The Gathering at Brock

Overview

The church is a month into Seek Month — every Saturday in October given to open-ended worship nights, a church-wide fast, and intentional pursuit of God’s presence. Jesse opens by tying the season to Solomon’s consecration of the temple: the sacrifice was bigger than expected, spilled out of the altar into the courtyard, and lasted longer than planned. The point: don’t quit early. The outcome — fire from heaven, the glory cloud so heavy the priests can’t stand — is worth every bit of the cost. Three principles of consecration follow, drawn from the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist.

3 Key Takeaways

1. Consecration should be generational — it’s never too late to start. Both Jesus and John the Baptist came from ordinary families — Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph — who lived their own consecrated lives to prepare the way for children who would walk in more than they did. Jesse speaks to two groups: those who inherited a kingdom environment (steward it, don’t waste it on the world) and those who came from brokenness and are breaking the cycle. He points to families in the church who came from broken pasts and are already watching their children walk in things they never had. “What you do right here can change generations until Jesus returns.”

2. Consecration is shaped and fortified in the wilderness. Moses. David. Elijah. Paul. John. Jesus. Every major figure forged for kingdom impact spent time in the wilderness — eromos in Greek: lonesome, desolate, deprived of the aid of others. Jesse is honest: he deployed to an actual desert and crumpled spiritually while friends around him thrived. God redeemed it anyway. His point: don’t short-circuit the wilderness by getting out too early. The Spirit leads you in, through, and out. It’s where you learn to hear God’s voice for yourself, where you meet your own flesh, and where you get victory over the enemy. If the wilderness you’re in is from God, don’t whine. Press through.

3. The consecrated lifestyle is maintained through intentional solitude. Jesus didn’t survive on 15-minute devotionals. He stayed up all night before choosing his disciples. He pushed through crowds to find quiet. Jesse challenges the room: when did you last give God two hours alone? Four? Eight? Twenty-four? He’s not talking about a devotional — he’s talking about scheduling a block, renting a hotel room, throwing the TV in the hallway, and pressing in until something shifts. “You cannot encounter him in solitude and not be changed. The problem is Christendom is operating on leftovers.”

Memorable Quote

“He keeps touching stuff I didn’t know He needed to touch.”

Overview

Jesse draws from a single sweep of Mark 5 and 6 — four encounters with Jesus in rapid succession — and lays them side by side to ask: what separates the people who get an encounter from the people who don’t? The answer, consistently, is hunger and a willingness to press through. This is a message for the middle of the consecration season, when the initial enthusiasm has worn off and people are deciding whether to keep going.

3 Key Takeaways

1. True consecration requires spiritual hunger and a willingness to press in personally. Four people in these two chapters: the formerly demon-possessed man who begs to go with Jesus instead of staying behind; Jairus the synagogue ruler who kneels before someone his religious peers despise; the bleeding woman who forces her way through a crowd to touch Jesus’ cloak; and the hometown crowd who are briefly amazed and then numbed by familiarity. The difference between those who get an encounter and those who don’t isn’t proximity — everyone in the crowd was close to Jesus. It was hunger. Jesse opens with a note on the demon-possessed man cutting himself, naming it plainly as demonic in nature, and then pivots to what happens when that man gets free: he’s sitting clothed and in his right mind. The contrast is everything.

2. Don’t let the crowd deter you from your consecrated pursuit. Every person in this passage who presses in faces resistance. The crowd begs Jesus to leave. The people around Jairus tell him his daughter is already dead, don’t bother. The bleeding woman is risking serious cultural consequence just by being near people in her unclean state. And the hometown crowd actively takes offense at Jesus. Jesse shares a personal story: the season God moved him into a new place spiritually created real friction — with his wife, with family, with the church he was part of at the time. His honest confession is that he handled it wrong by trying to pressure others into his experience. The lesson he learned: stay humble, stay unoffended, keep going. When you live the life God is taking you into, it becomes attractive to the people close to you. “Though none go with me, I still will follow.”

3. Stay motivated — your encounter doesn’t just change you, it makes you a conduit for others. The man who was possessed by a legion of demons becomes the evangelist of the Decapolis — a ten-city Gentile region of 150,000 to 300,000 people. He had no background, no credentials, no training. He had an encounter. Jesse traces the same pattern through the bleeding woman — who goes back to a community of unclean people with the gospel — and Jairus, who now has a synagogue to influence. The consecrated pursuit is worth it not only because of what it does in you, but because of what flows out of you. The design, Jesse says, is John 7:38 — rivers of living water flowing from your belly everywhere you go. That doesn’t happen accidentally. It takes consecration, hunger, encounter, and purification.

Memorable Quote

“He’s got a plan that’s going to blow your mind — that He would use someone as jacked up as you to change the world. Stay motivated.”

Overview

This is a family Sunday — kids stay in the main service — and Jesse leans into it fully. Hide-and-seek stories, a live illustration with a volunteer hiding behind a box and getting carried out on someone’s shoulders, kids ratting out their parents for getting lost in parking lots and driving with the map upside down. The energy is light, but the six principles that come out of Luke 15 are anything but. This is a review and completion of the Lost Sheep series, landing on what may be the most important point: finding the lost isn’t the finish line.

6 Kingdom Principles

1. The presence of Jesus in our daily lives should attract those rejected and bound by sin. Power and love — that’s what drew outcasts to Jesus. Kids contribute: being a light, the way you talk to people, loving the unlovable. The principle stands at every age.

2. Kingdom people welcome the rejected and invite them into genuine fellowship. Not just attracting people — actively inviting them in. Jesse admits this is an area he wants to grow in personally.

3. The kingdom actively pursues those with broken fellowship. God doesn’t give up on a hiding spot. He’s coming. Whether you’re lost or just in a broken season, he’s pursuing you — not with discipline in his hands, but because he wants you. And now we carry that same pursuit as ministers of reconciliation.

4. The helplessness of the lost is real — the shepherd goes to them. A lost sheep doesn’t decide to stop being lost. Lost people act like lost people, broken people act like broken people — because they are. The expectation can’t be that they find their way back on their own. We go into the mess.

5. The pursuit defies logic and abandons personal gain. A real shepherd asked whether he’d leave 99 safe sheep to chase one would say no — it’s financially irrational. Jesus flips the calculus entirely. Pursuing the lost will cost dignity, reputation, time, comfort, and career. Kingdom people pay it anyway, because Jesus paid it for them.

6. Finding the lost is only the beginning — the goal is future shepherds. This is where the message lands. Jesse uses the live illustration: Trenton finds the hidden child, puts him on his shoulders, carries him home. That’s the picture. But the point isn’t the rescue — it’s that the rescued sheep becomes a shepherd. Jesus didn’t find tax collectors and leave; he found them, discipled them, and sent them out. A kingdom person stops seeing a struggling coworker as a burden and starts seeing a future shepherd still in process.

Memorable Quote

“It’s not the church’s job to make disciples — it’s disciples’ job to make disciples.”

Overview

Jesse returns to the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15, continuing the church's journey through the principles of kingdom expansion. After briefly revisiting what it means to live like Jesus and welcome the rejected, he turns to the Father's relentless pursuit of people who have wandered from Him. Two deeply personal stories, one about losing his young daughter and another about confronting his own judgment of a stranger, bring the message close to home. It's a warm but challenging call to stop waiting for broken people to find their way back and start pursuing them with the same compassion God has shown us.

4 Key Takeaways

1. The presence of Jesus in our lives should attract the lost and rejected. Revisiting the first principle from the previous message, Jesse reminds the church that becoming like Christ is the goal of the Christian life. Jesus drew tax collectors and sinners because they encountered both the power of God and His love. That same combination should mark believers today: heavenly solutions to earthly problems, followed by compassion, mercy, and genuine acceptance. Jesse challenges the church to quit lowering the bar for what it means to follow Jesus.

2. Kingdom people welcome the broken into genuine fellowship. The Pharisees complained that Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them, but sharing a meal in that culture communicated friendship and acceptance. Jesse challenges Christians who have become so insulated within their church friendships that they've lost meaningful relationships with people outside the faith. He points to Matthew, the former tax collector, as someone whose past became a doorway to reaching others. God can redeem the very experiences and failures people would rather forget and use them to bring someone else home.

3. The kingdom actively pursues those who have broken fellowship with the Father. The shepherd in Luke 15 doesn't wait for the lost sheep to return. He goes after it until he finds it. Jesse shares a frightening memory of losing his three- or four-year-old daughter Joy at a wedding reception, desperately searching surrounding neighborhoods before discovering her safely playing upstairs in a dark room. Those fifteen minutes of fear give him a small glimpse of the Father's determination to recover His children. Jesse emphasizes that this pursuit includes believers who have drifted from fellowship with God. The challenge is to reflect that same persistence toward struggling coworkers, family members, and friends rather than becoming consumed with our own lives.

4. Stop expecting lost sheep to find their own way home. Jesse draws on a message from an Indian evangelist named Rambo about the prodigal son. The father runs to embrace and kiss his son while he's still filthy from the pigpen. The point is simple: God welcomes people before they've cleaned up their lives, and His followers should do the same. Jesse then confesses his own failure while selling an old Ford Flex, initially judging the buyer by his appearance and tattoos. After nearly an hour working together, he discovers a warm, determined father with a great relationship with his son. The experience leaves him convicted about how easily outward appearances can keep believers from loving the very people they're called to reach.

Memorable Quote

"He kissed him before he cleaned him."

A line Jesse credits to evangelist Rambo that captures the heart of the message: the Father's acceptance comes before the cleanup.

Overview

With Jesse visiting the new church plant in Mineral Wells, elder Chris Martin steps in with a practical and surprisingly entertaining message about the power of our thoughts. Through experiments, personal stories, and an unforgettable blender demonstration, Chris explores how the things we repeatedly think about shape our beliefs, emotions, decisions, and ultimately our lives. He connects the science of habits and thought patterns with Scripture's command to renew our minds. It's a message for anyone tired of fighting the same mental battles and ready to start thinking differently.

4 Key Takeaways

1. Your thoughts have more influence than you realize. Chris begins by asking everyone to imagine biting into a freshly sliced lemon. Many experience a physical reaction even though there's no lemon in the room. He uses examples of the placebo effect, mental rehearsal, and the emotional weight of past experiences to illustrate how deeply our thoughts affect us. An old memory of overhearing a coworker angrily rehearsing an argument with his absent boss adds some humor to a familiar problem: we can keep reliving something long after it happens. What we repeatedly think about influences how we feel and respond to life.

2. What you repeatedly think becomes what you believe. Chris draws a cycle connecting thoughts, beliefs, past experiences, emotions, decisions, and the direction of our lives. When people believe they're failures or that God can't use them, their minds begin looking for evidence to reinforce those conclusions. He demonstrates this by asking the congregation to find everything green in the room, then unexpectedly asking what they noticed that was brown. The point is that our attention tends to find what we're looking for. Repeated worry, resentment, or fear can become familiar mental pathways that grow harder to escape.

3. Even small compromises can poison your thinking. In the sermon’s most memorable illustration, Chris makes a smoothie with milk, protein, and fruit, representing Scripture, spiritual nourishment, and encouragement. Then he introduces a small amount of dog waste and something he describes as poison. Suddenly nobody wants the smoothie. His point is that we often justify small sinful thoughts or entertain lies from the enemy while assuming they won't affect anything else. But those thoughts eventually influence our beliefs and behavior. Drawing from Mark 7, Chris reminds the church that what we allow into our hearts eventually comes out in our lives.

4. Take your thoughts captive and replace them with God's truth. Chris turns to Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 10, emphasizing that renewing the mind is a command, not a suggestion. Philippians 4:8 becomes a practical filter: Is this thought true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and worthy of praise? When a thought fails the test, don't simply reject it. Replace it with Scripture, and when the battle feels overwhelming, speak God's Word aloud. Chris compares deeply ingrained thought patterns to ancient chariot ruts worn into stone over years of repeated travel. Change takes practice, so he encourages listeners to identify their struggles, prepare relevant Scriptures, write them down, and keep choosing a new path. He closes by reading biblical promises over the congregation, reminding them that God's truth applies personally to them.

Memorable Quote

"Whatever you're doing, you're getting better at."

A statement Chris borrows from a Christian neurosurgeon's book that raises an uncomfortable question: What are we training our minds to become good at?

Overview

Jesse opens a new chapter in the Luke series — moving from the cost of discipleship into the heart of why it's worth it. Luke 15's opening scene sets it up perfectly: sinners and tax collectors crowding around Jesus while the Pharisees mutter. Before Jesus even tells the parable, the scene itself is the sermon. Two principles emerge, and both land personally — including one of the most vulnerable moments Jesse has shared all series.

2 Key Takeaways

1. The presence of Jesus in our daily lives should attract those who are rejected and bound by sin.

This breaks into two connected parts. First, the goal of the Christian life — the word Christian literally means "to be like Christ" — is Christlikeness. Jesse calls it a lie from the enemy that believers say "I want to be a Christian but I could never actually be like him." The whole point is transformation by the Spirit into the image of Jesus. It starts at salvation, continues through discipleship, and doesn't stop until we see him face to face. He tells the story of a woman from the church ten years ago — caught in addiction, depression, and an unmarried relationship — who disappeared after the church poured into her. Jesse ran into her at a revival meeting in Fort Worth. She's married now. Her pastor called her one of the most faithful servants in his church. "Thank you, God, that you are patient in our process."

Second: when we become like Jesus, his presence in our life will naturally draw outcasts and broken people — not to a building or a program, but to us. Why did sinners crowd around Jesus? Power and authority that drew attention to God, and love that didn't condemn. Jesse's challenge: in your sphere — at the rodeo, on the SWAT team, in the Navy, running an AC business — you should be the most Christlike person anyone in that world knows. Not to boast. So they can see Jesus.

2. The kingdom person welcomes the rejected and invites them into genuine fellowship.

The Greek word for welcome means to receive into companionship, to accept, to look for, to await. Jesus didn't do a drive-through interaction with sinners. In his culture, eating with someone meant full acceptance — intimate, genuine, real. The Pharisees' complaint — "this man welcomes sinners and eats with them" — is the reputation Jesse says he wants the Gathering to have. He closes with a personal confession spanning his whole life: never fitting in — too small in high school, too broke in college, too Christian in the infantry, too part-time at the PD, the black sheep in a Southern Baptist family. "Except for one place. I have always felt at home with him." That's what the world needs to feel from us.

Memorable Quote

"Your story is more powerful than a lot of sermons a preacher is going to preach. Who you used to be — God will use to bring in the people bound up with the things he set you free from."

Note: Recording begins mid-message. Summary reflects what was captured.

Overview

Jesse is preaching to a crowd that's already counting the cost — and he doesn't lower the bar. Drawing from Luke 14, he lays out what Jesus actually requires of a disciple, then pivots to the rewards with the kind of joy that makes the cost feel worth counting. This one includes a mint illustration with a 10-year-old, a motorcycle story, and his daughter declaring herself "stacked" with candy — all in service of one of the most sobering invitations in the Gospels.

3 Key Takeaways

1. The cost is real — death to self, abandoned pursuit, total surrender. Jesus says anyone who doesn't carry his cross and give up everything cannot be his disciple. Jesse doesn't soften it. He uses a motorcycle illustration from his college days: on a curve, if you fix your eyes on the ground right in front of you, you run off the road. Fix your eyes on where you're going and your body follows. Target fixation on anything other than Jesus costs you the turn. His personal application: that week in worship he told God he'd lay down both his job at the PD and the church — today, if asked. Open hands on everything.

2. The rewards are staggering — we're stacked. Forgiveness, righteousness, the Holy Spirit dwelling inside you, adoption as a son or daughter, access to the kingdom of heaven on earth — today. Jesse's daughter climbs in the car with pockets full of candy and declares "bro, I'm stacked" — and Jesse borrows it directly: "We are so stacked." The cost is sobering. The reward makes the cost look small.

3. Kingdom influence requires persistent pursuit of purity. Pure salt cannot lose its saltiness — sodium chloride is chemically stable. Salt only loses its flavor when something is added to it. Compromise is the addition. Jesse's closing challenge to every age group in the room: don't give up on purity. You'll look weird. You'll be left out. But you'll be invited into the kingdom of heaven — and what you do there matters for eternity.

Memorable Quote

"My last breath — whether it's tomorrow or at 120 — will be my attempt to be like Christ. Because what else are we living for?"

Overview

Jesse opens by announcing Seek Month — the entire month of October set aside for Saturday night worship gatherings with no time limit and a church-wide fast from something that costs the flesh. Then he moves into one of the most inward-focused messages of the series: kingdom expansion doesn't start out there, it starts at the table. This is a message about what it means to actually say yes to God's invitation — and what our excuses reveal about us.

4 Key Takeaways

1. Reject religious numbness and return to wondrous awe. God the Father, Jesus the King, and the Holy Spirit have personally invited you — someone like you — to sit at their table in intimate covenant fellowship. Jesse contrasts the modern picture of a banquet (awkward small talk in a crowded room) with what dining meant in Jesus' culture: full acceptance, honor, covenant. He illustrates it with a story of working security at a Rangers game in the owner's box — standing in the corner watching wealthy people eat prime rib and Coke floats — and imagining what it would feel like if the owner called him over. "That's never going to happen in my world. And yet, Yahweh has personally invited each of us out of the corner where we feel insignificant and unseen."

2. The invitation is for now — don't wait until you're ready. The master doesn't tell his servant to go find the poor, the blind, and the lame and get them cleaned up first. He says go get them now and bring them in. Jesse names the lie plainly: you need a few more weeks of sobriety, a few more months of discipline, a few more days of fasting before you come to God. "Friend, you were never ready to be invited in the first place. He's not waiting for you to clean yourself up." The table is set. The invitation is urgent. The return of the King is not long delayed.

3. Don't let wealth, career, a to-do list, or even good relationships make little of the invitation. The Greek word for "excuses" means to deprecate — to make little of. The guests in the parable had real things: a field, oxen, a marriage. None of them were sinful. All of them became reasons to miss the banquet. Jesse illustrates with a two-star general's personal invitation after a combat tour — and how no E-5 makes excuses for not showing up to that. "Some two-star general nobody can remember pales in comparison to the invitation Yahweh is continually giving us."

4. Warning: those who continually reject the invitation will be passed over. Jesse handles this one briefly, reading Matthew 21:42–44 and leaving it with the congregation to seek the Lord on. The direct context is God taking the gospel from the Jews to the Gentiles. The stewardship principle underneath: God will find someone who will bear fruit. Jesse's personal response — "I don't want to risk it."

Memorable Quote

"The onus is not on you to save people. The onus is to come to the table and commune with the living God so that when you walk into these places, the kingdom of heaven collides with their lives."

Overview

Jesse opens a new series from Luke 14–16, where Jesus teaches a string of parables centered on the banquet table of the kingdom. This first message draws three convicting truths from a single Sabbath dinner — and Jesse admits upfront it's a heavy one. The loving swat he gives the church is the same one he's receiving himself.

3 Key Takeaways

1. Love and compassion trump man-made religion. Jesus heals a man with dropsy on the Sabbath while surrounded by the most religious people in the room — who are too focused on being right to see a man in need. Jesse's challenge: before casting yourself as the hero in that story, ask honestly where you'd actually fit. Religion that proves others wrong while walking past broken people is not the kingdom. "We don't need more religion. We need more Christ-like love and compassion and supernatural answers to worldly problems."

2. There is no room for self-promotion in the kingdom. God opposes the proud — and that should make us shudder. Jesse identifies three roots of self-promotion: insecurity in God's love (needing human approval to fill what only God can); unbelief in God's ability to promote you correctly; and impatience with God's timing. His honest confession: he's watched people he discipled build bigger churches and felt the pull of comparison. The answer he keeps returning to — take the lowest place and let God do the promoting. Self-promotion short-circuits the very favor it's trying to secure.

3. No quid pro quo — kingdom living is sacrificial with no expectation of return. Jesus tells his host: don't invite people who can repay you. Invite the ones who can't. Jesse applies this directly to marriages, business, and everyday relationships — calling out the subtle manipulation of conditional love and favor-trading. His personal illustration: his marriage only works because he stopped waiting for Jill to meet his needs before being the husband he's called to be. He receives acceptance from God first, and that overflows. At its root, the quid pro quo system is using God's name for personal gain — which, Jesse argues, is a much deeper violation of the third commandment than most people realize.

Memorable Quote

"When you live your life in a way that no one could ever repay you — in that day when you see me face to face, I myself will repay you."

Overview

Jesse closes out the anxiety series with the final two truths from 1 Peter 5:7, picking up where he left off four weeks ago. The backpacking trip happened in between — and it shows. He comes back with sharper illustrations, fresh urgency, and a story about ugly-crying on the couch with Jill that makes the theology completely personal. This is a pastor preaching what he's living.

Review: Points 1 & 2

All means all — every anxiety, small or accumulated, must be cast on God, not managed or coddled. Anxiety is a weapon — name it, don't flirt with it, and cast it specifically and continually on Jesus, not on friends, vices, or social media.

2 Closing Takeaways

1. God loves you and wants to carry your anxiety — let him care for you. The word care in the Greek means to be concerned about and to take care. Jesse draws the connection: the way God cares for you is by taking your cares. Those shoulders that carried the cross were literally designed to bear the weight of your anxiety. He makes it pastoral and raw — sharing that just months ago he called an elder in tears on his back porch saying he couldn't do the job anymore. His point isn't that pastors fall apart. His point is that when they do, Jesus is the only answer — and the elder just pointed him right back there. The invitation extends to everyone: stop being too proud or too independent to receive care. Don't tell Jesus you've got this. You don't. Neither does he.

2. This is personal — he cares for you specifically. Jesse closes with the most intimate moment in the series. At any given moment Jesus can be receiving the anxieties of six billion people and still make each one feel like the only person in the universe. From toenail fungus to terminal illness — cast all covers it. Jesse leads the congregation in saying aloud together: "He cares about me." Then he tells the story of sitting on the couch with Jill, both of them ugly-crying about things that might seem small by comparison — and feeling the tangible care of Jesus in that moment. His final image: the backpack comes off when you get to camp, and that's when the living starts. Fishing. Making fire. Filtering water for others. You can't give life to the people in your sphere when you're bent under the weight of what you were never designed to carry.

Memorable Quote

"Don't be stubborn or ignorant by refusing to let the cross be enough for your anxiety."