David finally moves, and the striking thing is that he asks first. Pastor Adam reads 2 Samuel 2 as a man refusing to chase a destiny already promised, with the mandate being only to seek, since revealing belongs to God.

A series on David opens with a death, not a coronation. A man claims credit for killing Saul and expects a reward; David has him executed. Pastor Adam builds the series on that restraint, and on the thirty or so years David spent between anointing and throne.

Same passage, second week, question turned outward: what did those four devotions actually produce? Pastor Adam argues social change in Acts 2 does not begin with outward-facing programs but downstream of a body devoted to teaching, fellowship, bread and prayer.

Acts 2 describes the earliest church in startlingly concrete terms: teaching, the fellowship, bread, prayer. Pastor Adam argues that is devotion rather than attendance, and asks whether devotion to a local body is genuinely required or merely encouraged.

The last Sunday of the year lands on James 1 and its instruction to consider trials joy. Pastor Adam works it through endurance, notes how little in modern life teaches it, and sends the congregation into the new year on three words: exist, perceive, endure.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” Pastor Adam preaches joy at the point in December when many can least manufacture it, describing hope as the long road joy travels before arriving, and refusing either to diminish pain or to let go of hope.

A Christmas series on joy opens in Hebrews 12, with a race run under a cloud of witnesses. Pastor Adam treats joy as something produced rather than waited for, in three moves, and puts losing heart forward as the actual risk being guarded against.

Abram gives a tenth of everything to a priest-king centuries before any law requires it, then refuses to take a thread or a sandal strap from the king of Sodom. Pastor Adam uses both halves to make the case for the corporate tithe and the local church.

Pastor Adam puts the weight on the first verb: honour the Lord with your wealth. Generosity is an overflow of honour, not a formula, and Isaiah 61 widens what “favour” even means, since almost none of what it promises is financial.