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Reconciliation is possible because God enters into the midst of our broken relationships. Through Joseph’s testing of his brothers, we see the transforming power of repentance, culminating in Judah’s willingness to take Benjamin’s place. Joseph’s story reveals how God provides a route to reconciliation, makes renewed relationships possible through repentance, and ultimately points us to Jesus, who stands in the place of the guilty.

Our exhaustion is not merely physical; it is shaped by what we believe about God’s kingdom and our role in it. Jesus calls us to sow faithfully, then rest, trusting God to bring the growth we cannot produce or control. The kingdom advances through God’s power, not our striving. We are called to be faithful, not frantic, farmers. Because God never stops working, we can rest.

Canon Travis Wilson teaches that identity and security are rooted in the love of God—not in our ability to love him, but in the truth that he first loved us. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians reminds us that who we are in Jesus comes before anything we do. God invites us to let his love reach every part of our lives, healing and redeeming even the places of our deepest shame or sorrow.

In the sixth week of our sermon series, The Gospel According to Joseph, we focus on Joseph’s rise to leadership in Egypt: how he faithfully and effectively interprets Pharaoh’s dreams and credits God with providing a path of survival during the coming famine. Bishop Paul reminds us that Joseph’s fruitful life ultimately points to what Jesus has done for us. We are God’s fruit—the joy set before Jesus at the cross—and our lives can be faithful, effective, and fruitful because of him.

The Right Reverend Alan Hawkins, Bishop of our Diocese of Christ Our Hope, examines the parable of the landowner who hires workers at all hours yet pays them each equally. In this parable, Jesus reveals how God gives his lavish grace fully to all, and lest we complain by comparing our situation with others, we must take joy in God’s generosity.

In the fifth week of The Gospel According to Joseph, Bishop Paul teaches that Joseph remains faithful during his time in prison, because he knows that God is: present with him, purposeful in the “pit experiences,” and trustworthy to fulfill his promises. Like Joseph, we come to our own “pit experiences” that may feel unjust, unending, and unexplained. Yet God invites us, like Joseph, to trust him even here.

In a world marked by conflict, the church has an opportunity to show a better way. In Matthew 18, Jesus gives his people a biblical and brilliant path toward reconciliation—not an advanced technique, but basic Christianity. When brothers and sisters pursue one another in love and live in harmony, the church becomes a powerful witness to the gospel that brings unlikely people together—and keeps them together.

In the fourth week of The Gospel According to Joseph, Bishop Paul teaches how Joseph resisted temptation at a great personal cost. Yet Joseph is not the hero of the story—God is. When our own strength fails, God remains with us, giving grace in our hardest moments of temptation. Joseph does what is good not by grit, but by grace. His story points ultimately to Jesus, the one greater than Joseph who helps us to live from the reality of our baptism more and more.

Dr. Ken Wilgus shows us how the question Jesus asks Peter about his identity is the most important question we will ever answer: “Who do you say that I am?” The Christian path to identity begins not with defining ourselves, but with knowing Jesus. Just as Peter receives his identity when he recognizes who Jesus is, we discover who we are by letting Jesus name us. True peace comes when our identity rests not in who we say we are, but in who he says we are.

In the third week of The Gospel According to Joseph, Joseph’s plans have unraveled. Yet Scripture repeatedly reminds us: the Lord was with Joseph. God was with Joseph, working through Joseph, for the sake of the world. When our circumstances feel like exile, we can trust that God is still present and active—even in ordinary, day-to-day work—redeeming our hardest moments for his greater purposes.

In the second week of The Gospel According to Joseph, Bishop Paul turns to Joseph being betrayed by his brothers and two truths at the heart of the story: the brothers are grievous sinners, and the father sends his favored son. Like Joseph’s brothers, we are capable of great evil when sin is left unchecked. Yet just as Jacob sends his beloved son seeking the peace of his brothers, our heavenly Father sends his beloved Son, Jesus, to sinners like us—not simply to seek peace, but to make peace for us.

This week Bishop Paul began a new 10-week series, The Gospel According to Joseph: The Lord with Us in All Things, exploring how God works through the brokenness of ordinary people to accomplish his purposes. Joseph’s pride, his brothers’ hatred, and their father Jacob’s favoritism remind us that our greatest problem isn’t the difficult people around us—it’s the fact that we, too, are difficult people. Yet through it all, God remains faithful, pointing us to the greater Joseph, Jesus, who was betrayed so that God’s family could be reconciled and restored.

Jesus’ call to “not be anxious” isn’t an invitation to ignore life’s challenges but to remember whose we are. Anxiety grows when we live as though everything depends on us, forgetting that our heavenly Father knows our needs and faithfully cares for his children. Because our King reigns, sees us, and has entered into our suffering, we can trust his work of forming us for his kingdom. As we seek first his kingdom and righteousness, we find lasting security in what will never pass away.

In Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds, Bishop Julian Dobbs—Dean of the ACNA—reminded us that the world is contested ground where both the work of God and the work of the enemy are present. Yet God’s chief power is shown in mercy. As we await the coming harvest, we are called to seek the wisdom of Jesus in his word, examine our own hearts, come to his table, and faithfully join his patient work in the fields until the day he makes the world whole.

Before his departure from Christ Church, Canon Jonathan reflects on the one message he most wanted to leave behind: the gospel. Isaiah first confronts God’s people with the reality of their sin, but then comforts them with a hope-filled invitation. Through the promised Suffering Servant, God does what we cannot, calling all who are thirsty, hungry, and empty-handed to come and receive his grace. The gospel is not a message we outgrow—it is the truth we need to hear again and again.