Go deeper with others.

(Ephesians 1:1NIV) – We kick off a new series this week exploring Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which offers a beautiful “mountaintop perspective” on our calling as Christians. Written as a circular letter to multiple churches, Ephesians offers a wide-angle vision of what it truly means to follow Jesus – and right out of the gate, Paul makes it clear that the Christian life isn’t about being the hero of your own story, but about participating together in God’s much larger one. This shift—from me to us—should change how we understand purpose, belonging, and community.

As our “GOAT Problem” series comes to a close, we’re reminded that Scripture does not condemn confidence, ambition, or achievement; what it confronts is how easily those good things become distorted by comparison and competition. When our personal growth turns into superiority, our confidence turns into scorn, and our ambition becomes self-centered, we drift away from the way of Jesus – the Way of Life. This week we wrap up by offering two more alternatives to “Better Than” and reframe both confidence and ambition as Jesus would have us live them out.

We’re in the 3rd week of a series that started with a simple idea: seeking a better way than “better than.” Each week we’ve looked at a practice to help us overcome our natural propensity toward unhealthy comparison and competition with others. This week, we go “all the way back” to try to understand where this temptation came from – and how Jesus himself was able to overcome it.