Flatirons Community Church Audio Podcast

What if the thing you're most ashamed of is exactly where Jesus wants to meet you? This message flips everything you thought about Jesus on its head. He’s not floating above your mess—He’s sitting right in it. In John 4, we see Jesus intentionally walk into a place everyone else avoided, to meet a woman everyone else rejected. She wasn’t clean, perfect, or put together. She was tired, ashamed, hiding. And Jesus met her there. Maybe you think you're too far gone. Too broken. This story proves you're exactly who He's looking for.What starts as a casual conversation by a well turns into a soul-deep rescue. Jesus doesn't avoid her past—He names it, not to shame her, but to free her. Her shame becomes her story. Her story becomes a testimony. And her testimony leads an entire town to believe. Jesus does the same for us. He doesn’t need the version of you you’re trying to fake—He wants the real you. The tired you. The hurting you. The hiding you. He knows everything you’ve ever done, and He still wants you.

What if your version of faith is built on the wrong thing? Your Faith Isn’t Working. Here’s Why,Most of us are living with a faith that’s built on a contract—“God, if I do this, you’ll bless me”—but that house of cards always collapses when life gets hard. In this talk, we walk through the end of John 2 and into chapter 3 where Jesus flips tables in the temple, calling out a broken system that held people hostage. Then He has a late-night conversation with a religious leader who has all the answers, but still feels lost. Jesus offers something radically better: a whole new life, not a better version of the old one.Jesus didn’t come to clean us up. He came to save us. Nicodemus, like many of us, had spent his whole life trying to earn his way to God. But Jesus tells him straight: unless you're born again, from above, you’ll never see the Kingdom. And He’s not talking about behavior—He’s talking about belief. In Jesus, we are not just forgiven…we are made new. Not by what we do, but by what He’s done. No more religion. No more shame. Just a new identity and a new life through Christ.

What if the reason your faith keeps falling apart is that you’ve built it on a deal God never agreed to?Too many of us walk into faith thinking it’s a contract—“God, if you do this for me, I’ll believe in You.” That makes sense until life hurts. When the money runs out, the diagnosis hits, or the prayers go unanswered, we’re left wondering if God broke the deal. In this message, we look at John 2 and how the miracle at Cana reveals something far deeper than a magic trick. Jesus isn’t interested in transactional faith. He wants trust that holds, even when the wine runs out.Real faith begins when the contract ends. Like the disciples watching Jesus turn water into wine or the paralyzed man lowered through the roof, it’s not about the miracle—it’s about what the miracle points to. When faith stops being about what Jesus can do for you and starts being about who He is, something shifts. Your foundation gets stronger. You stop interpreting God's love through your pain, and start trusting His heart when life doesn’t make sense. That’s where unshakable faith is born.

Is your faith fueled by love, or by unresolved anger?If you're exhausted from trying to hold it all together while the world around you burns, you're not alone. Kicking off a new study in the Book of John, Jim Burgen gets brutally honest about the anger simmering under the surface of his own faith—and how Jesus’s love began to wash it away. Before we dive into the words John wrote, we have to look at the man himself: an angry young disciple transformed by the love of Jesus. This isn’t a Bible study for the polished. It’s for the burned out, bitter, and barely hanging on.John didn’t start out as the “apostle of love.” He was fiery, prideful, and ready to call down fire from heaven on his enemies. But after years of walking with Jesus, experiencing grace firsthand, and allowing himself to be served by Christ’s love, John changed—and it showed in every word he wrote. His anger didn’t disappear by willpower, but by letting Jesus kneel down, wash his feet, and touch the places he tried to hide. That same invitation is open to us today. Jesus doesn’t want to crush you—He wants to clean you, heal you, and love you back to life.

Ever feel like God has left you to figure life out on your own?We often imagine the Christmas story as peaceful, sweet, and wrapped in lights—but the real story was messy, dangerous, and filled with fear. This message flips our Christmas expectations by revealing what Mary and Joseph were really walking through: shame, stress, and silence from the people around them. What if the most sacred story in history actually mirrors your real life more than you ever imagined?Mary and Joseph didn't survive because life got easier—they made it because they believed God was with them. Emmanuel wasn’t just a name—it was the truth they clung to in the dark. And that same God who entered their brokenness is with you now. Not because you earned it, but because he wants to be. If you’ve ever felt abandoned, this truth might be the only thing holding you together: God is still with you.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/@Flatirons