The Acts 13 Network

I started this week with the shape of a faith journey. Early faith can feel like the world goes from black and white to color. We are radical, ready to go anywhere. And then life gets real, the simple answers crash, and we find ourselves in what St. John of the Cross called the dark night of the soul. What I have found is that on the other side of that wrestling, the frills get cut away and we are left with a resilient faith, and often a renewed sense of call. A second call.

That is where Jonah is in chapter 3. He has run from God, spent his own literal dark nights in the belly of the fish, and been spit out on the beach without ever apologizing. And then the word of the LORD comes to him a second time. This time God hands him the exact message: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

Jonah goes. But he goes reluctantly. Nineveh takes three days to walk through, and Jonah makes it one day in. I compared it to the middle schooler who "cleans" his room by shoving everything under the bed. Jonah is doing the prophet's version of that. And yet here is the good news I landed on: the difference between a runaway messenger and a reluctant messenger is obedience. The reluctant messenger still shows up. And God sends reluctant messengers.

And God uses the message. The Ninevites believe God, from the greatest to the least. The king comes down off his throne, sits in the dust, and issues a decree that actually names the sin: give up your evil ways and your violence, the violence in your hands. The repentance starts at the bottom, reaches the top, and comes back down again.

Then, in verse 10, God relents. I do not think that is God changing his mind. I think it is God saying, "You finally got here. I have been waiting for you." The Ninevites are image bearers too, and God has wanted them restored all along. The gospel shows up in Jonah 3 because one reluctant man showed up among his enemies.

That is the Matthew 5 connection again. Loving your enemies does not require becoming best friends. It means showing up, however reluctant, to offer them the mercy of God.

Scripture: Jonah 3:1-10; Matthew 5:43-48; Psalm 103:8-12

Message Big Idea: God brings mercy even through reluctant messengers.

In this message:

• From easy beliefism to the dark night of the soul, and the resilient faith on the other side
• A second call: God comes to Jonah a second time, with the message in hand
• The prophet's version of shoving everything under the bed
• Runaway versus reluctant: the difference is obedience
• Forty days: Noah, Jesus in the wilderness, and now Nineveh
• The king who names it: "the violence in their hands"
• Repentance that starts at the bottom and reaches the throne
• Did God change his mind? Or did Nineveh finally arrive?
• Enemy love as showing up, not becoming besties
• What is your second call? Or your fourth? Or your sixth?

Next week: Jonah 4, The Resentment. The series finale. Jonah gets the mercy he asked God not to give, and he is furious about it.

Daniel

Listen to more messages:
Peace Presbyterian Church: https://peacepresflint.com/sermons
Acts 13 Network: https://acts13.net/messages

When were you saved?

I opened this week with Karl Barth, the great theologian behind Church Dogmatics, because his answer to that question has been sitting with me. Asked when he was saved, Barth said, "Approximately A.D. 33." In other words, we were saved when Jesus said, "It is finished," before we had ever sinned, before we had ever recognized our need, before we had done one thing to deserve it.

That is where Jonah 2 begins for me. Jonah has run from God, slept through the storm, and told the sailors to throw him overboard. He would rather die than obey. And before Jonah can even ask for help, God has already provided the fish.

This week I walked through Jonah's prayer as a picture of covenantal love in three movements: God's covenantal love displayed in grace, God's covenantal love displayed in consequences, and God's covenantal love displayed in grace again. The fish is there before Jonah prays. The consequences are real, because Jonah is in the sea and in the fish because he ran. And at the end, the fish obeys God's command and deposits Jonah on dry land, even though Jonah never actually says, "I was wrong," never says, "I'm sorry," and never owns what he has done.

That is the hard mercy of this chapter. God saves Jonah before repentance. God saves Jonah in the middle of a self-made pit. And Jonah's own confession, "Salvation comes from the LORD," is going to come back around on him before this little book is done.

Then I brought it back to Jesus in Matthew 5: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." We cannot be perfect. But we can begin to practice the Father's kind of love. We can lead with grace toward the people we would rather write off, especially in a week when us versus them is in the air.

Scripture: Jonah 1:17-2:10; Matthew 5:43-48; Romans 5:10

Message Big Idea: God's covenantal love is ever present even in our self-made pits.

In this message:

• Karl Barth's answer: "Approximately A.D. 33"
• The fish provided before Jonah ever asks to be saved
• Grace, consequences, and grace again: the bookends of Jonah 2
• What is missing from Jonah's prayer: no confession, no apology, no ownership
• The most obedient character in the chapter might be the fish
• Brennan Manning on counterfeit grace and the illusions we clutch like teddy bears
• Why "Salvation comes from the LORD" will be hard for Jonah to swallow later
• The practice for this week: lead with grace

Next week: Jonah 3, The Repentance. The word of the LORD comes to Jonah a second time.

Daniel

Listen to more messages:
Peace Presbyterian Church: https://peacepresflint.com/sermons
Acts 13 Network: https://acts13.net/messages

We are beginning a new series — Enemy Love: Jonah and the Sermon on the Mount — and we're going to spend the next four weeks in the little book of Jonah, reading it as the mirror image of the Sermon on the Mount. Or maybe the anti-story: if you want to see the Sermon not done well, go read Jonah.

I start with a confession: I've been reading the Sermon on the Mount devotionally, over and over, because it's a section of Scripture I need to take more seriously. And as I prayed about where to go for a few weeks — five weeks until Advent — Jonah came to mind. It's only about three pages. And I started seeing echoes all over it.

This week is Jonah 1. God calls Jonah to Nineveh — a people he hates, the rising Assyrian power — to preach righteousness. Jonah runs the opposite direction, to Tarshish, and falls asleep in the bottom of the boat. I walk through the two movements of the chapter: God wakes us from our sleep, and God uses us in spite of ourselves.

Jonah knew exactly why he was running. He knew God was slow to anger and abounding in love, and that if the Ninevites repented, God would relent. He would rather die — literally, "throw me overboard" — than see his enemies receive the grace he himself had received.

And the sailors — the pagan sailors — out-peacemake the prophet. They row back to land. They pray. They sacrifice and make vows to the LORD. God brings peace on that ship, with or without Jonah's cooperation.

So here's my challenge for the week, and it's the same one I gave on Sunday: who are our Ninevites? Who are the fish slappers — in the words of the great VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer — the people we are so disgusted by that what we want for them is God's wrath? We all have that somebody. And I think if we're honest, we all have a boat to Tarshish waiting.

Scripture: Jonah 1:1–16; Matthew 5:6, 5:9, 5:43–48

Message Big Idea: God will bring peace whether we choose to join him or not.

In this message:

• Ethan's VeggieTales trauma (and why Jonah the movie is not Jonah the book)
• Jonah as the mirror image of the Sermon on the Mount — and my honest caveat about that claim
• Why Jonah ran: he knew God would relent
• The guilty man who falls asleep — and the storm that wakes him up
• The pagan sailors who out-peacemake the prophet
• "Throw me overboard" — I'd rather die than see my enemies receive grace
• Who are our Ninevites? Who are our fish slappers?

If you love Jesus, then feed his sheep. And if you want to love your enemies the way God loves them — well, it starts with naming the ones you don't.

Next week: Jonah 2, The Rescue — the fish.

— Daniel

Listen to more messages:
Peace Presbyterian Church — https://peacepresflint.com/sermons
Acts 13 Network — https://acts13.net/messages

We've made it to the end of the Gospel of John — nineteen weeks, start to finish — and the finale is John's closing word to us: don't look back in shame, don't look sideways in comparison. Eyes forward into eternity as we follow Christ.

We open on the beach at the charcoal fire — a word John uses only twice in the whole Gospel, and both times it matters. Peter denied Jesus three times around one charcoal fire; now Jesus asks him three times, "Do you love me?" I talk about why the smell of that fire probably brought it all rushing back, and about how Jesus deals with Peter's shame — not with "you lousy loser," but with love. "Do you love me? Then feed my sheep."

Then Peter turns around, sees John, and says, "What about him?" — and I get honest about the comparison trap, because this one hits me. Keeping up with the Joneses, the twenty-somethings who feel behind, the curated Instagram feeds. Jesus answers with what our English translations soften: "You. You follow me."

We close where John closes — with the vastness of the cosmic Christ, a story so big the world itself couldn't hold the books that would tell it — and with the song that keeps running through my head: Caedmon's Call's "Faith My Eyes." Because we end this series right where we began it: believing is seeing, and believing is life.

Scripture: John 21:15–25

In this message:

• The charcoal fire — used only twice in the Gospels, and why the smell of it mattered
• Peter's reinstatement: three questions for three denials
• Why I don't make hay out of the agape/phileo wordplay (John's thesaurus)
• How Jesus deals with your shame: "Do you love me? Then feed my sheep."
• The comparison trap — and Jesus' sharpest answer in the Gospel: "You. You follow me."
• The cosmic Christ, the Grand Canyon, and the story with no end
• Closing out 19 weeks in John: believing is seeing, believing is life

Thank you for persevering through this whole series with me. Jonah is next — and I can't wait.

— Daniel

Listen to more messages:
Peace Presbyterian Church — https://peacepresflint.com/sermons
Acts 13 Network — https://acts13.net/messages

This is the penultimate message in our Gospel of John series — yes, I just like saying penultimate. We're in chapter 21, which, honestly, feels a little tacked on. John 20 ended so perfectly that scholars have been wrestling with chapter 21 ever since. I leave that mystery unresolved and just jump in: Jesus on the beach, the guys fishing all night, catching nothing.

And that's what makes this little scene the living illustration of John 15 — "apart from me you can do nothing." The disciples go back to their self-reliant routine, lean on their own strength and generations of fishing expertise, and the nets come up empty. Then the man on the shore says, "Throw your net on the right side," they move it four feet, and it's filled to overflowing.

I talk about what it really means to abide: Brother Lawrence washing the pots for decades and learning what he called practicing the presence of Christ. I share the C. S. Lewis line that apart from the Eucharist, the most holy thing you come in contact with throughout the week is your neighbor. And then there's Peter — putting his clothes back on before swimming to Jesus, because he recognized that breakfast on the beach with the risen Christ was a holy moment.

My challenge for you this week: tomorrow morning — when you open your laptop, make breakfast, or start your commute — take a breath and pray, "Lord, I am available to you right here." There are no ordinary moments when we practice the presence of Christ.

Scripture: John 21:1–14

In this message:

• Why John 21 feels tacked on — and why the Bible's messiness is part of the fun of taking it seriously
• The two unnamed disciples (and John's little slight)
• What "apart from me you can do nothing" looks like in a fishing boat
• Brother Lawrence, the pots, and practicing the presence of Christ
• Why Peter got dressed to go swimming
• How breakfast on the beach became holy ground

— Daniel

Listen to more messages:
Peace Presbyterian Church — https://peacepresflint.com/sermons
Acts 13 Network — https://acts13.net/messages

Happy Easter. Yes, I know it's October.

This week I'm in John 20 — the pinnacle of John's Gospel, and the story of that first Easter morning. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb while it is still dark, in chaos and heartbreak and fear, and she finds the stone rolled away. What follows is a story about grief, unmet expectations, and how easy it is to miss the presence of Christ even when he's standing right in front of us.

I walk through John's quiet trajectory of sight in the Greek — from blepei (just noticing), to theorei (really looking, evaluating), to eiden (seeing and believing) — and why Mary couldn't recognize Jesus until she heard him say her name.

From there we sit with the disciples behind locked doors, and with Thomas a week later. I don't think Thomas is really doubting so much as making a declaration out of his grief, the way we do: If God were real, why would this happen? And Jesus doesn't shame him for it. He meets him with a gracious invitation: "Come to me. Put your finger here. Stop doubting and believe."

We land where John lands — with the final beatitude: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). We believe, and then we begin to see the hand of God all over our lives. Resurrection faith gives us sight. Believing is indeed seeing.

Scripture: John 20:1–31

In this message:

• Why the angels never get to say "Do not be afraid" to Mary
• Yes, John really did make sure we know he outran Peter (three times)
• How grief and unmet expectations can blind us to Christ's presence
• Why we need to be listening for our Shepherd to call us by name
• What it means to live as the blessed who believe without seeing

If you're walking through grief or a season of unmet expectations right now, I pray this meets you where you are. He will meet you there, too.

— Daniel

Listen to more messages:
Peace Presbyterian Church — https://peacepresflint.com/sermons
Acts 13 Network — https://acts13.net/messages

Have you ever listened to a hymn or a piece of music that ends on an unresolved note? Rather than finishing with a tidy, comfortable chord, it leaves you sitting in a moment of tension and reflection.

In today’s episode, we explore John chapters 18 and 19, walking through the final night and hours of Jesus’ earthly life—from his arrest in the dark of the Garden of Gethsemane to his trial before Pilate and his ultimate enthronement on Calvary.

As we look at the powerful contrast between earthly power and divine authority, we wrestle with a central, challenging truth: The King we need is rarely the King we want. Jesus reigns not by conquering his enemies through force, but by laying down his life in self-sacrificial love.

Key Takeaways & Highlights 

• Authority in the Darkness: When a detachment of hundreds of Roman soldiers arrived in Gethsemane, Jesus stepped forward unarmed. At the simple declaration of His name—Ego Eimi ("I am He")—an army drew back and fell to the ground. Jesus was never a victim of circumstances; He maintained absolute authority to the end.
  
• The Temptation of Earthly Power: Peter’s impulse to draw a sword in the garden reflects our own constant desire for a king who flexes physical force and worldly dominance. When Jesus refused to fight according to human standards, Peter’s courage failed, leading to his denial in the high priest's courtyard.
  
• "We Have No King But Caesar": Exploring the tragic turning point in John 19 where the religious leaders formally reject God as their ruler—echoing 1 Samuel 8—and choose allegiance to Rome’s power over the Kingdom of God.
  
• Enthroned on Calvary: Why the cross was not a moment of defeat or shame, but Jesus' crowning moment of glory, where He defeated sin and death once and for all.
  
• It Is Finished (Tetelestai): Understanding that Jesus yielded His own spirit; His life was not taken, but willingly given as an act of grace and redemption.
  

Timestamps 

• 00:00 – The power of an unresolved song & entering John 18–19
  
• 03:15 – Scene 1: Light in the darkness – The arrest in the garden
  
• 08:40 – "I AM HE" – Divine authority on display before 600 soldiers
  
• 13:20 – Peter’s sword vs. Jesus’ cup: Why we crave a different kind of king
  
• 18:05 – Standing before Pilate & the tragic declaration: "We have no king but Caesar"
  
• 24:30 – The cross as enthronement: Global proclamation written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek
  
• 29:15 – "It is Finished" – Jesus yields His spirit
  
• 33:50 – Reflections: Where in your life are you dethroning the King you need?
  

Reflection Questions for the Week 

1. Where in your life are you tempted to demand a Savior who serves your personal agenda rather than bowing to the King of the Cross? 
2. How do we, as modern believers, subtly declare "we have no king but Caesar" when faced with earthly fear, politics, or cultural pressure? 
3. How does knowing Jesus retained total authority over His life and death give you peace in your current circumstances? 

Scripture References 

• John 18:1–11 – The arrest of Jesus in the garden
  
• John 18:15–27 – Peter’s denial & Jesus before the High Priest
  
• John 18:28–19:16 – The trial before Pontius Pilate
  
• John 19:17–30 – The Crucifixion of Christ
  
• 1 Samuel 8 – Israel demands an earthly king
  

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In John 17 — Jesus's High Priestly Prayer, prayed on the night of his betrayal — I found a glory that looks nothing like the world's. Not palaces, crowns, or self-promotion. A cross. A protected mission. A unified church.

In this message I walk through the three movements of Jesus's prayer:

• The glory of the sacrificial life (John 17:1–5) — why the cross is not "cosmic child abuse" but God giving himself, and why eternal life is something we're tasting right here, right now.
• The glory of protected mission (17:6–19) — what it means to hear Jesus praying for your protection, why we don't get the easy way of being scooped out of the world, and why we were never meant to hide out in holy huddles.
• The glory of missional unity (17:20–26) — the prayer Jesus prayed for us, looking straight down the ages, and why the church keeps splitting over things like flooring.

Plus: the scene from The Return of the King that I can't get out of my head, the one where the King drops to a knee before the hobbits and says, "You kneel to nobody."

And a closing challenge: tomorrow morning, when real life hits, where will your heart hesitate?

📖 Scripture: John 17

In this episode, we dive into John 15 and 16 to explore what it truly means to abide in the love of Christ. Walking through Jesus’ final upper-room instructions to His disciples, we break down two foundational principles—that God is sovereign and good and that reality is our friend. Discover how letting go of the myths of self-reliance, constant comfort, and instant gratification allows us to anchor our lives deeply in the Vine.

Key Takeaways & Timestamps:

• – Two Family Mottos: Why embracing reality and trusting God's sovereign goodness sets the stage for deep spiritual growth.

• – Myth 1: The Myth of Self: Dismantling the culture of self-determination ("I am the captain of my soul") and embracing Jesus’ words that apart from Him, we can do nothing.

• – The Hardest Command: Why loving God feels manageable, but staying connected to the Vine through loving imperfect people in community is where real faith happens.

• – Myth 2: The Myth of Comfort: Why we shouldn't confuse God's pruning with His punishment, and how hardship often signals growth rather than disapproval.

• – Myth 3: The Myth of the Immediate: Overcoming our demand for instant fixes, resisting the urge to numb present pain, and leaning into the indwelling Holy Spirit.

• – "Take Heart": Living from the reality of Christ’s finished victory—He has already overcome the world.

Scripture References:

• John 15:1–17 (The True Vine and loving one another)

• John 15:18–16:4 (The world’s hatred and the purpose of pruning)

• John 16:5–33 (The promise of the Holy Spirit and overcoming the world)

Reflection Questions for the Week:

1. Which of the three myths (Self, Comfort, or Immediate) do you struggle with the most?

2. Are you currently experiencing a season of trial that might actually be God lovingly pruning you for greater fruitfulness?

3. How can you practice abiding in Christ’s love through sacrificial love for someone in your community this week?

We don't live in an easy world. Jesus knew that — and he didn't pretend otherwise.

In John 14, we find Jesus in the upper room with his eleven closest disciples on the darkest night of their lives. Judas has left. Death is coming. And into that weight, Jesus speaks words that are honest, tender, and durable: "Do not let your hearts be troubled."

In this sermon, we sit with the questions that surface when life gets hard:

• Where will I go?
• How will I get there?
• What do I do right now?
• Am I alone?
• How can I have peace when everything is falling apart?

Jesus answers every one of them — and his answers are better than anything the world offers.

In this episode:

• Why "God has a wonderful plan for your life" often rings hollow — and what Jesus says instead
• The promise of the Father's house and what it means to have a future home to hold onto
• Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life — not just a theological claim, but a lifeline
• The Greek word behind "another advocate" (allos) and why it matters that the Spirit is one of the same kind as Christ
• The broken supports we lean on when life gets hard — and why we resist trusting the one who can actually hold us
• Thomas à Kempis on following the way, believing the truth, and living the life

Key Passage: John 14:1–6, 15–18, 25–27

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me." — John 14:1

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." — John 14:18

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives." — John 14:27

Referenced:

• Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
• The Princess Bride (yes, really)