The Moody Church Sunday Morning Podcast

Acts 13:1–12

 Why are Christians compelled to live on mission? Jesus sends us into a dark world where the truth of Christ brings salvation and freedom.

 Personal Burden

• We go because we love the lost.

 Divine Commission

• We go because we’re sent by Jesus.

 Spiritual Darkness

• We go because souls are in danger.

 Liberating Truth

• We go because Jesus is Savior for all.

 Takeaway: How will I join Jesus on mission in my world?

You Become Like What Your Worship”

Pastor Stephen Farish

December 28, 2025

Psalm 115:4-8; 2 Corinthians 3:161. Two definitions

a. worship: the right response of the human heart to God’s revelation of himself, which

response involves loving God with all we have and all we are by, among other things, seeing,

delighting in, treasuring, and obeying the Lord

b. idolatry: loving any person, thing, idea, or status more than we love (worship) God2. Psalm 115:4-8: Those who worship idols become like them (cf. Psalm 135:15-18).

a. idols of the heart (Ezekiel 14:1-5)

b. four questions to ask yourself to discern the idols of your heart (Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters (Dutton, 2009), pp. 167-170)

i. About what do I daydream?

ii. Where do I spend my money?

iii. How do I respond when I am frustrated?

iv. What are the emotions I find hard to control?

c. “the expulsive power of a new affection” (Thomas Chalmers, 1815)3. 2 Corinthians 3:16: Those who worship Jesus Christ become like him.

a. how this dynamic works in Christian souls

b. the bottom line: we desperately need the grace of God to stop making mud pies in a slum and start enjoying a holiday by the sea (C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” sermon preached June 8, 1942)

Luke 2:25–35

 

What sustains faith when we're waiting on God? Beholding Jesus turns uncertainty into hope and transforms even death's departure into peace.

 Awaiting

• Living by faith means learning to wait.

 

Beholding

• Living by faith means trusting in the middle.

 

Entrusting

• Living by faith means surrendering in hope.

 

Takeaway: Our lives are in His hands.

Like Zechariah, we wrestle with disbelief though God's working in the quiet. Then Christ appears as our long-awaited Redeemer, King, and Peace.

 

A New Exodus

• Jesus is our Redeemer.

 

A New Warrior

• Jesus is our King.

 

A New Freedom

• Jesus is our Deliverer.

 

A New Covenant

• Jesus is our Savior.

 

A New Hope

• Jesus is our Peace.

 

Takeaway: Jesus is our Everything!

Luke 1:46–55

 When the proud prevail and hope feels thin, Mary sings of a God who sees the humble. Her Magnificat shows how His mercy and justice upends the world. God’s Delight

• Our God honors the humble.

 God’s Strength

• Our God fights for the feeble.

 God’s Justice

• Our God reckons the wreckage.

 God’s Faithfulness

• Our God keeps His covenants.

 Takeaway: God is glorified as we delight ourselves in Him.

Joshua 4:21–22

Acts 12:1–24

 When darkness overwhelms and evil seems to win, Acts 12 shows us God is sovereign in the shadows. Trusting Him in the night is the very path He uses to deliver. 

Trust God’s Sovereignty

• In the dark, our God is still King.

 

Trust God’s Goodness

• In the dark, our God still loves us.

 

Trust God’s Wisdom

• In the dark, our God still knows best.

 

Trust God’s Justice

• In the dark, our God is still working.

 

Trust God’s Victory

• In the dark, our God is still winning.

 

Takeaway: In the dark, our God is still trustworthy.

Mark 4:1–20 1. The Parable 2. The Parable Explained 3. The Part Left Unsaid: How Did the Good Soil Get Good? 4. How to Farm

Acts 11:19–30; 12:25–13:3 What happens when the Gospel reaches the least expected? Unlikely people become world changers through Christ. Unlikely DiversityThe Gospel embraces the unlikely. Unlikely UnityThe Gospel unites the unlikely. Unlikely MinistryThe Gospel pursues the unlikely. Takeaway: The Gospel is for every unlikely one of us.• “People sensed in their hearts that Jesus did not mock their respect for the sacred nor their clamor for an invincible Savior, and so they beat their sacred drums for him until the stars skipped and danced in the skies. After that dance, the stars weren’t little anymore. Christianity helped Africans to become renewed Africans, not re-made Europeans.” —Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?

Acts 10:1–11:18 Who can be in God's family? Anyone saved by Jesus and sealed by His Spirit is welcomed by grace. The SetupGod is setting up a meeting between Cornelius and Peter, proactively dismantling Old Covenant barriers. The SurpriseThe Gentiles are sealed by the Spirit in the New Covenant through Jesus, without becoming Jewish. The SortingIn the New Covenant, Jews and Gentiles alike come directly to the Father, through Jesus alone, by the Spirit. Takeaway: “Ever welcome to this house of God are strangers and the poor.”