Ordinary Faithfulness
Savor Every Season
January 8, 2023 • T.D. Davis
How do we savor every season? After nearly 30 years of obscurity, Jesus inconveniently enters into a 40 day wilderness test where he is tempted by the devil. By the time it is all said and done, Satan's tactics and Jesus’ posture helps illustrate a clear spiritual reality: The devil continually desires us to choose against God and Jesus safeguarded Himself through every temptation with unmodified obedience. In this message T.D. Davis (co-lead pastor) offers practical ways we can lean into the model of Jesus and harvest massive spiritual growth as we cooperate with obscurity into the power of ordinary faithfulness.
Positional Paradox
January 1, 2023 • T.D. Davis
Jesus uses many different “paradoxes” (or seemingly contradictory statements) to describe the way His rule and reign often contrasts from earthly wisdom. In that vein of thought, one of the most compelling contrasts in the New Testament is the eyewitnessed authority that Jesus uses during His earthly ministry. Rather than ruling from a position of power familiar to those around Him, Jesus’ power paradoxically comes from a place of submission. In this message, T.D. Davis (co-lead pastor) unpacks the positional paradox Jesus uses in His final temptation in the wilderness and the access we have to that power, even in unknown seasons.
My "Wild" Friend
December 18, 2022 • T.D. Davis
Chances are we’ve all got names and faces in our younger years of friends who were just “wild”! Contrasting this sense of joy, friendship, and community is Jesus’ experience in the desert alone and being tempted by the devil. In Satan’s final offer to Jesus is an opportunity to wield power and authority in a way that affirms individualized aspirations and in turn, helps prop up a vision for the “Kingdom of ‘Me’”. In this message, we discover that one of the greatest “friends" in this life is the one who helps incubate the relationship our human souls need most.
Immune To Praise
December 11, 2022 • T.D. Davis
Throughout Jesus’ ministry we see Him exercise an ability to not be “swayed by others”. In fact, the first real test to this temptation of applause was in the wilderness as Jesus was tempted by the devil himself. As Jesus emerged from nearly 30 years of obscurity, he had grown a so-called "immunity to praise”. In this message T.D. Davis (co-lead pastor), shows us that Jesus’ secure identity, trust in timing, and transformed imagination were key ingredients developed through an unknown season that helped resist a human strategy of using the wrong mechanisms for even the best motives.
From Celebrated to Celebrity
December 4, 2022 • T.D. Davis
In the decades leading up to Jesus' public ministry, His process of human limitation and growth cultivated a reaction to the potential of being “well-known”. Although affirmation and acceptance is a natural human longing of any relationship and connection, so easily it can become an unhealthy motivation and desire reserved for spiritual fulfillment. In this message, T.D. Davis (co-pastor) shows us that in one of Jesus’ weakest moments, he resists the temptation to stage a superhuman spectacle, even for the purpose of drawing people’s attention to Himself and His message.
How Did He Do That?
November 27, 2022 • T.D. Davis
When we experience another person doing something that’s hard to believe, we often are left with the question: How did he/she do that!? After 40 days and nights of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus is offered food from the devil and His response amazingly combats the appetite and temptation to indulge, which might leave the reader asking: How did he do that? Interestingly enough, Jesus’ process of unseen growth within His human limitation culminated in a strengthened moment of wisdom, self-control, and clarity that aligned with God’s purposes. In this message, T.D. Davis (co-lead pastor) shows us how Jesus’ model can be our own for intentional growth and human flourishing, even in seasons of temptation and anonymity.
The Good Fruit
November 20, 2022 • Kalli Davis
In Matthew we see Jesus led into the wilderness where he was tempted to use his divinity to meet his immediate need. Today, we too are often tempted to do whatever it takes to meet our needs and avoid discomfort or pain. However, the good and healthy fruit is often formed in the waiting, as we build the muscles to bear the cross that awaits us.
Anticipated Anonymity
November 13, 2022 • T.D. Davis
During Jesus’ first 30 years of life, there was an unseen and silent building happening in the background that anticipated a future opportunity. Following His water baptism and a declaration of relationship, commitment, and affirmation from His Heavenly Father, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness of all places. And it is through this “desert” experience that we can begin to observe in Jesus’ life a timeless truth of our own: The choices we make in the place of trial today are greatly the fruit of choices we have made in our yesterdays.
No Need To Prove
November 6, 2022 • T.D. Davis
If your ears were going to hear God’s voice speak only once, what would you desire Him to say? Clarity on a past situation? Present insight? Specifics on a future investment? After 30 years in the backwoods of Nazareth, Jesus begins His “now” time as a God-man on mission with an acoustic inauguration from His Heavenly Father. In this message, T.D. Davis (Co-Lead Pastor) identifies that it is both the content and the timing of the words spoken that help inform us of our identity and worth that stems from a deep and unconditional relational delight in regards to God and us.
The Now And The Not Yet
October 30, 2022 • T.D. Davis
Everyone can relate to “not yet” moments in life. Like a child anxiously anticipating his parents waking up on Christmas morning, we can easily categorize these occasions in life as a wasted potential of time well spent. Interestingly enough, Jesus’ life on earth represented 30 “not yet” years leading up to a new season of “now” in regards to His Heavenly Father’s direction. In this message, T.D. Davis (Co-Lead Pastor), focuses on Jesus’ “now” moment and how “not yet” seasons are opportunities for our faithful means to God's sovereign end.
Unseen Is Not Unimportant
October 23, 2022 • T.D. Davis
Much like an iceberg, the totality of what’s below the surface of life is significant, yet often times uncredited and unseen. In the same way, the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life primarily pick up from year 30 after living nearly 29 unseen years on earth. Do those years matter? Where do they fit in the currency of celebration and priority according to God? In this message, T.D. Davis (Co-lead Pastor) introduces this new message series by beginning to unpack the Series Big Idea: "As arguably the most famous person to ever live, over 90% of Jesus' life was spent in the unseen, dismantling our appetite and belief that impactful change occurs most often in large-scale positions of power and authority