A joyful crowd, genuinely mistaken about what it is celebrating. Pastor Adam preaches Palm Sunday as a warning that popularity is evidence of nothing in either direction, and that what the road wanted was a political saviour rather than a universal king.

The disciples find Jesus praying alone and tell him everyone is looking for him. Pastor Adam builds on what he does next, which is not to go back, and on an agenda set in solitude before anyone asked for it.

Simon fishes all night for nothing, a carpenter tells him where to put the nets, and the catch nearly sinks two boats. His first response is to ask Jesus to leave. Pastor Adam takes that seriously: discipleship exposes sin before it does anything else.

Eleven on a mountain, some worshipping and some doubting, and the commission handed to both. Pastor Adam opens Accelerate on the claim that precedes the command, and on there being no difference between believing for forgiveness and being sent.

God’s promise to David is almost entirely first person: I took you, I was with you, I cut off your enemies, I will give you rest. Pastor Adam does the arithmetic, then asks what you are aiming at, why, and whether doing more would answer the feeling.

David inquires, is answered, goes. Then it happens again and the answer is different: circle around, wait for the sound in the poplar trees. Pastor Adam makes the discipline the refusal to assume that what worked last time is the instruction this time.

The tribes make David king and cite not his lineage but that he led them out and brought them in. Pastor Adam builds on the difference between a king and a shepherd, and on the influence that comes from helping people win their own battles.

Two men present a severed head as good news and David has them executed. Pastor Adam uses the scene to address the wrath of God, distinguishing a response against what violates God’s nature from the capricious, self-indulgent human version.

A long war, a house growing weaker, and a commander quietly strengthening his own position. Pastor Adam reads 2 Samuel 3 as a study in what fear does, arguing that fear is what makes people negotiate, and that God establishes kingdoms for surrendered hearts.