically, he walks through the Jerusalem Council found in Acts 15:1-35, where a dispute arose after Jewish believers from Judea began teaching that circumcision according to the law of Moses was required for salvation. Paul and Barnabas strongly opposed this view, and the council — including Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and James — gathered to settle the matter.

The council's conclusion was decisive: salvation is by grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ — Jesus plus nothing. As Peter put it in Acts 15:11, "We believe that we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, just as they will." While Gentile believers were encouraged to avoid certain practices like food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality, these were not requirements for salvation but practical steps meant to promote unity and fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers.

Randall Robinson, a longtime member and Antioch graduate of Hope Church, opens by sharing his own story of being commissioned and sent to Kansas City to help plant a church — a story that mirrors the very passage he's preaching from. Picking up in Acts 13–14, he walks the congregation through Paul's first missionary journey with Barnabas, beginning at the church in Antioch where the Holy Spirit called them out while the believers were already actively worshiping, fasting, and seeking God. From there, Paul and Barnabas traveled through Cyprus and into the region of Galatia, going first to the synagogues and then to the Gentiles, boldly proclaiming the gospel in ways tailored to each audience — while keeping the message itself unchanged.

Randall draws out five key points from these two chapters: the mission starts with God's initiative, the gospel must be proclaimed clearly, the gospel will be both received and rejected, the mission advances through resilient faith, and the glory for the results belongs to God alone. He's especially careful to remind the congregation that when people reject the gospel, they are not rejecting the person sharing it — they are rejecting God, and it is God who is ultimately responsible for the outcome. Closing with a personal reflection on God's faithfulness through job loss, illness, and transition, Randall challenges every believer to live sent, learn to share the gospel clearly, expect resistance, and hold the results with an open hand before the Lord.

This week, Pastors Matt, Jeremy, Jake, and Luke dive deeper into Sunday's sermon on Acts 10:1–11:18 — one of the longest continuous narratives in the entire book of Acts (66 verses!). Why did Luke dedicate so much space to the conversion of Cornelius? And what does it mean for us today?

In this episode:

• Why the Cornelius account is a major turning point in Acts — and in all of church history
• The "But God" moments hidden in this passage (and throughout Scripture)
• The religious categories of the first century: pagan Gentile → God-fearer → proselyte → ethnic Jew
• What Peter's mini-sermon in Acts 10:34–43 reveals about the core essentials of the gospel
• Surprising parallels between Roman military discipline and the Christian life
• What "uncomfortable obedience" looks like across every stage of life
• A Bible reading plan check-in: finishing Job and entering the books of Wisdom and Poetry

Key Verse: "God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean." — Acts 10:28

Pastor Matt opens by setting the stage with Acts 1:8, the last recorded words of Jesus before his ascension, where he commands his followers to be witnesses "to the ends of the earth." For the first nine chapters of Acts, the gospel had been spreading rapidly — but almost exclusively among Jewish people. The burning question hanging over the early church was this: What about the Gentiles? Could people who were not ethnically Jewish truly become part of God's family? Acts 10–11 answers that question decisively, Marking one of the greatest turning points in the entire book.

Through a pair of divine visions — one given to Cornelius, a Roman centurion and God-fearer stationed in Caesarea, and one given to Peter involving a sheet full of unclean animals — God begins dismantling centuries of cultural, ethnic, and religious walls. When Peter steps into the home of Cornelius and shares the gospel, the Holy Spirit falls on the Gentiles just as he had on the Jews at Pentecost. Peter's response says it all: "Who was I that I could stand in God's way?" Back in Jerusalem, the church initially pushes back, but when they hear the full account, they fall silent and glorify God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life" (Acts 11:18).

Pastor Matt brings the message home with three practical takeaways: God is pursuing people we might tend to overlook; following Jesus means letting him reshape our perspectives and assumptions; and the Holy Spirit directs and confirms God's mission to all people. The call to action is clear — just as someone once crossed out of their comfort zone so the gospel could reach us, it is now our turn to step into uncomfortable obedience and move toward the people God is already pursuing.