In your early childhood, you learn to deal with anxiety, and that learned response carries over through your whole life. We think that the solution to anxiety is in our personality, but these things are formed for us long before that.

So now, what do we do?

Maybe dealing with anxiousness is not about our learned response, and it’s something deeper than our personality. Maybe there’s something that shapes us to be the people that we are called to be.

Philippians 4:4-7

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Righteousness is one of those words where we’ve lost its significance. It’s so far out of reach we put it out of our minds.

But Paul is telling us there is no difference between righteousness and love. To live justly is to live rightly. To live justly is to love steadfastly.

Look outward. Yes, it’s about Christ in you, but the question you should be asking is “how is Christ in them?”

Philippians 1:3-11

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As we journey to hope, sometimes that can be complicated.

Hope is one of those things that feels good to say, but when we look for it, can be hard to find.

It’s so easy to believe we can’t. How many things get in the way?

Plus, Ken tells the story of getting ripped off at the Alamo.

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

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What if someone came up to you and said ‘you’re one of them’?”

We build places of trust and belonging based on the idea that there has to be a them. But what we’re doing is distancing ourselves in order to feel a little safer in this world.

Faith in Jesus, being one in Christ, is something so much bigger than an ‘us and them’ reality.

Galatians 3:23-29

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Today’s message is from the Book of James, and that means that Ken is continuing his lifelong goal to get the church to love the Book of James as much as he does.

James 2:14-26

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Nothing can stop the story of the love of God. Not even a fire alarm.

Mark 12:28-34

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As we hit the crest of this political season, it’s easy to just pick a bad guy, or to not care about what happens. Unfortunately, our faith, whether you want to believe it or not, is super political. Politics is just part of what it means to be human.

But Ken wants to be very clear: the ethic and life of Christ does not begin at the ballot box. That’s not where faith begins. Faith begins with people who want to look to Christ to live a life that is rooted and established in love.

Ephesians 3:14-21

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What does it mean for us to be grounded in God through Christ?

The writer of today’s scripture highlights this three different times, to let us know that being grounded is not just important, it is intrinsic to our being, it is the foundation of all things.

1 Corinthians 3:5-23

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Ken went for a hike with some friends, and came across a massive tree, deeply rooted. And wondered what it would be like to be such a tree, with roots deep in the ground, fed by a babbling brook.

To relate to it, he tells the story of Jeremiah, who is struggling to be a prophet of God. Because prophesy has never about prediction, it has always been about purpose. And what Jeremiah wants to see is God’s purpose.

We are on a long journey. But as we seek God and his purpose, our roots get deeper.

It is never too late to experience God’s grace, to sprout and deepen and flourish. We simply must dwell at the riverside.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

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We have spent the summer walking line-by-line through the Apostles’ Creed, trying to learn and understand our faith. And now, that we’ve come to the place to live it.

If this is where we have rooted our entire lives, are we proclaiming it?

Mark 8:27-30

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