Lessons for life's rugged circumstances, what the mountaintop teaches us for the long walk through the valley.
Some of the most important moments of faith happen on the mountaintop, when God feels close and the way ahead is clear. But life is mostly lived in the valley below. In the spring and summer of 2020, Pastor Tim Rolen began a series on what those high moments are for.
Across thirteen Sundays, with Pastor Mark Addis joining later in the series, Mountain Moments for Valley Walks looks at the peaks and valleys of Scripture, from Elijah on the mountain to the long ordinary stretches in between, and asks how the strength we find above carries us through whatever waits below.
May 3 to September 27, 2020 · 13 Messages
“I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
Psalm 121:1-2
Numbers 14:23-24
Caleb picked out a mountain at forty and asked for it at eighty five, and in between he watched a whole generation die in the desert for a decision they made in one afternoon. Pastor Tim Rolen opens the Mountain Moments series with Numbers 14 and Joshua 14.
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Genesis 13:8-9
Scripture keeps putting its turning points in low places rather than high ones. Pastor Tim Rolen walks the valleys of the Bible on a Mother's Day nobody could spend together, and asks what Abraham's choices at Hebron and Bethel have to do with ours.
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Genesis 22:1-14
God asked Abraham for the one thing he had waited twenty five years to receive. Pastor Tim Rolen reads Genesis 22 on Mount Moriah and traces how much of it reads like a rehearsal for something that happened on another hill.
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1 Kings 18:16-39
One prophet, eight hundred and fifty on the other side, no fire allowed, and then twelve jars of water poured over the offering to make it harder still. This message walks through the showdown on Mount Carmel and asks what it means that God is absolutely reliable.
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1 Kings 18:1-21
Elijah asks Israel one question on Mount Carmel before any fire falls, and the saddest sentence in the chapter is the answer: the people said nothing. This message is about that question and why indecision is itself a decision.
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1 Kings 17:1-24
God sends Elijah to a brook that should not exist in a drought, feeds him by scavengers, and then dries the brook up. This message works through 1 Kings 17 and asks what to do on the day the thing you were counting on runs dry.
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1 Kings 18:16-46
Elijah soaks the altar three times before he asks God for fire, then prays seven times for rain and is told there is nothing to see six of them. This message works through 1 Kings 18 and draws six timeless principles about prayer out of it.
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1 Kings 19:1-18
Elijah faced down a king, a false god and four hundred and fifty prophets without flinching, then ran for his life over one threatening message. This message traces how a bold man forgets what he already knows, and what God does about it.
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1 Kings 19:1-12
Elijah wins the greatest showdown in the Old Testament and is suicidal under a bush by the next chapter. This message works through 1 Kings 19 and asks what to do with a heart that collapses right after a victory.
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Luke 5:12-16
Luke drops one curious sentence at the end of the leper's healing: Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. This message builds on that word often, and asks how a desolate place becomes a holy one.
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The Church in Action · Matthew 5:13-16
A lighthouse built on rock and out of rock stood for more than a century where every previous one had been swept away. Pastor Mark Addis uses it to read the end of the Sermon on the Mount, where two houses face the same storm and only the foundation differs.
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Matthew 5:17-48
Six times in one chapter Jesus says you have heard that it was said, and then raises the standard rather than relaxing it. Pastor Mark Addis works through the hardest stretch of the Sermon on the Mount and what it does to the idea that we are basically doing fine.
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Luke 5:12-16
Three things quietly keep people off the mountain and out of any real closeness with God, and none of them look like sin. This message names them as busyness, complacency and comfort, working from the leper of Luke 5 and the habit Jesus kept of withdrawing alone to pray.
Watch the messageMountain Moments for Valley Walks is one of several series New Hope walked through in 2020. Browse the rest of the year, or join us in person on a Sunday.
