The Fellowship Podcast

Remember that 90’s song, “What if God was one of us?” Well, he was! During the Christmas season, we remember Immanuel—God with us (Isaiah 9, Matthew 1). Jesus came to show you what God looks like, to speak your heart language, to relate to you. We serve an extraordinary God who humbled himself to show his profound love for us (Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 9).

Today’s message focused on the shepherds and their inclusion in the birth of Jesus. As we read from Luke 2, we explored how the shepherds received the favor of God, were included in the Jesus story, and were significant for Mary, Joseph, Jesus and their community. Just like the shepherds, we are favored, included and significant and are invited to come to Jesus.

Let’s go spelunking with Isaiah, Joseph and Jacob. In this message, Sarah looks at times when God’s people found themselves in the dark—needing help, light and direction. And Chris Ludlow shares what he learned about Joseph, when Chris was brand new to the Bible. Just like God brought Joseph dreams and directions in the night, he wants to provide direction for you.

There’s good news for you. Just like God favored Mary, God wants to favor you with grace. In this talk, Sarah speaks about the promises of who the Son of David would be, the beauty of how Jesus came as the Son of God, and the wonder of how he, as the Son of Man would favor us with the gift of grace.

The story of David and Goliath is iconic. We explored how important this story was in the history of Israel. It was a crucial turning point. We also explored how David had to overcome challenges from his family, his king and Goliath himself. Lastly, we looked at the parallels of David to Jesus and what Jesus’ victory looks like.

On our anniversary Sunday, Sarah’s pottery instructor Kyle came to church and demonstrated the truth that we are clay in the hands of a master potter (Jeremiah 18, Isaiah 64). Amanda, Leslie and Raelynn spoke about how we humble and surrender ourselves to God’s creative, faithful and expert hand while he fashions us as beautiful vessels. The process is messy, requires patience and includes fire. And sometimes after all that work, we find ourselves broken, but we serve a God who heals the brokenhearted and binds up our wounds (Psalm 147:3). Aaron concluded by reminding us that we are created to carry treasure in jars of clay to reflect the light of God’s glory (2 Corinthians 4).

Post Sunday tip: Given the visual nature of this message, you may prefer to watch the video podcast instead of only listening.

Like David we are anointed to rule and to work, but sometimes we work for bad bosses in tough places. Regardless of our circumstances, we can learn to rule by serving because we’re called as a royal priesthood to proclaim the praises of God. In this message, Sarah teaches about reflecting the image of God at work, and we explore our hearts to see where we may have bitter root judgements about rulers and ruling. Then we commission one another for royal service.

Do you know your heart condition? When looking to anoint a new leader, God was looking into the heart of David—not at his appearance. In this talk, Sarah talks about what God values when anointing us. We also look at 3 skills David learned while being a shepherd: service, care, and tending to his own heart.

In this talk, Halen guides us through David’s most well-known song, Psalm 23. With humor and word study, she takes us on a journey of discovering how Jesus takes care of us through fear, friction, famine and flies! Like David, we can learn how to trust and be led by our Good Shepherd.

As we continued to look at the life of David, we explored three areas: 1. King Saul and the temptations he experienced 2. King David and his heart after God and 3. God’s commitment to David to build his house. We discussed how the stories of these men might apply in our lives and how we can develop a deeper walk with Jesus.