Episodes
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Some People Aren't Chosen
How in the world do the people who are in the best position to know and follow Jesus end up being the people who neither know nor follow him? Well, Jesus says it's because they might look the part, but they were never chosen. What we're seeing today? It's all in Matthew 22.
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Remove the Fruitless Mountain — Matthew 21:18-46
Have you ever heard people talk about having the kind of faith that moves mountains? Well, would you like to know that the interpretation you've heard before is almost certainly wrong. Jesus definitely wasn't promising that God would remove your mountain. On the contrary, he was warning us that...
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Jesus Hates Nationalism - Matthew 21:1-14
The story of Jesus cleansing the temple is one of the most dangerous to get wrong. If you misunderstand what's going on in the story, you can easily slide off the rails into wildly incorrect thinking. No, the story isn't an argument for violent masculinity. It's not an argument for why you...
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Jesus Isn't Fair
The Kingdom of Jesus isn't based on the same principles we find at work in the world around us. The world around us demands fairness (sometimes), but the Kingdom of Jesus doesn't hold fairness as a virtue. The Kingdom and the King are better than that, better than fair. The virtue of the Kingdom...
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The Upside-Down Kingdom
The Kingdom of Jesus operates on principles exactly the opposite of what we would expect, exactly the opposite of what we would want. In the Kingdom of Jesus, you gain by giving. You profit from loss. In this kingdom, you get ahead by serving. The last will be first.
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Jesus, King of Restoration
Matthew 18 is rarely understood because people tend to chop it up into little bits and miss the big picture. However, this is not a chapter about spiritual warfare and personal conflict and how many people it takes for Jesus to be present in a prayer meeting. This is a chapter about one thing…
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Jesus, King of the Lowly
Jesus used miracle power to pay a tax? Even though he didn't need to? All because he didn't want to offend someone? That's a side of Jesus people don't talk much about but perhaps we need to remember.
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Jesus, King of Mountains and Valleys
We have all experienced great moments of the sublime, and we long for them to last longer, but you don’t need to manufacture a moment or maximize your moment if you are willing to trust the maker of the moment. Jesus had a mountaintop moment of glory followed by a dark valley of suffering, but...
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Jesus, King of the Church - Matthew 16
It’s a terribly contagious idea that God wants to give you a king just like you, who will defeat your enemies, and make you great. It is, as we have been talking about for some time now, the rule of the schoolyard. Get the biggest bully on your side. Jesus calls that thinking a virus and has…
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Matthew 15 - The King of the Heart
For centuries, people have been using religious traditions to get them something of personal benefit. Religion can empower selfishness. Jesus, however, calls that evil. If you have ever been tempted to use a religious rule to mask your own selfishness, this lesson is the challenge you need to…
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Matthew 14 - The King of the Impossible
If Peter can get out of a boat, you can love your enemy. Matthew 14 gives us three stories of impossible moments leading to the impossible conclusion that Jesus is literally an impossible man with impossible power telling us to do impossible things.
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Yes, Jesus is Confusing (Matthew 12-13)
Is Jesus trying to confuse people? Is he telling cryptic stories and saying impossible things on purpose because he's hiding something from us? Yes, yes he is. But he doesn't want you to stay confused. He wants to give you the answers, but he wants you to stick with him through the confusion.
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Hebrews 7 - The Old Law is Old News
Taking a detour from our lessons in Matthew, this is a full sermon-style message studying Hebrews 7. I've never had the opportunity to teach through Hebrews, so I'm taking the time to address at least this one chapter simply because it's on my heart to do so. Thinking of Jesus as our forever King...
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Matthew 11 - The King of Disappointment
Why did Jesus let John die in prison? After all, the job of the Messiah was to set the captives free. What if I told you that Jesus is the kind of king who will disappoint you today because he has something bigger in mind for the future. Would you still follow a king like that?
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Matthew 10 - True Missionaries
When Jesus sent his disciples out as workers in his harvest field, he gave them a clear message and a clear method. And neither had anything to do with salesmanship.
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Matthew 8-9 - King of the Harvest
When Jesus tells his followers that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, what does he mean by the harvest? Is it all about telling people the gospel and getting them saved, or is there something more going on? If we want to know how we are supposed to participate in the great harvest...
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Matthew 7:24-28 - A Life of Stability
Don't build your house on the sandy sand. Don't build your house on the shore. Well, it might be kinda nice, but you'll have to build it twice. Oh you'll have to build your house once more.
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Matthew 7:1-23 - By Their Fruits: Specks, Logs, Pearls and Pigs
What does Jesus mean by telling us not to judge before giving us instructions about avoiding pigs, helping someone get a speck out of their eye, and avoiding false prophets? That sounds like a lot of judgment doesn't it? Perhaps not the way he meant it.
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Love Your Enemies - Reflections on Charlie Kirk's Death
On Wednesday, September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk, a MAGA political activist, founder of Turning Point, USA, husband and father, was killed in what most people are calling a politically-motivated act. At this point we don't know the motives of the killer, but we can know the motives of our own…
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Matthew 6:19-34 - The King's Promise of Provision
Do you have enough faith to trust that God will take care of you? Actually, how would it change you if you had that much faith? How would it change your relationship to money? In Matthew 6, King Jesus makes a promise that seems too good to be true.
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Matthew 6:1-18 - True Faith
Have you ever realized that giving to the poor or forgiving someone who hurt you are both acts of faith? Both of them will cause you to lose out on something that was rightfully yours, and if you keep doing it enough, you will eventually become needy yourself, won't you? That is... unless you are...
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Matthew 5:27-48 - True Law Part 2
What is the heart of the Law of Christ? If you think the rules of the Sermon on the Mount are all about avoiding lust or avoiding divorce, you might have missed what's really going on. It's so much deeper than that.
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Matthew 5:17-26 - The King's Law Part 1
If you think of Jesus primarily as a Savior, he's the one that gets you out of the things you don't want to do. But if you think of him mainly as your King, you should expect him to demand something of you.
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Matthew 5:13-16 - A Salt and Light Kingdom
Citizens of the new kingdom of Jesus are salt and light to the people of the old kingdom, but what does that mean? Here's a hint. It doesn't mean to be a restraining force and it doesn't mean to shine a light of shame on the sins of the world. Still, it is the first command of the new kingdom and...
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Matthew 5:1-12 - How to Really Be Blessed
Last time, we considered one aspect of blessing, but in Matthew 5, Jesus starts really teaching about it. He gives us 8 very specific blessings along with the principles for how you can get in on them. This section sets us up to see the entire Sermon on the Mount with completely new eyes.
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Matthew 4:12-16 - How to Be Blessed
What if blessing was already on the way to you? What if you were impatient and wandered away before the blessing came? What if that blessing ended up falling to someone else? That's what happened when Jesus went to Galilee and fulfilled Isaiah 9.
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Matthew 3:13-4:10 - The Temptation of Jesus
The story of Jesus's temptation is not a story for us about how we can defeat temptation. Rather, it's a story about the supreme achievement of our king who defeated the most fundamental of all temptations and proved to us that he is exactly the king we need even if he isn't the king we thought…
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Matthew 3:1-12 - Judge Jesus
Our next passage in the Gospel of Matthew takes us to a passage on judgment. Actually, it's the message John the Baptist gave to warn people about the coming Messiah. For John, the coming Messiah was something to be scared of... John would baptize with water, but the coming Messiah would baptize…
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Matthew 2:19-23 - Despised and Rejected
What does it take for a leader to be rejected? What kind of leader will religious people follow and what kind will be despised? Jesus was the kind of leader religious conservatives hated.
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Matthew 2:1-12 - He Welcomes the Unwelcome
What kind of king is Jesus? He's the kind of king who would do things we can't imagine to reach people we don't love!
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Matthew 1:1-17 - Better than David
Christians today often fantasize about what it might be like to have a king like David again. We know the stories of his victories, and we imagine what it would be like to have a king like that fighting our battles for us. However, the opening to the book of Matthew shows us that Jesus is so much...
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What Kind of God is God?
We now turn our attention in this podcast to the question about the kingdom of our king. What kind of king is he and what kind of kingdom does he have? To get us started, Jeff takes us through a passage that's on his heart to address the question What kind of God is God?
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Make Jesus First Again
In his final words to his followers, Jesus told them to make disciples, but he also left out a bunch of things we think are important. Sadly, we often leave out some of the things he said.
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Was Jesus a Political Figure?
Did you ever realize that the core message of the gospel is a political statement? At least it was in the first century. The idea that Jesus is king is what got him crucified, and it's the reason the first Christians were martyred, not because people found the beliefs or behaviors offensive but...
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The One Enthroned in Heaven Laughs
For some people, saying Jesus is King means that he is a King in opposition to the other powers and the other kings in this world. They see the Kingdom of Jesus as a kingdom under threat, a kingdom that needs warriors. The problem is that they have severely overestimated their own responsibility...
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Jesus is Supreme
This is our last episode working through Colossians 1:15-20, and in it, we cover the fact that Jesus is already, right now, actually in charge of the universe, but also that Jesus is the solution for my deepest need.
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Jesus is God
The supremacy of Jesus starts with the recognition that he's more than merely a man. He is God in the flesh. Saying that Jesus is God isn't just a theological statement. It's a statement about what it means to be a person of faith and what it means to be a person who follows God.
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Jesus is King
This year, with a looming presidential election and the continuing concerns of global warfare, tragedy, and political divisions, I think it’s important once again to remember this essential truth. Jesus is King. And that means a lot.
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Faith or Fear?
Are you a person of faith or fear? It's really a question about who is on the throne in your heart. Let's put Jesus first again.
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Evangelical Preacher Problems Part 2
Sooo... this episode is a bit long. Remember how I was critical of a sermon I heard a couple weeks ago? Well, this is my conclusion to that episode, the conclusion to my thoughts on how that pastor misunderstood the passage, but more than that, why that pastor misunderstood the message.…
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Evangelical Preacher Problems - Malachi 2:17
This is the first in a series of episodes where I'm going to talk about some problems commonly found among evangelical preachers while also talking about the problems I myself have when listening to other preachers! This first message teaches us to point the fingers at ourselves first even if we...
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Noah, Ham, and the Curse on Black People
I was taught that all Black people descended from Noah's son Ham. I was also taught that Noah pronounced a curse on Ham's children. That created in me a lingering racial bias that I never really confronted until a few years ago.
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The Mark of Cain Wasn't Blackness
The story of Cain and Abel is commonly taught to children in American churches, but in white contexts, the implication is often that God punished Cain by turning him black. Not only is that a misunderstanding of the text, it actually perpetuates the opposite lesson we are supposed to learn from…
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Adam and Eve Were Not White
No one ever taught me that Adam and Eve were white, but lots of tiny details in the way it was taught definitely led me to that presupposition. In fact, many aspects of the story led me to think that being white was "normal" and if being white is "normal," then any focus or attention given to the...
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Waking Up
For some reason, the term "Woke" has become a negative term among modern evangelical Christians. However, the Bible is filled with references to "wakefulness" and commands to "wake up." In this introductory episode, I cover some of those passages to see what it means to be Biblically Woke.
About this show
The weekly podcast of Jeff Mikels encouraging you to wake up from misunderstandings and misconceptions about the teaching of the Bible and how it applies to our modern world.
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Jeff Mikels
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