Journey Church SC

Journey Church

5.0 (10)
Religion & Spirituality
Updated Biweekly

The Journey Church in Summerville, South Carolina exists to create disciple-makers of Jesus Christ. Messages from Lead Pastor Chris Fowler, as well as other teachers and guests, are published weekly. We also publish video versions and other resources at JourneyChurchSC.org.

4d ago

Three Threads and the Undivided Faith

What does it mean to be truly undivided in our faith? James chapter 1 opens with a challenge that cuts right to the heart of how we live as followers of Christ. Drawing on the famous words of Jesus in Matthew 12:25 about a house divided, we are invited to examine whether our faith is whole or fractured. The passage walks us through three interwoven threads that James returns to again and again: trials in the Christian life, wisdom from God, and true riches. Trials, James tells us, are not accidents or punishments but divinely appointed opportunities to produce steadfastness in us, a resilience that moves us toward being perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. This Greek word, teleon, carries the weight of both moral holiness and genuine maturity. The goal is not just to survive our trials but to be made whole through them. There is something deeply counterintuitive here, and yet profoundly true: the testing of our faith, when met with joy rooted in theological confidence rather than forced optimism, actually forms us into the people God intends us to be. If we find ourselves eager to understand what it looks like to be genuinely undivided rather than double-minded, this is a message worth sitting with carefully.
Oct 11

God's Sovereign Ways

What does it look like when even the most faithful among us lose our footing? In closing out the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, we land on a story that is both sobering and deeply hopeful. King David, the man after God's own heart, the warrior who once faced a giant armed with nothing but a sling and unwavering trust in God, finds himself doing something that seems small on the surface but reveals a serious shift in his soul. He orders a census of his fighting men. Not because the law demanded it, but because he wanted to know what he could count on. What he could count. And in that moment, we see one of the most relatable spiritual traps we all fall into: trading trust in God for confidence in what we can measure, control, and hold in our hands. The lesson here is not just about David. It is about us. Yesterday's faith does not automatically carry over into today's trust. New pressures, new temptations, and new seasons of life have a way of quietly pulling us away from the posture of dependence on God and into a posture of self-reliance. The good news woven through 2 Samuel 24 is that drifting is not the end of the story. Conviction, repentance, and the mercy of God are available to every one of us, right now, in whatever area of life we have quietly stopped trusting Him.
Oct 4

A Kings Grief and THE KING's Grace

What does it look like when a king returns in grief rather than triumph? In 2 Samuel 19, we find ourselves in the aftermath of a victory that feels anything but victorious. Absalom is dead, the rebellion is crushed, and David is back on his throne -- yet the celebration is swallowed up by a father's anguish. This message invites us to sit with the tension between legitimate grief and disordered grief, between mourning what was lost and recognizing what God has preserved. We see how our closest relationships can blind us to sin, and how fixating on the one thing God did not spare can cause us to miss the countless ways his providence has surrounded us. There is a sobering warning here for all of us: our grief can be real and still be consuming in ways that dishonor those who stood faithfully beside us. And yet the story does not leave us in that tension. It calls us, as it called David, to rise while still hurting, to put one foot in front of the other, and to trust that faithfulness sometimes simply means getting up.
Sep 27

Absalom, Absalom

What does it look like to trust God when everything around us is falling apart -- when the consequences of past decisions are closing in and the people closest to us have turned against us? In this message drawn from 2 Samuel 16 through 18, we walk through one of the most turbulent seasons in David's life, a season marked by rebellion, heartbreak, and the long shadow of earlier sin. Yet even in the middle of this chaos, we see something remarkable: a man who still thinks of others before himself, who still trusts that God's plan is stronger than any human scheme, and who still carries the heart of a shepherd even when he has lost nearly everything. The central thread running through these chapters is not David's failure -- it is God's faithfulness. No plan formed against His purposes can stand, and no amount of human wisdom or military strategy can outmaneuver His sovereign will. Proverbs 19:21 reminds us that the counsel of the Lord is what ultimately stands. For us, this raises a deeply personal question: do we actually trust that? When we are under pressure, when past choices are catching up with us, when the situation looks impossible, do we surrender to the Lord or do we reach for control? This passage invites us to lay down our own strategies and rest in the One whose plan is always better.
Sep 20

Like Father, Like Son

What happens when the sins of one generation ripple into the next? In 2 Samuel 13 through 15, we are confronted with one of the most sobering narratives in all of Scripture. The story of Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom forces us to reckon with a painful truth: the patterns we live out in front of those closest to us do not stay contained to us alone. We see David's failures reflected and amplified in his sons. Amnon leverages power for selfish gain, mirroring David's own abuse of power. Absalom swings between dangerous passivity and violent revenge, echoing the same contradictions we witnessed in his father. And through it all, Tamar, the one character who actually walks with integrity, is discarded and forgotten by the very people who should have protected her. The message cuts close to home because we recognize ourselves in these patterns. We are more like our earthly fathers than we often dare to admit. Yet the passage does not leave us without hope. Even in his brokenness, David casts himself entirely on the mercy of God, saying in effect that whatever seems good to God is good. That posture of surrender is the seed of something far greater that is still to come.
Sep 13

Life of a Servant

What does it truly mean to do life together? This message pulls back the curtain on fellowship and encouragement, revealing that these are far more than church buzzwords. Drawing from the early church in Acts chapter 2, we see a community so compelling in the way they lived together that people were drawn to faith simply by watching them. They were devoted, not casually interested, but deeply committed to one another. Fellowship, as it turns out, is not just about shared meals and comfortable conversation. It is about relational proximity that makes the one anothers of scripture possible. We cannot love one another, confess to one another, or bear one another's burdens from a distance. This message challenges us to ask whether our relationships within the body of Christ have that kind of intentional depth, and what it might look like if they did.
Sep 6

Life Saver

What if the most powerful form of spiritual growth is not found in a classroom or a sermon, but in the middle of a storm? This message takes us deep into the heart of what it means to truly know Jesus, not simply know about him. Drawing on the Great Commission in Matthew 28, we explore the difference between information transfer and life transformation. Just as Jesus called his disciples not to a lecture hall but to a boat, a hillside, and a crowded street, we are reminded that discipleship is an apprenticeship. The ancient Jewish phrase 'be covered in the dust of your rabbi' paints a vivid picture of what it looks like to walk so closely with our teacher that his way of life becomes our own. We are challenged to ask ourselves whether our faith lives in our heads alone or whether it has taken root in our hearts and our daily rhythms. The answer, it turns out, has everything to do with the people we choose to do life with.
Aug 30

You Are the Man

What happens when the most celebrated figure in a nation's history becomes its greatest cautionary tale? That is exactly the territory we enter when we look at 2 Samuel 11 and the story of David and Bathsheba. This is not a comfortable passage, but it is an honest one, and that honesty is part of what makes Scripture so trustworthy. We see a man who had been given extraordinary gifts, extraordinary favor, and extraordinary opportunity, and we watch him trade it all away in a cascade of decisions that begins with a lingering gaze and ends with murder. The passage forces us to reckon with a truth we often resist: sin does not stay contained. Like kudzu spreading across a landscape, it reaches further than we ever imagined it would, touching more lives and causing more damage than we thought possible when we first entertained the thought. The spiritual lesson here is not simply that David was a bad person in a moment of weakness. It is that desire, when it goes unchecked and wrongly ordered, follows a predictable and destructive path. We are invited to examine where in our own lives we might be walking too close to a line, telling ourselves we have it under control, when in reality we are already too close to turn back easily.

5

out of 5

10 Ratings

The Journey Church in Summerville, South Carolina exists to create disciple-makers of Jesus Christ. Messages from Lead Pastor Chris Fowler, as well as other teachers and guests, are published weekly. We also publish video versions and other resources at JourneyChurchSC.org.

Creator

Journey Church
Years Active

2018 - 2026
Episodes

631
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2026 Journey Church SC
Show Website

Journey Church SC