Collective Church Podcast

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is crushed under the unbearable weight of what lies ahead, yet chooses surrender over escape.

Guest preacher, Pastor Landon MacDonald helps us understand the strength of the secret place of prayer.

1 Samuel 31 Our final sermon within 1 Samuel, and it's bleak. We see the death of King Saul as the solemn lesson for great need of faithfulness.

1 Samuel 29-30 finds David at one of his lowest episodes—his honor shamed by the Philistine commanders, his family kidnapped by the raiding Amalekites, and his men whispering of mutiny. Yet in this moment of darkness, we see a God of redemptive reversal and counterintuitive provision as David found strength in the LORD his God.

1 Samuel 28 Saul, abandoned by God and desperate for direction, seeks out a medium at Endor, crossing a line he once outlawed in a final attempt to control his fate. In one of the darkest chapters of 1 Samuel, we see what happens when fear replaces faith and a leader who refused God’s voice now finds only silence.

In 1 Samuel 26–27, David passes the test of power again by sparing Saul’s life a second time, proving he is free enough to trust God’s timing instead of seizing the throne. Yet in the very next chapter, weary of waiting, he stops inquiring of the Lord and seeks safety among the Philistines, showing how even faithful obedience can erode when trust gives way to survival.

In 1 Samuel 24, David spares Saul in the cave, refusing to seize the throne by violence and entrusting God with both timing and justice. In 1 Samuel 25, that same restraint nearly collapses when David is provoked by Nabal, until Abigail intervenes and keeps him from shedding blood he would later regret, revealing how the wilderness tests not just public obedience but the heart itself.

In 1 Samuel 23, David models a life shaped by inquiry, not impulse, repeatedly asking the Lord before every move while hunted, betrayed, and under pressure. This episode explores how clarity comes not from confidence or strength, but from humble dependence on God in the wilderness.

Pastor Chad Bohi joins us from Radiant Central Coast to discuss Luke 18.

1 Samuel 21-22 David flees betrayal and danger by running first to the presence of God, where mercy meets him before clarity, provision comes before explanation, and grace sustains him in weakness. In the caves of 1 Samuel 21–22, we see a God who gathers the broken, feeds the undeserving, and forms a kingdom not through strength or sacrifice, but through mercy.