Beginning and Ending
Steven ParkerNovember 8, 2026 · 5 min read
Watch the messageBeginning and Ending
When Endings Become Beginnings: A Call Back to the Kingdom of God
There is a moment in every era of human history where a people must stop, take stock of where they are, and ask a single, sobering question: Have we forgotten who we are?
It is not a new question. It echoes through the pages of Scripture from the earliest chapters of the Old Testament to the closing words of the New. Again and again, a people chosen by God drift from Him, filling the spaces once reserved for His voice with the noise of their own wants, their own logic, and their own comfort. And again and again, voices rise to call them back.
That call is just as urgent today as it has ever been.
The Condition That Unlocks God's Favor
Psalm 37:23 carries a word that is easy to overlook. It declares that the steps of a person are established by the Lord, but the verse does not stop there. It adds a condition: this divine establishment happens when He delights in that person's way. That single word, when, changes everything. It is not a blanket promise handed to anyone who has ever said a prayer and moved on. It is a promise tied to a posture, a posture of walking in alignment with God.
Psalm 84:11 reinforces this same truth, declaring that God withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly. Favor and honor are not withheld arbitrarily. They flow naturally from a life that is genuinely oriented toward Him. The question worth sitting with is not where God's favor has gone, but rather whether the walk that invites it is still present.
This is not a message of condemnation. It is a message of clarity. There is a direct connection between how we live, how we seek Him, and what He is able to do in and through us.
A Nation Divided, A Kingdom Undivided
In the wake of a deeply polarizing election season, it is tempting to plant a flag in one political camp or the other and declare that side to be the righteous one. But the Kingdom of God does not belong to a political party. It never has. History is full of moments where crowds gathered on opposite sides of a tragedy, some celebrating destruction and others mourning it, and the lesson has never changed. Human power structures, no matter how well-intentioned, are not the answer to what ails a nation or a soul.
The Romans threw people into arenas. Crowds gathered and cheered the bloodshed. Others wept. When Christ was crucified, the same division played out at the foot of the cross. Some mocked and celebrated. Others grieved. Nothing about human nature has fundamentally shifted since then. People still choose sides based on what they want, what benefits them, and what aligns with their personal passions, often without pausing to ask what would honor God.
What would it look like if every believer walked into every decision, not just a voting booth but every decision of life, and first asked the Father: What would honor You here? Not what benefits my friend. Not what makes my life easier. Not what the party platform says. But what honors You?
That question, asked sincerely and answered through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, has the power to reorient everything.
The Danger of Forgetting
The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13-14 that he was committed to one thing above all others: forgetting what lay behind and pressing forward toward what God had placed ahead of him. He was not passive about it. He described it as straining forward, as pressing on. There is effort involved in not being dragged back into old patterns, old loyalties, and old ways of thinking that were never aligned with the kingdom of God to begin with.
The body of Christ today faces a genuine crisis of identity. When people who carry the name of Christ make decisions, cast votes, raise their voices, and live their daily lives without any reference to what God wants, something has gone deeply wrong. When conviction is absent, when the gathering of believers feels optional, when the tithe is withheld but money flows freely toward personal pleasures, when Scripture is exchanged for sentiment, the result is a people who look nothing like the Kingdom they claim to represent.
Lamentations 3:22-23 offers one of the most breathtaking promises in all of Scripture: that God's mercies never come to an end and are new every single morning. Every day is a fresh beginning. Every morning carries within it the possibility of returning, of pressing forward, of choosing differently than the day before.
That promise is not just poetry. It is an open door.
It Is Finished, and It Has Just Begun
When Jesus declared from the cross in John 19:30 that it was finished, He was not announcing the end of hope. He was announcing the end of the law's hold and the beginning of grace. Every ending, when it is surrendered to God, becomes the birthing of a new beginning. The cross looked like devastation to those watching. To the entire world waiting on the other side of it, it was the greatest beginning in human history.
Grace, properly understood, is not permission to continue in opposition to God. It is not tolerance of what He has called sin. It is not the softening of His standards to accommodate human preferences. Grace is the staggering reality that through repentance, a person can be fully reconciled to the Father. That is its power. That is its beauty. And it is available right now, in this moment, to anyone willing to receive it.
The Ending That Must Come First
There are endings that need to happen before the right beginnings can take root. The end of prioritizing personal comfort over God's purpose. The end of treating Sunday worship as optional and spiritual discipline as someone else's calling. The end of making peace with what God has not made peace with.
And on the other side of those endings? The beginning of a life where God delights in your way. Where no good thing is withheld. Where your steps are truly established by Him.
The question is not what the nation will do next. The question is what you will do next.
There is a moment in every era of human history where a people must stop, take stock of where they are, and ask a single, sobering question: Have we forgotten who we are?
It is not a new question. It echoes through the pages of Scripture from the earliest chapters of the Old Testament to the closing words of the New. Again and again, a people chosen by God drift from Him, filling the spaces once reserved for His voice with the noise of their own wants, their own logic, and their own comfort. And again and again, voices rise to call them back.
That call is just as urgent today as it has ever been.
The Condition That Unlocks God's Favor
Psalm 37:23 carries a word that is easy to overlook. It declares that the steps of a person are established by the Lord, but the verse does not stop there. It adds a condition: this divine establishment happens when He delights in that person's way. That single word, when, changes everything. It is not a blanket promise handed to anyone who has ever said a prayer and moved on. It is a promise tied to a posture, a posture of walking in alignment with God.
Psalm 84:11 reinforces this same truth, declaring that God withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly. Favor and honor are not withheld arbitrarily. They flow naturally from a life that is genuinely oriented toward Him. The question worth sitting with is not where God's favor has gone, but rather whether the walk that invites it is still present.
This is not a message of condemnation. It is a message of clarity. There is a direct connection between how we live, how we seek Him, and what He is able to do in and through us.
A Nation Divided, A Kingdom Undivided
In the wake of a deeply polarizing election season, it is tempting to plant a flag in one political camp or the other and declare that side to be the righteous one. But the Kingdom of God does not belong to a political party. It never has. History is full of moments where crowds gathered on opposite sides of a tragedy, some celebrating destruction and others mourning it, and the lesson has never changed. Human power structures, no matter how well-intentioned, are not the answer to what ails a nation or a soul.
The Romans threw people into arenas. Crowds gathered and cheered the bloodshed. Others wept. When Christ was crucified, the same division played out at the foot of the cross. Some mocked and celebrated. Others grieved. Nothing about human nature has fundamentally shifted since then. People still choose sides based on what they want, what benefits them, and what aligns with their personal passions, often without pausing to ask what would honor God.
What would it look like if every believer walked into every decision, not just a voting booth but every decision of life, and first asked the Father: What would honor You here? Not what benefits my friend. Not what makes my life easier. Not what the party platform says. But what honors You?
That question, asked sincerely and answered through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, has the power to reorient everything.
The Danger of Forgetting
The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13-14 that he was committed to one thing above all others: forgetting what lay behind and pressing forward toward what God had placed ahead of him. He was not passive about it. He described it as straining forward, as pressing on. There is effort involved in not being dragged back into old patterns, old loyalties, and old ways of thinking that were never aligned with the kingdom of God to begin with.
The body of Christ today faces a genuine crisis of identity. When people who carry the name of Christ make decisions, cast votes, raise their voices, and live their daily lives without any reference to what God wants, something has gone deeply wrong. When conviction is absent, when the gathering of believers feels optional, when the tithe is withheld but money flows freely toward personal pleasures, when Scripture is exchanged for sentiment, the result is a people who look nothing like the Kingdom they claim to represent.
Lamentations 3:22-23 offers one of the most breathtaking promises in all of Scripture: that God's mercies never come to an end and are new every single morning. Every day is a fresh beginning. Every morning carries within it the possibility of returning, of pressing forward, of choosing differently than the day before.
That promise is not just poetry. It is an open door.
It Is Finished, and It Has Just Begun
When Jesus declared from the cross in John 19:30 that it was finished, He was not announcing the end of hope. He was announcing the end of the law's hold and the beginning of grace. Every ending, when it is surrendered to God, becomes the birthing of a new beginning. The cross looked like devastation to those watching. To the entire world waiting on the other side of it, it was the greatest beginning in human history.
Grace, properly understood, is not permission to continue in opposition to God. It is not tolerance of what He has called sin. It is not the softening of His standards to accommodate human preferences. Grace is the staggering reality that through repentance, a person can be fully reconciled to the Father. That is its power. That is its beauty. And it is available right now, in this moment, to anyone willing to receive it.
The Ending That Must Come First
There are endings that need to happen before the right beginnings can take root. The end of prioritizing personal comfort over God's purpose. The end of treating Sunday worship as optional and spiritual discipline as someone else's calling. The end of making peace with what God has not made peace with.
And on the other side of those endings? The beginning of a life where God delights in your way. Where no good thing is withheld. Where your steps are truly established by Him.
The question is not what the nation will do next. The question is what you will do next.
Written by
Steven Parker
Founding Pastor
Steven and his wife Kimberly started The Rock in 1999. He writes a Deep Dive alongside most Sunday messages.
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