Why God's Discipline Is Actually Good News
What We Didn’t Say on Sunday

Westside Gainesville •
September 3, 2026

6 Minute Read

Imagine you ordered a pizza. Seven perfect slices. One slice has a cockroach baked into it. Would you call it a good pie?

Nobody would. And that’s the question Pastor Jonathan Phoenix brought to the Newberry Road campus last Sunday: how can we offer seven-eighths of our lives to God and call that faithful? This week’s episode of What We Didn’t Say on Sunday features Richie Baldwin and Jonathan — Westside’s International Ministry pastor, on staff since 2020 — talking through what Jonathan preached on Sunday, why Matthew’s genealogy includes some of the messiest kings in Judah’s history, and how 12% of Gainesville is foreign-born and doesn’t know it yet has a church home waiting.

God Is Predictably Gracious

The phrase Jonathan kept returning to on Sunday — and throughout the episode — is one David has been building toward all series: God is predictably gracious. Not randomly gracious. Not occasionally gracious. Predictably. The discipline Asa experienced when he trusted physicians over God in his final years wasn’t God abandoning him. It was God doing what Hebrews says he always does with his children: disciplining those he loves. And the invitation on the other side of that discipline is always the same. It’s never too late to come back.

“We’re predictably messy. But God is predictably gracious and forgiving.” — Pastor Jonathan Fenix
The Pizza Illustration

Jonathan was looking for an illustration for going all in with God — and landed on pizza. Seven perfect slices, one slice with a cockroach baked in. Nobody eats around the bad slice and calls the pizza good. The whole thing goes in the trash. He was using it to press on the question of partial obedience: we wouldn’t accept one compromised slice of pizza, so why do we think God would accept one compromised eighth of a life?

It made himself hungry, by his own admission, especially at the 11 o’clock service. Richie’s wife is an entomologist — she eats bugs, a practice technically called entomophagy — and she would apparently be able to recommend which cockroach varieties are edible if it came to that. The podcast went somewhere unexpected.

Why Are Failed Kings in Jesus’s Family Tree?

The Matthew genealogy thread is the most substantive theological content in the episode. Matthew structures his genealogy in three sets of 14 generations — Abraham to David, David to the Babylonian exile, exile to Jesus — and in doing so he skips several kings. What he doesn’t skip is Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Joram. Three generations of the four-chair pattern in sequence: a king who ended poorly, a king who taught well and compromised relationally, and a king who collapsed entirely.

The point Richie and Jonathan kept coming back to: Matthew isn’t hiding anything. The Bible doesn’t airbrush its heroes. The genealogy of the King of Kings includes messy, compromised, failing people because that’s the family God chose to work through. The only hero in the story from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 is God himself. Every human in the line is evidence that God’s grace operates in spite of people, not because of them.

They traced the thread further back to Genesis 3:15 — the protoevangelium, the first hint of the gospel — where God promises that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. That thread runs through Abraham’s covenant, through David’s covenant, through every king in the genealogy whether good or bad, straight through to Matthew’s opening chapter. 66 books, 1,500 years, multiple human authors. One coherent story, because there’s really only one Author.

Take Your Next Step
The Nations Are Already in Gainesville

Jonathan arrived in Gainesville from the Philippines and has been doing international ministry at Westside since 2020. He carries an unusual empathy for international students because he was one. Seven percent of the University of Florida’s enrollment are international students. Twelve percent of Gainesville’s residents are foreign-born. Many of them come for a degree or a work contract, meet Jesus, get discipled, and go home as believers. They came for an education. They leave ready for the mission field.

The word for that is “glocal” — local initiatives with global impact. Someone discipled in Gainesville, Florida goes home to Vietnam or South Korea or Japan and takes the gospel with them. This week, new friends from Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Usually India and China. This fall, the nations look a little different.

Also in this episode
  • Jonathan’s earpiece wouldn’t fit his right ear during the 9:30 service — he had to be handed a mic mid-sermon and suspects the earpiece was molded after Pastor David’s right ear specifically
  • Richie’s blooper: the announcement video where Richie shoots basketball shots to promote three upcoming events. Every shot went in. None of them were Richie’s. Shoutout to Jack Harrington, youth student and three-point specialist, who made all of them during the film shoot
  • Jonathan not being picked for his junior high class basketball team — 15 boys, needed 12, Jonathan was one of three left out. He’s been carrying this for 38 years.
  • The Philippines beat Iran AND Jordan in Asia basketball qualifiers. Richie notes this does not include Michael Jordan. Jonathan concurs.
Why Does Matthew’s Genealogy Include Sinners and Failures?

Matthew’s genealogy in chapter 1 is structured as three groups of 14 generations: Abraham to David, David to the Babylonian exile, and the exile to Jesus. Within this structure, Matthew deliberately includes kings whose reigns were marked by failure, compromise, and outright wickedness. The theological reason is intentional: Matthew is not writing a story about human heroes. He is establishing that Jesus is the rightful King of Kings who descends from the line of David — and the integrity of that genealogy requires including every generation, not just the spiritually successful ones. The Bible does not hide the failures of its figures because the central argument of Scripture is not human faithfulness but divine grace.

Frequently asked questions
What Is Genesis 3:15 and Why Does It Matter?

Genesis 3:15 is often called the protoevangelium — the first gospel. After the fall, God addresses the serpent and says: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This is the first hint in Scripture that a specific descendant of Eve will one day defeat the serpent — which the New Testament identifies as Jesus. The promise then narrows progressively: through Abraham’s covenant, through the tribe of Judah, through the Davidic covenant, until Matthew chapter 1 names the specific person that thread was always pointing toward. Every genealogy, every king, every generation in between is part of that thread.

Scripture Referenced: Matthew 1 • 2 Chronicles 16 • Genesis 3:15 • Hebrews 12:6 • John 1:1

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Up Next
From this Tag: Family
September 17, 2026 • 8 Minute Read
The King Who Almost Looked Like Jesus
Six weeks of Judean kings, and they kept circling the same question. Each good king raised the same hope and then failed to deliver on it. Asa. Jehoshaphat. Josiah. Great starts, complicated endings. The series was always building toward someone specific. Hezekiah is the last king before that. David preached him as the closest anyone had come since David himself to looking like the Messiah. Not because Hezekiah knew that’s what he was doing. He didn’t. The parallels just kept stacking up. Hezekiah’s Sermon Was Full of Jesus and He Had No Idea David spent most of his time cataloging the typology. Hezekiah cleaned the temple, and the candles had gone out and the doors were broken. He had to turn the lights back on and rebuild the doors before anything could happen. Jesus said “I am the light of the world” and drove the money changers out. Hezekiah crushed the bronze serpent Moses made in the wilderness, the one people had been worshipping for centuries. Jesus crushed the actual serpent. Hezekiah sent letters to the scattered remnant of the northern tribes calling them back to Jerusalem. Jesus sent his apostles out with the same invitation. It is, as David admitted, easy to overdo typology. You can force connections that aren’t really there. But the Hezekiah parallels didn’t feel forced. They were just sitting in the text. The problem: Hezekiah’s resume looks great right up until it doesn’t. He got sick, begged God for more time, received fifteen extra years, and almost immediately showed the Babylonian envoys every treasure in the temple and the palace. Isaiah showed up afterward and asked who had been there. Hezekiah’s answer was essentially: some guys from Babylon, they brought me a present. Isaiah did not think this was going well. The Acme Package David compared it to the coyote in Looney Tunes. The Roadrunner shows up with an Acme package and says he heard the coyote was sick. Come on in. And the coyote does. David’s line: if your enemy brings you a present, listen carefully. It might be a ticking time bomb. He also got a little personal about why Hezekiah’s pride moment matters to him specifically. He’s read a letter John MacArthur wrote before his death about finishing well. The temptation at the end of a long ministry isn’t dramatic failure. It’s coasting. Thinking you’ve made it this far, what could really go wrong now. Hezekiah’s extra fifteen years should have been his best. Instead he let the enemy in. Psalm 110: The Most Quoted Old Testament Verse in the New Testament Richie preached Psalm 110 at Southwest, and it’s worth knowing what that psalm is before you encounter it. It’s the most quoted Old Testament text in the entire New Testament. The reason: David wrote it, and in it David bows to someone greater than himself. "The Lord says to my Lord.” A king deferring to a king who hasn’t arrived yet. Richie’s three points moved through what that psalm actually claims. First: submit to Jesus’s lordship. Not as a performance, not as a list of rules, but as someone who genuinely wants to do what the king says. He anchored it in John 2:5, Mary’s instruction to the servants at Cana when she knew Jesus could fix what was broken: “Whatever he tells you to do, do it.” That’s the whole application of Psalm 110:1. Second: bow to Jesus as priest. Psalm 110:4 introduces the order of Melchizedek, the priest-king who blessed Abraham in Genesis 14. The significance: Jesus isn’t just a king from the line of David. He’s also a priest, and a priest’s job is sacrifice. He didn’t just give orders from the throne. He became the sacrifice. Third: receive Jesus as salvation. The inheritance the kings were always guarding and passing down is finally, fully available.Take Your Next Step The theocracy question This is the conversation that probably should have happened earlier in the series. David admitted he’d resisted saying it, partly because the series kept covering national revivals under Josiah and Hezekiah and it was tempting to say: that’s what we want for America. The problem is that Israel was a theocracy. America is not, was not designed to be, and on the current evidence of what theocracies look like in 2026, that’s probably fine. Richie took it further. The Edict of Milan in AD 313 is a cautionary tale. Constantine made Christianity the law of the Roman Empire and evangelism stopped almost immediately, because if the government tells you you’re a Christian, you check the box and go home. The kingdom of God doesn’t operate through national governments. It operates through the church, in the hearts of individuals, spreading sideways through relationships and discipleship. That’s always been the plan. One Thing Nobody Talked About All Series: The Prophets Richie brought this up in the last few minutes and it’s genuinely worth sitting with. The whole series followed the kings. But behind every king in these books, there’s a prophet. First Kings is largely a book about Elijah. Manasseh had Jeremiah in the background calling Judah back. Hezekiah had Isaiah, who shows up specifically in the story of the Babylonian envoys and tells him exactly how badly that’s going to go. The prophets didn’t have their own thrones. They didn’t control policy. They just kept showing up and saying the same thing. You’re doing this wrong. God is still there. Come back. It’s a different model of faithfulness than the kings, and one the series never fully got to explore. What’s Next: Kingdom Works The next series is called Kingdom Works, out of the book of Titus. David called it the greatest double entendre in the series title history of Westside: when the kingdom works. Both meanings intended. He also mentioned there are two places in Titus where the gospel gets condensed into something remarkably clear, and one of them might be his favorite three-verse summary of the gospel anywhere in Scripture. He’s saving it for Sunday. Also in this episode Brandon shoutout: he edits David’s sermons for TV and therefore listens to them multiple times. David called it the hardest job. Richie stayed on the platform this week. No repeat of the prodigal son incident. Progress. Manasseh was born in the last 15 years of Hezekiah’s life. The extra years God gave Hezekiah when he begged for more time were the years Manasseh was watching. He saw the declining, prideful version of his father, not the reforming one. Who Was Hezekiah and Why Does He Matter? Hezekiah was king of Judah from roughly 715 to 686 BC, considered one of the two greatest kings of Judah alongside Josiah. He reopened and cleansed the temple after his father Ahaz had shut it down, reinstated Passover for the first time in a generation, destroyed the bronze serpent that Israel had been worshipping for centuries, and sent envoys throughout the northern kingdom inviting the scattered remnant back to Jerusalem. His reign overlapped with Isaiah, who served as both adviser and prophet. Biblical typology reads several of Hezekiah’s actions as foreshadowing what Jesus would do: cleansing the temple, restoring light, sending messengers to the scattered. The critical difference is that Hezekiah was doing these things by human initiative, often imperfectly, while Jesus is the fulfillment they were unconsciously pointing toward. Frequently asked questions Why Is Psalm 110 the Most Quoted Old Testament Verse in the New Testament? Psalm 110 is quoted or referenced more than any other Old Testament text in the New Testament, appearing in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Hebrews, and elsewhere. The reason is its unusual structure: it was written by David, and in it David refers to someone greater than himself as “my Lord.” For the New Testament writers, this was one of the clearest Old Testament passages pointing to the Messiah as someone superior even to David. The psalm also contains the only direct reference in the Psalms to the order of Melchizedek, connecting the Messiah to both the kingly line of David and the priestly office, an important point for the argument of Hebrews that Jesus fulfills both roles simultaneously. What Is the Order of Melchizedek? Melchizedek appears briefly in Genesis 14 as the king of Salem and priest of God Most High who blesses Abraham after a military victory. Abraham pays him a tithe. The significance is what the text doesn’t say: Melchizedek has no recorded genealogy, no priestly lineage from Levi (who wasn’t born yet), and his priesthood appears complete in itself. Psalm 110:4 declares that the coming king will be “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,” meaning a priest whose office doesn’t depend on lineage, doesn’t expire, and transcends the Levitical system. The New Testament letter to the Hebrews spends several chapters making the case that Jesus fulfills this exactly: a priest who is also a king, whose sacrifice is once for all, and whose priestly intercession never ends. Scripture Referenced: 2 Kings 18-20 • Psalm 110 • Psalm 72 • Psalm 2 • Genesis 3:15 • Genesis 14 (Melchizedek) • John 2:5 • Romans 10:9 • Hebrews 7 • Isaiah 39

Westside Gainesville

September 3, 2026 • 9 Minute Read
Your Child Isn't Too Far Gone
David spent the week on Kauai as a guest of some friends — hikes to sunrise cliffs, sea turtles on the beach, an overpriced luau that opened with the Hawaiian Doxology sung in harmony. The congregation didn’t know that part. Also: the couple at the luau table turned out to be connected to David’s former church in Marietta, Georgia. Somewhere around 10,000 miles from Gainesville. The world continues to be remarkably small. He came back to preach on one of the most uncomfortable stories in the whole series — Manasseh. Fifty-five years of idolatry. Sorcery. His own children sacrificed. Idols placed in the temple itself. And then God forgave him. This week’s episode of What We Didn’t Say on Sunday is David and Richie unpacking why that’s in the Bible, what it means, and the one thing about Manasseh that David didn’t have time to say on Sunday Why Does Chronicles Tell the Story Differently Than Kings? David opened his sermon by placing Manasseh inside the two-book tension that runs through the whole series. First and Second Kings were written during the Babylonian exile — the people have been removed from Jerusalem and are asking: how did we get here? The book answers that question. The story of Manasseh in Kings is pure indictment — this is what you did, this is why you’re in chains. First and Second Chronicles were written later, after a smaller group returned from exile and rebuilt the temple and the walls. Their question is different: do we have a future with God? Can a people who failed this badly actually come back? Chronicles tells the same stories as Kings, but the ones it expands are the ones that carry hope. Manasseh is the prime example. Kings tells you how bad he was. Chronicles adds what happened next. Richie’s Sermon: Run, Repent, Rest Richie’s three-point framework at Southwest read Manasseh’s story through the lens of the prodigal son. We run. Manasseh runs for 55 years — every step a little further from the God he knows about. We run the same way, just in smaller increments and with better excuses. The prodigal son runs too, and eventually runs out of money and friends simultaneously. We repent — which Richie located in the moment Manasseh has literally nothing left. Chains. Babylon. Away from the temple, which for an Israelite meant away from any sense of proximity to God. And it’s in that stripped-down place that Manasseh reaches out. Luke 15:17 captures the same moment for the prodigal son: “when he came to himself.” That’s repentance. Not a calculation. A coming home. We rest — which Richie anchored in Manasseh being restored to Jerusalem, his kingdom, knowing the Lord. The same word Chronicles uses for his homecoming. He didn’t just get his throne back. He came home. And Richie closed on 1 Peter 1 — an inheritance kept in heaven, guaranteed, even while the present trials are real. The Master Politician Who Hedged His Bets One of the things the sermon didn’t have time for: why did Manasseh compromise so completely? David and Richie’s read — Manasseh was a master politician. He survived 55 years on the throne of a small kingdom surrounded by empires. He didn’t survive that by accident. He survived it by appeasing everyone — building altars to every neighboring god, making political alliances through false worship, using sorcery and divination the same way a modern politician uses a pollster. He wanted to control his future, and he used every tool available to him. The problem: none of those tools worked. The Assyrian general showed up anyway. The hook through the nose and chains to Babylon were God’s version of grabbing someone by the ear when they’ve stopped listening. And it worked. “God always speaks before He strikes. It’s not until we’ve resisted His word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit that He often speaks to us through distress.” — Pastor David ChaunceyTake Your Next Step What WE Didn’t Cover: The Unpardonable Sin This is the genuinely rare “what we didn’t say on Sunday” moment in this episode. Manasseh — a man who sacrificed his own children, led an entire nation into idolatry, and shed so much innocent blood that Chronicles specifically blames Judah’s eventual exile on him even after his repentance — the obvious question surfaces: how far is too far? Is there a line? Jesus says there is one unpardonable sin. It’s in Matthew 12, when the Pharisees watch Jesus cast out a demon and say he’s operating by Beelzebul — attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. That’s the line. It’s not a specific moral sin. It’s the final, hardened refusal to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is working at all. David and Richie’s practical conclusion: if you’re worried about whether you’ve committed the unpardonable sin, that worry itself is evidence you haven’t. The Holy Spirit is still working on you. How Grace Actually Works With Someone Like Manasseh David made the theological point carefully: God didn’t forgive Manasseh by looking past what he did. He didn’t say “that sure was a good prayer, Manasseh, so I’ll overlook the children you sacrificed.” He took Manasseh’s sin and placed it on Jesus. Manasseh is forgiven for the same reason David Chauncey is. For the same reason anyone who turns is. The cross is what makes that possible — and it was already making it possible centuries before Manasseh prayed, through the forward-looking covenant God had made with David’s line. That’s what makes the Manasseh story so unsettling in the best possible way. He’s an explosion of grace in the middle of the Old Testament. And that’s precisely the point. Also in this episode David’s Hawaii trip: Kauai, a luau that opened with the Doxology in Hawaiian harmony, sea turtles, a sunrise hike, and a couple from Marietta Georgia 10,000 miles from home Manasseh as master politician — why 55 years on the throne with enemies on every side actually makes theological sense The prodigal son going off the platform — David illustrated the journey from the father’s house, realized mid-sermon this was a mistake, and survived The Gators sarcasm dying at 11am: David said “Why are y’all in such a good mood? I was in prayer all day Saturday” — the congregation thought he meant it and nobody laughed Preview: The final Kingdom Family sermon next week — Hezekiah, then King Jesus Next series announced: Titus — how to pass faith along in churches and families Why Does Matthew’s Genealogy Include Sinners and Failures? Matthew’s genealogy in chapter 1 is structured as three groups of 14 generations: Abraham to David, David to the Babylonian exile, and the exile to Jesus. Within this structure, Matthew deliberately includes kings whose reigns were marked by failure, compromise, and outright wickedness. The theological reason is intentional: Matthew is not writing a story about human heroes. He is establishing that Jesus is the rightful King of Kings who descends from the line of David — and the integrity of that genealogy requires including every generation, not just the spiritually successful ones. The Bible does not hide the failures of its figures because the central argument of Scripture is not human faithfulness but divine grace. Frequently asked questions Your Child Isn’t Too Far Gone The short biblical answer is that forgiveness isn’t proportional to the severity of the sin — it’s made possible by the sacrifice of Christ, which is sufficient for any sin that is genuinely repented of. Manasseh’s story in 2 Chronicles 33 demonstrates this directly: one of the most wicked kings in Judah’s history, guilty of idolatry, sorcery, and child sacrifice, repented in Babylon and was restored by God. The text doesn’t explain it away. It lets it be shocking. The point isn’t that Manasseh’s sin was overlooked — it was placed on Jesus. The same theological mechanism that forgives ordinary sins forgives extraordinary ones. That’s not a loophole. That’s the cross. What Is the Unpardonable Sin? The unpardonable sin — also called blasphemy of the Holy Spirit — is described by Jesus in Matthew 12:31–32. The Pharisees had watched Jesus cast out a demon and attributed the miracle to Beelzebul rather than God. Jesus calls this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Most theologians understand this not as a single specific action that can be accidentally committed, but as the final, persistent hardening of one’s heart against the Holy Spirit’s testimony about Jesus — the settled refusal to acknowledge the Spirit’s work at all. Because this sin is defined by its resistance to the Holy Spirit’s conviction, genuine concern about whether one has committed it is itself evidence that they haven’t. What Is the Difference Between Kings and Chronicles on Manasseh? First and Second Kings were written during the Babylonian exile, answering the question: how did we get here? Its account of Manasseh (2 Kings 21) focuses on the depth of his sin and explains it as the decisive reason for Judah’s exile. First and Second Chronicles were compiled after the exile, when the people had returned and were asking: do we have a future with God? Chronicles covers the same historical period but expands moments that carry hope. The Manasseh account in 2 Chronicles 33 includes a section that Kings omits entirely: his captivity in Babylon, his prayer, God’s response, and his subsequent reforms in Jerusalem. The different emphasis isn’t a contradiction — it’s each book answering its own audience’s question. Scripture Referenced: 2 Chronicles 33 • 2 Kings 21 • Luke 15:11–32 • 1 Peter 1:3–5 • Romans 7:24–25 • Matthew 12:31–32 • 2 Chronicles 7:14 • Psalm 72

Westside Gainesville

Currently Reading
September 3, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Why God's Discipline Is Actually Good News
Imagine you ordered a pizza. Seven perfect slices. One slice has a cockroach baked into it. Would you call it a good pie? Nobody would. And that’s the question Pastor Jonathan Phoenix brought to the Newberry Road campus last Sunday: how can we offer seven-eighths of our lives to God and call that faithful? This week’s episode of What We Didn’t Say on Sunday features Richie Baldwin and Jonathan — Westside’s International Ministry pastor, on staff since 2020 — talking through what Jonathan preached on Sunday, why Matthew’s genealogy includes some of the messiest kings in Judah’s history, and how 12% of Gainesville is foreign-born and doesn’t know it yet has a church home waiting. God Is Predictably Gracious The phrase Jonathan kept returning to on Sunday — and throughout the episode — is one David has been building toward all series: God is predictably gracious. Not randomly gracious. Not occasionally gracious. Predictably. The discipline Asa experienced when he trusted physicians over God in his final years wasn’t God abandoning him. It was God doing what Hebrews says he always does with his children: disciplining those he loves. And the invitation on the other side of that discipline is always the same. It’s never too late to come back. “We’re predictably messy. But God is predictably gracious and forgiving.” — Pastor Jonathan Fenix The Pizza Illustration Jonathan was looking for an illustration for going all in with God — and landed on pizza. Seven perfect slices, one slice with a cockroach baked in. Nobody eats around the bad slice and calls the pizza good. The whole thing goes in the trash. He was using it to press on the question of partial obedience: we wouldn’t accept one compromised slice of pizza, so why do we think God would accept one compromised eighth of a life? It made himself hungry, by his own admission, especially at the 11 o’clock service. Richie’s wife is an entomologist — she eats bugs, a practice technically called entomophagy — and she would apparently be able to recommend which cockroach varieties are edible if it came to that. The podcast went somewhere unexpected. Why Are Failed Kings in Jesus’s Family Tree? The Matthew genealogy thread is the most substantive theological content in the episode. Matthew structures his genealogy in three sets of 14 generations — Abraham to David, David to the Babylonian exile, exile to Jesus — and in doing so he skips several kings. What he doesn’t skip is Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Joram. Three generations of the four-chair pattern in sequence: a king who ended poorly, a king who taught well and compromised relationally, and a king who collapsed entirely. The point Richie and Jonathan kept coming back to: Matthew isn’t hiding anything. The Bible doesn’t airbrush its heroes. The genealogy of the King of Kings includes messy, compromised, failing people because that’s the family God chose to work through. The only hero in the story from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 is God himself. Every human in the line is evidence that God’s grace operates in spite of people, not because of them. They traced the thread further back to Genesis 3:15 — the protoevangelium, the first hint of the gospel — where God promises that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. That thread runs through Abraham’s covenant, through David’s covenant, through every king in the genealogy whether good or bad, straight through to Matthew’s opening chapter. 66 books, 1,500 years, multiple human authors. One coherent story, because there’s really only one Author.Take Your Next Step The Nations Are Already in Gainesville Jonathan arrived in Gainesville from the Philippines and has been doing international ministry at Westside since 2020. He carries an unusual empathy for international students because he was one. Seven percent of the University of Florida’s enrollment are international students. Twelve percent of Gainesville’s residents are foreign-born. Many of them come for a degree or a work contract, meet Jesus, get discipled, and go home as believers. They came for an education. They leave ready for the mission field. The word for that is “glocal” — local initiatives with global impact. Someone discipled in Gainesville, Florida goes home to Vietnam or South Korea or Japan and takes the gospel with them. This week, new friends from Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Usually India and China. This fall, the nations look a little different. Also in this episode Jonathan’s earpiece wouldn’t fit his right ear during the 9:30 service — he had to be handed a mic mid-sermon and suspects the earpiece was molded after Pastor David’s right ear specifically Richie’s blooper: the announcement video where Richie shoots basketball shots to promote three upcoming events. Every shot went in. None of them were Richie’s. Shoutout to Jack Harrington, youth student and three-point specialist, who made all of them during the film shoot Jonathan not being picked for his junior high class basketball team — 15 boys, needed 12, Jonathan was one of three left out. He’s been carrying this for 38 years. The Philippines beat Iran AND Jordan in Asia basketball qualifiers. Richie notes this does not include Michael Jordan. Jonathan concurs. Why Does Matthew’s Genealogy Include Sinners and Failures? Matthew’s genealogy in chapter 1 is structured as three groups of 14 generations: Abraham to David, David to the Babylonian exile, and the exile to Jesus. Within this structure, Matthew deliberately includes kings whose reigns were marked by failure, compromise, and outright wickedness. The theological reason is intentional: Matthew is not writing a story about human heroes. He is establishing that Jesus is the rightful King of Kings who descends from the line of David — and the integrity of that genealogy requires including every generation, not just the spiritually successful ones. The Bible does not hide the failures of its figures because the central argument of Scripture is not human faithfulness but divine grace. Frequently asked questions What Is Genesis 3:15 and Why Does It Matter? Genesis 3:15 is often called the protoevangelium — the first gospel. After the fall, God addresses the serpent and says: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This is the first hint in Scripture that a specific descendant of Eve will one day defeat the serpent — which the New Testament identifies as Jesus. The promise then narrows progressively: through Abraham’s covenant, through the tribe of Judah, through the Davidic covenant, until Matthew chapter 1 names the specific person that thread was always pointing toward. Every genealogy, every king, every generation in between is part of that thread. Scripture Referenced: Matthew 1 • 2 Chronicles 16 • Genesis 3:15 • Hebrews 12:6 • John 1:1

Westside Gainesville

August 27, 2026 • 11 Minute Read
Why Was the Bible Lost in the Temple?
The high priest found the Bible while renovating the temple. Not rediscovered, not recovered from a library — found, as in it had been completely lost. Somewhere between the 55 years of Manasseh’s reign and the eight-year-old boy who inherited the throne after him, the Book of the Law got put in the rafters and nobody went looking for it. This week’s episode of What We Didn’t Say on Sunday was recorded on Gator Day — students back in Gainesville, the energy back in the city — with Beau Martin sitting in for Pastor David Chauncey alongside Pastor Richie Baldwin. Richie preached on Josiah at Southwest. Beau recaps what David preached at the Newberry Road campus. Between the two of them, they cover the whole story: why the Bible got lost, what Josiah did when he found it, and how a man named James’s baptism that Sunday morning was a Josiah-shaped moment. Richie’s Sermon: Surrender, Serve, Saturate Richie’s three-point framework for the Southwest campus sermon moved in a clean progression. First: surrender to the transformation given by God’s word. When Josiah found the Book of the Law and heard it read, he didn’t evaluate it or fact-check it against the existing cultural consensus. He tore his clothes — an ancient sign of grief and repentance — because the word revealed exactly where Judah stood before God, and his heart was tender enough to receive that. Second: serve for greater impact. The word didn’t just change Josiah internally. He read it to all the people of Judah, made a public covenant before God, and then went out and purged the land of idols — not just in Jerusalem, but up into the ruins of the northern kingdom that had been destroyed a hundred years earlier. At the end of the sermon, Richie turned on every bulb in the Alachua sign that Southwest had deliberately dimmed. That’s what he wanted the church to do: saturate their world with what they’d received. Third: saturate the world with the word. He pointed to Isaiah 59 — Isaiah, who was warning Manasseh during his worst years, who could see the injustice and corruption and knew judgment was coming — and to the greater king even than Josiah that Isaiah could see arriving on the horizon. The charge to the church, and especially to the students in the room on Gator Day: be like Josiah. Take the word out. Go on mission.Learn more about Life Groups What David Preached: Seek, Tear Down, Build, Surround Beau’s recap of the Newberry Road campus sermon covered David’s four-point framework through the generational chairs lens he’s used all series: committed, compromised, cultural, collapsed. Josiah inherited the worst possible chair — collapsed, after 55 years of Manasseh and two more of Amon — and reversed it because he was willing to seek God for himself before he fully understood why. David opened with the Second Great Awakening. After the Revolutionary War, church attendance in America dropped from around 45% to somewhere between 5% and 10%. A poll at Harvard found zero students willing to identify as believers. Yale had five. Then Isaac Backus started a prayer meeting. Timothy Dwight became Yale’s president and started preaching in defense of Scripture’s authority. What started with one person became the Second Great Awakening, and the church grew ten times faster than the population. Same pattern as Josiah. It starts with one. The four points: seek God for yourself — Josiah started at 16, before he found the book, because something in him knew things were wrong. Tear down what pulls you back — but know what you’re replacing it with, because a hole is still a hole. Build your life on God’s word — Josiah tore down idols and then found the book at 26, and the book is what told him what to build on instead. Surround yourself with people who will help you — Josiah had Shaphan, Hilkiah, Huldah, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah. He wasn’t doing it alone.How can we pray for you? Why Was the Bible in the Rafters? This is the most surprising question in the whole story, and Richie spent real time on it. The answer, in his reading: the Levites. The priests and Levites were the ones charged with administering God’s word to the people, interceding between the congregation and God. The prophets ran in the opposite direction — bringing God’s voice to the people. But the Levites, beginning with the split kingdom and accelerating through Manasseh’s reign, stopped doing their job. They put the word on a shelf and filled the temple with everything else. Richie traced this thread all the way from Judges 19 — the grotesque collapse of a Levite at the very end of the book of Judges, showing how far the priests had already fallen before Israel even had kings — to Ezekiel 22 and 34, where God pronounces specific judgment on the shepherds who failed to feed the people. The breadcrumbs were there the whole time. Hilkiah finding the book in the temple isn’t a random discovery. It’s the providence of God routing his word around the people who were supposed to guard it, to get it into Josiah’s hands. “The Josiahs of the world had to find it. Praise God that he found a way to get him his word — but you have failed in so many ways.” — Pastor Richie Baldwin (summarizing Ezekiel’s charge to the Levites) Deconstruction vs. Tearing Down Idols Beau asked the question directly: what’s the difference between what Josiah was doing — tearing down idols, reforming the culture, removing what his grandfathers built — and what gets called deconstruction today? From the outside, the actions look the same. Richie’s answer went to Romans 12:2: do not be conformed, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The problem with deconstruction, as it’s most often practiced, is that it handles the nonconformity part without the transformation. Something gets removed. Nothing gets put in its place. A hole is still a hole. Josiah tore down the Baals and found the book. He knew what he was building on. The dangerous version is when someone dismantles biblical morality, marriage, or the gospel itself — thinking they’re removing hypocrisy, but actually removing the foundation. Richie applied it to his own story: he came from the Roman Catholic tradition and had real things he needed to deconstruct about what the church had taught him. But he did it by holding everything up against Scripture and asking what God’s word actually said. The rock stays. The idols go. Ephesians 2:20–21 is the frame: the whole structure is built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ, and it’s in him that everything is joined together. Why Huldah and Not Jeremiah? When Josiah’s people needed to inquire of God, they went to Huldah — a prophetess, wife of the royal wardrobe keeper, living in Jerusalem — and not to Jeremiah, who was active during Josiah’s reign and would go on to write the longest book in the Bible by word count. Beau asked why. Richie’s honest answer: Jeremiah may have been more prominent after Josiah, not during. Things were going relatively well under Josiah. The prophets who speak most clearly in crisis tend to surface when things get worse, and Jeremiah’s heaviest work came during and after the exile. Huldah was well-respected, clearly heard from God, and gave Josiah exactly what he needed: confirmation that God had heard his tender heart and was giving Judah more time. Frederick Douglass and a Sunday School Class of 40 People Richie’s addition to Beau’s Second Great Awakening recap was Frederick Douglass — a man who didn’t even know his own birthday. As a slave, the first thing Douglass wanted when he learned to read was the New Testament, because he didn’t just believe slavery was wrong. He wanted to know what God’s word said about it. He started teaching 40 people — fellow slaves, meeting in secret for a Sunday school class — and that circle eventually multiplied into one of the most influential voices in American history, including a close advisory relationship with Abraham Lincoln. The through-line Richie drew: Josiah changes things starting with the word. Frederick Douglass changes things starting with the word. The Second Great Awakening changes things starting with one person who was obedient to the word. The pattern is the same every time. James and David | The Baptism That Closed the Episode Beau closed the episode by telling the story of a baptism from the 9:30 service that morning. A man named James, who grew up with a not-so-good spiritual legacy — physical abuse, the foster care system, no model of what a functional family looked like. Through a series of events, he got a job working for a company that made him feel like family. He started seeing what a dinner table without yelling looked like. He eventually gave his life to Christ and was baptized that morning by David. Josiah looked back to David as the committed chair — the model he couldn’t find in his own family tree. James looked back to David as the model he didn’t have either. The parallel wasn’t planned. It was just the story of a Sunday.Westside Stories Also in this episode Gator Day Sunday at Westside — the energy of welcome week, students back in Gainesville, overflow at Southwest The generational chairs (committed → compromised → cultural → collapsed) and how Josiah entered the throne at the collapsed point Richie’s observation that the story of Josiah’s sons shows how quickly revival can be reversed — his first son after him “put the word back on the shelf” within a few years Psalm 72 as the messianic psalm the people were praying — begging for a king who would actually be just — and how verse 17 points all the way to Christ Richie fell in the baptistery on Sunday. He got a very cold bath. Why Was the Bible Lost in the Temple During Josiah’s Reign? The most likely explanation, according to most scholars, is the failure of the Levitical priesthood. The Levites were charged with administering God’s word to the people — keeping the law, instructing the nation, maintaining the temple’s integrity. Through successive generations of compromise, particularly during the 55-year reign of Manasseh, the priests appear to have set aside the Torah and allowed the temple to be filled with pagan worship objects instead. The book wasn’t destroyed — it was neglected. When Hilkiah found it during Josiah’s renovation of the temple, it was still there, simply unread and forgotten. Ezekiel 34 records God’s later indictment of the shepherds who failed to feed the flock: a pattern that began long before Josiah and contributed directly to the conditions he inherited. Frequently asked questions What Is the Difference Between Deconstructing Your Faith and Tearing Down Idols? Josiah’s reform and what gets called “deconstruction” today can look similar from the outside — both involve removing things that have been built up over time. The critical difference is what happens next. Josiah tore down the idols and built on the word of God — he knew what he was replacing them with. Deconstruction, as often practiced, removes things without identifying what to build on instead. Romans 12:2 captures the biblical framework: do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Both halves are required. Removing false things is part of the Christian life. But the cornerstone — Jesus Christ himself (Ephesians 2:20) — is not one of the things available for removal. Anything built on something other than that cornerstone, or built on nothing at all, is not reformation. It’s collapse. Who Was Huldah the Prophetess in the Bible? Huldah appears in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34 as the prophetess consulted when Josiah’s officials found the Book of the Law. She was the wife of Shallum, keeper of the royal wardrobe, and lived in the Second Quarter of Jerusalem. When the king’s delegation brought the newly found book to her, she responded with a direct word from God: judgment on Judah was coming because of the nation’s idolatry, but because Josiah’s heart was tender and he had humbled himself before God, he would not see the coming disaster in his lifetime. Huldah is one of seven female prophets recognized in the Old Testament and is notable for being consulted directly by the royal court, which suggests her prophetic authority was well established and trusted in Jerusalem. Scripture Referenced: 2 Kings 22 • 2 Chronicles 34 • Isaiah 59 • Psalm 72 • Psalm 110 • Romans 12:2 • Ephesians 2:20–21 • John 15 • Ezekiel 34 • Habakkuk 1–2

Westside Gainesville

August 20, 2026 • 8 Minute Read
The Flaw That Ruined a Good King's Legacy
Jehoshaphat was one of the genuinely good kings. He inherited a solid foundation from his father Asa and didn't coast on it. He sent officials and Levites throughout all of Judah specifically to teach God’s word to the people. It says the fear of God fell on the surrounding nations. For 25 years, he led well. He had one flaw. He was a people-pleaser. And when Ahab, one of the worst kings in Israel’s history, invited him in close and then pressured him to go to war, Jehoshaphat went. Even though God’s prophet told him not to. Even though it nearly cost him his life. And when Jehoshaphat came home, his son inherited everything, including the alliance with Ahab’s family. This week’s What We Didn’t Say on Sunday features Pastor Richie Baldwin alongside a first-time guest, Pastor Lukas High, Westside’s Youth Pastor, who preached the Newberry Road campus on Sunday while Pastor David was in Atlanta for a wedding. Both Richie and Lukas preached on 2 Chronicles 17–20 as part of the Kingdom Family series. Teach It, Model It, Choose Your People Lucas preached three movements from Jehoshaphat’s reign. First: Kingdom Families teach faith intentionally. One of the first things Jehoshaphat did as king in his third year of 25 was send the very best people — officials, priests, Levites — throughout all of Judah with the book of the law. He didn’t call people to come to a conference in Jerusalem. He sent them out into the towns. “Faith must be intentionally taught, not passively assumed” — and Jehoshaphat didn’t assume it even though his father Asa had led well. Second: Kingdom Families model faith publicly. Jehoshaphat’s faith wasn’t confined to his private prayer life. There were public prayers, heartfelt and real, and a public fast. The next generation doesn’t just need to hear what you believe. They need to see it where the rubber meets the road. Third — and this is where Jehoshaphat fell short: Kingdom Families support faith relationally. He taught the right truth but tolerated the wrong influence in his own life. His alliance with Ahab came before his son’s decisions came. The point Lucas made to parents in the room: before we look at the influences in our kids’ lives, it’s worth looking honestly at the influences in ours.Learn more about Life Groups Don’t Fear Man, Fear God, and Find Your Micaiahs Richie honed in on 2 Chronicles 18 — the one chapter where Jehoshaphat’s people-pleasing identity shows up most clearly. He laid out what that identity actually looks like in practice: fear of rejection, chronic overcommitment, an inability to say no, imposter syndrome, constant second-guessing, and living with one eye on what will make others happy rather than what conviction says is right. The Spider-Man illustration landed: Peter Parker can’t figure out how to be both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, because he’s trying to please people in both identities — and they demand different things. Jehoshaphat is dealing with the same thing. He knows what he believes. He just can’t hold the line when Ahab turns up the pressure. Second point: your identity is in Christ, therefore fear God. Richie pointed to Micaiah — the one prophet who told Ahab the truth when 400 others were telling him what he wanted to hear. Micaiah gets slapped in the face in front of two kings. He gets imprisoned. He still doesn’t change his word. He had Micaiahs. Third point: have Micaiahs in your life. People who love you enough to tell you the truth before you make a Jehoshaphat-level mistake. They exist. You have to let them actually speak.How can we pray for you? What Doesn’t Get Said: Finishing Well One of the things Lukas couldn’t cover on Sunday: both Asa and Jehoshaphat — two genuinely good kings — ended their lives on a negative note. The text is specific about it. Asa, in his final years, stopped trusting God and trusted physicians instead when his leg went bad. Jehoshaphat’s last chapter closes with a rebuke and a failure. Both go down in history as good kings. But the last thing their sons saw was something less than that. There’s a Fuller Youth Institute study — around 3,000 teenagers surveyed — that asked who shapes their faith most. Parents came first. What’s less expected: grandparents came second. Not friends, not pastors. Grandparents. Even if grandparents don’t know it. Even if they think they’ve aged past the point where their lives are still shaping anyone. They haven’t. Finishing well isn’t about performing to the end. It’s about running the race in a way that the next generation actually sees how you ran it. Also in this episode Lukas High’s first appearance on the podcast — his intro, his ministry with middle and high schoolers, and the kids who gifted the WWDSOS mugs and coastas (cajun for coasters) Elijah at his lowest — right after calling fire down from heaven in 1 Kings 18, he begged God to let him die in 1 Kings 19. That’s what Ahab’s reign did to prophets. Micaiah getting slapped in the face in front of two kings and not changing his word Paul confronting Peter to his face in Galatians — a New Testament Micaiah moment The children’s announcement video at Newberry Road — Aubrey said he had nothing to follow it with, so they just quoted Isaiah 40:8 and ended the service Richie’s second service: accidentally called Jehoshaphat “Josiah” and Ahab “Abraham.” As in, “Abraham is the worst guy in the Bible” — one of the best guys, corrected immediately What Does the Bible Say About People-Pleasing? People-pleasing — the fear of man over the fear of God — is a thread that runs through both Testaments. Jehoshaphat’s failure in 2 Chronicles 18 shows how even a genuinely godly king can compromise his convictions when someone powerful enough applies pressure. The pattern in Scripture is consistent: identity in Christ produces freedom from the approval of people, while identity in human approval produces fear of rejection, compromised decisions, and a faith that gets quietly undermined. Galatians 1:10 captures Paul’s own settled answer: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” That’s not a personality trait. It’s a theological position. Frequently asked questions Why Did Jehoshaphat Make an Alliance With Ahab? 2 Chronicles 18 doesn’t fully explain Jehoshaphat’s motivation, but the text gives clues. Ahab was powerful and administratively successful — he had made Israel prosperous, even if the cost was spiritual corruption. He hosted Jehoshaphat with a large feast and a show of generosity. And Jehoshaphat may have genuinely been trying to secure peace between the northern and southern kingdoms through a marriage alliance. But the prophet Jehu’s rebuke after Jehoshaphat returned home makes the problem clear: the motivation doesn’t sanctify the decision. Allying with someone whose trajectory is against God is dangerous regardless of the short-term benefits, and the cost was eventually borne by Jehoshaphat’s son. Who Was Micaiah in the Bible? Micaiah is a prophet who appears in 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18. When Ahab wanted to go to war and consulted 400 prophets who all told him what he wanted to hear, Jehoshaphat asked if there was any other prophet of God. Micaiah was brought in and told the truth: the battle would be a disaster and Ahab would die. He was slapped by one of the other prophets and imprisoned on Ahab’s orders. Ahab died in the battle anyway, exactly as Micaiah had said. Micaiah represents the rare person in your life who loves you enough to tell the truth at personal cost. The spiritual discipline Richie called for: find people like that and let them actually speak into your decisions. How Do You Teach Faith to the Next Generation? Jehoshaphat’s approach in 2 Chronicles 17 offers a framework that translates directly. He taught intentionally — not assuming that faith would be absorbed passively, but actively sending people with God’s word into every community. He modeled faith publicly — prayer and fasting that the next generation could actually see, not just hear about. And he built community relationally, though here is where he fell short by allying too closely with someone whose life moved away from God. A Fuller Youth Institute study of approximately 3,000 teenagers found that parents are the single most influential voice in a teenager’s faith — and that teenagers themselves report this even if they don’t say it out loud at home. Grandparents ranked second, ahead of friends, pastors, or anyone else.. Scripture Referenced: 2 Chronicles 17–20 • 2 Chronicles 18 • 1 Kings 16:33 • 1 Kings 18–19 • Galatians 1:10 • Galatians 2:20 • 1 Corinthians 11:1 • Deuteronomy 4:10 • 2 Timothy 1:5

Westside Gainesville