SunWest Church Weekly Sermon Podcast · SunWest Church

Before I Go - Part 1: It's Better This Way, Pastor Colton Willms

·38 min·2 clips

“How much more will a heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

The pastor begins with a Friday night at home, a babysitter at the door, and the awkward emotional handoff that comes with leaving three kids behind for a rare date night. The story sets up the sermon's larger point: what feels hard at first can still be good. From there, he turns to conviction and says the heavy feeling it brings is not a sign of abandonment. It is a sign that God is drawing a person back to life. He keeps coming back to the idea that conviction is good. It is good because it leads somewhere. To make that clear, he brings in Eustace from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace hoards treasure, becomes dragon-like in his selfishness, and then cannot fix himself. He sees the scales on himself and tries to peel them off alone. That effort fails. Aslan arrives and removes the scales painfully, one at a time. The image becomes a picture of the Holy Spirit's work. The sermon says this kind of change hurts, but it is never lonely. He speaks personally about how he has tried to remove his own scales in his own strength. He names anger, lust, arrogance, and pride as examples of the kinds of things he has battled. He says the Holy Spirit has met him in those places. The advocate speaks truth even when truth is hard. That truth does not leave a person exposed without help. It walks alongside them in healing. The message leans toward prayer rather than argument. It asks for conviction that leads to restoration. It asks for peace. It asks for continued reading of God's word and fresh revelation. It asks for Jesus' presence to be known. It ends by inviting anyone who needs prayer to come forward. The whole sermon keeps returning to the same claim: being corrected by God is part of being made new.

As heard by us

A warm sermon about how truth can hurt and still bring life.

This sermon starts in a familiar family setting and keeps circling back to one clear point: hard truth can be a gift, not a threat. It moves from the date-night story to conviction, the Holy Spirit, and the Narnia image in a way that stays easy to follow without sanding off the…

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Why you'd press play

If you need conviction to feel like care, start here.

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