When Jesus tells us that whoever loses their life will save it, sometimes we try and have it both ways.

Jesus tells a story about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to chase down one lost one, and if that sounds backwards, that's the point: in the economy of God, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many, because the many are just a whole lot of ones that God loves individually. We dig into Luke 15 and ask an uncomfortable question about why Jesus ate with sinners in the first place, whether he was working an angle or just enjoyed better company, and what it means that grace, by definition, can never be fair. If you've ever wondered whether you're too far gone, too messed up, or too far outside the club to belong, this one's for you: nobody deserves grace, but everybody gets it anyway.

This week we welcome guest speaker Tab Miller, Director of Operations and Volunteer Ministries at FaithWorks in Brunswick, Georgia. Preaching from Matthew 5:13-16, Tab wrestles with what it means to be salt and light in communities marked by real poverty and real suffering, drawing on stories from the reservation and from FaithWorks' ministries among those experiencing homelessness. It's a sermon less about strategy than about slowing down enough to actually see people, built around one simple, hard-to-practice piece of advice: take your time to get to know those you're serving.

Jonah's message was well received Nineveh repented, but instead of celebrating he got angry that grace reached people he didn't think deserved it. This week we sat with that whine and asked how often we do the same thing, hoping for someone's downfall instead of their repentance, wanting God's mercy for ourselves but not for the people we've written off. The book ends without telling us what Jonah chose, and maybe that's the gift, because it means our own stories are still being written, and every new day is a chance to collaborate with God in love instead of bitterness.

Jonah preached the harshest sermon imaginable, no mercy, no invitation to repent, just forty days and judgment, and somehow the whole city turned to God anyway. This week we sat with what it means that Nineveh believed God while Jonah, God's own prophet, only ever believed in him, and asked what the difference is between agreeing that God exists and actually trusting what he says. We don't need a church full of people who have it all figured out, we need a church full of people willing to believe and respond, flawed and outsiders and all, because that's exactly who Mosaic is.

Jonah's prayer from inside the fish sounds like faith, but it's really the cry of a man who's run out of every other option, and that's exactly the kind of prayer most of us know how to pray. This week we sat with the drowning feeling, whether it's depression, debt, broken relationships, or the fear of what's coming, and asked what it means that our best efforts can't save us but God still can. The idols we cling to as life preservers only pull us further under, while the God we serve is never in over his head, and sustains us even when rescue doesn't look the way we expect.

Jonah didn't run from a task, he ran from the people God asked him to love, and if we're honest, most of us have done the same thing. This week we started our new series in the book of Jonah, tracing how God met a disobedient prophet with grace upon grace upon grace, calling him, pursuing him, and rescuing him even after he ran. It's not an if/then faith where obedience earns blessing, it's a because/therefore faith, because God has already been good to us, we are set free to obey.

In this week's midweek devotion, we look at how the book of Jonah teaches against tribal religion, showing pagan sailors who are more virtuous than God's prophet.

It's one thing to sing about peace on Sunday night, and another thing when the notification pops up Monday morning and the study of war finds you. In Romans 12, Paul calls a church living in the shadow of empire to bless their persecutors, feed their enemies, and live at peace with everyone as far as it depends on them. In this final message of our Shalom series, we look at four postures Christians can take toward war and peace, and how people who land in different places can still work together as people who refuse to love violence.

Paul and Silas end up beaten, shackled, and thrown into the darkest cell in Philippi, and they respond by singing. Tonight we dig into Acts 16 through the lens of Martin Buber's I-Thou philosophy, tracing how nearly everyone in this story treats someone else as an object, from the slave girl exploited for profit to the jailer ready to end his own life over a job. Paul's refusal to do the same, even toward the guard who chained him, shows us that shalom is never possible with an object, only with a Thou.