The Garden Church // Sunday Teachings

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Psalm 126:1-6 In this sermon from Psalm 126, Pastor Josh asks how joy can survive when life feels dry and our prayers go unanswered. The psalm is a song of joy sung by a people who weren't winning—proof that joy and grief can live in the same breath. Pastor Josh teaches that when we draw from the "well of memory" (what God has done) and the "well of ho...

Teacher: Mandi Paszek  Text: Psalm 42:1-11  In this sermon from Psalm 42, Mandi makes the case that lament—bringing our real grief honestly to God—isn't the opposite of faith but a doorway into it. She shares how grief needs three things: room to breathe, a companion, and room to coexist with hope. We don't have to rush past our pain to reach God; He meets us in it, like a father running t...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Psalm 86:1-7 Psalm 86 reads as one of the most personal prayers in Scripture, yet it's almost entirely borrowed. It's a patchwork of older psalms and the words of Torah stitched together during Israel's exile. In this sermon, Pastor Josh asserts that ancient, handed-down tools of faith like this are exactly what our souls need. We don't have to keep manuf...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Psalm 122:1-4 In this sermon from Psalm 122, Pastor Josh makes a quiet but unsettling claim: faith is deeply personal, but it was never meant to be private. We've been trained to treat the real thing as whatever happens inside us—just me and God—and to leave community, ritual, and shared worship as optional extras. But the people of this psalm sing in the plural; the...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Psalm 139:1-6, 23-24 Psalm 139 claims that God sees and knows us completely—but is being fully seen good news, or a threat? In Josh's first sermon of the Psalms series, he holds together the tension of this psalm: that the God who searches us is the same God who delights in and treasures us. He's a loving Father rather than a hostile watcher. The invitation is to...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Daniel 6:10–16 Pastor Josh wrapped up the Faithful in Babylon series with the story of Daniel in the lion's den. In this iconic tale, we see that small, faithful, resolute acts are what shake the foundations of empire — and the courage to do them in the moment is the fruit of a life already practiced in turning toward God, not a heroic decision in the moment of crisi...

Teacher: Mandi Paszek Text: Daniel 5:13–30 In this sermon from Daniel 5, Mandi reads the fall of Belshazzar as more than a history lesson—it's a mirror. When Daniel refuses the king's offer of status, wealth, and influence, we see something the ego almost never admits: that what the world calls security has never been able to hold. From Eden to empire, the same script keeps running, and only Jesus...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Daniel 3:16–25 Empire's grip is rarely overt. It's the slow choreography of social pressure that pulls us out of integrity one step at a time. Drawing on Daniel 3, Pastor Josh offers in this sermon that one expression of faithfulness is the refusal to bow, even at a cost. We can trust that Jesus will meet us in the fire—but only after we've chosen to enter it...

Teacher: T.C. Moore Text: Daniel 2:19-28a Guest preacher T.C. Moore draws from Daniel 2 to name the spiritual danger of empire thinking—and what it looks like to be formed by Kingdom imagination instead. As exiles in Babylon, Daniel and his friends modeled a non-anxious, communal, worshipful posture that speaks directly to our moment. This is a sermon about how we are being formed, who we are beco...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Daniel 1:8-16 There's a pressure on all of us to go along: not an outright demand to deny our faith, but a thousand subtle invitations to let culture do the naming. In this message from Daniel 1, Pastor Josh explores how empire's formation project works not through force, but through the slow reshaping of desire and identity. Drawing on philosopher James K.A. Smi...

Teacher: Mandi Paszek Text: Daniel 1:1-7 We live in a world that doesn't share our allegiance to God — and for many Christians, the loss of cultural influence can feel like abandonment. In this first message of our Daniel series, Mandi Paszek opens the book of Daniel at its most honest starting point: defeat, displacement, and the cry of every exile: "Has God forgotten us?" The answe...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: 1 Corinthians 15:12–20 What if Jesus didn't rise from the dead? Paul poses this provocative question in 1 Corinthians 15, and in this sermon Pastor Josh explores the weight of a hypothetical world where death, sin, and despair have the final word. But indeed, Christ has been raised! The worst thing is never the last thing, and a new kind of life—marked by healing, fr...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Hebrews 12:1-3 Pastor Josh closes our Lent journey through Hebrews by naming the quiet burnout many of us carry. With honesty and hope, he invites us to keep running with perseverance and offers three “race-day” resources: community that cheers us on, courage to lay down what weighs us down, and eyes fixed on Jesus, our faithful pacer. As we move toward Easter, this is a...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Hebrews 9:11-15 Many of us are carrying something that feels like a stain—a sense of being broken or "wrong" in some way that logic and self-improvement can't touch. In this sermon, Pastor Josh brings the ancient imagery of Hebrews 9 to life and shows why Jesus' once-for-all sacrifice reaches the one place nothing else can. Because of Jesus' death,...

Teacher: Caleb McCoy Text: Hebrews 4:14–5:3, 5:7-10 Caleb continues our Lent series through the book of Hebrews with an encouraging exploration of Jesus as our great high priest. Because of Jesus, we can confidently approach the throne of God to repent, believe, and ask God for the grace we need to become the people He has created us to be.

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Hebrews 3:1–6; 12-14 Pastor Josh continues our Lenten series through the book of Hebrews by exploring the first warning passage in Hebrews 3, where we're cautioned against the quiet drift that can follow disappointment, pressure, or fatigue in our faith. The writer reminds us that the deeper rest our souls long for isn’t something we achieve through striving, but som...

Teacher: Mandi Paszek Text: Hebrews 1:1–4, 2:14–18 Mandi opens our Hebrews series by exploring Hebrews 1–2 and the letter’s central claim: Jesus is greater . Written to weary believers tempted to drift, Hebrews calls us to worship Jesus as He truly is and release the fears that quietly shape our lives. Mandi gives a compelling reminder that we don’t get to define who God is—we learn who God is and...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Mark 3:13-19, Luke 6:40 In the final week of Rewired by Love , Pastor Josh reminds us that we don’t rise to our ideals under pressure—we default to what, and who, has formed us. We become like the people we practice life with, which is why Jesus’ vision of discipleship is apprenticeship: being with Him and with people who embody His way until love becomes our reflex. The...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: John 21:3-12a In John 21, we see the risen Jesus move toward Peter after his deepest failure to initiate repair. In this sermon, Pastor Josh explores how the cycle of rupture and repair in relationships is normal, and is actually what form us in love. With Jesus as our model, we are invited to become people who build thick, resilient community by practicing repair.

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Numbers 6:22-27 In week four of Rewired by Love , Pastor Josh explores Numbers 6 to show how God rewires our deepest reflexes through blessing, belonging, and shared identity. Connecting the priestly blessing with how our brains are formed, Pastor Josh explains how lasting change happens through joy-filled attachment to God and one another. Love takes root as we learn to...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: John 8:2-11 Pastor Josh reflects on how we often use shame—consciously or unconsciously—to try to force ourselves to change. But in Jesus’ tender and disruptive response to the woman caught in adultery, we discover that real transformation begins not through fear or striving, but through the healing power of being fully seen, known, and met with grace.

Teacher: Josh Wilson  Text: Exodus 17:1-7  In week two of Rewired by Love , Pastor Josh explores how our deepest reactions to God and others are shaped not just by what we know, but by the relational experiences that have formed our inner “defaults.” Through reflection on Exodus 17, Josh invites us to notice how our wounds shape our trust—and to discover God as a safe haven who patiently rewires u...

Text: Matthew   21:28–32 Teacher: Josh Wilson Pastor Josh begins the series Rewired by Love by naming the gap many of us feel between what we believe and how we actually live. Exploring Jesus’ parable of the two sons, he introduces “two kinds of knowing”—what we know in our minds and what actually informs all our reflexes and relationships. He invites us to notice where there’s a gap between our o...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Luke 2:25-32 In our final week of Advent, Pastor Josh explores the joy of Christmas — not as a fragile feeling tied to circumstances, but as a steady hope rooted in God’s faithfulness. Joy is not pretending everything is resolved, but trusting where the story is headed because God has entered it. Where have you seen evidence of God’s faithfulness recently? What small sig...

Teacher: Josh Wilson Text: Matthew 2:1–12 In the third week of Advent, Pastor Josh invites us to consider how easy it is to miss Jesus, even when we think we are ready to see Him. In the story of the Magi, insiders with power and knowledge miss Jesus, while unlikely seekers pursue Him with curiosity, sacrifice, and wonder. In this sermon, Josh invites us to slow down, notice where God is breaking...