You can watch the full message from Jeff Potts on our YouTube channel or through the Hope App.

You can watch the full message from David Ord on our YouTube channel or through the Hope App.

 



 

 

 

You can watch the full message from David Ord on our YouTube channel or through the Hope App.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

You can watch the full message from Pastor Jeff on our YouTube channel or through the Hope App.

Type your new text here.

 


 


 

When I sense God nudging me, and I tell myself, “I’ll deal with that later… when things calm down.” It’s not outright rejection. It’s just treating God’s invitation like background noise.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

If you are a parent, you probably know this scene:

I’m in the kitchen, dishes piled up, backpacks on the floor.
“Hey, can you please put your backpack away?”
Child #1, without looking up: “Okay!”

Twenty minutes later, the backpack is still right where it was.
Later, I ask Child #2: “Can you put your backpack away?”
Immediate response: “No. I’m tired.” Arms crossed. Drama.

Five minutes after that, I catch them quietly walking over, picking up the backpack, and putting it away without saying a word.

Same request.
Two different answers.
Only one actually did what I asked.

When Josh preached on the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21, it suddenly felt very close to home. One son says, “I will not,” but later changes his mind and goes into the vineyard. The other says, “I go, sir,” but never goes.

As a parent, I care about both words and follow-through. But if I am honest, I would rather have the child who blurts out “no” and later obeys, than the one who says “sure” and then does nothing. Why? Because in that little “afterward,” I can see their heart shifting. They wrestled with their attitude. They swallowed some pride. They decided to trust my voice more than their mood. And when they come back around and obey, I am not focused on replaying their original “no.” I am encouraged by their change of heart.

That is what Jesus is pointing to in this parable. The religious leaders were the “I go, sir” crowd-polite, polished, saying all the right things about God, but refusing to actually repent and obey. Meanwhile, the “I will not” crowd, tax collectors and prostitutes, were the ones who eventually turned and came.

As a parent, that reshapes how I see God: He does care about obedience. “Okay, God” without action is still disobedience. He is also patient with delayed repentance. He sees the “afterward” and welcomes it. Maybe you feel like the second child, the instant “no,” the resistant heart, the long season of walking away. Or maybe you are more like the polite “okay” child, quick with words, slow with obedience.

This parable is both a warning and an invitation. It warns us not to hide behind spiritual language. And it invites us to believe that it is not too late to turn and obey. If I, as a very imperfect parent, can feel genuine joy when my stubborn child finally picks up the backpack, how much more will our Father rejoice when we finally walk toward His vineyard? He is not only counting your “no” moments. He sees the “afterward” too.

You can hear the full sermon that inspired this reflection on our YouTube channel.

I walked into church this Sunday more tired than anything else. Time change, kids, a full week, all of it. I grabbed coffee, said the usual hellos, and found my seat. Honestly, I was mostly hoping to just make it through the morning.

Then we opened to Matthew 21, where Jesus walks into the temple and starts flipping tables.

At first it felt distant, something that happened “back then” in “their” temple. But as Jeff kept teaching, it slowly started to feel a lot closer to home. Because the more he talked, the more I realized: I’ve gotten pretty comfortable being distracted in God’s house.

I’ve made grocery lists in my head during worship.
I’ve mentally planned my week during prayer.
I’ve thought about lunch more than I’ve thought about the Lord.
None of it felt evil. Just normal. But normal and healthy aren’t always the same thing.

Jesus calls the temple “a house of prayer.” A place to be with Him. A place for people, especially the broken and the poor, to come and actually meet God without being used or pushed aside.

Meanwhile, I’ve often treated church like it’s a social stop, a habit I keep, background noise to my own thoughts.
 
And then comes the line that really got me: “The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.” The people everyone else kept at a distance are the ones Jesus draws close. The ones who didn’t “fit” the system are the ones He makes space for. I realized I often come to church trying to look fine, sound fine, be fine. All while Jesus is in the room healing people who are willing to admit they’re not.

Then the kids in the story start shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” and Jesus doesn’t shut them down. He receives their praise and says this is exactly the kind of worship God is looking for.

Simple. Honest. Undignified in the best way.

By the end of the message, I felt like Jesus had quietly flipped a few tables in me: my casual attitude toward gathered worship, my habit of hiding my real needs, and my tendency to drift through Sundays instead of arriving awake and present.

I left with a simple, uncomfortable, hopeful prayer: “Jesus, this is Your house. Start with me.”

If you’d like to sit with this passage more, you can watch the full sermon on our YouTube channel.

’ve been around Jesus my whole life.

I grew up in church, Sunday school, youth group, camps, the whole thing. I could quote verses, sing the songs, and give you the “right” answers about the gospel. If you’d asked, “Is Jesus your Savior and King?” I would have said yes without hesitation.
But somewhere in the middle of raising kids, managing schedules, and just trying to make it through the week, I realized something: I believed in Jesus, but my picture of Him was still too small.

Not wrong. Just too small.

It showed up first in how I treated Him as Savior. My prayers were constantly, “Jesus, fix this.”  

Fix this situation with my kids.  
Fix this tension in my marriage.  
Fix this financial stress.  
Fix this anxiety I can’t shake.

Again, none of that is wrong. He cares deeply about all of it. But most days, that was almost all I talked to Him about.

Then listening to Matthew 21 again, the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem. The crowd is shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” I’d heard that a hundred times, but this time I paid attention to what “Hosanna” means: “save us now.”

They wanted rescue from Rome. I realized I mostly wanted rescue from my current pressures.

Meanwhile, Jesus was entering the city on Lamb Selection Day, the day families chose their Passover lambs. He wasn’t coming mainly to rearrange their circumstances. He was coming as the Lamb of God, to deal with sin and death.
I knew that in theory. But in practice, the cross had become the doorway I walked through a long time ago, while the “real” thing I cared about was whether He would make my week easier.

A hard question came to mind:  If Jesus never changed this situation I keep begging Him to fix, would I still call Him a good Savior?

I’m learning to let His bigger salvation reshape my smaller expectations. I still ask Him to help, but more and more I’m praying, “Jesus, thank You for saving me from sin and death, not just hard situations. Help me remember that what You’ve already done for me is bigger than what I’m asking You to do right now.”

The other place my small view showed up was in how I treated Him as King.
I would say, “Jesus is Lord,” and mean it. But when I look at how I actually make decisions, about my time, my phone, my words, my habits, it often looks like He’s more of a trusted advisor.

When His Word lined up with what I already wanted, I obeyed quickly. When it didn’t, especially in areas like forgiveness, how I talk about people, how I use my free time, what I do with my worries, I stalled, rationalized, or quietly ignored it.
In Matthew 21, the crowd treats Jesus like a king for a moment. Cloaks on the road, branches waving, loud praise. But when He doesn’t act like the kind of king they want, many of those voices go quiet.

I see myself in that.

I wanted a King who comforted me, but hesitated when He claimed authority over my schedule, my money, my relationships, my fears. There were areas of my life with an invisible sign: “Jesus, you can advise here, but I’ll decide.”

What’s changed me most is seeing *how* He comes as King.

He doesn’t storm in on a war horse, demanding tribute. He rides in on a young donkey, knowing He’s on His way to a cross. He’s not a distant ruler waiting for me to get it together; He’s a humble King who comes near, even into the chaos of my home and my heart.

That doesn’t make His authority lighter. It makes it safer to surrender to.
So I’m slowly learning to ask, “Jesus, is there any area where I’ve kept You as advisor instead of King?” And when something comes to mind, instead of just feeling guilty, I’m trying to open my hands and say, “You get this too.”

It’s not dramatic. It looks like small, everyday choices: putting my phone down to pray instead of numbing out, apologizing when I’d rather defend myself, letting go of a grudge, trusting Him with a fear about my kids’ future I keep replaying in my head.
I still get it wrong all the time. I still slip back into “fix this” prayers and “I’ll handle this part” attitudes. But Matthew 21 keeps lifting my eyes: He really is more than a problem-solver and more than an advisor.

He is my Savior, who has already dealt with my deepest need.  
He is my Champion, who has gone before me and defeated death.  
He is my King, who gently but firmly claims every part of my life.
And strangely, the bigger He becomes in my mind and heart, the less heavy everything else feels.

Reflection Questions:
1. In your prayers lately, have you mostly been asking Jesus to “fix things,” or have you also been thanking Him for what He’s already done for you as Savior?  
2. Is there any area of your life where, if you’re honest, Jesus has been more of an advisor than a King?

If this resonates with you and you want to see Jesus more clearly as Savior, Champion, and King, take some time to watch the full sermon from Matthew 21 on our YouTube channel.

Dependence sounds beautiful in theory.
In real life, it can feel like failure.

Picture this: a mom with two teenage boys and a six-year-old daughter. She works from home at the kitchen table. Her phone buzzes with emails as she packs lunches. Her teenagers argue over the chores. Her daughter wants help with a puzzle while she’s jumping on a Zoom call. In the next room, her sick mother rests, and between caring for her and raising her own kids, old wounds with her parents sit just below the surface. By the end of the day, she collapses into bed thinking, “How long can I hold all of this together?”

Then we open Matthew 20 and meet two blind men sitting by the road as Jesus passes by: “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” (Matthew 20:30) The crowd tells them to be quiet. They cry out louder.  Jesus stops.  He hears. He cares. He heals.

In the sermon, Josh quoted a pastor who called prayer “expressed helplessness.” That phrase stings a little if you’re used to being the responsible one, the strong one, the one who holds it all together, for kids, for parents, for everyone.

But it’s also strangely freeing. Because most of us already *feel* helpless in some area of life:
- A relationship that keeps breaking.  
         - A parent who’s declining in health.  
         - A child who seems harder to reach.  
         - A job that drains more than it gives.  
         - Anxiety or shame that doesn’t explain itself, it just sits heavy.

We just don’t always want to *express* that helplessness. Not to people. Not even to God. It’s easier to do what our culture teaches us: power through. Fix what we can, numb what we can’t, and tell ourselves to push a little harder.

But the blind men in Matthew 20 didn’t push harder. They didn’t give a calm, composed prayer. They shouted. They begged for mercy. They refused to be quieted. They brought nothing but need. And Jesus stopped. He didn’t ask them to clean themselves up first. He didn’t tell them to be less emotional. He didn’t give them a self-help plan.
 
He asked a simple question:  “What do you want me to do for you?” (Matthew 20:32)
They answered just as simply:   “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” (v. 33)

He touched their eyes in pity.  They saw.  And they followed Him. They moved from sitting in the dust to walking behind Jesus. Their story became less about what they couldn’t do and more about who He was.

That’s the invitation sitting in front of all of us, moms, dads, students, single adults, caregivers, people quietly struggling: to bring our need, not our résumé. To let prayer become less about saying the right words and more about honest dependence:
- “Lord, have mercy on me. I don’t know what to do here.”  
- “Jesus, I am tired and scared. Help me.”  
- “God, I keep hurting the people I love. Change my heart.”  
- “Father, you see what I’m carrying. I can’t carry it alone.”

The good news of Matthew 20 is not that we finally find the strength to see, but that Jesus stops for people who know they can’t. He still stops for worn-out parents trying to juggle work, kids, and aging parents.  He still stops for young adults who look put-together but feel lost inside.  He still stops for anyone honest enough to say, “I’m blind here. I need You.”
He hears.  He cares.  He heals… sometimes bodies, sometimes relationships, sometimes the hidden places in our hearts.

He may not change every circumstance overnight, but He changes how we walk through them: not as people pretending to be strong, but as people learning to lean on Him.

Reflection Questions
1. Where do you feel most overwhelmed or “at the end of yourself” right now, home, work, family, relationships, or your own heart?  
2. When life feels out of control, what do you usually reach for first, your own strategies, distractions, or honest prayer?  
3. If prayer is “expressed helplessness,” what is one simple, honest sentence you could bring to Jesus today?  
4. Are there any areas where you sense you might be spiritually “blind” or not seeing clearly? What would it look like to ask, “Lord, let my eyes be opened”?

If this resonates with you, we’d love for you to watch the full sermon from Matthew 20 on our YouTube channel, where we walk through this story of Jesus hearing, caring for, and healing two desperate men.

Wherever you are this week, at the kitchen table, in a dorm room, at a hospital bed, or in your car between appointments, He is not asking you to be enough. He’s inviting you to cry out.

If you’d like to go deeper into this passage and hear the full message, you can watch the sermon from Matthew 20:17–28 on our YouTube channel.

By Sunday afternoon, I was exhausted.

I love our church. I love serving. But sometimes it feels like my life is a rotation of “show up early, stay late, solve the problem, answer the text, take the call, carry the weight.” No one is forcing me to do any of it, and most of the time I’m glad to. Still, there are days when it all feels heavy.

Then we sat with Matthew 20:17-28. James and John, with a little help from their mom, come to Jesus with a request: “Give us the seats at your right and left in your kingdom.” In other words: “We want to be great. We want the important spots.”

What Jesus does next is so kind. He doesn’t shame them for wanting greatness. He redirects their understanding of what greatness actually is.

“Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave…”

In the world, greatness is tied to visibility and power.
In the kingdom, greatness is tied to service and sacrifice.
That hits differently when you’re the one quietly cleaning up, stacking chairs, resetting a classroom, or staying late to listen to someone who’s hurting.

What struck me is that Jesus isn’t recruiting free labor when he says this. He’s revealing his heart. He goes on: “Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

He’s not asking us to do anything he hasn’t already done in a deeper way. The One who actually deserves the best seat chose instead to kneel, wash feet, carry a cross, and die in the place of sinners.

That means the hidden work matters.

• The person who rocks a crying baby in the nursery so a tired mom can sit in the service.
• The one who shows up early to run cables, test sound, and make sure the livestream works.
• The small group leader who prepares, prays, and then simply listens while others share.
• The prayer team member who stands quietly at the front and holds people’s burdens before God.
• The friend who brings a meal, sends a text, or stops to really listen in the lobby.

None of that looks “great” in the world’s eyes. But in the kingdom, that is greatness. It is Christlikeness. It is Jesus, living his life through his people.

So to all the volunteers and servants at Hope Community: thank you.

Thank you for being the “floor” others stand on, steady, strong, often unnoticed, but absolutely essential. Thank you for letting your strength be used to hold others up instead of draw attention to yourself. Even when you’re tired. Even when no one sees. Your Father sees. And he calls that great.

And for those who feel worn out or discouraged: this is not about earning God’s approval. Jesus has already given his life as a ransom for you. Your identity and worth are not based on how much you serve, how well you do it, or how “together” you feel. Service in the kingdom is a response to grace, not a way to get it.

You’re allowed to be tired. You’re allowed to rest. You’re allowed to say no at times. The invitation of Jesus is not, “Do more so I’ll love you,” but, “I have loved you at the cost of my own life, now walk with me, and let my love overflow through you.”

Reflect & Respond

• Where are you currently serving in ways that feel hidden or tiring? How might Jesus be gently affirming the value of that service today?
• Is there a place where you’ve tied your worth too tightly to what you do for God, rather than what Jesus has already done for you?

If you’d like to go deeper into this passage and hear the full message, you can watch the sermon from Matthew 20:17–28 on our YouTube channel.

I used to think that if I hadn't figured out my "calling" by my twenties, I had somehow missed the boat. We live in a culture that obsesses over "early success," but this week, Pastor Jeff shared a perspective from Matthew 20 that flipped that script entirely.
The Parable of the Vineyard shows us a Master who hires at the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and even the 11th hour. In God's Kingdom, the 11th-hour worker is just as valued as the one who started at sunrise. God’s generosity isn't based on how many hours we put in; it’s based on His heart for us.

But what does "answering the call" actually look like in our different stages of life?

• For the Student or Young Adult: You might feel like you’re "standing idle" because you don't have a title or a "real" career yet. But the Master is calling you now. Answering the call might look like choosing to be the friend who actually listens, or using your dorm room or first apartment as a place where the Gospel is talked about openly. Your "work" starts today, not when you graduate.

• For the Busy Parent: It’s easy to feel like your "field" is just a cycle of laundry, carpools, and chaos. You might feel like you don't have time for "real" ministry. But Jeff reminded us that your home is the Master’s field. Answering the call looks like the patient way you correct your child or the intentional way you invite a lonely neighbor over for dinner. You are on the clock for the Kingdom in the middle of the mess.

• For the "Late Bloomer" or Senior: Maybe you feel like you've wasted years, or that your season of being useful is over. Remember Grandma Bev, who found Jesus at 75, or the 73-year-old "rookie" pastor Jeff met in Jerusalem. Your wisdom is a massive asset to this church. Answering the call might look like mentoring a younger couple, serving on the prayer team, or finally saying "yes" to that ministry nudge you've felt for a decade.

If you feel like you’ve "wasted" too much time or that you're too old to be useful, remember: the Master is still walking through the marketplace, and He is still hiring. It’s never too late to put your hand to the plow.

Reflect & Respond:

1. Do you ever feel like you've missed your "window" to be used by God? How does the 11th-hour promise change that?
2. What is one way you can "put your hand to the plow" this week, regardless of your stage of life?

Want to hear more about the Master's heart for you? You can watch the full message, "The Master's Field," on our YouTube channel here:

There’s a specific moment in a check-up when the doctor taps your knee with that little rubber hammer, and your leg kicks out all on its own. You don’t have to tell it to move; you don’t have to focus or use your willpower. It’s just a reflex, a natural, involuntary response to a specific touch.

This past Sunday, we looked at generosity through that same lens. Often, we treat giving like a spiritual workout, something we have to grit our teeth through or a "have-to" that feels heavy. But what if the Gospel is actually the "tap" that creates a reflex? When we truly lean into the reality of God’s grace, the natural response isn't a clenched fist; it’s an open hand.
As we looked around the room, it was beautiful to see how that reflex of grace shows up in different seasons of life:

For the students and young professionals, it’s a brave reflex against fear. It’s choosing to trust Jesus with those first entry-level paychecks, proving that their security isn't found at the top of a career ladder, but in the hands of a Provider.

For those in the busy parenting years, it’s a reflex against the "more." It’s the intentional choice to push back against lifestyle creep, the bigger houses and newer cars, to show our kids that Jesus is a better treasure than anything we could ever buy them.

For the seniors among us, it’s a reflex sharpened by years of faithfulness. There is a quiet, steady confidence in those who have seen the "exchange rate" of Heaven prove true time and time again. They aren't just giving from a fixed income; they are investing in a Kingdom they’ll soon see face-to-face.

The truth is, we simply can’t out-give God. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, yet He gave us His only Son. When we choose to live with open hands, we aren’t losing anything, we’re finally gaining the life He intended for us all along.

Missed the service? You can watch the full message on our YouTube Channel here.