My new book, ONE STORY, BUILDING, is available now. Find all your purchasing options at wesyoungwriter.com (or, of course, find it on Amazon). Lots of good laughs in this book. I hope you enjoy!

Today’s episode is a sermon inspired by the topic of my forthcoming book, One Story, Building: A Memoir on the Power of Story. I hope you enjoy this recording, and when the book releases later this month (Jan. 2024), I hope you’ll order a copy. It will be available in all major online retailers (Amazon, Walmart, Barnes & Nobles, Books-a-Million, etc.), but to get a signed copy (and to cut out the middlemen), buy yours at wesyoungwriter.com.

Reaching Sol, my debut novel, is now available as an audiobook (on both Audible and Apple). Today's episode is a free sample, one chapter. Voice Actor: Charles (Chuck) Conover of Texas.

In this finale episode of Season Six, we address the maddening difficulty of work and fruit, toil and futility. If we only live in the material, natural world, then like Solomon we are left crying, "Meaningless, meaningless!" The best we can do, in the mono-dimension, is to try and enjoy our work, for it is our lot.

However, if there is both a natural and a supernatural realm, the paradigm changes. Suddenly what matters on Earth matters all the more because it also matters in Heaven. What we bind here is bound there; what we loose here is loosed there. This is a profound mystery, and one explored Scripturally in this sermon.

If you've enjoyed Season Six and are interested in more from Wes Young, keep an eye on wesyoungwriter.com for updates, especially updates on the audiobook version of my debut novel, Reaching Sol, which will be available soon on Audible and Apple.

The mainstream modern paradigm is built on the narrative that things rolled out accidentally. The only "driver," from past to present, has been the blind driver of natural selection. Any appearance, so the story goes, of design or meaning is merely ascribed by humanity. The complexity of the cosmos impresses us, arbitrarily, and so we feel there must be "more to it," but this "more" is merely a human construct.

The Christian paradigm is different. You are here, so the Christian story goes, not by accident but by design, and that matters. All matters. It matters. Today's episode explores this topic in detail.

*Note: The poem from Romans, mentioned during this episode's conclusion, can be found in Romans 11:33-36.

Understanding that there is a supernatural realm, and a Supernatural God who is Lord of all: now what? What is our duty in light of this truth?

Many Christians wonder if they are doing enough, or what "enough" would be for them. Today's message from the sixth chapter of Micah will help answer that difficult question. Also, in part, it will reframe the question itself. Much like when a student asks a teacher "Is this for a grade?" The simple answer is either "yes" or "no" or "I'm not going to tell." But for some teachers (myself included), I want the kid to see the foundational issue with their inquiry. A true curiosity, a desire to know, a thirst for growth and knowledge, mystery and solution, what care these for grades?

So too a Christian, wildly in love with the Lord, what cares he for "Have I done enough?"

The incarnation is the defining event of history, and through it we see all things in new light. Do bodies matter? Well, God came in bodily form. Can we trust our senses? Jesus trusted His. Does the present, material world, and our material selves, really count for all that much in comparison to Heaven? Our Lord cared enough even to return a borrowed donkey!

Today's episode works to bring back the validity and importance of our physical side, and such a resurrection does not demote the spiritual in the least. The interwoven fabric of the two, physical and spiritual, is a great mystery and a beautiful dance, and this Palm Sunday sermon sways to that ancient rhythm.

Jesus is the stone that causes men to stumble. I can see this, totally, for to talk of “God” can mean so much, can slip so easily into vagueness and ephemeral whatever-ness that two can say “Yes, I believe” and mean wholly different things. The hallway narrows when we talk of “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The Way becomes narrower still, perfectly and exclusively narrow, when the Lord lands in a particular time and a particular place: Merry Christmas.

In Jesus, there is no evading the personality, the personage, the person-ness of God. When He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey weeping over His city, then there is only the bare choice: to shout “Hosanna,” or to cry “Crucify Him.” Today’s sermon explores this most pivotal of moments in human history and in the human heart.