Living Today As If It Were Your Last Day
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Luke 18:35-19:28
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Mark 10:46-52
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Matthew 20:29-34
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Me First!
Somewhere in the Guinness Book of World Records is a man who sat in a tree for 431 days, just to be first at something. Stephen Davey opens there because that same hunger for "me first" shows up in the strangest place—right after Jesus tells His disciples, for the third time, that He's about to be arrested and killed. Two brothers respond by asking for the best seats in His kingdom. Davey walks through Jesus' answer, and it flips everything they thought greatness meant. Turns out the path to first place runs straight through last place. Curious how that works? Take a listen.
The Gospel Is Not for Good People
A wealthy, respected, rule-keeping man walks right up to Jesus and asks what he's still missing. Stephen Davey walks through the moment Jesus answers with something that seems to backfire—sell everything you have—and the man walks away crushed. Davey clears up a popular myth about camels and needle gates along the way, and lands on the real point: heaven was never a reward for the good. It's a gift for people who admit they're not. So why does that answer break some people's hearts, and set others free?
The Meaning of Marriage and the Value of Children
The Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce hoping He'll say something that gets Him killed—it worked on John the Baptist. Stephen Davey walks through how Jesus sidesteps the trap entirely and points them back to Genesis instead, to God's original design for marriage. Then comes a scene that feels almost like a punchline: the disciples start shooing kids away from Jesus, and He stops them cold. "Let the little children come to me." Davey unpacks why kids weren't a distraction to Jesus—they were the whole point. What does childlike trust actually look like? This one's worth the listen.
How to Keep from Losing Heart
A church survey found nearly every member wanted the weekly prayer meeting to keep going. Fewer than one in five ever actually showed up. Stephen Davey opens with that gap between what we say about prayer and what we actually do, then turns to two parables in Luke 18 where Jesus tackles exactly that. First comes a widow who wears down a corrupt judge through sheer persistence, not because God is like that judge, Davey clarifies, but because He's nothing like him. Then comes a Pharisee bragging his way through a prayer, reciting his own resume, next to a tax collector who won't even lift his eyes, just beating his chest and begging for mercy. Davey's point lands hard: only one of them walked away justified, and it wasn't the one who thought he'd earned it.
The Timing of the Coming Kingdom
In 1879 a ship called the USS Jeannette sailed into the Arctic hunting for an open polar sea that explorers were certain existed — it didn't, and the crew's wrong assumption ended in a shipwreck and lost lives. Stephen Davey opens with that story before turning to a group of Pharisees who carried an equally deadly assumption: that their bloodline guaranteed them a seat in God's kingdom. When they press Jesus on the timing of that kingdom, He tells them plainly that the King is already standing among them, and no amount of miracle-seeking will change what they refuse to accept. Davey then walks through Jesus' private words to His disciples, warnings about the days of Noah and Lot, ordinary life going on right up until judgment fell without warning, and a chilling one-line reminder: remember Lot's wife. The question Davey leaves ringing isn't when the kingdom comes. It's whether you're ready for it.
Lessons On Living from a Leper
Ten lepers cry out to Jesus for mercy, and He sends all ten walking toward the priest before a single one is actually healed — a test of faith before the miracle even happens. Stephen Davey walks through Luke 17, where the healing comes on the road, ulcers disappearing, swelling vanishing, joy building with every step. But only one leper turns back, falls at Jesus' feet, and gives thanks. Davey points out the sting in the detail Luke adds almost as an afterthought: the grateful one is a Samaritan, an outsider who had no standing to worship God at all, while the nine who walk on without a word are Jews who should have known better. Jesus doesn't just heal the man's skin. He tells him his faith has saved him. Gratitude, Davey says, opens a door that healing alone never could.
An Earlier Resurrection
When word reaches Jesus that His close friend Lazarus is dying, He does the one thing Mary and Martha never expect: He waits two more days before going to them. Stephen Davey walks through John 11, where Jesus arrives to find Lazarus already four days in the tomb, and both grieving sisters greet Him with the same wounded line, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Rather than answering their grief, Jesus asks Martha what she believes, then stands at the tomb and weeps before calling a dead man by name back into life. Davey contrasts the crowd that believes with the religious leaders who, faced with undeniable proof, choose instead to plot Jesus' death rather than let their power slip away. It's a resurrection that exposes every heart in the room, including ours.
When It's Wrong to Forgive Someone
Jesus says something startling in Luke 17: it would be better to be tied to a millstone and thrown into the sea than to cause someone else to stumble into sin. Stephen Davey uses that jarring warning to launch three reminders Jesus gives His disciples, be careful how you live, be forgiving, and serve faithfully, but he lingers longest on forgiveness, and on a question a lot of believers quietly wrestle with. What do you do when the person who hurt you never repents, never even apologizes? Davey's answer isn't what you'd expect: forgiveness, he says, can become a transaction between you and God alone, the same way Jesus prayed forgiveness over soldiers who never asked for it. You may not get reconciliation. But you can still hand the resentment over and walk free.
Shocking Truths About Life After Death
A farmer once cornered evangelist Vance Havner after a sermon on hell and told him to preach on the meek and lowly Jesus instead. Havner shot back, "That's where I got my information about hell." Stephen Davey opens with that exchange before diving into Jesus' account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, a story so specific it names a real person, describing a beggar carried to Abraham's side while a wealthy man burns in torment across an uncrossable chasm. Davey pulls six sobering truths from the passage: death doesn't end existence, people stay recognizable and conscious, memories remain, and destinies lock in permanently the moment we die. When the rich man begs for someone to warn his brothers, Abraham's answer lands hard — if they won't believe the Word of God now, not even a resurrection will change their minds. It's Davey's reminder that eternity is decided here, not later.
A Case for Divorce and Remarriage
A man married fifty years once told Stephen Davey that after all that time, he and his wife still have almost nothing in common except the day they got married. Davey uses that bit of honesty to introduce one of the harder passages in Luke's Gospel, where the Pharisees mock Jesus over money and He responds by tightening, not loosening, God's standard for marriage. Davey traces the Old Testament debate over divorce, Jesus' exception for sexual immorality, and Paul's later teaching on abandonment in 1 Corinthians 7, building the case that Scripture permits divorce in certain situations without ever requiring it. He's especially direct about abuse, insisting no spouse should be told to endure it the way a missionary endures persecution. It's a careful, compassionate look at where grace and truth meet in marriage's hardest moments.