Park Hill Church Podcast

Would you rather be seen or be honored? Bartimaeus, a blind beggar outside Jericho's gates, has no status, no family, nothing but a cloak and a shout. Yet Jesus stops for him and asks the same question he asked James and John just verses earlier — the ones scheming for the best seats in glory. This week, Ashley closed our summer series, Jesus Questions, with this gut-punch of a story about who Jesus actually honors. The disciples wanted power. Bartimaeus wanted mercy — and got his name written into Scripture forever. It's a searching look at God's heart for the poor, and the walls we build between ourselves and the ones Jesus calls by name.

Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour? That's the question Jesus asks his sleeping disciples in Gethsemane, hours before the cross. This week, Matthieu Rouffet walked through Matthew 26:36–41, unpacking why Jesus wanted his closest friends near him in his darkest hour, and why he warned them to watch and pray so they wouldn't fall into testing. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak — and that's still true for us. Prayer isn't a nice add-on to the Christian life; it's the weapon God gave us to stand firm when trials and unseen forces press in. The invitation this week is simple but not easy: recommit to praying, start small, and don't do it alone.

Everyone in this room is climbing something — a ladder, a status, a seat closer to the front. This week Todd Proctor continued our Jesus Questions series with the moment Jesus got up from the table, wrapped a towel around his waist, and washed the feet only a slave was supposed to touch. It wasn't an accident or a nice gesture — it was a deliberate violation of every honor system his culture ran on, Roman and Jewish alike. Jesus didn't descend because he had something to prove. He descended because he already knew whose he was. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" isn't just a question about foot washing. It's a question about whether we're still trying to climb, or finally ready to get off the ladder.

Every ledger has a bottom line, and Jesus wants to know what's on yours. In Matthew 16, right after Peter makes the greatest confession in history, Jesus tells him the road ahead runs through a cross—and Peter can't stomach it. So Jesus asks the question underneath every ambition we carry: what good is it to gain the whole world and forfeit your soul? In a culture that measures a life by acquisition, this passage reframes the math entirely—your soul was never for sale, and Jesus proved it by refusing the world to purchase you instead. This week, Evan walks through what it looks like to stop settling for smaller trades, and to live as someone whose worth was already decided at the cross.

Everyone has an opinion about Jesus. Almost no one wants to answer for one. This week at Caesarea Philippi — pagan shrine country, standing in front of a cave locals called "the gates of Hades" — Jesus let his disciples hide behind the safe question first: who do people say I am? Then he turned it personal. Peter's answer, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," wasn't something he figured out or inherited — it was revealed to him, in the room, in real time. That same question hasn't gone quiet in two thousand years. It's not asking whether you have doubts, or whether your life is together. It's asking one thing, and it's asking you.

Do you love me? It's a question Jesus already knows the answer to — and asks anyway. This week, Connor Anderson took us back to the charcoal fire where Peter denied Christ three times, then forward to the morning Jesus stood at another fire and rebuilt him. Jesus doesn't just know our failures ahead of time — he plans the invitation back before we ever fall. What looked like the end of Peter's story was actually the setup for his restoration: confession met not with rejection, but with breakfast and a calling. The wounds sin leaves behind don't have to stay open. Christ doesn't erase them — he fills them with gold.

What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't the absence of healing, but your own resistance to it? In John 5, Jesus walks up to a man who's been paralyzed for thirty-eight years and asks a question that sounds almost cruel: "Do you want to get well?" It's not cruel. It's the wise counselor getting deep into this man's soul. This week, we sit with a story about a man so trapped by his pain that he can't even imagine life without it — and a Savior who ignores his excuses entirely. Healing isn't something we engineer through the right plan or the right effort; it's something Jesus does, and we spend a lifetime learning to walk in it. The question Jesus asked that man by the pool is the same one He's asking you right now.

In Luke 24, the risen Jesus appears in a locked room to disciples who are terrified, doubting, and still processing the worst week of their lives. And His first move isn't to explain Himself. It's to ask a question: "Why are you troubled?" This week, Alexis Garcia-Irons opens that moment up and pairs it with Psalm 37 — a psalm that turns out to be a surprisingly honest blueprint for what to do when life is falling apart and your own reactions are making it worse. Anger, doubt, fear, Jesus isn't scared of any of it. He's asking about it.

In Luke 2:41–52, we find the first recorded words of Jesus — spoken at twelve years old, in the temple, after three days of his parents searching and fearing the worst. This week, Evan Wickham opened our new summer series, Jesus Questions, with this often-overlooked story that turns out to be Luke's earliest whisper of resurrection. Jesus wasn't lost. He was exactly where He belonged — in His Father's house, listening and asking questions. And that posture hasn't changed. The risen Christ is still present, still leaning in to what's on your heart, and still inviting you deeper into relationship with the Father. This summer, we're sitting with nine questions Jesus asked, trusting that if we engage them honestly, they'll move us closer to the Father's heart than we've ever been.

You know the armor. But do you know what it actually is? Belt of truth. Breastplate of righteousness. Shield of faith. Most of us have heard the list so many times it stopped meaning anything. But Paul isn't giving you a checklist — he's pointing you to a Person. Every single piece of the armor turns out to be Jesus. And the question isn't whether you ran through your spiritual warfare routine this morning. It's whether you clothed yourself with Him.