We turn to Psalm 63 to name spiritual thirst without pretending it feels easy, then follow David’s path from desperation to memory, blessing, and trust. We wrestle with where God is in suffering, how to think about enemies through Jesus, and how longing can become a doorway to real satisfaction in God’s steadfast love.

• Psalm 63 as language for spiritual dryness and honest prayer
• the question of why God feels elusive and why we must seek
• naming pain without denial, including anxiety and fear
• enemies in the Psalms alongside Jesus’ call to love
• Ephesians 6 and the fight against sin and death rather than people
• remembering God’s past faithfulness as an antidote to forgetfulness
• hesed as covenant love that is better than life
• blessing and worship as a formative force, not a mood
• desire, idols, and the search for satisfaction in lesser things
• sleepless nights, spirals, and learning to meditate with trust
• Jesus fulfilling Psalm 63 through the wilderness and the cross
• clinging to God as a learned way of life

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We wrestle with Paul’s hardest lines in 1 Corinthians 7 and ask what “unhindered devotion to the Lord” looks like for single people, married people, and everyone in between. We frame the whole passage with eschatology, the now and not yet, and the hope that God’s future can reshape our ordinary lives right now.
• Paul’s “impending crisis” and the claim that the present form of the world is passing away
• Remaining as you are as a starting point for faithfulness rather than a command to freeze your life
• Unhindered devotion as the aim behind Paul’s counsel on marriage, singleness, engagement, and widowhood
• Eschatology as a lived reality that transforms time and loyalty
• Singleness as intrinsic value and a witness against idolizing the nuclear family
• Abiding in Christ from John 15 as the pattern for devotion
• Q&A on gendered language, engagement customs, desire and passion, LGBTQ questions, and married devotion
"we’ll have some people that are prepared to pray for you in the back of the room. They are both standing right now. Gene and Alexa, if you want to turn around, you can. they’d be honored to pray with you."

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We walk through 1 Corinthians 7 and name how Paul speaks to widows, widowers, married couples, and mixed-faith homes with a steady through line of trust and faithfulness. We hold Jesus’ hard words on divorce alongside trauma-aware wisdom, reminding each other that God sees real lives and meets us with grace, truth, and peace.
• Paul’s “gift” language around singleness and celibacy and why it is not a command for everyone
• How Paul separates personal counsel from a command of the Lord and what that shows about inspiration
• Why marriage is more than an antidote to lust and how a low view of marriage harmed people in purity culture
• Jesus’ teaching on divorce in Mark 10 and Matthew 5 and how to avoid both dismissal and legalism
• Modern myths about divorce rates and what the data actually suggests
• How betrayal, abuse, control, and deceit can function as covenant-breaking “sending away”
• Paul’s counsel for believers married to unbelievers and the call to peace
• The pressure to “perform” faith at home and a gentler, more honest posture of witness
• The deeper anchor of God’s covenant in Christ that holds when human covenants fracture
If you'd like to receive prayer, there'll be some folks at the back. You can make your way quietly back there if you need prayer

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What does Paul mean that married couples have authority over one another? Well, it all depends on your definition of authority.

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We tell a story about an ordinary night that changed a life, then let Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6 reframe how we see our bodies, sex, and resurrection. We push back on shame and self-deception and hold out a grounded hope that Jesus redeems our physical lives, not just our inner thoughts.
• an ordinary decision becoming a doorway to God’s surprising work
• Paul quoting Corinthian slogans and correcting their assumptions
• why “food for the stomach” is really about sex
• Greek dualism and the modern habit of separating body and soul
• Jesus’ bodily resurrection in Luke 24 as the anchor
• union with Christ and why sexual immorality is never “just physical”
• “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” as identity and dignity
• “you are not your own” as relief from exhausting self-ownership
• pornography, lust, and the possibility of real freedom
• conviction without lingering in shame, confession as a first step
If you’d like to receive prayer during the song or during the time of communion, I invite you to slip out of your seat.

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We read one of Paul’s toughest lists in 1 Corinthians 6 and refuse to let it become a weapon, because his point is not condemnation but transformation. We land on the promise that our past does not get the final word, because in Jesus we are washed, sanctified, and justified.
• why Paul says “do you not know” and how vice lists function rhetorically
• where our culture agrees with Paul while quietly tolerating greed, contempt, and coping through alcohol
• what porneia means and why Acts 15 matters for Christian sexual ethics
• why translation is interpretation and why malakoi and arsenokoitai raise hard questions
• the difference between condemning behavior and condemning people, including how we talk about orientation
• how the church can honor singleness without isolating singles, including friendship, hospitality, and healing touch
• “washed” as baptismal identity and Jesus’ cleansing that changes self-perception
• “sanctified” as God’s holy pull that reshapes desire and forms a priesthood for the world
• “justified” as God’s gift that ends the scramble to prove our worth and redefines the good life
“If you’ve never said yes to Jesus, there’ll be people that are just willing to pray with you.” “The people with the lanyards are the people you want to find if you’d like to receive prayer.”

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