The B4Church Podcast

Building anything worthwhile—a building, a business, a family—requires a lot of work. It’s a big deal. And no matter how hard we work, we cannot fully guarantee a good outcome. Real estate sometimes fails to return an investment. Businesses fail. Families fight and fracture—not all the time, but often enough to cause us anxiety. Psalm […]

The Scriptures assume we will share our lives and journeys as God’s people within loving communities. Psalm 133 calls this “good and pleasant.” However, the world in which we live often defines our most significant relationships through competition and conflict. In Psalm 133, David addresses God’s people as “brothers.” The Bible consistently uses the language […]

The Songs of Ascent were written to accompany journeys taken repeatedly to Jerusalem. As they sang these songs, the people reminded themselves of the good things God had done, the battles they’d fought, and how God had changed them as a result. These journeys were not wanderings. They had a purpose. The people “went up” […]

This series dives into the Songs of Ascent: Psalms 120 to 134. Jewish pilgrims used to sing these during their journey as they approached Jerusalem to worship. These songs helped shape the identity and faith of God’s people. They are also meant to be a playlist for our journey. These psalms capture the essence of what […]

“…we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7) With this verse, Paul connects God’s eternal, preeminent power to the mortality of our brief time on Earth. We stand in a line of people who went before us, and others […]

We all live within stories. We tell ourselves stories about God, others, and ourselves. We believe the stories that others tell about us. These stories come with recipes that write themselves into the substance of our lives, whether for good or ill. However, God has something healing and freeing to say about those stories. He […]

Our world runs on power. Military might. Massively, leveraged financial resources. Personal brands. We cannot escape the bonds of this power. Or, can we? The Apostle Paul was familiar with these exercises of power throughout the empire. The Romans were adept power brokers. However, Paul argues for a different kind of blessed power. He knows […]

Paul is concerned with how Christians behave with one another, but he is more focused on why they do so. He does not want his readers simply to do right and avoid sin. He wants them to do so because they have matured into the likeness of Jesus. He wants them to have right being that leads to […]

A renter is different from an owner, or a squatter. As Pastor Bo points out, “We are contractually bound to earth, but covenantally committed to heaven.” Our ultimate home, our ultimate allegiance is to God’s Kingdom, most often referred to as “heaven.” However, we’re supposed to occupy our “rental” — this world and its systems […]

The apostles instruct us to mature and not be like easily swayed children (Eph. 4:14-15). And, to remain like babies (1 Peter 2:1). In the text for this message, Paul tells us to imitate God as dearly loved children. Jesus said plainly that someone could not enter God’s Kingdom unless they became like a little […]

Paul repeatedly instructs his readers to “put off” the way of life they indulged before following Jesus. He argues for a great exchange: sinful self-regard for the hope, healing, freedom, and flourishing God offers us in Jesus. As a result, we become free from having to make our way independently through this world. We are […]

Paul has spent three chapters writing about what God has done in Christ for us. Now, he dives into the practical, day-to-day realities of following Jesus and living together as an expression of his Kingdom. One of Paul’s first commands is that we “put off our old” selves and “put on our new” selves that […]

Many believe we live in the most contentious political times ever. At least we don’t have administration officials dueling to the death, as did Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Nor do we live in constant threat of a brutal death as were the early disciples under the Roman Emperors. However, there’s no doubt that modern […]

The Apostle Paul’s ambition for the Ephesian Church is simple. He wants them to be healthy in God and robust in love, so much so that he embeds prayers in his letter petitioning God on behalf of his readers. Why? Paul knows that for the Lord’s people to carry out their mission, they need to […]

The Scriptures say God created us as “masterpieces” to do good works. However, masterpieces take time and hard work. Jesus said that the Father is always working and that He (Jesus) does and says what He sees and hears from the Father. God is a continually creative God who invites us into His work with […]

Christian faith tells the story of a God who refuses to let any part of your life remain unredeemed, unhealed. He sees our misshapen pain — the shame of our stories — and he meets us there. From the Garden to the Desert to the Cross, He wants to meet us there. However, most “religion” […]

Ephesians 4:1 instructs us to “walk worthy” of our calling. The idea is that the weightiness of our calling in Jesus balances with the weightiness of our walk: that both bear the same weight of glory, for example. However, certain things in our lives can degrade the weightiness of our walk. One of those is […]

Pastor Steve Mickel encourages us to see God’s unimaginable love for us in the Person of the Father through Romans 8. You can find a copy of our liturgy for fathers here.

  We are moved by God’s blessings and the richness of His glory to pray for one another in present, powerful, and prophetic ways. Prayer is also an ongoing dialogue, back and forth between us and God, and a response to the language of Resurrection — the power living in us that raised Christ from […]

  The Holy Spirit is the least understood and most often neglected Person of the Triune God, what Christians call The Trinity. Some Jesus followers bear memories of painful distortions where the Spirit’s Person and work are misrepresented. Other traditions emphasize The Father-Son relationship, and so minimize the Spirit. However, Jesus’ teaching and Paul’s letters […]

Identity and purpose are hugely impactful categories. To flourish, we need a strong, stable sense of identity. We also long to live meaningful lives with purposeful intent. Identity and purpose are intertwined, with identity fueling purpose and purpose reinforcing identity. Ephesians contains a unique, paragraph-long sentence where Paul zeroes in on identity via God’s lavish […]

Many people have endless opinions about what the Church should be, but only Jesus creates it, working through Spirit-filled people. So, what should that look like? Among the most beautiful descriptions of the Church Jesus is building occurs in Paul’s letter named for the Ephesians. In response, Pastor and author Eugene Peterson coined the term […]

It’s easy to connect the ideas of healing and freedom. For example, healing usually includes freedom from sickness and pain. However, there’s another kind of freedom. It’s the kind that involves breaking things like shackles and limitations that come with the world’s brokenness.  There’s another kind of healing too. It’s the kind that mends our […]

We were always meant to work in a Garden. God’s original design was for a place of beauty and fruitfulness that would yield its benefits into the hands of faithful gardeners. The Garden’s fruitfulness was always intended to increase as the gardeners were faithful. This same principle applies to many areas of our lives: family, […]

A consistent theme throughout Scripture is that sowing leads to reaping. If someone sows rows of corn in their field, they reap corn. Hearty wildflower seeds will yield a garden full of wildflowers. However, most of us now live disconnected from sowing and reaping. We readily access our food in well-stocked stores. We live in […]