FOLLOW | Loving - Tim Brown

New York disciples its people through ambition. Etched into the walls of Moynihan Train Hall, the newly renovated front door to the city, is a single word from the New York State seal: Excelsior. It's Latin for "ever upward," and while meant as civic pride showcasing New York's history of excellence, said honestly, in the context of most people's lives in the city, "ever upward" feels more like a mandate than a cheer. Most people here live pinned between two unsatisfying options—apathy or ambition—with both ending in defeat. Jesus offers a third way: fruitfulness. He makes the uncomfortable contrast between what a person produces and what a person's life produces in somebody else, and in turn, the Kingdom. Over eleven weeks, we will hear from Jon Tyson and other preachers about the 100x life God intends to cultivate in His disciples.

This Sunday, Pastor Billy closed our FOLLOW series by asking what it would look like to take Jesus' command to go and make disciples seriously—not as a monumental assignment reserved for pastors or people who have it all together, but as an ordinary part of following Jesus. He began with the sobering stat: The average Christian will make one new disciple every 26 years. With nearly 6 million lost New Yorkers, this approach to discipleship is not sustainable. God's discipleship plan is "you!" Pastor Billy said. You already have relationships, access, and places of influence no pastor could replicate. The invitation is to make yourself known as a Christian, ask God for one person to disciple, and look for opportunities to lean in. We do not change heart, Jesus does. Our part is to be faithful with the person He has already placed in front of us.

This Sunday, Pastor Reagan continued our FOLLOW series with a teaching on worship. She began with the story of a woman who poured an entire jar of expensive perfume over Jesus. Where the disciples saw waste; Jesus saw worship. But the question beneath the story is not simply what we are willing to give Jesus, it is what we believe He is worth. Pastor Reagan traced worship back to the act of beholding—to giving our attention to Jesus long enough for our vision of Him to be enlarged. Mary's extravagant offering was not an isolated moment of devotion. It was the natural response of a life that had come to see Jesus as worthy, and when Jesus becomes our highest good, our lives begin to reorder around Him.

This Sunday, Pastor Tim continued our FOLLOW series with Jesus' difficult words to the Pharisees in Matthew 23. Rather than using the passage to confront everyone else, he invited us to ask a more personal question: Where does Jesus want to confront me? Pastor Tim explored how hypocrisy can take root when our outward lives become disconnected from what is happening within us, and how easily we can notice the failures of others while overlooking our own. Jesus' confrontation is not meant to leave us in shame, rather it is an invitation into honesty, mercy, and freedom. Allowig God to form in us what we cannot produce on our own.

This week Pastor Keithen continued our Follow series in Matthew 20:25-28, where Jesus tells His disciples that greatness in the kingdom looks nothing like greatness in the world. Preaching to a room full of New Yorkers, Pastor Keithen named the "main character energy" that drives so much of this city, the ambition and grit that gets us here and keeps us here, and asked whether we've quietly assumed Jesus only wants to tweak that energy rather than replace it. He walked through four shifts from the text: from consumption to contribution, from criticism to compassion, from main character energy to a life of consecration, and from extracting from New York to laying our lives down for it. "Not so with you," Jesus says. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant.

This Sunday, Pastor Tim continued our FOLLOW series by asking what it means to love God with our whole lives. Jesus' command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is not simply about how we feel toward Him—it is about loyalty, trust, and choosing Him even when His ways are difficult to understand. Pastor Tim reflected on how our love for God is formed through both joy and disappointment, and how faithfulness becomes deeper when we learn to trust His character even when we don't understand His circumstances. That love eventually moves outward, shaping the way we see and love the people God has placed around us. Following Jesus means learning to love God like this, and letting that love change the way we live in the world.

This Sunday, Pastor Ralph continued our FOLLOW series with a teaching on Jesus' invitation to true rest from Matthew 11:25–12:21 He began with John the Baptist, sitting in prison and asking Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" It was a reminder that even faithful disciples can struggle when Jesus doesn't meet their expectations. Pastor Ralph suggested that much of our restlessness begins there. We carry burdens Jesus never asked us to carry because we've forgotten who He is. Against that backdrop, Jesus offers one of His most tender invitations, "Come to me... and you will find rest." Rather than promising an easier life, He invites us into a different way of living—one where we come to Him, take His yoke, and learn His way. The result isn't the absence of difficulty, but the deep rest that comes from walking closely with the gentle and humble King.

This Sunday, Dr. Ron Walborn continued our Follow series with a teaching on healing from Matthew 8:1–4. He began with the character of Jesus. Before healing a man with leprosy, Jesus reaches out and touches him first. It's a small gesture that reveals a God who moves toward people with compassion, not distance. From there, Dr. Ron explored both the posture of the man seeking healing and Jesus' example for those who minister to others, reminding us that healing is never an end in itself but an invitation into the life God has for us. Holding together both faith and mystery, he encouraged the church to pray boldly because God is a healing God, while recognizing that His healing is fully real now, even as we wait for the day when sickness and death are no more. His closing invitation was simple: the healing ministry of Jesus belongs to the whole Church.

This Sunday, guest preacher Dr. Wanda Walborn continued our FOLLOW series with a teaching on obedience from Matthew 7:21-27. Obedience is not an inspiring word for many of us. We want Jesus' love, His forgiveness, His grace, but we hesitate at obedience because we have seen the word distorted. Scripture presents it differently—not the loss of freedom, but the way we learn to trust a good Father. In the parable of the wise and foolish builders, both houses faced the same storm. The difference was the foundation, quietly formed long before the rain, built with integrity, consistent sowing, and grit. The habits formed in the calm show up in the storm. The application from this sermon was to ask the Lord for one habit to practice this week. Write it down. Tell someone. The small decisions you make each day become the foundation you stand on tomorrow.

This week, Pastor Ralph continued our FOLLOW series with a teaching on Jesus' command to "seek first the kingdom of God." He began with a simple observation—everyone is seeking something. The real question is what sits at the center of our lives. Working through Matthew's Gospel, Pastor Ralph showed that before Jesus ever calls people to seek the Kingdom, He reveals the King. Pastor Ralph quoted "the only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one." Lasting change comes less from trying harder than from discovering a greater love. As Jesus becomes the center, everything else begins to find its proper place.