What Hagar Couldn't See in the Desert | The God Who Hears

A Light for All Our Paths

For years I preached like I was holding a floodlight, certain I could see the whole road ahead. Then my father died, and I learned what this psalm actually promises: enough light for the next step, and maybe one more. This is a sit-down message from Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Pastor Harry Jarrett walks through the middle of Psalm 119, where the word of God is called a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and asks an honest question: what if God never intended to show you the whole journey at once? Through the grief of losing his father, thirty years of old sermons pulled off dusty hard drives, a handwritten notebook from a decade in Italy, and the quiet courage of a woman named Martha writing cards from her chair, this message trades the false certainty of the floodlight for the honest, walkable faith of the next step. SCRIPTURES REFERENCED Psalm 119:105-112 Matthew 5:14-16 Matthew 4:19 BOOKS WORTH EXPLORING A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer CHAPTERS 00:00 What is a sit-down message and why does today feel different? 00:56 Why is Psalm 119 the longest chapter in the whole Bible? 02:11 What does a lamp to my feet and a light to my path actually mean? 03:25 What is the Hebrew word devar and why does it matter? 04:09 What did an oil lamp really look like in the psalmist’s world? 05:12 What does grief do to the path you thought you were walking? 06:02 If the lamp is only imagery, what part of it is still real? 07:13 Why does this psalm sound like it was written by someone older? 07:42 What did going back through thirty years of old messages reveal? 08:59 Did I preach with more certainty than I actually had? 09:39 Why did I expect God to be a floodlight instead of a small lamp? 11:06 What does sempre dritto teach about the path God gives? 12:07 What is the one promise this psalm actually makes? 12:42 Did the disciples ever know where following Jesus would lead? 13:57 What did Martha’s cards show about taking the next step? 15:03 Is I don’t know how this turns out a more honest kind of faith? 15:39 What are young people really asking about the future? 16:41 What does A Light Within Us mean for those being sent out? STAY CONNECTED Church website: https://pleasantvalleyalive.org/ Daily devotional: https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/s/daily-devotional Substack newsletter: https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/ If this gave you room to breathe today, subscribe and walk with us. We publish a new message every week, one honest step at a time. #Psalm119 #ChurchOfTheBrethren #Grief #FaithOverFear #TrustingGod #NextStep #ChristianSermon Get full access to Harry Jarrett at pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Inner Struggle of A Generation

Pastor Harry Jarrett opens this week with a confession. Sixty-two years into following Jesus, he still does not fully understand his own actions and thoughts. He tells us that on purpose, because this sermon is not about somebody else. It is about all of us. A recent Barna Group study asked 1,500 teenagers a piercing question: what do you feel pressure to figure out? The answers were not about lunch tables or crushes. Three out of four feel pressure to know how they will make a living and whether their future will even be stable. Seven in ten are carrying the question of who they really are. Two-thirds wonder whether anyone genuinely cares, and more than half are quietly asking whether God is real and whether God loves them. Here is the turn. These are not teenage questions. They are human questions. The teenage years are simply when they all arrive at once, loudly, before anyone learns to hide them. And the study found something we cannot afford to miss: the people who look the most settled are often carrying the heaviest loads. From there the sermon opens two texts. In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul, one of the giants of the faith, says on the record, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Honesty about the struggle, Harry reminds us, is not the opposite of faith. It is where real faith actually lives. He speaks tenderly here about the recent death of his own father, and what refusing to perform his grief has taught him: honesty is the doorway that lets people love us instead of merely admire us. Then Matthew 11, where Jesus stands in a noisy marketplace of voices that no song can satisfy, thanks the Father for revealing deep things to the small and the searching, and offers the invitation some of us have carried since childhood: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens.” The yoke he offers is not a call to carry nothing. It is a call to stop carrying it alone. Whether the questions are arriving all at once for you or you are further down the road, there is a door standing open and a place at the table. You were never meant to pull this cart by yourself. Run of Show 00:00 - A Pastor’s Confession: Sixty-Two Years In and Still Learning01:16 - The Barna Study: What 1,500 Teens Feel Pressure to Figure Out03:04 - Not Teenage Questions, Human Questions04:31 - The Put-Together Ones May Carry the Heaviest Load05:59 - Romans 7: Paul’s Honest Confession07:57 - Honesty About the Struggle Is Where Faith Lives08:24 - Two Weeks Ago, My Father Died: Refusing to Perform Grief10:40 - Honesty Is the Doorway11:30 - Durable Faith Grows Where Doubt Is Welcomed13:55 - The Rescue Is a Relationship, Not a Technique14:42 - Matthew 11: Children Shouting in the Marketplace15:43 - Living Closest to the Loudspeaker16:26 - Generation Alpha, AI, and What It Means to Be Human17:36 - Hidden From the Wise, Revealed to Infants19:22 - Come to Me: The Shared Yoke20:32 - The Only Qualification Is Exhaustion21:23 - For the Young: Bring Your Questions Into the Light22:53 - For the Seasoned: Be a Steady, Trusted Presence23:37 - An Open Door: They Welcome Your Wisdom25:52 - The Rescue and the Rest Are the Same Gift Research referenced in this sermon: Barna Group, “The Big Questions on Teens’ Minds Today,” drawn from the report Reimagining Ministry for Gen Alpha, produced in partnership with Christ In Youth. The study surveyed 1,500 U.S. teens ages 13-18. It found that roughly three in four feel pressure over their future livelihood and stability, seven in ten feel pressure to answer who they really are, and more than two-thirds say they are comfortable receiving wisdom from Jesus and the Bible. Eight in ten say they would welcome advice about who they are from their mother.https://www.barna.com/research/questions-teens-are-asking/ [https://www.barna.com/research/questions-teens-are-asking/] If this episode spoke to you, we would love to hear about it. Please like this post, share it with someone who is carrying a heavy load right now, and leave a comment with the moment that stayed with you. Get full access to Harry Jarrett at pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

What Hagar Couldn't See in the Desert | The God Who Hears

Hagar lays her dying son under a bush in the desert, walks away so she will not have to watch, and weeps. The water is gone. The father is miles away. And then the story turns on a single line: God heard the voice of the boy. In this message from Genesis 21, we sit with the limits of even the fiercest parental love and discover the God who hears every child right where they are. Preached on a morning of child dedication, this sermon walks honestly into a hard story and lands on good news: your love for your child is fierce and good, and it was never meant to be enough on its own. Your job is not to be God for your child. It is to keep handing your child back to the God who hears. IN THIS MESSAGE We trace Abraham’s two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, the painful sending away of Hagar into the wilderness of Beersheba, and the moment God hears a forgotten boy and opens a mother’s eyes to a well that was there all along. The name Ishmael itself means God hears. From there we follow Paul’s stunning move in Galatians and Romans, where the true children of Abraham are defined not by bloodline but by belonging to Christ, and we are adopted as children of God who cry out to a Father who answers. SCRIPTURE AND REFERENCES Genesis 21 (Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness of Beersheba) Galatians 3:29 (heirs according to the promise) Romans 8:14 to 8:15 (the Spirit of adoption) 1 John 3:1 (called children of God) Walter Brueggemann, on the God of the dispossessed CHAPTERS 00:00 What Did These Families Promise at the Child Dedication? 00:44 What Happens When a Parent’s Love Reaches Its Limit? 02:32 Who Are Abraham’s Two Sons in Genesis 21? 03:16 Why Did Sarah Send Hagar and Ishmael Into the Desert? 04:43 What Happens When a Parent’s Protection Runs Out? 05:36 Why Did Hagar Walk Away From Her Son? 06:47 What Does It Mean That God Heard the Boy? 07:27 Why Does God Hear Us Right Where We Are? 08:04 What Was the Well Hagar Could Not See? 09:52 Are Parents Supposed to Be God for Their Children? 11:02 What Does the Name Ishmael Mean? 11:46 Who Are the True Children of Abraham? 13:34 What Does It Mean to Be Adopted as a Child of God? 15:21 Where Is God When You Are in the Wilderness? CONNECT WITH US Church website: https://pleasantvalleyalive.org/ Daily devotional: https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/s/daily-devotional Substack newsletter: https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/ #Genesis21 #HagarAndIshmael #GodHears #ChildDedication #ChristianParenting #ChurchOfTheBrethren #Sermon #BibleStudy #Faith #ChildrenOfGod Get full access to Harry Jarrett at pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ministry in the Second Season of Life

What if your most fruitful years are still ahead of you? In this message from Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia, Pastor Harry Jarrett explores what it means to be called by God in the second season of life. Drawing on two ancient stories, a tired rabbi walking among shepherdless crowds and a woman named Sarah who laughed at a promise she thought was impossible, this sermon challenges the cultural myth of retirement and invites us into something deeper: rewirement. Using current research from the 2025 Barna State of the Church study, the message reframes the common worry that younger generations are not stepping up, and asks the harder question of who God is actually calling, and to what. Whether you are nearing retirement, already there, or simply wondering whether your purpose has run its course, this is an invitation to discover that God may not be finished with you yet. SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Matthew 9:35-38, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few Genesis 18:11-14, is anything too hard for the Lord? Psalm 92, they will still bear fruit in old age Psalm 71, until I proclaim your might to another generation BOOKS AND SOURCES MENTIONED Falling Upward by Richard Rohr Barna Group, State of the Church 2025 Research and reflections from David Kinnaman, Carl Vaters, and Discipleship Ministries CHAPTERS 00:00 What Happens to the Dream of Retirement? 01:44 Two Ancient Stories About a Late-Life Calling 02:27 Why Did Jesus Say the Laborers Are Few? 03:58 What Did Sarah Learn When She Laughed at God? 05:16 Are Younger Generations Really Not Showing Up? 05:53 What Does the 2025 Barna Study Reveal About Who Attends Church? 08:09 Why Do Gen Z and Millennials Serve Differently? 11:00 What Burdens Are Younger Generations Carrying? 13:00 If the Next Generation Won’t Continue Our Ministries, Who Will? 13:21 Does the Ministry Model Itself Need to Change? 14:45 What If Their Calling Lies Somewhere Else? 16:22 What If God Is Calling Us Instead? 16:32 What Is the Second Season of Life? 17:30 Can We Still Bear Fruit in Old Age? 18:21 Is Deserved Rest the Whole Story? 20:01 What Is the Difference Between Retirement and Rewirement? 20:57 Whose Voice Really Tells Us to Step Back? 23:03 Why Does Personal Mentoring Matter More Than Programs? 24:45 What Does Psalm 71 Teach About Aging and Purpose? 26:47 What Does Rewirement Actually Look Like? 27:34 How Did God Rewire Pastor Harry’s Own Calling? 29:07 What Is God Inviting You Into Today? CONNECT AND GO DEEPER Church website: https://pleasantvalleyalive.org/ Daily Devotional: https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/s/daily-devotional [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/s/daily-devotional] Substack newsletter: Podcast (Faith at Work): If this message encouraged you, please like, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs to hear that God is not finished with them yet. We would love to have you join us in person in Weyers Cave, Virginia, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. #SecondSeasonOfLife #Rewirement #ChurchOfTheBrethren #FaithAndAging #PurposeAfterRetirement #Sermon #ChristianFaith #ShenandoahValley #PleasantValleyChurch #RichardRohr #FallingUpward #ChristianDiscipleship Get full access to Harry Jarrett at pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Would That All Were Prophets

What happens when the Holy Spirit refuses to follow the rules? In this Pentecost Sunday message, Pastor Harry Jarrett takes us on a journey through three passages that belong together — Numbers 11, Acts 2, and 1 Corinthians 12 — to explore one of the most surprising and liberating truths in all of Scripture: the Spirit of God has never been content to stay inside the lines we draw for Her. We begin in the wilderness, where Moses is worn thin by the weight of leading a grumbling people. God responds by distributing Moses’ Spirit among 70 elders — but two of them, Eldad and Medad, never make it to the tent. They stay in the camp. And the Spirit finds them right where they are. When Joshua demands that Moses shut them down, Moses responds with one of the most stunning lines in the entire Torah: “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!” We then leap forward to the Day of Pentecost, where that ancient wish explodes into glorious fulfillment. Wind and fire. Unschooled Galileans speaking languages they never learned. Peter, standing before the bewildered crowd, reaches all the way back to the prophet Joel: “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” Not just the elders. Not just the leaders. Sons and daughters. Old and young. Slave and free. And then we arrive in Corinth, where the same Spirit that made Pentecost possible has somehow become ammunition for competition and status games. Paul has to remind a gifted, fractured church that no gift is for self-display — every gift is for building up the body, and the body needs every single one of its parts. Across all three texts, the same pattern repeats: the Spirit shows up where She wasn’t expected, in people who weren’t supposed to be the ones. And every time, the community has to decide how to respond. Will they be Joshua — anxious about the process, defensive of the system? Will they be the Jerusalem crowd — bewildered, dismissive, defaulting to “they must be drunk”? Will they be the Corinthians — ranking, competing, measuring worth by the flashiness of their gifts? Or will they grow into Moses — who looked at two men prophesying without permission in the middle of the camp and felt no threat at all, only joy? This Pentecost, that question is ours to answer. Enjoyed this episode? Like, share, and leave a comment — your engagement helps more people discover this message. You can also subscribe to the podcast and daily devotional at the links below. Subscribe & go deeper: pastorharryjarrett.substack.com [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/podcast] Visit Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren: pleasantvalleyalive.org [https://pleasantvalleyalive.org/] Daily Devotional: pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/s/daily-devotional [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/s/daily-devotional] RUN OF SHOW - CHAPTERS 00:00:00 — Welcome & Opening Reflections — Harvest Season in the Valley 00:00:38 — Series Overview — Three Texts, One Spirit 00:01:06 — A Note from Your (Slightly Medicated) Pastor 00:01:55 — Opening Prayer — God of the Harvest 00:02:20 — TEXT 1: Numbers 11 — Moses, the 70 Elders, and a Shared Spirit 00:03:40 — Eldad and Medad — The Two Dads Who Stayed Behind 00:04:25 — What Does “Prophesy” Actually Mean? 00:05:28 — The Spirit Finds Them Where They Are 00:06:05 — Joshua Says “Stop Them” 00:07:27 — Moses’ Stunning Response — One of the Greatest Lines in the Torah 00:08:03 — What Kind of Leader Can Say “Would That All Were Prophets”? 00:08:59 — TEXT 2: Acts 2 — Pentecost and the Outpouring Without Measure 00:10:23 — Wind, Fire, Languages — The Crowd’s Bewildered Response 00:10:50 — Peter Preaches — Reaching Back to the Prophet Joel 00:11:13 — Moses’ Wish Coming True at Scale 00:11:48 — The People at the Bottom of the Social Order Are Included 00:12:18 — “In Our Own Language We Hear Them Speaking of God’s Deeds of Power” 00:12:59 — TEXT 3: 1 Corinthians 12 — When Gifts Become a Competition 00:13:35 — The Corinthian Problem — Ranking Gifts, Creating Winners and Losers 00:14:18 — Paul’s Answer — Reframing the Gifts for Building Up the Body 00:14:55 — No Hierarchy, Only Interdependence 00:15:31 — The Pattern Across All Three Texts 00:16:05 — Four Ways Communities Respond to the Spirit 00:16:42 — The Jerusalem Crowd Response 00:16:55 — The Corinthian Response 00:17:23 — The Moses Response — “More of This, Please” 00:17:59 — The Question for the Church Today 00:19:46 — Closing & Congregational Amens 00:20:16 — Resources — Weekly Devotional, Study Guide & Coffee with Pastor Harry Get full access to Harry Jarrett at pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe [https://pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]