This week, Pastor Sam Gibson continued our FREED series with a sermon on rejection—opening by admitting he couldn't promise freedom from it. Rejection is inevitable. The real question is whether it will deform you or transform you. Pastor Sam unpacked the snare of recognition as rejection's dangerous shadow side, walked through the Greco-Roman context of adoption in Romans 8, and landed on this: in Christ, we are not rescued strays but chosen heirs—named, inheritance transferred, legally irrevocable. That is the spirit of adoption available to us, and it is what sets us free.

This week, Pastor Jon preached from John 7:53–8:11, using the story of the woman caught in adultery and dragged into the temple courts before a crowd with stones as his text for the freedom Jesus offers us from shame. He pushed back on the typical cultural responses to shame—the "you're worthy" or "do better" responses. Neither reaches the place where shame actually lives. He walked through the honor-shame architecture of first-century Jewish culture to show what Jesus was subverting every time He ate with tax collectors, touched lepers, and stopped for the people everyone else walked past. Jesus coming to deal with our shame was a central theme to His ministry. From the animal skins God fashioned for Adam and Eve to the white robes of the saints in Revelation, Scripture traces an important story—God clothing the naked and the shamed in righteousness and glory. That is what Jesus came to do. That freedom is available today.

This Sunday Pastor Reagan Griffith continues our FREED series with a teaching on freedom from anxiety. Drawing from Matthew 6:25-34 and Philippians 4:6-7, Reagan identifies the roots of anxiety within lies and the cycle this creates. As New Yorkers we may feel exempt from this freedom, but God calls us to be free and empowers us to "not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." By embracing this truth that anxiety has no place in our lives, as followers of Jesus, "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.