So, What About Us?

Can you recite all the right answers about God and still not call Him your own?

In episode 38, our post-election episode, Pastors Steven and Travis continue in Mark 12 with the greatest commandment (Mark 12:28-34). It starts with a simple question: what’s the greatest act of love you’ve ever been shown? From there they look at the one scribe who stepped out from the crowd to ask Jesus a sincere question, why Jesus answered with two commands when he was asked for one, and why the order can’t be reversed: we love because he first loved us. Pastor Steven points out a small but telling detail. When the scribe repeats the Shema back to Jesus, he leaves out one word: “our.” He has all the facts right, but God is still just words on a page to him. Not far from the kingdom, but not in it.

So, what about us? We can know the catechism, the Gospel, and the right answers and still be standing just outside. The conversation moves into assurance: how to know you’ve truly met God, what to do when the fire in your heart grows cold, and why the Church is where we’re loved well enough to love others. Plus, a listener asks how to study the Bible at home, and Pastor Steven’s answer is simpler than you might expect.

What does a burning bush have to do with life after death?

In Episode 37, Pastors Steven and Travis work through Mark 12:18-27 from Pastor Steven’s sermon, “The God of the Living.” The Sadducees, who denied any life after death, bring Jesus a riddle about one woman, seven brothers, and the question of whose wife she will be in the resurrection. Jesus tells them their real problem is that they know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. Then he answers from the burning bush, where God still calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, centuries after all three were buried.

The pastors trace that answer through Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7 and the faith of Abraham in Hebrews 11. God promised Abraham land, offspring, and blessing, and he died in a tent with none of it. Either God is a liar, or death is no barrier to his promises. With Reformation Sunday approaching, they also connect this to Martin Luther, who believed what the text said even when it broke the categories of his day.

So, what about us? We may never deny the resurrection out loud, but we often live as if this world is all there is. This episode asks where we shrink God’s promises to fit what we can see, and calls us not just to read our Bibles, but to study them and trust the God of the living.

What do you owe Caesar, and what do you owe God?

Recorded live at the fall festival with a full table, Pastors Steven and Travis, and guests Paul Burkhart, Caleb De Avila, and Ruling Elder Andy Jobson walk through Mark 12:13-17. The Pharisees and Herodians, unlikely allies united by their hatred of Christ, try to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Caesar. Jesus asks for a coin, points to the image stamped on it, and turns the trap back on them: render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

The crew wrestles with whether the question was a real moral dilemma for first-century Jews, how it touches the American Revolution at 250, and what sphere sovereignty, Romans 13, and Daniel serving faithfully in Babylon teach us about living as sojourners and exiles. Along the way: book recommendations and raccoon stories!

So, what about us? When we see God as small, earthly powers look ultimate. When we see Him as sovereign over every king and kingdom, we can honor those He has placed over us with a joyful spirit, knowing that we bear His image and belong wholly to Him.

What more proof do you need?

The day after Jesus cleared the temple, a delegation from the Sanhedrin confronts him with a challenge: by what authority are you doing these things? In this episode, Pastors Steven and Travis walk through Mark 11:27–12:12 from Pastor Steven’s sermon, “By Whose Authority?” Jesus doesn’t call down fire or perform a miracle. He asks about John’s baptism, a question that exposes hearts that already know the answer and refuse to say it.

From there, Jesus tells a parable about a vineyard, wicked tenants, and a beloved son sent last. The conversation digs into how sin makes us act irrationally, the difference between being a steward and an owner, and the hope of Psalm 118: the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone, and God uses the worst act in history to build his eternal kingdom.

The religious leaders knew the parable was about them. Is our unbelief really about evidence, or about wanting to stay in charge? So, what about us?

What looks healthy in your life but can never feed you?

In episode 34, Pastor Steven is joined by ruling elder Floy Jumper to discuss Mark 11:12-25 where Jesus curses a fig tree that looks healthy but can’t feed him, drives the money changers and pigeon sellers out of the temple, and returns the next morning to find the tree withered from the roots up.

The guys walk through Mark’s structure and how the fig tree interprets the temple, why Mark notes it wasn’t the season for figs, and what “Have faith in God” has to do with Peter’s question. Floy also previews his Sunday night devotion on 1 Kings 8:27-30, where Solomon wonders whether God could really dwell in a house made by hands.

So, what about us? Busyness can look a lot like worship, but it can never satisfy. Confidence in prayer doesn’t come from talking ourselves out of doubt. It comes from trusting the One whose word withers trees and promises that we will be heard.

Would you recognize rescue if it came in a dinghy at Dunkirk, or on a donkey into Jerusalem?

In episode 33, we finally arrive in Jerusalem with Mark 11:1-11. Jesus sends two disciples to find a colt no one has ever sat on, rides toward the city from the Mount of Olives, and is greeted by crowds spreading cloaks and branches and shouting "Hosanna." Then he enters the temple, looks around at everything, and quietly leaves for Bethany because it's already late.

Pastor Steven discusses what one donkey teaches us about God's providence in ordinary things, how Jesus acts out Zechariah 9 and Genesis 49, and why Mark bothers to mention the Mount of Olives and the time of day. We also explore Zechariah 14's picture of a mountain split open as a path of escape, Jesus as the true temple, and whether the crowd's hopes were let down when he went to the temple instead of to Pilate.

So, what about us? Like the crowd, we often decide in advance what God's rescue should look like. But Jesus came to save us from something far more dangerous than Rome, and the only question is whether we see our need clearly enough to follow him out.

What do you really want Jesus to do for you?

Episode 32 brings Walker Gossage to the table with Pastors Steven and Travis as we close out Mark 10. Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem, walking ahead of his disciples and telling them plainly that he will be mocked, flogged, and killed. James and John respond by asking for the best seats in his glory. A few verses later, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting by the road outside Jericho, won't stop shouting for the Son of David to have mercy on him.

Jesus asks each of them the same question: "What do you want me to do for you?" The conversation digs into why Mark pairs these stories so closely, why Jesus answers ambition with a call to be the slave of all, and what it takes to ask God for the thing we actually need instead of hedging our bets. Walker also opens up about praying for healing as a parent and previews his Sunday night devotion from Isaiah 35.

So, what about us? We come to Jesus with mixed motives and misguided requests more often than we'd like to admit. The good news is that the one who stopped for Bartimaeus still stops, still calls, and still receives us gently.

What if the way into the kingdom of God looks less like achieving and more like being carried?

In this episode, Pastor Steven and Travis walk through Mark 10:13-31 from Pastor Steven's sermon, The Little Children and the Rich Young Man. Mark sets two encounters side by side: children who bring nothing and are gathered into Jesus' arms, and a man who has everything, keeps every commandment, and still walks away sorrowful. Read together, the stories answer each other. The kingdom is not earned or purchased. It is received, the way a helpless child receives.

The conversation digs into what childlike receiving actually means, why Jesus recites the commandments to a man who thinks he's kept them, the camel and the needle without the legacy misreadings, and Peter's very human question: we left everything, so what about us? Jesus' answer points to a hundredfold now, with persecutions, and eternal life to come.

So, what about us? If Jesus put His finger on the one thing we lack, would we let go of it and follow Him, or would we walk away sorrowful too?

Have you quit cheating on your taxes yet?

That loaded question opens this episode, because it's exactly the kind of trap the Pharisees set for Jesus in Mark 10:1-12. Pastors Steven and Travis are joined by the Reverend Larry Piedt to discuss Pastor Steven's sermon, What God Has Joined Together, where the Pharisees pit Moses against Genesis and Jesus answers by going after the real issue: hearts looking for permission to sin.

Divorce is the subject on the surface, but underneath is the question of who makes a marriage in the first place. God designed it, God performs it, and God joins it together, which means no husband, wife, judge, or fading feeling has the authority to declare it over. Larry draws out a remarkable picture of this from the garden itself, where the first Adam was put to sleep so his bride could be drawn from his side, pointing ahead to the second Adam and the church born from His wounds.

The conversation ends where the gospel does: with hope for the divorced, warning for the tempted, and a Savior speaking these hard words on His way to die for every one of them.

Who's the greatest?

That's the argument the disciples were having on the road to Capernaum, and the timing could not have been worse. Jesus had just told them, for the second time, that the Son of Man would be delivered into the hands of men, killed, and raised after three days. They didn't understand, they were afraid to ask, and so they filled the silence by ranking themselves. When Jesus asked what they were discussing, they had nothing to say.

In this episode, the guys walk through Mark 9:30-37, where Jesus sits down, calls the twelve, and turns the whole scale of greatness upside down. The first must be last of all and servant of all. Then He takes a child, someone with no status and nothing to offer, into His arms and says that receiving one such child in His name is receiving Christ Himself, and receiving Christ is receiving the Father who sent Him.

So, what about us? Where are we quietly arguing about who is greatest, and who are the people with nothing to offer that Christ is calling us to receive? Join us as we learn what greatness looks like in the kingdom of a crucified King.