Hays Christian Church

Pastor Dana’s continues to look at Jesus’ life in Matthew 3:13-17, where Jesus’ cousin John baptizes Him in the Jordan River, and in Matthew 4:1-11, where Jesus goes into the wilderness to fast for forty days and is tempted by the devil. In baptism, He commits Himself to a life of following God the Father and proves it in the wilderness. Our commitment to faith in God won’t save us from trial, either, but it will help us through them.

Pastor Dana’s new sermon series looks at the life of Jesus and how we can receive guidance for our own lives. In Luke 2:41-52, Jesus is separated from His parents after the Passover festival in Jerusalem, only to be found 3 days later at the temple. There are times that we feel Christ is absent and all we know is anxiety, but if we remember to look in places He has promised to be, we know where to find Him – in the steady, faithful presence of God.

Pastor Dana’s Lenten sermon series wraps up in Micah 6:1-8. God brings a mournful case against His people for their disobedience, but they fail to understand what God wants. No, not more sacrifices or effort in devotion, but to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. God loved us first, so we do not need to earn the gift of being wholly loved.

This Easter, Pastor Dana reads from John 20:11-18, in which Mary Magdalene is distraught to find Jesus’ empty tomb and does not at first recognize Him when he greets her. Only when He calls her by name does she realize that Jesus had risen from death. She then goes to share the news with the disciples, as instructed. The heart of Easter is faith. We must have faith that Christ is nearer than we think in our darkest moments, so we pray eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts and minds to understand, and feet ready to do with the Word for others.

Steve Tramel’s focus this Palm Sunday takes us through Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, as described in Zechariah 9:9-10, where he then spends the week denouncing sin and the pharisees, sets the bar which people will be judged by God, and ultimately offers His life for our sins. Yet, there will be another triumphal entry, described in Revelation 7:9-17. At that time, He will come to end the present age, sitting as our judge. Are you living to obey God’s commands to love others and bring them to Him?

Pastor Dana’s Lenten sermon series picks up in Haggai 1:2-6, 2:2-5, and Psalm 145:4-8. The people of Israel return from 20 years of exile to rebuild their lives yet neglect the temple. God uses Haggai to remind them of a promise of restoration. In their rebuilding the temple, they rebuild their identity as a covenant people. We find renewal when we center around faithful living in our community.

Pastor Dana’s Lenten sermon series picks up in Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-3; and 3:2. God’s people have turned away from God’s righteousness and normalized violence and corruption, bringing on an invasion from the Babylonian empire. But we see that God’s intentions are not to stand away from suffering, but to take it upon Himself, beginning the ultimate work of restoration of our brokenness through the resurrection.

Pastor Dana’s Lenten sermon series picks up in Jonah 1:3-4, 3:3-5, and 4:1-2; 11. God calls on Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh to change their ways, but Jonah resists and hopes to see their destruction, which is avoided through their repentance. God declares through the book of Jonah that no human is too deep into sin that He cannot reach them and grant them mercy and compassion. It isn’t up to us to decide who is worthy.

Pastor Dana begins this Lenten sermon series in Hosea 4:1-3 and Hosea 11:1-4, 8-9. God calls Israel into account for their lack of acknowledgment and God laments about us, refusing to abandon us. The lament of Hosea finds fulfillment in the suffering of Christ: divine heartbreak becomes divine sacrifice so that sin does not get the final word.

The final spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is prayer. Jesus teaches us how to pray in Matthew 6:6-13, with privacy and sincerity to nurture your relationship with God. In Philippians 4:6-7, Paul assures us that we can take our concerns to God in prayer and receive His peace in return. The Lord is near! And when we cannot find the words to pray, Romans 8:26-27 comforts us. The Spirit intercedes for us when we call out.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is teachability. Moses addresses Israel in Deuteronomy 6:1-9 to teach them how to listen before entering the Promised Land, and Jesus explains to His disciples in Mark 4:22-24 that revelation is meant to be disclosed and made clear. Teachability is how God’s light is allowed to be revealed, received, and lived. We practice teachability by returning to scripture, being willing to receive correction, and recognize that it is a lifelong pursuit.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is hospitality. Paul writes in Romans 15:4-13 to welcome one another because hospitality is how people glorify God and dwell in hope with each other. Jesus also comforts His disciples in John 14:1-3 that God prepares space for them. Hospitality flows from God’s abundance. When God fills us, we are able to make room for others.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is compassion. Luke 10:25-37 shows the compassion of the Good Samaritan, who went out of his way to care for the robbed man. Then, Luke 16:19-31 tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, where the rich man showed no compassion to the poor Lazarus while alive. Compassion cannot be proved by our belief in it, but by proximity: who we are drawn to and how we disrupt our lives to tend to their needs.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is silence and solitude. Matthew 14:22-23 and Mark 1:35-37 show us that Jesus made time to pray in solitude, while James 3:6-10 and Psalm 46:10-11 continue to teach us that silence is valuable. We need silence to teach us to quiet the world around us, to listen, and rediscover the weight of words. To practice silence and solitude, we must confront our fear of silence, schedule it, find somewhere to be attentive to God, and be patient.

Pastor Dana’s first series of 2026 begins in Colossians 3:12-17, which contains Paul and Timothy’s call on God’s people to gratitude, and Luke 17:11-19, where the Samaritan leper returns to Jesus to give Him thanks. Gratitude as a discipline of worship focuses our attention on God’s beauty and is defined by a loving and thankful response to God for His presence within us and the world around us.

Steve Tramel brings us to Luke 2:21-35, in which a righteous man named Simeon meets the infant Jesus, who he recognizes as the Messiah that he was promised to see in his lifetime. We can learn the ways that those who do and don’t recognize the Messiah differ with three tests: detecting deeper meaning in the scriptures, responding appropriately to God’s other evidence, and earnestly seeking to know God.

The fourth Sunday of Advent represents love, so Pastor Dana takes to Matthew 1:18-25, which shows love through Joseph’s obedience, and John 1:1-18, which shows love through the divine initiate of the Word made flesh. When we follow the ways of Christ, the way we love others includes visibly showing how we care for one another. Darkness only flees if it is broken by the light. When we show our love, we stamp out little pieces of darkness over and over again.

The third Sunday of Advent represents joy, so Pastor Dana takes to Psalm 146:5-7 and Luke 1:46-55 (Mary’s song), which both sing praises of God’s goodness. The anticipation of Christ coming into the world is about joy, not fear. When we are downcast or weary or see grief in others, do we point them (and ourselves) back to our source of joy? God has chosen us to usher Christlikeness into the world and that is a joyful gift.

The second Sunday of Advent represents peace, so Pastor Dana focuses on the peace found in God and how we can act to pave the way here on earth. Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 11:1-10 describes the world of God’s peace that follows devastation and Paul calls on the church in Romans 15:4-13 to sacrifice our ego for the sake of bringing unity so that the Prince of Peace may be revealed.

The first Sunday of Advent represents hope, so Pastor Dana focuses on the hope we hold as we wait for Jesus Christ to come again. Paul tells the church in Romans 13:11-14 to be alert for Christ’s return and cast off their old lives and Jesus declares in Matthew 24:36-44 that we must be ready when His Second Coming arrives at a time we don’t expect. Are you ready?