In this sermon, Dean invites us to trade our view of power for the humble King who enters our hearts to expose our false saviors. By trying to fit Jesus into our expectations, we often crowd out the very Savior we cry for in our blindness. This Holy Week, we are invited instead to trust Jesus to save us in the best way He knows how.

Pastor Dean Miller explores the biblical connection between wisdom and work, emphasizing that labor is a gift from God meant to reflect His image and bless the community. By examining Proverbs, the sermon challenges listeners to view their daily tasks as a seven-day mission and to understand their professional roles as just one of many important vocations in a life dedicated to Christ.

Dean introduces a new Lenten sermon series on the book of Proverbs, defining biblical wisdom as a practical skill for navigating life’s challenges while bringing blessing to our community. It highlights that the fear of the Lord is the essential foundation for wisdom, encouraging us at every stage of faith to seek divine guidance for life’s most complex decisions.

Dean invites us to enter a “holy Lent” by adopting intentional spiritual disciplines that bring order to life’s chaos while resting in the promise that God’s steadfast love and mercies are new every morning

Dean explores the “Book of Consolation” in Jeremiah 31–32, highlighting God’s radical promise of a new covenant where His law is written directly on our hearts and our sins are forgiven. By looking at Jeremiah’s seemingly “foolish” land purchase during the Babylonian siege, the message challenges us to act as bearers of hope today, trusting in God’s faithfulness while we live between the historical fulfillment of Christ and His future return.

This week Dean explores the prophet Jeremiah’s vulnerable and candid relationship with God to understand how we can walk with Him for the “long haul” through the cycles of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. He speaks to how we can navigate seasons of pain when God may feel like a “deceitful brook,” and learn to hold fast to Him as the true source of living water.

Pastor Dean Miller explores how God’s intimate calling of the prophet Jeremiah serves as a guide for us to embrace what God is asking us to do this new year, even when we feel unqualified or overwhelmed. Drawing from Jeremiah’s ancient warnings, he challenges us to forsake the “broken cisterns” of temporary satisfaction and instead trust in God as the “fountain of living waters” while living as exiles in a fallen world.

In Isaiah 61 we see how God is still working through His Spirit to heal the brokenhearted and fulfill His Kingdom on earth. The message highlights that believers are not merely observers of this divine narrative but are active participants recruited to rebuild and restore their communities. He also shows how God intertwines individual lives across generations to continue this story of redemption in the present day.

Isaiah 11 reveals how God provides the hero humanity needs through Jesus Christ,  the Messiah—the true King—who emerges as an unexpected “chute from the stump of Jesse,” capable of bringing life from what seems dead and hopeless.  Discover how this hero is endowed with the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, and might, ready to judge with righteousness and restore creation.

As we continue in Esther we find Esther and Mordecai in a difficult situation as they try to save the Israelites from Haman and Xerxes. Dean talks to us about the importance of knowing who you serve and how to remain steadfast in times of difficulty.

In the last chapters of Nehemiah, once the city is complete, Nehemiah returns to Persia for a while, and when he returns to Israel, he finds it in sin once again. Dean highlights three actions of Nehemiah in this chapter: how he leads the people in thanksgiving, how he kicks Tobiah out of the temple, and how he trusts God wholly.

In Nehemiah 3, we read a detailed account of who was responsible for rebuilding every part of the wall in Jerusalem. Dean compares the rebuilding of the physical wall to the rebuilding of their spiritual wall, and how people from all trades worked together to finish the wall.

Nehemiah 1 takes place after the temple was finished, as well Nehemiah learning of the troubles the builders had from the lack of a wall or city. After a long period of daily prayer, Nehemiah talks to the king of Persia, who gives him permission, resources, and letters to send with him to rebuild Jerusalem.

Now that Ezra has been teaching in Israel for a while, the returned exiles are beginning to see their sinful ways of living. We see how, once again, Israel’s problem is the worship of other gods, or marrying from other nations, and the process of Israel’s recovery.

This week, we read in Ezra 5 how the prophets Haggai and Zechariah restarted and finished the Temple building project after it had been abandoned for many years. Dean talks about how the Temple, as well as it’s restoration, was meant to put God at the center of the Israelite’s lives, and how we should do this today.