Ryan Straarup teaches about the importance of building a Christlike community, emphasizing how Jesus formed his church around the table. He explores the early church's devotion to fellowship and the significance of being present, allowing access, and experiencing communion as essential elements of a thriving Christian community.

In his sermon titled 'Will You Bow?', Pastor Matt Rose explores the concept of worship as a daily choice between serving God or succumbing to worldly temptations. He emphasizes that every decision we make is a form of worship, urging the congregation to recognize the subtle ways the enemy seeks to divert their devotion away from God. Drawing from Matthew 4, Pastor Rose challenges listeners to consider whom or what they truly worship in their lives.

Satan quoted Psalm 91 to Jesus and got the intent wrong. That psalm promises God's presence to those in covenant with him, not immunity from everything that could go wrong. Obedience that waits for God to prove himself first never arrives. He does not stop all the bad; he is with us in it.

Satan opened with a question about identity, right after the Father had called Jesus his beloved Son. He also tempts us to do right things the wrong way. Only God and his word can sustain a life, which is why phones, careers, and even our children buckle when we ask them to be bread.

The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness immediately after the Father approved him, which means the wilderness is not evidence of God's absence. Provision often arrives in a form nobody would call provision. God does not lead people out there to abandon them, and the testing is what makes faith complete.

A simplified life is one that wills a single thing, and for 2026 that one thing is to be just like Jesus. Across the Gospels he teaches, rebukes, and redeems, and the rebuke is never contempt. It is a checkpoint on the way to redemption. Seek him first and the rest gets added.

The magi followed a star that everyone else in Jerusalem apparently missed. God broadcasts on a low frequency, and Herod was tuned to threat while the scholars were tuned to nothing at all. Hearing requires removing static and adjusting the dial, the way Elijah had to reposition before the still small voice.

Mary and Joseph were handed an assignment that made their lives messier, not tidier, and they moved anyway without full disclosure. Following God sometimes increases the mess before it blesses. Make this the last Christmas where the gift stays wrapped and Jesus gets treated as something kept off to the side.

Home in the Christmas story is not a house. Joseph traveled to a town he no longer lived in, shepherds were let in first, and the family Jesus formed was never built on bloodline. The incarnation tore down the dividing wall, so the home on offer is spiritual and holds people who share no lineage at all.

Judas traded Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, and the trade is rarely that obvious in our own lives. Whatever gets held back from God is the thing that keeps God at a distance, whether it is money, work, or people. Surrender is not loss, because he does not waste what he is given.