What if the most powerful thing you could do this week wasn't climbing higher, but bending lower? In this message, we step away from our Back To The Heart series to unpack one of Lakeside's core values: Serving Is The Norm. Walking through Philippians 2, we look at the One who had every right to sit in judgment and instead wrapped a towel around His waist and washed feet. Jesus didn't just teach us to serve. He showed us how.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why what you focus on determines what you do, and how to keep your eyes on Christ in a culture that keeps them on yourself (Philippians 2:4)
• How Jesus emptied Himself to serve us, and what that means for a life that's always "too busy" (Philippians 2:7)
• Why you are not without a gift, and how God designed you to serve others in your own unique way (1 Peter 4:10, Romans 12:4-8)
• How to serve the Lord with gladness and find the joy that only comes from being used by God (Psalm 100:2)

This week we find ourselves wrapping up Saul's story... Samuel is dead. The Philistines are gathering. And when Saul looks out at the army coming for him, the Bible says terror fills his heart. He asks God for direction. For the first time in his life, he gets nothing back.

In this final message of A Heart In Decline, we watch Saul, out of options and out of answers, do the one thing he once condemned, sneak out in disguise to consult the very mediums he had expelled from his kingdom. It's a sobering picture of what happens when we'd rather find an answer we like than surrender to the one God's already given.

In this episode:

• Why Saul's real problem was never fear itself, but what fear kept leading him to do
• What it looks like when we refuse to confront the thing that's actually controlling us
• Why no other answer, no matter how comforting, can replace real repentance
• What Saul's story sets up for the next chapter in Back To The Heart

Scripture referenced: 1 Samuel 28:3-20

In this episode, we continue our series "Heart In Decline" with a hard look at 1 Samuel 18 and what happens when jealousy is allowed to take root. King Saul had every reason to celebrate David. Instead, comparison crept in and slowly changed the way he saw the person right beside him.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why jealousy targets other people but ends up destroying the one who carries it
• What it means to have a healthy heart that can genuinely celebrate someone else's win
• How comparison magnifies what we don't have and minimizes what God has already given us
• The connection between fear and jealousy, and why they feed each other over time
• What it practically looks like to bring jealousy to Jesus before it changes how you treat people

Whether you're walking through a season of comparison or just want to guard your heart before it starts, this conversation will challenge you to trade jealousy for gratitude, one day at a time.

Saul was standing in the right place, facing the right enemy, and he knew exactly what God had told him to do. Then the pressure started rising, and what was underneath the surface started showing itself.

In this message, we watch two men face the exact same odds and respond in completely different ways. Saul takes matters into his own hands. Jonathan trusts God with what he can't see. Along the way, we look at why pressure isn't the problem, it's the revealer, and what it means to trust, seek, and obey when the outcome isn't in our control.

In this episode:

• Why Saul's excuses were technically true and still didn't excuse his disobedience
• The difference between explaining our fear and repenting of our disobedience
• How Jonathan trusted God with the exact same odds Saul couldn't
• What it looks like to trust, seek, and obey when pressure is rising

Scripture referenced: 1 Samuel 13:7-14, 14:6-23

Saul won the battle. He just didn't finish the job. In this message, Jon Shaw walks through one of the most uncomfortable chapters in Saul's story, the moment his partial obedience became permanent, and shows how it's not nearly as ancient a problem as it looks.

Saul didn't disobey by accident. He ran God's command through a cost filter, keeping everything valuable and calling the rest worthless. And when Samuel showed up, Saul didn't confess. He built a monument to a version of himself that never actually obeyed. This episode looks at how easily we do the same thing, dressing up what we've kept in the language of stewardship, boundaries, and wisdom.

In this episode:

• Why Saul's disobedience was precise, not accidental
• The difference between decluttering and actually surrendering something to God
• How self-justification quietly works on all of us, not just Saul
• What it means to hear God instead of just bringing Him something

Scripture referenced: 1 Samuel 15:1-35, Deuteronomy 25, Philippians 2

Who is speaking into your life right now?

Not who you wish was there. Not who used to be there. Who actually has access to your real life right now. Your doubts, your decisions, your direction, your identity. Because those voices are shaping you every single day whether you are paying attention or not.

Proverbs 13:20 says walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. That is a warning and a promise sitting in the same sentence. And most of us have never stopped long enough to actually audit who we are walking with and what it is costing us or building in us.

In the season finale of The Lakeside Church Podcast we are having one of the most honest and personal conversations of the entire season. Who made you who you are. Who you are choosing to let close now. How to discern the voices that need to go. And what it looks like to show up as that person for someone else.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why proximity is not the same as access and not everyone has earned the right to speak into your life
• How to identify the subtle voices that have been quietly pulling you in the wrong direction
• What it looks like to lovingly but firmly create distance from a voice that is costing you something
• Why being a consistent trustworthy voice for someone else is one of the most powerful things you can do
• The first practical step for anyone who genuinely does not have a person in their corner right now

You were never meant to do this alone. Not faith. Not life. Not the hard seasons or the good ones. God has always worked through people. He still does. And the right voice at the right moment can change everything.

Thank you for being part of Season 1 of The Lakeside Church Podcast. We are just getting started.

Saul wasn't campaigning for a crown. He was just looking for his father's lost donkeys, doing an ordinary job on an ordinary day. But God was already leading him toward something Saul never saw coming.

In this first message of A Heart In Decline, we begin the story of Saul, a man who had everything Israel thought they wanted, the height, the strength, the appearance of a king, but who still had a heart that needed forming. We look at how God meets us in ordinary responsibilities, provides what we lack, and calls us out of the places we hide our insecurities.

In this episode:

• How an ordinary errand became the doorway to Saul's calling
• Why giftedness can open a door your character isn't ready to keep open
• The moment Saul hid from the very calling he had already been given
• What it means to let God keep forming you, even after you've been chosen

Scripture referenced: 1 Samuel 9:1-8, 9:19-20, 10:9-10, 10:21-25, Colossians 3:1-2

Israel had a real problem. Samuel's sons, the men appointed to lead after him, were dishonest and corrupt. But instead of taking that problem to God, the people ran straight past Him and asked for a king instead, one just like all the other nations had.

In this final message of A Heart That Hears, we look at what happens when we let fear write our solutions instead of trusting God with our problems, and why the human answer to a God-sized problem will always fall short.

In this episode:

• Why having a real problem doesn't mean every solution is a good solution
• The difference between Samuel's response and Israel's response to hard news
• How God's warnings can actually be a form of His mercy
• What it looks like to stay willing to listen, even when you don't like the answer

Scripture referenced: 1 Samuel 7:10-11, 8:1-20