"Do me a favor." That's how the world runs: who you know gets you in, and grace comes with a price tag bent toward whoever can pay it back. In Acts 25, Paul stands in a courtroom that runs on favors. A new governor, the same old ambush, serious charges with no evidence, and a judge who knows he's innocent but is willing to trade him away anyway. Then Paul says four words that send him to Rome. Pastor Zach walks through how the darkness that wanted you doesn't forget you, how to live so the charges don't stick (on the outside by integrity, on the inside by being hidden in Jesus), and why you can stop hustling for favors: Jesus was handed over so that you would never be.

Scripture: Acts 25:1-12
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Felix heard the gospel from the apostle Paul himself — face to face, more than once, over two years. He had "a rather accurate knowledge of the Way." He even felt the fear of God when Paul talked about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come. And still he said, "Go away for now. When I get a chance, I'll call for you." Not yet. In this message, Pastor Zach walks through Acts 24:22-27 and asks the question Felix never answered: are you informed about Jesus, or are you following Jesus? You can know all about the Way and never once walk the road. The fear you feel isn't the enemy — it's the Spirit of God pointing you to the answer, and the answer is King Jesus. You don't have to clean it up first. Don't say "remind me later." Say today.

Scripture: Acts 24:22-27
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays at 10:30am or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Paul is on trial again — this time before Governor Felix, with a hired prosecutor calling him a plague, a cult leader, and a troublemaker. And Paul's response? "I cheerfully make my defense." Youth Pastor Roman Conder walks through Acts 24:1-21 and shows why Paul could stand there without sweating it: it wasn't his name on the line, it was Jesus' name — and God always comes to the defense of his own name. Along the way we see that the Way of Jesus will look like foolishness to the world, that followers of Jesus are free to answer accusations with joy instead of fear, and that everything comes down to one thing: Jesus really rose from the dead.

Note: the livestream audio dropped out during part of the Scripture reading, so this episode picks up at Acts 24:11.

Speaker: Roman Conder
Scripture: Acts 24:1-21
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Forty men swore an oath that Paul would die by nightfall — and God broke the plot with a kid in a hallway, a spin-doctored Roman memo, and 470 soldiers on the night shift. In Acts 23, Zach walks through how Jesus keeps the promises He makes: usually in the dark, through people nobody is watching. If you've been praying for lightning and getting logistics, or you've been running from God for a long time, this one is for you: the city of refuge never asked the man at the gate to be innocent. It asked him to get inside.

Scripture: Acts 23:12-35
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Nobody has ever been handed courage. "Stay strong." "You've got this." We say it because we love people, but the words bounce off. In the worst twenty-four hours of Paul's life — a mob screaming for his death, a flogging he barely escapes, a trial that tears itself apart — nothing changes. God doesn't move the circumstance. What happens instead is that the risen Jesus stands in the room at night and says, "Take courage." That was enough to carry a man from a prison cell in Jerusalem all the way to Rome with the gospel on his lips.

If you're exhausted this week, stop trying to manufacture courage. Ask Jesus for it. Ask him to stand in the room with you. And if you've been carrying a verdict on yourself for years, hear this: every court in this passage got it wrong. The only verdict that counts on your life was handed down by a man who came back from the dead — and he says you're his. You don't have to clean yourself up first. You just come.

Scripture: Acts 22:22-23:11
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way
Preacher: Zach Schemmer

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Paul stands on the steps of the Roman barracks, faces the crowd that just tried to kill him, and tells them his story — how the man who once hunted down followers of Jesus met Him on the road to Damascus and was never the same. In "Exhibit A," Pastor Zach walks through Paul's testimony and reminds us that a changed life is still powerful evidence of God's grace — and that same Jesus is still calling people to Himself today.

Scripture: Acts 21:37-22:21
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Paul does everything right — he humbles himself and lays down his own freedom for the sake of unity in the church — and it still blows up in his face. He's dragged out of the temple by a mob that got the story wrong. In this message, Zach walks through Acts 21 and asks the question that cuts close: what right or preference are you holding onto that's quietly costing you a brother or sister? And when doing right still goes wrong, is God's plan still on track?

Scripture: Acts 21:15-36
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Everyone who loved Paul told him not to go to Jerusalem. They weren't wrong about the cost — the Spirit had already said chains were waiting. They were wrong about the conclusion. In Acts 21, Zach walks us through a room full of weeping friends, a prophet with a belt around his hands, and one man who won't be talked out of obedience. God telling you what something will cost is not God telling you no. And when the argument finally ends, the church reaches for the hardest prayer any of us ever pray: Let the will of the Lord be done.

Three movements from the text: open your house, don't mistake the cost for a closed door, and pray the hardest prayer you know. Paul went up to Jerusalem knowing chains were waiting. Jesus went up knowing a cross was waiting — and He went for you.

Scripture: Acts 21:1-14
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

Paul stands on a beach in Miletus and says goodbye to the elders he loves, knowing he will never see their faces again. It is the only place in Acts where we get to listen in as Paul talks to a church he planted. And what he hands them on the way out isn't a strategy, a building, or another leader — he commends them to God and to the word of His grace. The church was never yours to hold. Jesus bought it with His own blood, and He is still building it by the word of His grace.

If your faith has ever been tied to a person on a platform — a pastor who left, a friend who moved, a leader who fell — this one is for you. Grace isn't the sentimental part of the sentence. It's the load-bearing wall.

Scripture: Acts 20:17-38
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.

In Acts 20, Luke tucks a resurrection right into the middle of a travel journal. A young man named Eutychus fades during Paul's long, late-night message, slips off a third-story windowsill, and dies — and then God raises him back to life. It's a reminder that the risen Jesus is still doing His quiet, powerful work through ordinary faithfulness: His people showing up, His word going out, and His resurrection life breaking in. Wherever you feel like a flat line, the signs of life are still there.

Scripture: Acts 20:1-16
Series: Living by the Spirit, Following the Way

The Way Church KC is a community of misfits & saints in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City following the Way of Jesus & pushing back darkness — together. Join us Sundays or learn more at thewaykc.church.