God Has Helped Us

Dear Church,

“Till now the LORD has helped us.” (1 Samuel 7:12)

After years of decline, the prophet Samuel was leading the people back to faithfulness. They had gathered to repent and get right with God, but the Philistines heard about it and launched an attack. 

“But the LORD thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel” (1 Samuel 7:10)

It was a moment worth remembering. Samuel set up a stone in the wake of their victory so the people wouldn’t forget. He called it “Ebenezer” — stone of help.

I love that. And I love singing that line in the old Baptist hymn:

Here I raise my Ebenezer;

hither by thy help I’m come;

and I hope, by thy good pleasure,

safely to arrive at home.

It is good to remember God’s help, in our lives and in our church. And as we move into the final months of 2026, that’s how I hope we’ll think of this year. I want us to say, “God helped us.”

This has been a long year, I get it. Since January, we have faced challenges that none of us expected, and that we certainly would not have chosen. There have been some hard Sundays, difficult decisions, and plenty of opportunities to trust God when so much is out of our control. But here we are. God has helped us.

And more than that. When I look back over these last several months, I’m struck by how much God has done in the middle of the mess. We’ve continued to gather every Sunday to worship Jesus. We’ve welcomed new people into our church and added to our staff team. We’ve seen brothers and sisters care for one another in awesome ways. We’ve had vital men’s and women’s retreats. We’ve seen our children flourish, students gather, and Jesus College take off. We’ve preached the Word, baptized believers, and gathered in homes across our cities for true fellowship every week. And just recently, we commissioned a team to plant King’s Church in Roseville!

We’ve stayed on mission, and that’s a win. It means we are winning. We will keep making joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life, and we’ll keep planting more churches in the Twin Cities.

Because God helps us. 

He has helped us till now, and he will keep helping us as we seek him and his glory above all else. So as we’re officially in the last quarter of the year, I want to encourage us to finish well.

In November, we’ll have opportunities to give thanks together, and before we know it, Advent will be here. I especially want to encourage you to begin praying now about whom you might invite to join us this Christmas season. There are people all around us who need to hear the good news of Jesus, and we are eager to make him known.

Church, Jesus is real. He is risen from the dead. He is reigning right now. And he is building his church.

God has helped us, and we can trust him for what’s ahead.

In hope,
Pastor Jonathan