I often talk about living intentionally because I believe that how we choose to live each day, the decisions we make, and the way we respond to others significantly impacts our lives. One of the most important intentional choices we can make—one that brings freedom and peace—is the decision to forgive. And I’m not just talking about the big, life-changing moments of forgiveness. I mean everyday forgiveness, the kind that we practice in the small moments, with the little offenses that come our way. It’s easier to think of forgiveness as something we only need when a huge conflict or betrayal erupts. But forgiveness requires us to live it out daily, even in the small things. Jesus said, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins,” (Matthew 6:14-15 NIV). Whether it’s forgiving someone for a hurtful comment, letting go of a grudge because someone cut you off in traffic, or choosing to release anger over being overlooked at work, everyday forgiveness matters to God, and it should also matter to you. Forgiveness releases others and trusts God with the outcome. Let’s be real, the small things can add up over time. If we don’t forgive, those minor annoyances and hurts can fester and turn into bitterness. We carry that around, and before we know it, it affects our relationships and our own peace of mind. That’s why the Bible reminds us in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (NIV). It’s a tall order, but it’s one we’re called to because we’ve been forgiven first. Forgiveness Mirrors God’s Grace Forgiveness’s foundation is God’s grace. Think about it—God forgave us completely through Christ. He didn’t wait for us to be perfect or to make amends for all we’ve done wrong. In the same way, we’re called to extend that grace to others. I know it can feel like an impossible task sometimes, especially when someone has hurt us deeply. Forgiveness doesn’t mean excusing their behavior or allowing them to hurt us again. It simply means releasing them and trusting God with the outcome. When we forgive, we mirror the grace God has shown us. It’s a way of saying, “I’m letting go of this offense because through Christ I’m forgiven so much more.” We can then begin to shift our thinking in how we approach forgiveness—not as a burden, but as an opportunity to live out the grace we’ve received. Forgiveness is for Your Own Good One of the most important things I’ve learned about forgiveness is that it’s not just for the other person—it’s for me. Holding on to unforgiveness doesn’t hurt the person who wronged us nearly as much as it hurts us. It’s like that old saying, “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” When we hold on to anger, bitterness, or a desire for revenge, we suffer. The Mayo Clinic even backs this up with research. Studies show that forgiving someone can lead to healthier relationships, greater mental well-being, less anxiety and stress, lower blood pressure, fewer symptoms of depression, a stronger immune system, and improved heart health. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good list of reasons to practice forgiveness every day! Keep Short Accounts Another important aspect of intentional living is keeping short accounts. In Ephesians 4:26, we’re told, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (NIV). Refuse to allow conflict, anger, or resentment to linger. When we hold on to grudges or offenses, they start to weigh us down. Keeping short accounts addresses these issues as they arise, offers forgiveness, and helpsus to let go so we don’t carry that burden into the next day—or the next week, month, or year. I’ve seen too many people weighed down by old hurts because they didn’t take the opportunity to forgive sooner. But when we choose to forgive in the moment, we free ourselves to move forward without the baggage of past conflicts. Forgiveness releases someone from the debt they owe you emotionally. It’s Not about Letting People Hurt You Now, I want to make something clear: forgiveness doesn’t mean that we allow someone to continue hurting us. I’ve heard from many people who struggle with forgiveness because they feel like forgiving means they have to let someone keep mistreating them. But that’s not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is about releasing someone from the debt they owe us emotionally. It’s not about allowing harmful behavior to continue. You can forgive someone and still set boundaries to protect yourself from further hurt. It’s okay to say, “I forgive you, but I won’t allow you to treat me that way anymore.” That’s not holding a grudge—that’s wisdom. Freedom of Forgiveness At the end of the day, forgiveness is freedom—yours and mine. When we forgive, we free ourselves from the emotional and spiritual weight of holding onto hurt. We allow God to work in us and through us. And we choose to live in peace rather than conflict when we forgive. So, here’s my encouragement for you today. If you’re carrying the weight of unforgiveness: Let it go. Ask God for the grace to forgive. Trust Him with the outcome. It doesn’t mean you’re excusing what happened, and it doesn’t mean you have to continue in a hurtful relationship. But it does mean that you’re choosing freedom for yourself, and you’re living out the grace that Christ has given you. Listen online to callers who answer the question: How Has Forgiveness Impacted Your Everyday Life? Mayo Clinic Staff. (2022, November 23). Forgiveness: Letting go of grudges and bitterness. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org theintentionallife.com.

In the early 90s, researchers embarked on a landmark study of over 17,000 individuals and asked them about negative experiences in childhood and their current physical and mental health. They found was that when children are exposed to toxic stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, this can have a dramatic impact on their minds, brains and bodies. This study later became known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACE study. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events that children may be exposed to while growing up that include abuse, neglect, domestic violence, substance misuse or mental illness. Long-term exposure to childhood trauma has been linked to everything from heart disease and diabetes to alcoholism, depression, and suicide. While there is no denying the reality and impact of adverse childhood experiences on our mental and physical health, just focusing just on the negative alone, or the bad that happened to us, may actually slow the process of our healing down. Research on the mind-brain-body network shows that an overly negative focus without balancing with the positive can distort our perceptions and potentially hamstring our ability to work through what we have gone through in a way that doesn’t keep us trapped in the past.   Why? The mind-brain-body network is all about balance, and restoring balance when it is upset. Focusing only on the negative will add to an already overloaded amount of toxic stress from the adverse experience. This is why it is important that while we do the work to find the root causes of our distress and process and reconceptualize what has happened to us, we also make sure we have some positive, balancing checkpoints in place on our healing journey or we risk the danger of getting stuck in a cycle of pain and victimhood.  In fact, there is exciting research that shows that positive childhood experiences (PCEs) can actually help buffer against the negative health effects caused by exposure to ACEs. PCEs can also promote healing and recovery through activating our resilience. This shows that all of a child’s experiences—positive and negative—matter, so we shouldn’t just be considering the bad of what has happened to us but also the good, and how all these experiences affect our mental health as adults. Some research even shows that people with some exposure to ACEs, if they reported 3 to 5 positive childhood experiences, had 50% lower odds of adulthood depression or poor mental health, and those who reported 6 to 7 PCE’s had a 72% lower chance of adult mental health challenges. These findings demonstrate that positive childhood experiences can have a cumulative effect on life-long mental health outcomes, and play an important role in our healing.  Although we definitely need to work on what we experienced growing up, at the same time we need to leave room for the positive, and a great way to do this is what I call the “3:1 thought ratio”.  This is one technique I often use this to balance myself, and find it extremely helpful when things seem overwhelming. All you have to do is to intentionally focus on the positive to balance out the negative in a 3:1 ratio. And this can be used for any negative situation, not just for ACEs. For every negative thought that comes to mind, along with its emotions, behaviors, and perspectives, counter it with three positive thoughts. This will help to maintain a balance in energy (quantum) waves in the brain so you can think clearly, build your resilience, and rewire healthy thought patterns!   When you practice the 3:1 ratio, this means that each time you have a negative thought, you don’t suppress it, but rather use it as a prompt to think of three positive childhood experiences. This doesn’t mean you are ignoring what has happened to you; rather, you are maintaining the balance of your mind, brain and body so that you can heal what has happened to you rather than remaining trapped in the past. You are essentially using the negative thought as a habit loop trigger to help you recognize what to change WHILE “padding” or mitigating the effects this negative event has on your overall wellbeing. This is not swapping the negative for the positive. It is using the positive to help us face and overcome the negative. drleaf.com.

Learn to live with less, and be generous to others. God will Bless your living and your life. Be like Jesus; Don’t just look down the ladder, Climb down! Dr. Roger Barrier #preachitteachit #casaschurch #money #finances #generosity Holly Jolly Generosity CLIMBING DOWN THE LADDER 2 CORINTHIANS 8:1-15 R6-1786 Turn Bibles to 2 Corinthians 8. USA Today: Now this downturn really hurts. Families that cut a little last year are cutting a lot more this year. The financial pain Americans are experiencing cuts a lot deeper today than it did just a year ago. Back then, six readers spoke with USA TODAY about small cuts their families were making to help make ends meet. Today, that has required much bigger life changes from almost all of them. SLIDE #: Then:Jason Jepson of Huntington Beach, Calif., stopped buying PowerBars at his health club. Now: He’s moved from a $1,200 apartment to a $700 room in a house. SLIDE #:Then: Angela Harris of Richmond, Va., stopped going to Starbucks for her daily caffeine fix. Now: Her husband has transferred hundreds of miles away to keep his job. SLIDE #:Then: Deshaun Davis of Lewisville, Texas, cut back on spa treatments at Nordstrom. Now: She recently took a second job and has downsized from a four-bedroom, three-bath home to a three-bedroom, two-bath one. “I never saved a thing before,” Davis says. “But now I think about every dime I spend.” SLIDE #: CORINTHIANS 8:1: And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. SLIDE #: 2 CORINTHIANS 8:2-4: Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. Under pressure…” A great way to describe our culture right now, under pressure, stressed, anxious, fearful. All you have to do is mention the word “economy,” and people start getting stressed, getting jittery. Some of you are spilling your coffee right now. Though some of the news is getting slightly more positive, most of the news about money over these last weeks and months has been brutal. They say we’ve likely averted a complete meltdown of the global economy, but we are still in the too early to tell phase on how it is going to shake out. All this produces incredible pressure and anxiety. Will I lose my job? I was already in trouble financially, now how am I going to be able to dig out of that trouble? Will I have enough to retire? What is going to happen? Do you feel stressed enough yet? Glad you came to church yet? Anybody want a valium? Because today we are going to hear Jesus say something very radical. 2000 years ago in a culture facing far worse economic times than we are seeing today, in a time of great fear and anxiety, Jesus said then the same thing he’d say if he were here today. He is going to say, “Stop it. Stop being afraid. Do not worry, at least not about all this. Money is the wrong thing to be worried about. In tough economic times Jesus has a lot to say about faith, trust, God’s care. Glenn talked about these things last Sunday. How to find peace and faith in an economically struggling culture. Says something else that might really surprise you. SLIDE #: Now, more than any time Give to those less fortunate. SLIDE #: CORINTHIANS 8:1: And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. SLIDE #: 2 CORINTHIANS 8:2-4: Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. Context SLIDE #: [Maps of Macedonia to Corinth to Jerusalem.] Paul picks up an agenda item that had been introduced almost a year before – the offering for the impoverished Christians in Jerusalem in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4. The members of the mother church in Jerusalem were suffering from extreme poverty. The poverty could have come from several sources: a drought, or persecution by their employers because of their faith, or both. (Point on map to who is giving to whom and who is not. THREE THINGS I WANT TO KNOW: SLIDE #: [Julie, put all three points on one slide if possible] 1. WHY DID THE MACEDONIANS GIVE SO MUCH? 2. WHY DID THE CORINTHIANS GIVE SO LITTLE? SLIDE #: 3. IN LIGHT OF TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES, WHAT WOULD GOD HAVE ME TO DO? DRAW SLIDE #: [Ladder pix with title and with room to write] THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC LADDER. Nine Strata 9 $1M+ 8 $500K+ 7 $100K 6 5 4 70K 3 2 $34K Poverty line 1 $12K Who is on the Ladder and where are they? How they congregate: Local bars Cowboys stadium Sky boxes Associate with one up and two down. Trust: no yes no [Ladder pix with title and with room to write] Over time, we all tend to move up the ladder. Raises Building Net worth Credit cards (illusion) Better empolyees •The ladder differs from culture to culture. If you own a car in Africa you may be rich. But you can be a single mom on minimum wage with two children and no child support in America and drive an old clunker in constant need of repair to get to work, and no one could call you rich. We tend to look up the ladder and compare ourselves with those above. We don’t look down the ladder very often. This is why in America we seldom consider ourselves to be rich. Someone is always higher up the ladder. “I’m not rich!.” And we look up the ladder and say, “He’s rich.” If only we would look down the ladder and see how many are below us. We would see how rich we really are. But it is hard to look down the ladder. The average American 5-year-old has 250 toys. They’ve only been alive about 250 weeks, which means that the average 5 year old has grown up getting one new toy a week for his or her whole life. And we wonder why as they get older they never seem to appreciate what they have but always want more? We’ve trained them well! We are a culture consumed with more. We have pushed our children up an artificial ladder. DRAW SLIDE #: Once we have climbed up the ladder, it is almost impossible to climb back down. I can climb down the ladder. I once was down there. Key word is once was. Easy to go up. Hard to climb down. Made $13K per year. Julie hated Fridays when I paid bills. Bronwyn takes me downtown with $25. SLIDE #: What Rich People Have … That You Don’t Want by Richard Watts Have you ever thought about what happens as you climb up the ladder? Rich people—it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Richard Watts has. He even wrote a book about it. Soap-Opera Family Drama “The Money-Proof Marriage” Children of Entitlement” “Under the Thumbs of Rich In-Laws” “Unrelenting Competition” “Inevitable Alienation” “Artificial Intelligence” Myopic Vision” “Leading a Double Life” I’d Rather Not Be Rich “The Myth of Midas” everything turns to gold. Baby, wife water, cup, shirt, SLIDE #: 1 Timothy 1:9-10: People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. So maybe climbing up the ladder is not so wonderful after all. SLIDE #: Ecclesiastes 5:12: The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep. DRAW SLIDE #: Today, some falling off the ladder. Really hard. SLIDE #: [with title and space for writing below the title] #: WHY DID THE MACEDONIANS GIVE SO MUCH? SLIDE #: CORINTHIANS 8:1-4: And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. SLIDE #: 2 CORINTHIANS 8:5. And they did not do as we expected, BUT THEY GAVE THEMSELVES FIRST TO THE LORD and then to us in keeping with God’s will. Why? They Experienced The Grace Of Giving As They Gave Themselves To The Lord. What might giving yourself to the Lord,” look like? Matthew 6:24-34; Luke 12:32-34 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow? They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is hear today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or “What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ We know we have given ourselves to the Lord when we trust our care to Him. This means that we have trusted our very lives to him. We get worried about the economy and our money because we realize in times like this how out of control of the whole thing we really are. But Jesus is God and he is in complete control, and he is telling us not to worry. So, do you feel worry right now? Turn it off. Stop it. Quit worrying, and ask him to replace that worry with faith, so that you can focus on what is really important. Worry and fear makes us irrational, and right now there is a lot of irrational fear going around. For Christians, that is really dangerous, because that fear can keep us from living the life we’ve been sent here to live. It can easily keep us hugging the pole, refusing to give our lives away for what matters, because we are afraid to fall. It’s like the fear many people have of sharks in the ocean. Thousands of people never experience the ocean because they are afraid that the minute they do, Jaws is going to come and chomp on them for his lunch. But the reality is the chances of you being attacked by a shark are incredibly small. Over the last 420 years, the deaths by shark attack average about to about 1 a year worldwide. In this country, in the last 300 years, only 40 people have been killed by sharks. Death by shark attack is hardly worth worrying about, but next time you go to the beach, let me give you something bigger to worry about. Coconuts. Yes, the dreaded coconut. Coconuts dropping from trees kill about 150 people each year, far more dangerous than sharks. So, next time you go to the beach, beware of coconuts…that’s worth worrying about. Jesus is saying with much more significant consequences: Don’t worry about money and material things. Instead, be consumed by something far more significant than that. The truth is, there is something far worse than losing every material thing you have. The worst thing that could happen is that you and I would be so consumed with money and fear that we hang on the pole and never fully give ourselves to God’s kingdom. Jesus SLIDE #: THEY EXPERIENCED THE GRACE OF GIVING AS THEY WATCHED JESUS CLIMB DOWN THE LADDER. 2 CORINTHIANS 8:9: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. Think of the richness of Christ: The whole universe was His. He had only to speak one word and a new world would be created. He could put His finger on every star and say, “Mine!” Jesus Christ was rich in honor and love. Think of the multitude of heavenly hosts that bowed before him in praise and adoration. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon the throne high and lifted up, and the cherubim and seraphim in worship and adoration around Him. Yet he became poor. What amazement there was in heaven when the announcement was made that He was about to depart. Can you see Him stripping Himself of His glory? Philippians 2 “kenosis” or emptying Himself of His glory. Can you see how the angels followed Him as far as they could into outer space, and even into the sky around us, crying, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men”? See Him in a dirty stable. See Jesus, who dug the ocean beds, saying to a woman, “Give me to drink.” He saw the foxes and the birds going back to their nests and resting-places, and He had to say, “Foxes have holes, bird have nests; but, I have nowhere to lay My head.” Once He has been honored by the “Hallelujahs!” of heaven, and all the courts of glory had shouted His praise. Now He is spat upon, struck, and cursed. He was put upon a cross to bleed and die; SLIDE #: PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11: “Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus . . .” SLIDE #: PHILIPPIANS 9: Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place, and gave Him the name above every name. Our DOWN and UP: SLIDE #: Luke 12:33-34: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor; provide purses for yourselves which won’t wear out, a treasure in heaven.” To Cornelius: Acts 10:4: “The angel answered, your prayers and your gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.” This is why the Macedonians gave so much. DRAW SLIDE #: They looked down the ladder at Jesus and they saw the people farther down the ladder. SLIDE #: WHY DID THE CORINTHIANS GIVE SO LITTLE? Paul compared them with others and they weren’t doing so well. SLIDE #: 2 CORINTHIANS 8:10-11: And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. 11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. There is a great difference between promise and performance. The Corinthians boasted a year before that they would share in the collection, but they did not keep their promise. SLIDE #: [with title and space for writing below the title] #: WHY DID THE CORINTHIANS GIVE SO LITTLE? Struggled to give themselves to the Lord. Returned to fear, (probably not afraid, they had plenty of money Will we have enough? Greed and materialism? Yes. The result: They stopped looking down the ladder. They had gone up the ladder and forgotten what it was like at the bottom of the ladder. DRAW SLIDE #: It is not those who are most wealthy and who are most generous. People at the bottom of the ladder tend to give much more generously than people at the top. “It is the poor who help the poor,” because they know what poverty is like. Most generous givers are in the $10,000 to $20,000 bracket – 18% to charity Over $100,000 bracket give less than 1.5 % to charity. Why did the Corinthians give so little? SLIDE #: IN TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES, WHAT WOULD JESUS HAVE ME TO DO? 1. LOOK DOWN THE LADDER AND GIVE ACCORDINGLY. Man last week met me at the blue tent: “I live high on the ladder. I don’t know many people down the ladder anymore. I want to help some one. You know who is down the ladder.” Handed me eight $100 bills. Is that an encouragement or what? Better if he were to climb down the ladder. I REMEMBER ROBERT SIMPSON. Casas People looked down the Ladder. I talked to Robert this week. He did not have a picture available. But this one can easily represent him. Robert is in his late 40s-early 50s. Moved to Tucson from Louisville, KY this summer. Had diabetes for several years; but when he arrived diabetes went out of control. He has not been able to work. Was falling through the cracks. Met some Casas folks. We began to minister to him and his family. This week his foot was amputated. I called him Thursday night to check on him. “Been to a lot of churches: Casas really has heart. Will you thank your congregation this Sunday for all they have done for me? Tell them thanks.” What if you don’t have very much at all? What if you are at the bottom of the Ladder? You are a single mom; or husband is not a Xn and does not want you to give to the Lord? SLIDE #: 2 CORINTHIANS 8:12: For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have. God sees the “heart gift” and not the “hand gift”. If the heart wanted to give more, but was unable to do so, God sees it and records it accordingly. SLIDE #: [Christmas tree with packages being opened]. To practice looking down the ladder, generosity in touch time, I’m going to encourage you to consider starting living differently by doing Christmas this year differently. Typically Christmas is the time where we amp up our consumerism even more, buying a bunch of things for each other to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. Often we even say, “Oh, I hate buying for him or her. They are so hard to buy for.” Why? Because they already have everything they need, and if they need something they just get it. So why are we buying something then? Sit with family and decide how much to spend on each. Don’t spend it all on self: give to someone in need? If you have a 5 year old kid or an 8 year old, don’t give them this little piece of paper that says, “I gave your Christmas gift money away this year to the poor. Merry Christmas.” Don’t do that to kids, but why not consider limiting it considerably. Most of our kids are not destitute. You can even include them in the conversation. Let them decide how much to enjoy themselves and how much to give. For your friends our spouse, get creative and spend less so that you can give more. Every Christmas we take an out-of-control consumer culture and then drink consumerism red bull, get all hyped up in our spending, then we have this crash in January. Let’s do this Christmas differently. At the Jewish Feast of Purim there is a regulation which says that, however poor a man is, he must find someone poorer than himself and give him a gift. Make this Christmas like the Feast of Purim: Find someone who is less fortunate and help them. Be like Jesus: climb down the ladder. Hard, to give down the ladder: because we don’t know many who are down the ladder. Start with some around you. Travel so much, need housekeeper. (up the ladder) House keeper has less than we do. Looked down the ladder and gave her money to buy Christmas for her children. SLIDE #: 3. BE LIKE JESUS: DON’T JUST LOOK DOWN THE LADDER, CLIMB DOWN. Eric and Joyce Small – First Steps Ministry at Casas: Climb down the ladder spiritually. Tucson Saturday Night – Evangelize Saturday on 4th street. Go down to park at 22nd and 6th where homeless people hang out and take food and visit with them and share the gospel. Rancho Feliz: Aqua Pieta Orphanage – John and Karin Jenning’s Sunday School class Playhouse and playground; Chapel built by Casas and funded by a N. Carolina church; new basketball court with Casas members and orphanage kids. Senior Adult Care Groups Adopt a Single Mom Ministry headed by Bill and Dot Hutchison – mentoring, benevolence needs, grandparent the children.

LOOKING INTO THE HEART OF GOD LUKE 15 S-1720 A small boy was writing a letter to God about the Christmas presents he badly wanted. “I’ve been good for six months now,” he wrote. But after a moment’s reflection he crossed out “six months” and wrote “three.” After a pause, he crossed that out and put “two weeks.” There was another pause, and that was crossed out too. He got up from the table and went over to the little nativity scene that had the figures of Mary and Joseph. He picked up the figure of Mary and went back to his writing and started again: “Dear God, if ever you want to see your mother again…” Bronwyn Lea, our youngest daughter, had one treasured possession in her young life—a bald Cabbage Patch doll named Otis Lee. Otis stole her heart. Otis had a hard life. First of all, he had the smelly task of living under Bronwyn’s armpit day and night. Once Becky, our Border Collie, fancied Otis as a chew-toy. Besides dragging the plastic heartthrob through dog-poop, several teeth-marks had penetrated Otis’ skull. After major surgery and some duct tape, Otis survived. We’re not sure whether he had brain damage. Then there was the time when older sister, Brianna Lynn had finally taken all the pestering she could stand from her little sister. She watched the weather channel to find a rainy night in July. After dark, Brie slipped Otis under a very deeply planted rosebush and waited for the mud to bury Otis alive. Brie’s act was ruthless, pre-meditated dolly murder. Of course, Bronwyn was inconsolable. The search for Otis Lea was organized. Finally, after several hours Otis was found. Bronwyn was in hysterics. In desperation, Julie threw Otis in the washer on perma-press. Although the rubber body parts were slightly deformed, Bronwyn didn’t mind. Otis slept in her bed for years. As time went on her infatuation with Otis Lea faded. She began to focus on bigger fish. That is when she found Richard—or perhaps Richard found Bronwyn. We knew things were serious when Bronwyn went shopping for a wedding dress. She found just the perfect one and wanted to buy it. “But, Bronwyn, he has not even proposed.” “That’s OK. This dress is so good it will go with any guy.” So, we bought it. Today, Ricky has completely replaced Otis Lea. We are quite pleased that they found each other. Besides that, Richard is washable. In many ways Christmas is all about God’s search to find those who are Lost and bring them safely into His fold. Some of us today are lost. That is why God put on a body and came to earth: to seek and to save the lost. Turn to Luke 15: This one of those special Bible passages that allow us to look right into his heart. READ LUKE 15:3: Then Jesus told them this parable: Jesus told three stories. All are about searching for the lost until he or she is found. First, He told of a shepherd who had 100 sheep—and one sheep wandered away on its own and was lost. Then, He told of a woman who had 10 coins—and she lost one. This coin was lost as a result of her carelessness. Finally, He told of a father who had two sons—and in rebellion, his younger son was lost. First, the shepherd had 100 sheep and one was lost. READ LUKE 15:4-7. Isaiah 53:6. “All we like sheep have gone astray.” Sheep lost through aimless wandering. Walked Philippino girl through the gospel in LA. She was wandering aimlessly through making so many bad choices—and she was miserable. Next, he told of a woman who had 10 coins and she lost one. READ LUKE 15:8-10. How was the piece of silver lost? It was not to blame for being lost. It was lost through the carelessness of others. There are multitudes who are lost today because of someone else’s carelessness. Perhaps someone else lost you. What do you mean? Story: Carol Painter’s testimony: lost in church; found Christ at Casas. “I was raised in the home of devout, but not yet saved Catholic parents. “God has always been the center of my life, and as a young girl, I fully intended to become a nun. “Then at the age of 21, I experienced a spiritual betrayal by my church. I asked for a dispensation to one of the basic tenets of the church…and I got. A dispensation is a priestly approved exceptions to one of the principles of God’s Word. “I got the answer that I thought I wanted, but I left that afternoon in a daze. All I could think was: The Bible is either true, or it’s not true. And if it’s God’s truth, no man can give a dispensation or make an exception. In that moment, I realized everything I had held nearest and dearest was a sham. I was following a work of man, not a work of God. And I was devastated. “I was like the little girl who had sat all her life under a big, tall oak tree for shelter and protection. Then one day a mighty wind came and blew the oak tree down, and when the little girl looked inside, she saw that it was hollow. I went through a terrible time. At first it was shock, then the overwhelming sense of loss and pain, and then the anger. I left the church. Worse, I left God, too. “Yet when I look back on that time, I see God’s hand of grace. I came to realize that the problem wasn’t God. The problem was man and what he does with the things of God. “So I determined to start again, to begin my search anew. I knew He was there, and I was determined to find Him. “My search was to last over 30 years. I spent the last 20 years of it in the New Age Movement. Of course, I was searching for Him in all the wrong places. “Then on the Sunday before God would save me, I was talking after church with a friend. This was one of several who I later learned were praying me into God’s kingdom. I told my friend about my long held belief in reincarnation, explaining that reincarnation made perfect sense to me as a morally responsible philosophy. But recently I had the thought to ignore the philosophy and to focus only on a “last life.” When I did that, suddenly I had a serious question: How are we ever going to make the leap to God? No one will ever live a perfect life. “The following Sunday, at Casas Adobes Baptist Church in Tucson, Arizona – Pastor Roger Barrier stepped to the front of the platform. With no opening statement of any kind, he quietly repeated my exact words from the previous week. He said, “No one will ever live a perfect life. It is our belief in His Son that makes us perfect in God’s eyes and allows us to be with Him through eternity.” “And in that moment, God touched me and I was changed. I was different, and I knew it. I know the moment before, and I know the moment after. I know the exact moment in time when God saved me. “I still had a lifetime of questions, but suddenly they didn’t matter. Somehow I knew it would all be sorted out. Because I also knew I now had the answer… I knew Who was the answer. The answer is Jesus Christ. “As a little girl in the Catholic Church, I knew Jesus was the Son of God. And I knew Him as Savior. But in that moment, He became my Savior. Perhaps even more remarkable, I knew He had just become the Lord of my life. “There’s nothing quite like 52 years of hunger and searching to recognize, to taste and see that the Lord is good. I had been feeding on cardboard all of my life and suddenly was set before me the Bread of Life. I was ravenous. I’m ravenous still. I picked up a Bible for the first time 7 years ago, and in essence, I’ve never put it down. I have devoured God’s Word, and His Word truly is life to all who find it. “All I did to receive this incomprehensible gift from God was to say yes. Yes. I’ve been saying yes to Him ever since. By the power of His Holy Spirit, I intend to keep right on saying yes to Him, as a way to love Him back. As a way to thank Him for what He has done for me, to thank Him for the precious gift He has given to me. “It’s been a long road home, but I am home indeed.” Many lambs have been lost by churches over the years. I am sorry if you got lost at the hands of a church—or dropped and lost by anyone one else that you thought were spiritual—you thought were Christians. Next, He told of a father who had two sons and he lost one. Tell story of LUKE 15:11-24. READ LUKE 15:20-24 This striking expression – “came to himself” – puts the state of rebellion against God as a kind of madness. LA lawyer in rebellion—witnessed and he agonized over the decision. Wept and wept and refused to give up his life to Christ. This is not aimless wandering. This is not a losing through carelessness. This is deliberate, self-centered choice to turn away from the Father and the Father’s house. NOW LET’S LOOK RIGHT INTO THE HEART OF GOD. WHAT DO WE SEE? 1. GOD SEES MANKIND AS LOST. Jesus seldom called people sinners; He called them lost. Countless multitudes are lost in sin, but our God is the God of the lost, and longs for their return. : 2. GOD’S HEART ACHES FOR THE LOST. The shepherd is suffering because a lamb is lost. The woman is suffering because her coin is lost. The father who knows the depths of agony as he waits on the porch for his boy to come home. : 3. GOD THROWS HIS WHOLE HEART INTO FINDING THE LOST. Jesus came to die: “I came to seek and to save the ones who are Lost. “Greater love has no man than this—to lay down his life for his friends.” : 4. GOD’S HEART FILLS WITH JOY EACH TIME A LOST SOUL US FOUND. Angels rejoice when Shepherd finds a lost soul. Woman called all her neighbors to come and rejoice with her when she found the lost coin. Father throws a party of rejoicing when the lost Son comes home. ONE NIGHT I REALIZED I WAS LOST. I CAME TO CHRIST from this passage. was lost and then I was found. LIGHT THE Christ CANDLE: Candle of light. Imagine Christ searching in the dark to find you. How close are you personally to Christ? : Spiritual growth graph: never heard gospel; hostile; almost there: like a marriage, say yes, you’re ready describe future growth. Pray a prayer in just a moment so you can come to Christ. Invite you wherever you are on the graph to move to 0 and +1. Begin the journey. During the next song—It is time for you to give up your kingdom to enter into the kingdom of Christ. Some of you are Lost Sheep—wandering aimlessly—like the Pilipino girl. Let’s say that she is a (-5): God was searching for her (she went from -5 to 0 in about twenty minutes. Some of you have gone your own way. Not really thinking about Christ. Your are sick of the failures in your life. You have wandered aimlessly for far too long. You don’t know what the right path looks like but you know you don’t have it. Trying so hard to get your life together and it is just not working. Failed marriage; failed job; great job and you are absolutely miserable—because you have ignored the people you loved best—and they have walked out the door. You need to come to Christ. Maybe you are a (-8) like the LA lawyer: agonized, wept and wept knew the stakes and said no and refused to give up his life to Christ. Relatively far from God and in fact somewhat antagonistic to the things of Christ. Maybe some ways you felt that God let you down? Time to get a new perspective. Been hurt by the way Christian hypocrites act. Maybe cheated by a Christian repair man. Lost all respect for Christ because of the way some Christians behave—I am better than they are. I don’t need their Jesus. I am sorry for the people who have let you down and disappointed you. It was not supposed to be that way. The Father is waiting with outstretched arms for you. In a minute I am going to invite you home. : Maybe you are a minus (-1) or (-2). Someone else lost you. But you are searching and you are right near coming to Christ. Carol Painter’s testimony: lost in church; found Christ at Casas. Some of you are right there. You were hurt by some church or someone in the church and you left hurt and disillusioned. You would love to believe that you could be found by the real God. You have been afraid you might somehow be rejected again by your last church—or by some who claimed to be Christians and they rejected you. You are thinking right now about surrendering you life to Christ. You are longing to invite Christ into your life. Why don’t you do so today. Wherever you are on the scale, you can go from a -8 to a 0 in an instant. imagine Jesus searching in the dark to find you. EXPLAIN HOW TO RECEIVE CHRIST. ☻SLIDE #24: READ John 1:12: Bow your head for a moment WHILE I INVITE YOU TO MEDITATE DURING THE UPCOMING SONG. CUE: Please bow your heads (Praise team into place–(Roger talks while heads are bowed.) If you are not yet a Christ follower—still on the negative side of the scale, would you consider inviting Christ into your life today? Lost and aimless sheep—God is searching for you Hurt and wounded sheep—God is searching for you Rebellious sheep—God is searching for you In a moment I will invite you to pray this prayer with me inviting Christ into your life. But, lets read it first so you can meditate on it when Brittany sings in just a moment. : Dear Jesus, I am one of those lost sheep you talked about. I am tired of being lost. I am ready to be found. Living life on my own is so exhausting. I am so tired of trying. I have broken my conscience. I am sorry for my sins, for the things I have done wrong, that hurt You and the people around me.” Please forgive me. I am ready for a new start—forgiven—a new life lived in partnership with You—the one designed for me to live before I was even born. I don’t want to live by my plan anymore. I want your peace? I want you kingdom? I want your forgiveness. I want your life. I now invite you into my life to be my Lord and my Savior. Thank you. Amen. Listen to song and after song I am going to ask you to invite Christ into your life. If Believer: Pray for those who still struggle with their unbelief. SONG: Hungry by Brittney Gelatt MANY OF YOU ARE LONGING TO RECEIVE Christ. MAY i Invite you to pray a prayer with me. Dear Jesus, I am one of those lost sheep you talked about. I am tired of being lost. I am ready to be found. Living life on my own is so exhausting. I am so tired of trying. I have broken my conscience. I am sorry for my sins, for the things I have done wrong, that hurt You and the people around me.” Please forgive me. I am ready for a new start—forgiven—a new life lived in partnership with You—the one designed for me to live before I was even born. I don’t want to live by my plan anymore. I want your peace? I want you kingdom? I want your forgiveness. I want your life. I now invite you into my life to be my Lord and my Savior. Thank you. Amen. Who prayed that prayer? Raise hands. : All stand. If you prayed that prayer I want to ASK YOU TO COME FORWARD: Big step. Walk down aisle and meet me in these next moments. If alone or scared, tap someone on the shoulder and ask them to walk down with you. You have tried for so long to keep your life all together, there is life—the life of Jesus Christ and you can enter in today. If you prayed that prayer, come. Counselors and pastors here to explain and pray with you; Bible for you as you begin your new spiritual journey. Ask a friend to come with you—or the person next to you. Many raised hands who didn’t come. “I can make it on my own.” No, need others. Why do that. Come to Christ in the context of others. Help you get way down the road. RESPONSE SONG of worship: Sing while you come forward. EVERYONE SINGING: HUNGRY AFFIRM THOSE WHO HAVE COME (applause) Congratulations to those who have come. Clap. MOVE TO BACKSTAGE: If you didn’t come, come on back. worship leader close service.

Was the star of Bethlehem a miraculous astronomical phenomenon — a brilliant light hanging just above the stable where Jesus was born?  Perhaps This popular image is what most people think of when reading of the visit of the Magi recorded in Matthew chapter 2.  But a little digging into the astronomical and archeological past of the Middle East yields other possibilities. First, it’s important to understand that, despite popular notions, the Bible states clearly that the Magi did not visit the nativity.  By the time they did visit the Christ child he was a “paidion” or toddler.  Matthew’s account also states that He lived in a house, not a stable.  So it was at least several months after the nativity that the wise men visited Jesus. There are a number of theories as to what the star was.  But two theories set forth by astronomers and biblical scholars as to what was happening in the heavens around the time of Christ’s birth emerge as the most likely.  Because the stars and planets follow very precise patterns of movement, it is a relatively simple matter for today’s scientists to extrapolate back to the time of the nativity to determine what the Magi may have seen. But first, it might be helpful to understand just who the Magi were.  Most scholars agree that these wise men were from the former Babylonian and Persian empires.  Magi were a caste of astronomers and mathematicians, well versed in the sciences of their day.  They were most likely from the city of Sippar, which for centuries had been a well-known center for astronomical study.  Modern day archeologists have discovered clay tablets from the second millennium B.C. in this part of the world that reveal a high degree of astronomical sophistication among the ancients.  The study of astronomy was already over 4,000 years old at the time of Christ. It is important to remember that all heavenly bodies, except the sun and moon, were considered “stars” to the ancient world.  Individual stars, planets, and constellations had meaning not only to the Magi’s native culture but to the Hebrews as well.   For instance, to the Hebrews, Pisces represented the nation of Israel.  Saturn denoted Jerusalem.  And Jupiter designated royalty.  The Jews, as opposed to other ancient cultures, did not see the heavenly bodies as influencing events here on earth, but as signs from God of what was to happen. The Magi, no doubt, were well versed in the Hebrew interpretation of the heavens.  The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C., carrying away thousands of Hebrews into captivity.  During the time of the captivity Daniel rose to prominence in the King’s court and was eventually placed in charge of all the kingdom’s wise men, as recorded in Daniel chapter two.  This may have been one of the primary conduits by which the Hebrew interpretations of the meanings of the stars made their way to the culture of the Magi. Even after King Cyrus of the Persians, who had conquered Babylon, allowed the Hebrews to return to their land in 538 B.C., most of them had been so assimilated into Babylonian culture that they stayed.  So there were several hundred years of cultural cross-pollination that would have allowed the Magi to be well acquainted not only with how the Hebrews interpreted the signs in the heavens but Hebrew prophecy as well. The Book of Daniel predicted that the time of the Messiah would come 483 years after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. This also was likely known by the Magi mentioned in the book of Matthew, so it would not be surprising if they knew the Jewish Messiah was to be born around their time.  The Hebrews also expected their Messiah to be born in the tiny village of Bethlehem as predicted in the book of Micah; a fact also probably known by the learned wise men. One of the theories espoused by modern day scholars and scientists as to what celestial events may have tipped off the Magi involves a series of unusual planetary conjunctions.  On May 29, 7 B.C. Saturn, representing Jerusalem, came together with Jupiter, representing royalty, in the constellation of Pisces, representing the nation of Israel.  The Magi could have calculated that a single conjunction of the two planets would normally occur only once in 804 years.  But when the same conjunction took place in the constellation of Pisces on October 3 and December 4 of the same year, its meaning took on even greater significance.  The final conjunction on December 4 coincided with the Hebrew Day of Atonement, deeply significant since Jesus is the final atonement for our sins.  Then, in the spring of 6 B.C., the two planets again joined within Pisces.  But what followed in July, 5 B.C. even the Magi could not have calculated.  A nova, an exploding star, suddenly appeared.  Ancient Chinese astronomical records reveal that this nova was so bright it could even be seen during the day. If the Magi took this as their cue to begin their journey toward Bethlehem, they would have arrived in October of that year, after the three-month journey from their land to the land of Israel.  The Bible records that they stopped in Jerusalem to inquire where “he who has been born King of the Jews” could be found.  Modern astronomers confirm that in October, 5 B.C., from the vantage point of Jerusalem, the great nova stood directly over Bethlehem, five miles south of Jerusalem. But another theory has been offered by astronomers and has been even more widely accepted than the theory explained above.  It actually continues on where the previous theory leaves off.  The planetary conjunctions between 7 B.C. and 6 B.C. no doubt had great significance to the Magi regardless of which theory one holds to.  But astronomical calculations demonstrate that there were several others to follow within the next four years, making the years 7 B.C. through 2 B.C. a spectacular period of planetary conjunctions.   Even modern-day astronomers have taken special note of this remarkable series of rare conjunctions. On August 12, 3 B.C. Jupiter, the royal planet, came into conjunction with Venus in the constellation Leo.  Venus for millennia has been known as the “morning star.”  Revelation 22:16 refers to Jesus as the “bright and morning star,” an obvious reference to Venus.  Leo is the Lion, the constellation associated with Judah, the genetic line from which the Messiah was to come.  On September 14, 3 B.C. Jupiter came into conjunction with the star Regulus in the constellation Leo.  Regulus was known as the king star and is understood by some scholars to be the star of the Jewish Messiah. On February 17, 2 B.C. Jupiter and Regulus again were in conjunction in Leo. On May 8, 2 B.C. Jupiter and Regulus again were in conjunction in Leo. On June 17, 2 B.C. Jupiter and Venus were again in conjunction in Leo, this time so close together (.04 degrees) that they appeared to be one brilliant star.  Astronomer Roger W. Sinnott, writing in the December, 1968 edition of the astronomical journal “Sky and Telescope,” said, “This fusion of two planets would have been a rare and awe-inspiring event.” On August 27, 2 B.C. four planets; Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Mercury amassed in the constellation Leo in one dramatic display.  Perhaps this significant event cued the Magi to begin their journey. Notice that all ten of the astronomical events involved the planet Jupiter.  It is interesting to note that the Hebrew word for the planet Jupiter is “ssedeq”, meaning “righteousness”.  The Bible tells us that Jesus, who sacrificed himself to pay for our sins, is “our righteousness.”   As mentioned before, Jupiter was also considered the “royal” planet. The Messiah, according to prophecy, was to be of royal lineage.  The Magi asked where they could find the “king of the Jews.”  And Jesus declared himself “king of the Jews.”  Some scholars and astronomers therefore conclude that “his star”, referred to by the Magi, was Jupiter.  The year 3 B.C. is considered the most likely year for Jesus’s birth by many historians.  Ancient historical writings provide support for this date.  This would coincide with the astronomical events observed by the Magi and their arrival in Israel when Jesus was a toddler, probably sometime in 2 B.C.  One other astronomical event in that year may carry significance as well.  Due to a planet’s relative position to the Earth, it sometimes appears to stand still in the sky for several days.  This is called “retrograde” by astronomers.   In December, 2 B.C. the planet Jupiter “stopped”  in the constellation Virgo, the Virgin.  It remained there for several days.  The Bible says that while the Magi were in Jerusalem they saw “his star” stop over Bethlehem.  The word rendered “stop” can also be interpreted “stood over” and may refer to the fact that Jupiter reached its meridian or highest point.  At that time Jupiter would have been seen from Jerusalem in its meridian position 68 degrees above the southern horizon — directly above Bethlehem.  Whether either of two theories is the correct one, there can be no doubt that the celestial events of 7 B.C. through 2 B.C. were highly unusual for their astronomical significance; and quite possibly their prophetic significance.

Isaiah 9:6-7 Have you ever had a song get stuck in your head like an ear worm? A song you can’t stop singing or hearing even if no sound is being made. When I was praying and asking God what Christmas passage he would like me to teach on. I started hearing a song in my head from Handel’s Messiah. This was kind of weird because I don’t usually listen to classical music, but there is one song from Handel’s Messiah that I love. I started hearing this song the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night as I was going to bed. The song goes like this.             For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. Unto us a son is given.             For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. Unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shou-lders. And the government shall be upon his shou-lders. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, The Pri- -nce of Peace.   And then the refrain repeats itself again. When this chorus got stuck in my ear I knew that I had to find the passage in the scriptures where this prophetic promise of Messiah’s rule and reign is found, and that brought me to Isaiah 9:6-7 the passage I want us to look at today. Isaiah 9:6-7             6) For a child will be born for us,      a son will be given to us,      and the government will be on his shoulders.                    He will be named                  Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,                  Eternal Father, Prince of Peace             7) The dominion will be vast,                  And its prosperity will never end.                  He will reign on the throne of David                  and over his kingdom,                  to establish and sustain it                  with justice and righteousness from now on and forever.                  The zeal of the LORD of Armies will accomplish this. CSB If we want to understand Messiah’s rule and reign we must recognize the difference between Jesus first and second coming. In today’s passage in Isaiah 9:6 we have a prophecy about the first and second coming of Christ all wrapped up in one verse. Which as you can imagine is confusing. In verse 6 we find a son will be born, a son will be given, and the government will be upon his shoulders.  What part of this prophecy has come true? Has the son has been given? Yes, but we have yet to see the government placed on Messiah’s shoulders. This second prophecy has not been fulfilled. It is easy to see why the Jews in Jesus day were perplexed by his earthly ministry when they were diligently following passages like this one. In his first coming Jesus came as a helpless baby, but in his second coming he will reign on David’s throne. It might help if we could think of biblical prophecies as mountain peaks. Two future predictions placed within a passage do not necessarily have to occur at the exact same time for them to be true. In fact there may be millenniums between two prophecies found within the same verse. For a minute think about looking at the Catalina Mountains here in Tucson. When we gaze on the mountains it is not easy to determine how deep or wide is a canyon that lays between two different mountain peaks. My back porch faces Pima Canyon and unless there is a storm that is only brewing in Pima Canyon, which occasionally does happen, from the back of my house I can’t tell that there is even a canyon there. I know Pima Canyon exist because I have hiked it many times, but from a distance the front of the mountains look flat to the naked eye. If we were to hike to the top of one of the summits in the Catalina Mountain range, or better yet climbed aboard an airplane or helicopter, and flew over the peaks, we would recognize how far apart and large is the chasm which lies between the mountain tops. Like mountain peaks viewed from the air, time has given the modern readers of scripture the ability to recognize Isaiah 9:6 is talking about two different future events, the first and the second comings of Christ. The Hebrews did not have this privilege. This is why we always want to try to interpret prophecy with great humility. Just like, the first century Jews who were eagerly studying the scriptures, we simply may not have all the facts to fully understand everything that is being foretold in a passage. As we move into this Christmas seasons to celebrate Jesus birth, I want to encourage you to give some room in this busy season, to also consider Jesus’ second coming. Are we ready for Jesus’ rule and reign upon the earth? Jesus’ second coming is just as important to the Christmas story as his birth. If we want to understand Messiah’s rule and reign we must recognize the power found in God’s names. When I was giving birth, back in the dark ages before the internet, you had to go to a book store and buy a book with baby names in it to search for the perfect name you would bestow on your child. Now young parents can do a quick search on the internet for baby names, but it wasn’t so easy when I was giving birth. “What is your favorite name and why?” Names in the Bible are very significant. Sometimes a name may be given because of a specific circumstance like what happened to Moses. Moses’ name means drawn from the water (Ex. 2:10). You will remember that Pharaoh’s daughter drew him from the Nile River where his mother had placed him in a basket, when Pharaoh had decreed that all the Hebrew baby boys must be killed. Sometimes a given name was prophetic in the Bible. John the Baptist’s first name John means God’s gracious gift. As he prepared the way for Jesus’ earthly ministry he became a gift for all. Sometimes a name describes a relationship. When God appeared to Moses at the burning bush he said, “I am the God of your father – The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” (Ex. 3:6) With this name God was revealing his activity within a family. He wanted to encourage Moses with his name by reminding him, “I was faithful to your fathers and I will be faithful to you too.” Look at the names given to the coming Messiah in Isaiah 9:6.Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Eternal Father and the Prince of Peace. The number of names that appear in this passage depends on how many commas you use. The ancient manuscripts that our modern translations come from did not use punctuation the way we do. Handel in his composition of the Messiah set apart one of God’s names to be “Wonderful”. The CSB combines Wonderful with Counselor to name the coming Christ. I personally like isolating “Wonderful” as one of Jesus’ names because this name describes his character so well. In the New Testament who is given the name Counselor? It is the third person of the trinity the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). I would like you to consider that several of the names that Isaiah mentions are used to identify the three persons of the trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The name Counselor illustrates the work the Holy Spirit does in our lives, The Everlasting Father describes the first person of the trinity our Eternal Father, and the name Prince of Peace describes Jesus the Son of God and his redemptive work for us through the power of his sacrifice. In an age of extreme Roman cruelty Jesus will lead a peaceful revolution. He will not encourage the overthrow of any earthly government, but he will bring peace. In addition, to these three names usually attributed to the trinity, comes the name Mighty God. This name confirms Messiah’s divinity. This baby that is born on Christmas will be fully God and fully man. So, these names are significant because they describe the triune God and signify that Messiah will be divine. There is power in these names. As the ear worm I gave you earlier from Handel’s Messiah circulates through your mind, continue to meditate on the power of these names. If we want to understand the Messiah’s rule and reign we must recognize the LORD of Armies enthusiasm to complete his eternal plans. In Isaiah 9:7 our prophet returns to the topic of King Jesus and the time when the government will rest on his shoulders. Here in verse 7 he will go into great detail but before we discuss what that will look like I want us to go to the end of the verse. Look at the phrase at the end of Isaiah 9:7 where it reads, “…The zeal of the LORD of Armies will accomplish this.” God and God alone will establish and orchestrate the second coming of King Jesus. Again names in the Bible have incredible insight. The LORD of Armies is a name that appears 285 times in the Old Testament. Language changes over time and English has certainly changed a lot since the translation of the King James Bible. In many English translations the “LORD of Armies” is translated the “LORD of Host” or the “LORD Almighty”. Host is an old English word which means armies. But, for modern readers when they hear the word “host” they think of the person at a restaurant that takes their reservation. For this reason I like the choice of the “LORD of Armies” to describe God’s mighty power and sway over the armies of this world, and the angelic forces. God is in control. It may look like world leaders and military forces are exercising their power, but that is not true. God can say to an army come here and to another army go there. He is the LORD of Armies. This doesn’t mean God is responsible for the bloodshed and injustices of earthly armies. It means he is never thwarted by any military force. Isaiah 9:7 ends with this promise “…The zeal of the LORD of Armies will accomplish this.” The word translated zeal could also be translated enthusiasm or passion. We can trust in this second coming prophecy because the LORD of Armies will make it happen. He is enthusiastically and diligently planning the day when Jesus will reign over all the earth. This has never happened in the history of the world and no earthly government will ever be able to bring this about. With that understanding let’s go back and look in detail at the Messiah’s rule and reign by reading Isaiah 9:7 again. The dominion will be vast, And its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David And over his kingdom, To establish and sustain it With justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the LORD of Armies will accomplish this. CSB Isaiah prophesied that the dominion of this kingdom will be vast. Dominion is a word that is referring to Jesus’ sovereignty and control. Dominion can also be referencing the geographical size of Messiah’s kingdom. His rule will be vast and nothing is going to be able to stop Jesus’ reign. Next Isaiah says, “…its prosperity will never end”. In the scriptures the word prosperity means more than a financial windfall. With biblical prosperity we are always talking about gifts of safety, security and peace, but not necessarily extreme earthly wealth. Biblical prosperity always promises enough resources. With God’s rule and reign there is always enough to feed and clothe ourselves, and always enough to be generous and help our neighbor. In Christ’s second coming Jesus will rule on the throne of David, which is a prophecy which points to his earthly linage, and the sight of David’s former kingdom. God will establish and sustain his kingdom with justice and righteousness from now on and forever more, in his second coming. This means we can start enjoying Jesus’ reign now this side of his second coming. This happens every time someone makes Jesus the king of their heart. As westerners we often think of justice as merely punishment, but this definition limits the biblical view of justice. For example: if I stole in our western legal system I would be sent to jail for my crime and if possible I would be forced to return what I stole. But, the Hebrew word translated justice means something more than incarceration or the returning of stolen goods. Mishpat which is the Hebrew word we translate justice, is an action oriented word that means righting and correcting a wrong. For example in Provers 6:30-31we read that thieves who get caught stealing must pay back seven times what was stolen because they didn’t just steal a material possession, they broke a relationship and fractured someone’s trust. So, when Isaiah writes that Messiah will establish and sustain David’s kingdom with justice, he is foretelling that all be made right in God’s kingdom. True biblical justice brings restitution, restoration and freedom from the pain and consequences of sin in our lives. Righteousness is also an important Hebrew word. Tzedakah which is the Hebrew word we translate righteousness refers to living in a right relationship with people. It means we will not take advantage of others. Again “Righteousness” is more than living a moral life where we have a list of things we will not do. Tzedakah is talking about what we will do. The righteous will love their neighbor as themselves. In the Jewish Bible, the righteous acts of God are translated as “abundant benevolences” or “gracious deliverances”. Jesus tied our righteousness to charitable giving in Matthew 6:1-3 and modern Jews still combine the word we translate righteousness with the concept of generous giving. We learn from these two words that our relationship with God is deeply connected to how we treat others. This kingdom that Jesus’ return will usher in, will be built on a highly relational justice and righteousness. By defining these two words we see the priority God gives to the quality of our relationships.   If we want to understand the Messiah’s rule and reign we must recognize the difference between Jesus’ first and second coming, the power found in God’s names, and the LORD of Armies enthusiasm to complete his eternal plans. The LORD of Armies is passionate about bringing and establishing Messiah’s dominion. He is excited to bring his message of salvation to the nations, and to those unreached people groups who have yet to hear of Jesus’ love for them. He is zealous to establish his eternal plans. When the good news of the kingdom of God has spread to all the world then the end will come and when it comes Jesus’ reign will have no end. In this holiday season as we shop, wrap our gifts, decorate our homes, or bake for our earthly celebrations of Jesus’ birth, let’s also make sure we have prepared our hearts for Jesus’ second coming. When he returns the next time he will not come as a helpless baby. And, the good news is we don’t have to wait for the end of time to experience Jesus’ rule and reign. These blessings that flow through Messiah’s kingship can be enjoyed right now when we personally make him the King of our hearts. Listen to the promises provided for us when our sovereign king has complete dominion. The dominion will be vast, And its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David And over his kingdom, To establish and sustain it With justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the LORD of Armies will accomplish this. CSB Just like the LORD of Armies skillfully and successfully orchestrated that first Christmas we can rest knowing he is also bringing about Messiah’s second return. The truth is in every heart there is a throne and the question we must ask is who is sitting on that throne? Are we in charge or is God? Jesus, our Prince of Peace has brokered an incredible peace deal between us and our Maker. He wants us to exchange our war torn feelings of exhaustion and guilt, and receive his genuine peace (Ephesians 2:13-14). Today we can be reconciled with God because of the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross. This Christmas I want to actively encourage us to crown Jesus as the king of our lives.

So we would love to have you… no matter where you are out in the globe, to relocate your life to beautiful northwest Montana and take part in what God is doing right here at Fresh Life Church as He builds His church all across the world. Go to freshlife.church/college for more information. I also want to throw out there that we released a Christmas single. And you can listen to that on Spotify and on iTunes. It’s called “Do You Hear What I Hear”? It’s a special version of it that we put out as we celebrated the idea of we, the church, being the sound of heaven, the sound of heaven in our lives, this beautiful glow and glory. We heard that from my wife, Jennie, as she preached it up last weekend. So check out that single. It’s a great version. Check that out. If you missed that message, please listen. Because our Christmas series, our Christmas season, it began last week as we did that. Also, I want to let you know that the Spitfire Fund is still open. And we’re seeing people all over the country and world contribute towards the Spitfire Fund. And we’re off to a great start. But we’re not going to let off the gas for a minute. Because many of us still haven’t given yet. So it’s still your opportunity. Go to Fresh Life church and give there on the website. You can contribute and be a part of making a difference through the Spitfire Fund, all the outreach initiatives and all the things that God has put into our heart in the coming year. And it really is a powerful way to launch into a new year just supercharged in your spiritual faith, which is what giving does, which is what generosity does. You talk about a runner’s high. There’s an endorphin that comes from giving. There’s a grace that comes from giving. And quite frankly, there’s not a better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus than by giving something towards. That’s what the wise men knew. They gave towards him. They brought gold. They brought frankincense. And so as you think about the year end and you’re making decisions, many of us, with taxes and all the rest of that, prioritize God’s kingdom. As you build His house, let me just tell you something, He will take care of yours. And so join the cause. Join the great Spitfire Fund that’s already ongoing. Two quick things and then we’ll jump into our time of Bible study. We are going to be having church on December 27. Normally, we take the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s off. But we’ve taken enough church off this year. So we’re having church on December 27. Join us for the last Sunday of the year. Worship Jesus. We’d love to have you online, on our YouTube, I actually joke because we haven’t taken church off at all. But we are going to have church. God put it in my heart. We’re having church on December 27. We’re going to end the year worshiping God. It’s going to be great. So I’d love to have you out for that. Of course, we have Christmas Eve first. Y’all, Christmas Eve is going to be incredible. Christmas Eve, December 24. We have three opportunities, 2 PM, 4 PM, 6 PM. Everywhere that you are is where church is: YouTube, Facebook, Church Online Platform, our app, all that. We have put together a very special worship experience, different from what you’re going to experience today, something for the whole family. So we thought, man, we got to have the kids together. Because normally we do a kids thing, which is amazing. First Life Kids is fantastic. Sometimes, I watch it. I’m like, I want to go to that more than I want to do what I’m doing. But Mr. Sky is a part of it. He’s incredible. There’s a lot to love about Fresh Life Kids. But we decided to put a program together for everybody. And so Fresh Life Christmas, there’s going to be music. There’s going to be a special story that weaves throughout it. The challenge I gave to our team was that a little kid like Lennox wouldn’t be tuned out watching it. He’d be mesmerized, you know. So that’s a high bar. So I’m probably the weakest link in that. Because everything else is shiny and lights. And then I get up here. So I’m to keep my comments brief. Say good luck with that to your neighbor. Good luck with that. And yet it’s going to be special. So please, here’s what I want to challenge you with. Think about someone in your life that you can specifically invite. The targeting everyone approach is awesome. Put it on your wall. Hey, you’re invited, Christmas. Throwing out an invitation, that’s great to everybody, in general. But would you really pray about who God would have you to specifically invite and that you could make it easy for them? You could say come to my home, and we’re going to have hot cocoa and gingerbread and then watch this presentation. And then afterwards, we’ll do this. We’ll go drive around and look get lights, or we’ll go caroling, or whatever you would do that would be fun. Just attach something that’s a mission to what you’re doing. Use your home as a mission field. Use your life and your Facebook wall as a way to get the Gospel out. And I think if we all do that, God will do a great work, and we’ll see many people added to the faith as a result of this Christmas. We’ll see people truly saying, this Christmas, I gave Him my heart. Anybody with me? That’s our prayer. That’s our hope. So let’s all think… I’ve been thinking. I’ve really just, Jennie and I have even just sent some people like, man, God wants us to bless this person. God wants us to target this person, to reach out and come along this person. So if we all do that, it’s really incredible to think what God could do. All right. And then last but certainly not least, on the New Year, we always start with 21 days of prayer and fasting. That’s become one of our favorite traditions. It’s lovely. We end the year a certain way. We begin the year a certain way. As I talk about these rhythms and things we do, I’d love to always invite you to take part in Crash Course, a three-step journey in becoming a part of what God’s doing here. And you can get all the information for that on our website freshlife.church. But we end the year with generosity and evangelism. We begin the year with fasting and a declaration of our weakness and our need for God’s power. And that’s going to be kicking off on, I think, January 4. That’s when that starts. So 21 days, I’ll be preaching alongside it. It’s going to be really powerful. So a lot to look forward to. Come on. Thank the worship team with me. Have you guys have a seat. If you’re already seated, then you beat me to the punch. So good job. And if you have a Bible, we are going to be in Philippians chapter 2 today, as we talk about this great story, the Christmas story. You know, normally you think about Matthew. You think about Luke. And we will reference a few of those details that we get in those passages. But Philippians has been called the most powerful telling of the Christmas story. And you might not have even realized it was there. But it’s truly what we celebrate at Christmas from the mouth of the Apostle Paul. I’m calling this message Christmas State of Mind. That’s what I hope that we can get out of this, that we will understand that God wants us all to have a Christmas state of mind. Jay-Z told us how to have an Empire state of mind. And we learned from Billy Joel to have a New York state of mind. But Paul is going to tell us we are to have a Christmas state of mind. And the question I want to ask you… I’m going to ask you a series of questions today. And the question that I want to ask you first is this. What state is your mind in? What state is your mind in? When we talk about a state of mind, we’re talking about your emotional state. We’re talking about your mood. We’re talking about your attitude. That’s really a good synonym for state of mind. When we say we want to have a Christmas state of mind, we’re saying we won’t have a Christmas attitude, a Christmas perspective. What state is your mind in? And depending on what state it’s in, you’ll get different results, right? My kids have this thing they do whenever, we’ll just be walking down the street, and they’ll just punch me and say, Maryland, right? Why? Because of the state that license plate’s from. Punch. I’m always like confused. Like, why? I did not sign up for this. I did not agree to this game. But it’s not a game that ever has a start and a stop. It’s just an ongoing, Florida, punch. All right. They punch me because of the state that plate is in. What state is your emotional life in? What state is your mental life in? What state is your attitude in? That’s the question that I want to ask you. And depending on the different emotional states you could be in, different attitudes you could have, different perspectives that you could find yourself in, you could find very different things. When you go from state to state geographically, right now especially, everything changes. I mean, you go from Washington to Idaho, which you could just cross the street, and now all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, oh this? Oh, oh this. Oh, I can go into a restaurant. Oh, I can’t go into a restaurant. And as you look at our country, it is very different. There’s divisions. There’s different ways that the governors are handling the pandemic and county health officials are responding. And hospitals and population and all those things drive that. But right now we’re living at a time when you have to know, oh, I’m in this state. This works. I’m in this state. That doesn’t work. Now part of the maturing process is learning that the same thing is true when it comes to your emotional states that depending on what state you find yourself in, what state you’re in, what is your mental state, what is your emotional state, different things will come as a result of that. What state are you in? What state is your life in today? What I’m really trying to say is, how’s your soul doing? How’s your soul doing today, as we are now in the final few days moving towards this Christmas Eve reminder of Jesus coming? How’s your soul doing in these final days of 2020? Whatever state your life is in today, I believe that God wants to change your state of mind and help you to see life through a lens called Christmas, a lens called Christmas. Philippians, chapter 2. Here’s what Paul says, and literally, the first four words are going to reinforce what I’ve just said and show you what I have just said is true. As Paul says and we see it on the screen, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”. Pause right there. Your attention, please. There’s lots of different minds you could have in you. I told our team a few weeks back during a staff talk, we got together, and I just felt like the Lord wanted me to tell them that the Holy Spirit is not the only spirit. That was my only assignment. We talked for an hour on it, but the assignment that God told me was to just say, just remember the Holy Spirit is not the only spirit. If you don’t think that’s true, then just drive around town and eventually you’ll find a liquor store, and they sell a whole bunch of different spirits. And you can be full of spirits that will intoxicate you, that will fill you. You can find dispensaries. And depending on what state you’re in, you now have different options to decide what state you’re going to be in, and whether you’re in any state to drive, you’re in any state to make decisions relationally or financially. There’s lots of different states you can be in, lots of different spirits you can be under. And listen to me. There’s lots of different minds that can be in you, lots of different ways of seeing, ways of deciding what you value, what you prioritize. And out of all the myriad ways of looking at life, Paul tells this church at Philippi, here’s what mind you should allow to be in you. He says, “Let this mind be in you”. Here’s how to see the world. He says, “the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus”. The Christian life is a process of learning to think how Jesus thinks, which is different from how all of us think. So who is this Jesus? And that is how he decides to tell us the Christmas story. Paul says, this mind, which is in Christ Jesus, is the mind of someone who, verse 6, “being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no refutation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on Earth, and of those under the Earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. Do you not find your Half soaring with these things? I realize the word “Bethlehem” wasn’t used. The word “manger” is not to be found. There’s not a shepherd or an angel specifically mentioned, although it says of those above the earth and on the earth and under the earth and those in heaven. So angels are implied there. But even though we’re not specifically introduced to the wise men and Herod doesn’t seem to be doing anything here, what I can assure you is what we have just read is one of the most powerful articulations of the Christmas story to be found anywhere in Scripture. And it has been said that these words amount to some of the most heavenly and majestic and incredible in the entire Bible. And so Father, we ask that you would, in these moments together, breathe on us in a powerful way. Your disciples were afraid. They were scared. They thought their lives were over. But then You appeared. You walked through walls. You walked right into the midst of what they were afraid of. And You breathed on them. And as You did, their eyes were opened. They saw things differently. And the fear was replaced by joy. So Jesus, would you do it again? Would you take our fears right now and replace them with your joy? Would you cause in our hearts to swell the warmth and the passion and the power of this Christmas story? And we ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen. Inconvenience, disappointment, confusion, and shame. When you think about these words, well, you might be tempted to think that I’m writing the biography of 2020. What a crappy year. Someone had to say it, right? The year has been full of inconvenience, disappointment, lots of confusion, and for some of us, shame because of how we’ve responded, shame because of what’s been surfaced in our hearts by the inconvenience, disappointment, and the confusion, which has led to even more shame. But when I made that list, I even checked it twice, I didn’t write it about 2020. I wrote it about Christmas, that first Christmas. Inconvenience, you want to inconvenience? How about I’m having a baby on behalf of God the Father and I have to go pay taxes? Because nothing screams joy to the world like sorting out your taxes. Oh, you can’t mail them. You can’t e-file. You have to bring them on foot to the city where you were born, the state that you were born in. So you can’t give them in Galilee if you’re from Jerusalem. Or you can’t give them in Nazareth if you’re from Capernaum. You got a hoof it. Because there ain’t no Uber, baby, right? And so yes, it’s wonderful on the cards and the nativity scenes. But Joseph and his nine-month pregnant wife, dragging her along, I’ve read, commentaries, man. They’re not all created equal. I was reading commentaries this week on Matthew and Philippians and on Luke. And one guy said, O think that God prioritizes rest. Because in the Christmas story, you see rest. Mary and Joseph got to rest on the way to Bethlehem. What? I had to push something over to appropriately articulate my confusion and anger. Having been there for the birth of five tiny human beings, nothing about a trip on a donkey says rest… to pay taxes. Disappointment? Oh, you get to have the baby in a cave. But don’t worry there will be lots of strangers there. So we were, from Genesis 3, planning this birth. That’s the first time we read about Jesus, the snake crusher. God’s brewing this plan, but He couldn’t go to hotels.com and make a reservation. That’s disappointing. The level of precision and planning that went into this thing. And then as they go to the different inns in Bethlehem, no vacancy, no vacancy, no vacancy. All right. I wasn’t thinking Ritz Carlton. But at least the Red Lion of the tribe of Judah hotel or… right. That is a vintage joke. I’ve been using that for years. It’s been getting the same chuckle and polite response. But I’m never going to stop because I wrote it and I thought it was funny. And I’m just going to continue with it, all right? Disappointment inconvenience, confusion. When this plan is articulated, Mary is told, you’re going to have a baby. And she’s like, that’s great. I’m down for whatever. Problem, I’m a virgin, right? And I don’t know if you know Gabriel, I don’t know if they have sex Ed up there in heaven, but here’s the thing. And God tells her this is not going to be a problem, that what to her is an objection, what to her is an obstacle, actually was a qualification. And I wonder today, as you think about what God’s called you to do, what objections come to mind? And I wonder if you’re aware of the fact that, to God, your objection is, in fact, a qualification. Because He loves to use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God has a playbook that almost never makes sense when you look at it. You’re like, that doesn’t… nah. Right? And He just smiles. Because as He sort of stacks the deck against Himself, when He does something great through it, He will get all the glory from it. So if He wants to take out a Midianite army that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, surely He will whittle down the army down to 300. Doesn’t make any sense. And if He wants to reach a city in Nineveh that would be part of the greatest revival ever to take place in human history, of course, He’s going to pick somebody who hates Ninevites more than anybody, right? So that’s just how God rolls. He doesn’t think how a man thinks. He doesn’t look at the outward appearance. He looks at the inside. To God, a giant killer looks like a little boy. And so we can easily in our lives miss the very things that He wants to use the most. Because they almost never resemble what the finished product is going to be. So if God wants to bring a baby into the world, of course, He’s going to look for a virgin. Because it doesn’t make sense. And some of you are even now in your life tempted to check out on the God-given dream. Because as you look at your life, it looks nothing like what God sees inside. But seeds seldom look like the harvests they contain. You just got to plant it. You just got to sew it. You just got to do what Mary did and say, let it be to me according to Your word. Behold the maidservant of the Lord. Because Gabriel unpacks the plan. She’s like, that doesn’t add up. I’m in. That’s what you need to get good at saying if you’re going to follow God and watch Him work in your life. Because a lot of us say, that doesn’t make sense. I’m out. But if we could actually pivot and in that moment say, I don’t understand it cerebrally but tell you what. Spiritually, I’m in. I’m down. I’m yours. Behold the manservant of the Lord. I want your will to come to pass in my life. It’s not great gifts that God is looking for. It’s great willingness, that you’re willing to be a part of Him working through you. How about shame? When I think about Joseph, I think about the shame he had to carry his entire natural life. I’ve been, this year, really just feeling for Joseph and proud of Joseph and inspired by Joseph. Because, yes, Mary had this sort of glorious assignment. But Joseph had to shoulder and carry a massive amount of shame. And Joseph had to deal with the snickers and deal with the ridicule and the mockery of someone that he was willing to marry, who was pregnant with a baby that was not his. And this beautiful spirit of adoption, I’m willing to love a child that’s not biologically related to me. I love that. And it’s really incredible, if you think about it, the examples that you can think of in your life where a mother or father has chosen to adopt a child and love a child that’s not “theirs” when you talk about 23andMe but is theirs in every other sense of the word. And Joseph was an incredible dad to Jesus while he was on the Earth. And if you don’t believe me, the thing that got me almost crying today was you’ll actually read, if you look into the story where Jesus got lost in the temple when he was 12, there’s this little detail that says, now Joseph and Mary took Jesus every year to Jerusalem for the Passover. And when you actually look into the way you celebrated Passover in that custom and in that culture, it amounted to a camping trip. And I just got to thinking about how, because we don’t know a lot about Jesus’s early years and his upbringing really. But we do actually when you think about, we know 12 times a year, Mom and Dad took Jesus camping. And it was a camping trip with a purpose. It was a camping trip that pointed to a bigger story. It was a camping trip that pointed to the goodness of a God who allowed a sacrificial lamb to be sent to this world So. That our sins could be covered. Now Jesus was not only being told about this by Joseph and Mary, pointing to this in his Father. He was also that sacrificial lamb. But I love that Jesus’s entire life, for 12 years in a row, Joseph dutifully not only was present as a father and engaged but took him on these trips, took the time off from work in the carpenter shop and prioritized family time that pointed to Jesus, prioritized vacations, so to speak, believing they were going to really, in this feast, encounter God together as a family. And just that phrase, Joseph yearly took his family and Mary to Jerusalem for this feast of Passover. I just wonder what in the New Year you’re going to prioritize. I just wonder if you’re starting to even now think about what you’re going to choose to do and what’s going to be the most important to you. And I hope as you think it through that the most important thing is that you would say, as for me and my house, we will seek God. Father, Mother, let this be an important thing for your family, gathering together as a church, your children learning about God. Some families will watch the worship experience in one time and then sit down and be able to focus on the kid’s programming. And I just think it’s so important. And whether it’s a youth small group or being to a Fresh Life group on Zoom, making sure your kids get into it. And we’re working so hard to make sure there’s quality programming from Fresh Life Kids to Fresh Life Students, Fresh Life Leadership College, I’m just telling you something. I’ve looked into the eyes of too many tear-streaked faces of parents of children who say, I don’t believe anymore. And I don’t want anything to do with church or Jesus. And I’m always saying, well, let’s pray. Let’s believe. It’s never over until God says it’s over. But sometimes they say, as I look back, there’s regret. As I look back, I wish I would have done things differently. These things weren’t important to me. These things weren’t a priority to me. And so my encouragement to you is to be like Joseph, who shouldered that shame and the fact that people are like, oh yeah, Mary was sleeping around before you got together. He didn’t care. He let them laugh. He let it just run off him. People are going to talk. People are going to do what they do. He was a man with a single-minded vision. I got a job to do. I got to raise this boy. God has given every single parent that kind of responsibility, of course, not to raise the Messiah but to believe there is God-given greatness and destiny in the hearts of our children. And we got to raise them in the house. We got to raise them to know God. Come on. Spurgeon used to say, before a child reaches the age of seven, teach them all the way to heaven. And better yet, the work will thrive if it’s done before age five. So have you asked your child, you know, what do they know about Jesus? What questions do they have? And I’m really excited. One of the things I’m most excited for about Christmas this year is when we have the kids in to be able to have an invitation moment. And I’m a little nervous. You know, I don’t often do that. That’s normally done in Fresh Life Kids. But I’m excited for there to be an invitation moment where we invite every person, 80 down to 8, you know, whatever age they would be, would you like to give your life to Jesus Christ? We always center our gatherings around that moment. We’re going to have one in just a little bit. You be thinking about what you’re going to do if you don’t know Christ. But that’s so important. And Joseph inspires me. A lot of that wasn’t planned for me to say. I just felt it so much. And I feel like God is even right now causing some of you sitting there to go, dang it, that was for me. And next year, there’s going to be some changes I’m going to make to my schedule and to our planning and to how we’re going to arrange things. And God’s not going to get our leftovers, not financially not with time, not with energy. He’s going to get our first fruits. We’re going to seek God first and believe that he’s going to add all these other things unto me. We’re not going to put soccer first. We’re not going to put the bottom line first. We’re going to put the kingdom of God first. Because when we are on our deathbed, we will give anything for the chance to go back and make sure that the priorities are in order. But we have the chance now to let what will be hindsight be our foresight. And so I pray that you don’t miss what the Spirit is saying to you. Now Paul chose to use these words about the Christmas story in this book of Philippians for a very specific reason. And that reason is this, that oftentimes we miss the full scope of what Christmas is meant to do. Because we think about, at our worst, just as sappy story of a baby. And it’s not as feel-good and all the rest. But if we backed up a bit, we remember that this child was born to die, right? And death is a part of the Christmas story. He was born that men no more may die, born to raise the sons of Earth, born to give them second birth. So this manger he was in would be replaced. An unusual instrument, the manger, it was not meant for a baby. It was not meant for him. It was meant to feed cows in. And the manger, which was an unusual instrument repurposed, would give way to a cross not meant for him, a cross meant for Barabbas, a cross meant for another, a cross meant for a guilty party. Christ died on a borrowed cross just like He was laid in a borrowed feeding trough. And that cross ultimately speaks to our guilt and you and I and the wrong things we’ve done. Christ died on a cross not his own for the sins of another, the sins of Barabbas but the sins of me and the sins of you. And so yes, I think we know, OK, so Christmas is meant to be a solution for our sin. And that’s an accurate theological way to put it. Paul, in fact, tells us very clearly that He not only died, He died the death of the cross. And that’s powerful. I’ll tell you in a moment why he would use that statement. But I want you to understand there’s more than just rescue from the punishment of sin, which is death and hell. Here’s how I wrote it. Christmas is not just a solution for your sin but also for your selfishness and your sadness and your struggles, too. An that means then that in a year where we feel like we’ve dealt with more than our share of inconveniences and disappointments and confusion and shame that the solution is truly a Christmas state of mind, that we need to look at our year, we need to look at our hardships, we need to look at our pain and to do so through a lens called Christmas. And that’s why Paul brought this up in Philippians 2. Because in the church of Philippi, which was an amazing church, a church that was doing a lot of great stuff: supporting Paul’s ministry full of joy. So he wrote them in one of the most upbeat letters he ever wrote. It’s positive. It’s encouraging. It’s K-Love, right? No. It’s a very… I can’t say the word “positive” without thinking about, you know, I love K-Love. But he writes this letter. And he’s almost all like, you guys are the best. Keep doing it. You’re fantastic. Way to go. But there is one thing that he knew he needed to correct. And he comes out with it in chapter 4 because he had been told how things were going. And apparently, there was a conflict in the church. Apparently, there was a difficulty and discord in the church. And it was two Christians who were all fighting because they saw things differently. They wanted things differently. And maybe they didn’t like how things were being done or whatever it was. So they were causing a dysfunction in the church. And Paul addresses them like point-blank, man. The guy names names. He goes in verse 2, “I implore Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord”. So you guys are great. But man, Euodia and Syntyche, y’all need to just get along. And what does he say to them? The solution is to be of the same mind, which is the same phrase he uses in chapter 2, verse 5 when he says, “Let this mind be in you”. What he was saying is, the way you’re looking at life, your attitude, the way you are making decisions is using Euodia’s mind and Syntyche’s mind. And if we do that, when we do that, it’s always going to be friction. It’s always going to be fighting. It’s always going to be, we end up passive aggressive or mercurial or triggered or always waiting to get wounded, hoping to get hurt, noticing what, oh, didn’t do that again. Oh well. Didn’t invite me. And oh, wel, I can’t believe Euodia would do that, Euodia. So he said, and the reason he gave this Christmas telling, was for them and anyone like them in the church to remember we’re supposed to have a mind in us. And it’s the mind of Christ Jesus. That’s the mind we’re to let be in us. What I’m trying to get you to see is that Christmas is full of conflict. And Christmas causes conflict, right? Some of us are conflicted in this Christmas season because of pain, because of bad things we’ve been through. And this isn’t a happy thing. Or we’re all alone, and we don’t get to be with people we want to be with. Or we are hoping that the decorations and the cookies and the carols will fill an emptiness inside of us. I’ve never noticed so many lights on houses as I have this year. On our street, almost every single house. We were joking. There’s only one house that doesn’t have lights up. We were joking like, do we put some lights on their porch and just with a note that says, you know, come on, get the program a little bit here? But literally this year, it’s like almost everybody. And I get it. We just like, we’re looking, and we’re hoping. But listen to me. Lights can’t fill up any sense of perceived emptiness inside of you. And gingerbread can’t. And all of those things that we would hope would bring warmth will only disappoint. Because they’re going back into the box in just a week and a half or so, or March if you’re like me last year. It’s like, coronavirus. Now I finally can get the lights off the house, right? Can’t go anywhere, so we just finally take the lights down. But that’s a different conversation. But listen to me carefully. Christmas is not just full of conflict, and not only does it cause conflict, but it’s also the cure for it. In this conflict in the church, Paul chose to give them a great big old dose of “ho ho ho”. And that’s why he told the Christmas story, to help Euodia and Syntyche work out their issues. If they would just have that mind in them, it will work out these other problems. Now it’s always counterintuitive. Because in fights, we tend to double down and think about how we’re right and focus on what they did. Well, I’d do apologize if they would. Well, they did this first. You don’t understand. I realize I’m a little bit of a jerk sometimes. But man, you don’t understand what my family’s like. And you don’t have any idea what I’ve been through. And what he’s saying is that the thing to do is to humble yourself. And he says, if you just humble yourself, it’ll actually work itself out. And again, when using the word “humility,” I have to clear up confusion. Because we have such a wrong connotation. We think, oh, just someone’s just humble. And they just kind of walk around, ah. I’m just so humble. You know, it’s like, what’s wrong with your mouth? Ah. Like, wait. Why would you talk like that? Yeah. I’m just so humble Oh no. Don’t worry about me. No. That’s not at all humility. One of the best definitions I’ve ever read of humility was from CS Lewis, who said “True humility is evident when a man designs the most beautiful cathedral in the world and knows it as the most beautiful cathedral in the world, but he would be just as pleased if someone else had designed it”. So confident and aware, you can hold your head up high but not self-possessed, not self-obsessed, which is clearly what Euodia and Syntyche and Levi and maybe just maybe you struggle with as well. And Paul says man, it just only going to lead to problems. Why? Well, James put it this way. “God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble”. And that is what we read, that Jesus was God of heaven. It wasn’t robbery for Him to think He was equal with God because He was fully God. But He chose to empty Himself. He chose to renounce the privileges that went along with deity. He maintained His identity as God and could not cease to be God, for He always was God, always will be God. But while He was on the Earth, taking on the appearance of man, He chose to not have the use of any of His divine privileges or the glory that has always been His and to do so by choice. No one took His life from Him. On His own, He laid it down when He laid in that manger, as He was rocked in Mary’s arms and as those same arms of His were stretched out on the cross. It’s the upsidedown kingdom. Because the result of Him doing that was high exaltation, super exultation. The name that has been given to Him, it’s name above all names, that He’s not just God. That He’s also Lord, Lord of any who would call on Him in faith, Lord to anybody who would believe in Him. And it’s that that makes no sense in our culture where we celebrate power. And we think that to be great you have to assert your dominance. You have to put yourself out there. You have to tear down anybody in your way. To be great, you have to do the opposite of what the disciples thought you had to do to be great, which was to cling to power. Just a couple of days before Jesus died on the cross, several of his disciples got into a fight about who was the greatest. They were basically replacing Euodia and Syntyche’s fight ahead of time. And then two of the disciples sent their mom to ask Jesus if they could have the most preeminent position in the kingdom of God. And this took place, by the way, if you read in Matthew chapter 20, literally the next verse after He told the disciples about the cross. He said, you guys, I got to die on the cross. It’s what I came to do. And they go, got it. Mom, can you ask Jesus if we could be, it’s like the literal next verse. And they weren’t getting it. And that explains Jesus’s mysterious actions at the Last Supper, when he did the same thing Paul said he did in Philippians 2. Notice verse 2 of John 13. “And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus”, here we go, here we go, “knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, He rose from supper and laid aside”, this is Philippians 2. He had deity from always and ever. But He “laid aside his garments, took a towel and girded Himself”. The appearance of a servant. “After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded”. And essentially, He said to them, this is what real greatness looks like. Who am I? Where am I going? And what have I been given? These are questions that must be answered. Who am I? What have I been given? And where am I going? These are questions that I want you to ask yourself at some point this week. For it is the neglect of and the search for answers to these questions that drive almost all of our behavior. Who am I? What have I been given? And where am I going? Jesus knew the answers to these questions. The text says He laid aside his garments and took up the apparel of a servant because He knew who He was. He knew what He had been given. And He knew where He was going. You see, you don’t have to cling to what you know can’t be taken away from you. And many of us don’t understand our identity. Our soul doesn’t know its worth. And we don’t know our great destiny that God has for us. And so we’re insecure, and we’re frantic, and we’re anxious, and we’re worried about many things. And we’re territorial, and we’re possessive, and we think we ought to put ourselves out there. And we manipulate people. And we’re always working. We’re always scheming. We always have an angle. And we’re exhausted. Because we don’t know who we are, and we don’t know where we’re going, and we don’t understand, truly, what we’ve been given. So like the disciples, we think we need to send our mom to Jesus to get us a good position. And we think we need someone to give us a favor and someone to put a good word in for us. And we’re always worried. We’re always anxious. Because we don’t know who we are, what we’ve been given, and where we’re headed. It comes back down to a state of mind, a state of mind. And Christmas will cure the anxiousness that’s going on in our minds, the problems, many of these things that are masquerading as mental health issues, which are really just spiritual dysfunction issues because we don’t have the attitude of Christ in us. So what do we need to alter our state of mind? Here we go. Nothing will alter your state of mind more than how you frame things in your mind, how you frame things in your mind. So you need a frame. Look at this. This is what we have written out. Faith, risk, awe, memory, example, frame. Faith, risk, awe, memory, example. Yes, the Christmas story was full of shame and inconvenience and disappointment. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But every single character whose story we celebrate in the Christmas account, they chose to respond by framing things in their mind correctly. They put a frame up. So let’s think about Joseph and Mary and the faith it took to say, let it be to me according to Your word. What is that? I don’t understand how this is going to work, but God, I choose to believe this is how this is going to work. They responded to what didn’t make sense to them with faith. And then risk. I see risk all over the Christmas story, risk in Joseph stepping out and being willing to be the adopted father, risk of the wise men stepping out and giving a sacrificial gift when there was a King who was sort of scheming. They stepped out and risked everything in going back home a different way. There was risk. There was faith. We frame things in our mind correctly. There was awe. We learned last week about the shepherds in awe of the glory of God, as the angels praised the Lord and told them what was happening, as they came and looked into this manger and saw that their King was a shepherd just like them, born in the city of David. Awe. Memory. Mary did what you need to do. Take snapshots and memories of beautiful moments. And choose to put those things into the frame. “And Mary pondered these things in her heart”. This is Luke chapter 2, verse 19. The moment the shepherds left, Mary took a snapshot. “And she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart”. You get to choose what goes into the frame. Mary could have chosen to obsess over the difficulties and the darkness and the hardships. And there’s someone trying to hunt me and kill me. No, Mary chose to frame her heart with faith and with awe and with a spirit of adventure and risk. And she chose to make the memories that spoke of God’s goodness. She chose to ponder these things in her heart. And it would be the memory of this moment that would give her faith as she stood looking up at the cross seeing her son’s arms spread wide. She chose to take some snapshots. Listen to me. You get to choose what goes in your frame. I have a frame here with my daughters in it, three of my daughters in it. And Alivia in it, and Lenya’s in it, and Daisy’s in it. And today, December 20, 2020, it’s a weird thing that it’s 12/20/2020. It’s the eight-year anniversary to the day of Lenya, in the middle, going to heaven. And you know, yes, is there disappointment and is there the shame and is there pain? Yeah, absolutely. But I have this picture here because it’s a memory of her giving me knuckles and saying, preach the word, Dad, before I got to preach. And so today as I preach, I’m choosing to remember what I ponder in my heart, that my daughter’s with Jesus, the birthday boy. And as I think about 2,922 days since she died, I also think to 2,922 days to being closer with her. I’ve moved forward to her every single time another day comes. And so I get to choose what goes in the frame. I’m not framing and holding up just pain and difficult and darkness. I’m saying God was there. He was with me. And you can choose to do this. You can alter your state of mind if you choose to specifically frame things in your mind. You need to choose to frame them the truth. And then E: example. Example is what we find in Philippians 2. He’s like, “Let this mind be in you”. You’re like,I can’t do that. It’s like, well, Jesus did. And you’re like, well, but He was God. It’s like, oh no, he wasn’t. Yes, he was, but, it’s complicated. But He was also a man just like we were. And that was the point, that we have a God who put skin on, a God who had acne, a God who dealt with every temptation that you and I could deal with. And He passed it magnificently to give us an example and to give us encouragement and to give us hope to let this mind be in you. And as we begin to frame things properly in our mind, what are we doing? We’re building our lives on the solid bedrock of God’s Word. And this is so important to understand. If you want His mind in your head, you need to hide His Word in your heart. And so that’s what we’re doing. We’re hiding His Word. We’re building a frame. We’re choosing a way that we’re going to see the world. We’re not just going to respond by our reactions or our feelings or by culture or by what our cousin, who’s worked at 10 different places, telling, well, you should do this. Like, well, really? Here’s what God’s Word says. That’s what I’m framing my life on. That’s how I choose to see things. A Christmas state of mind isn’t jingle bells or a one horse open sleigh. It’s facing things that could potentially bring out your darkest, shadowy side, make you want to snap or attack or escape, and choosing grace, humility, and in the process, laying down your ego and laying down control so you can find true life and participate in God’s plan to bring joy to the world one day at a time. What I’m trying to say is don’t just celebrate Christmas. Be Christmas. Live Christmas. Choose Christmas. Accept Christmas. Let this mind be in you. Let this mind be in you. What does that imply? He’s there trying to. Let someone in. That means they’re knocking. I’ll get the door. Let them in. There was a knock at the door. I was upstairs. I heard it. I said, Daisy, open the door. Let them in. I can see who it is. Let them in. They were trying to get in is the point. When Paul says, “Let the mind be in you,” that implies that God is right there trying to get in. Don’t think of Him as cold and far off and busy and up to so many things that you’ve got to track Him down. He is standing at the door of your heart and your mind and knocking. And if you open it up, He’ll come in. And we normally think of that in terms of salvation. And that’s true. But it’s also true in every other area of your life. I’m going to give you three quick tools, and then I have one final question for you. And these are tools to help us build our life on that foundation of His Word. Those words are worship, service, and confession. These things, these are tools that we can use. Like, if you had a screwdriver and you have a hammer, you buy a… well, I have a saw now and now I have a drill and I have always these different tools. OK. These are tools that’ll help you build that frame to alter your state of mind, so you have a Christmas state of mind. So what do we do? We worship. That’s singing, but it’s also pointing our entire lives to God’s glory, orienting everything in our lives to magnify his name. Service of our fellow man, service in the church, service in this world. And then confession, and when we hear the word confession, I think a lot of us think about just the negative side of it. I’m confessing a sin I’ve committed. And that certainly is a part of it, both to God and to each other. Because the Bible says, if you ask God for forgiveness and confess your sins to Him, you’ll be forgiven. But if you confess your sins to one another, you’ll be healed. Many Christians have been forgiven but not healed because they have missed out on the power of being in the body of Christ in community. But there’s another definition of the word confession than just confessing wrong things. You also have to confess right things. And that’s why we read Philippians 2, which has been called the Christ hymn, which is essentially a creed, which contains within it the oldest creed the church. And a creed is just a declaration of a faith confession. And we have on our website a confession statement, what we believe that we labored over, sought the Scriptures in, sought wise counsels we crafted. But have you nailed down your beliefs? Have you chosen to write in your journal, this is what I believe? This is what I believe about God. This is what I believe about life. This is what I believe about death. This is what I believe about family. This is what I believe and to base that on Scripture. s is incredible weight and power to doing so. But the most important thing that you could contain within your confession of your faith is the four words Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is King. Jesus Christ is Lord. For that is what the Scripture says everybody ultimately will have to admit, will have no option but to admit. Everything on Earth, under the Earth, above the Earth, at some point is going to have to come face-to-face with the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord. So here’s my question that I promised you. The question I want to end with us ringing in our hearts is this, if Jesus is indeed knocking, trying to get in, if we have to let this mind be in us, what part of your life is Jesus trying to get into today? What part of your schedule, what part of your thought life, what part of your week is Jesus right now knocking, wanting permission into? How can you allow this Christmas state of mind to be true for you? Now as I think about the fact that there are no doubt people watching this and you’re here today, you maybe for the first time have clicked on to our service or maybe you’ve gone to church many, many, many times, but you’ve never allowed Jesus to come into your heart in the most important way, the most essential way, and that is to be your Savior, to forgive you, to change you, to give you the hope of heaven, to give you the promise of life eternally. And I want to encourage you from this text that you only have one verb to play in that. And if you read the passage we read, and you could for homework or extra credit or whatever, read it this week and circle any verbs you find. I circled eight verbs that belonged to Jesus. I circled four verbs that belong to God the Father. But I only circled three verbs that belonged to you and to me. And it all starts with this idea of “let”, let this in, let this in you. And then the two other verbs that belong to us in the passage are “bow” and “confess”. Let, bow, confess. Now His verbs are much harder. They involve dying on the cross. They involve giving up privileges. They involve all these crazy things. He’s done, the point is, all these verbs, these 12 verbs, God has taken care of. He’s done the heavy lifting. He’s done the hard work. He died even the death on the cross, which in the Roman culture, they said to die on the cross was to die a thousand deaths. It was so painful and shameful. That’s why it says, He didn’t just die. He died even the death on the cross, a thousand deaths. Jesus has dealt with every death imaginable, every shame imaginable, all the guilt imaginable. Your part to play is let him into your heart. How? By bowing your knee and confessing with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord. He’ll save you. He’ll change you. He’ll heal you. He’ll make you new. Eternal life can start right now for you. And it would be an honor and a privilege to get to pray with you as you accept Jesus into your soul. Listen to me. God drew you to this moment. And there’s no guarantee there will be another like it. So if you’re today sensing the conviction of the Holy Spirit, if you’ve committed sins and you don’t have an answer for that because you’re going to stand before Him one day, let Him come into your heart. Let this Christmas become for you a brand new state of mind, a brand new way of being human. Let’s pray together. Father, thank You. Now save those who Your Spirit is working on. Help them to see that You love them, that You care for them, that You will forgive them right now.

Jesus humbled Himself. He went from commanding angels to sleeping in the straw. From holding stars to clutching Mary’s finger. The Palm that held the universe took the nail of a soldier. Why? Because that His what God does Roger Barrier preaches from Philippians on Christ’s amazing sacrifice to come to earth as a baby and sacrifice His life for us. Jesus: Christmas Servant Philippians 2:1-11 S-1719 Gift to myself from family Selfish Christmas gifts: three gifts to one. Children’s Pictures: Not one of a servant READ Philippians 2:1-5: 2:1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Paul is encouraging us to stop allowing two strong tendencies—selfishness and conceit—to dominate the relationships in their church and instead replace them with deep sacrifice and humility. Philippians 4:2-3: “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche (Euodia means “fragrance” and Syntyche means “fortunate.”) to agree with each other in the Lord. Help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel . . . whose names are in the Book of Life.” I don’t know what Fragrance and Fortunate were fighting about, but Paul was concerned. With them in mind he penned one of the most precious descriptions of Jesus Christ to be found anywhere. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:” I know that our day is not enamored with the idea of giving and caring and serving others. Bings and twinkles •SLIDE: In what seems to be a cross generational attitude, Clint Eastwood looks you in the eye and says,: “Go ahead. Make my day.” SLIDE: In the Matrix Orpheus in the midst of sparring gestured to his opponent, “Come, let’s get it on. SLIDE: And it doesn’t sound much like St. Francis of Assissi who prayed, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” But up here in our minds, where it all begins, we called upon to have the mind of Christ, which is the mind of a servant. ·SLIDE: Notice the seven step descent from Heaven to the Cross. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:6a: Who, being in very nature God, In order to understand this meaning we need to have a simple lesson in grammar. “Being” is a verbal adjective. It is a verb used to describe a noun. For example, “a crying baby.” The word crying used there would be a participle. In Greek the context or circumstances in determine the meaning. ·SLIDE: The participle may be causal and you would use the word because in front of it (because the baby is crying); Or it might be concessive (although the baby was crying); Or it might be conditional (if the baby is crying); Or it might be durative (while the baby is crying). ·SLIDE: “______Being an Arizona Wildcat fan, I think we will win the Pac-10.” Which of those words or phrases would you use to fill in the blank? Because of, although, if, while? “Jesus, __________ (because of, although, if, while) being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” If you understand the context, this ought to be translated, ·SLIDE: “Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus who precisely because He was in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to hang on to at all costs” He humbled Himself and took off His glory to become a man, to become a servant, to die on the cross sins of the world, not in spite of the fact that He was God, but because He was God. “Why are you doing this?” “Precisely because I am God. This is how I do things.” It is the nature of God to serve. Isn’t that fantastic? That is our God. That’s the God that we serve. “Very nature God” is the Greek word “morphe” or “form.” This word refers to the outward expression of one’s inward nature. In Heaven His inward nature is God. His outward manifestation is the glory of God. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:6b: did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, It is difficult for any of us to get this concept into language. The Lord Jesus Christ was God. It was no effort for Him to be God. He did not go to school and get special training and earn a special degree to become God. He did not work overtime in order to be advanced to the position of God. Nor was it something that after He transitioned to earth that He had to hold on to and work hard to keep from losing. When He left Heaven’s glory to come down to this earth He didn’t say to the Father, “Keep Your eye on Gabriel. I think he’s after My job.” Yet, He did not consider this something to be clung to at any price. He gives it up. He comes down the rungs on the ladder and becomes a servant, a man, and soon to the cross. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:7a: but made himself nothing, Greek word “kenosis” means “He emptied himself.” It is a Greek word which describes pouring out something until it is empty. Paul did not specify what He emptied out? He laid the stress upon the “emptying”. He did not empty Himself of His Deity, since Paul says that the expression of His deity was a fact after His incarnation. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:7b: taking the very nature of a servant, This is about One Who went down the ladder as far as He could go, not in spite of the fact that He was God, but precisely because of the fact that He was God. Have you noticed in the Gospels that it is Jesus who serves others, not others who serve Jesus? He is at the beck and call of fishermen, harlots, tax collectors, the sick, the sorrowing. In the Upper Room, when His disciples refused to minister, Jesus arose, laid aside his outer garments, put on the long linen towel, and washed their feet. An illustration of this self-emptying of the Son of God is found in John 13:1-17. Our Lord seated at the table, the Master and Lord of the disciples, is illustrative of Him in His preincarnate glory, giving outward expression of the glory of His deity to the angels. Our Lord, girded with a towel, and washing the feet of the disciples, is illustrative of His taking the outward expression of a servant in His incarnation. His outer garments laid aside for the time being, point to His setting aside the outward expression of His preincarnate glory while He expressed Himself as a bondslave. The fact that He was still their Master and Lord while kneeling on the floor doing the work of an oriental slave, speaks of the fact that our Lord’s assumption of humanity did not mean that He relinquished His deity. He was just as much God while on earth in His humiliation, as He was before He came and as He is now. His act of taking His outer garments again, tells us of the resumption of the expression of His glory after the resurrection ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:7c: being made in human likeness. It was the outward expression of the essence of His deity which He emptied out in order to put on the body. He exchanged one form of expression for another. In verse six He was in His pre-incarnate state expressing Himself as Deity. In verse seven He expresses Himself in incarnation as a servant. What we see now is what people saw when they saw Him on earth. He laid aside His glory. In John 17, He prays to get His glory back. How real is the humanity of Jesus? It is 100% genuine. As man, Jesus experiences a physical, super-natural, virgin birth (Luke 1:35). The Gospels reveal His hunger, thirst, disappointment, and joy. The Williams translation of John 11:35 says that “Jesus burst into tears” at the grave of Lazarus. He knew the bitterness of temptation, but He was “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:14). He understands our way of life because He identified with us. He could get weary and sit down at a well. He need to eat and sleep. He arranged it so that His enemies could spit in His face; they could crucify Him. He made himself nothing. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:8a: And being found in appearance as a man, How people see Him Each word in the description emphasizes the outward semblance. “Being found, discovered to be.” The verdict of his fellow-creatures upon Him. They classed him as an “anthropos”. His outward guise was altogether human. While in a human body He bears the marks of His Father in Heaven. ¥SLIDE: USA TODAY this week: “Genetically, It Seems, Your Face Belongs To Daddy.” “Sorry moms, according to a new theory, babies are more likely to look like their dads. It is self preservation. The theory is that the father confers face genes on the baby that will make the baby’s face resemble his own. While a mother can be sure that the baby is hers no matter what it looks like, the father cannot. It is to the baby’s advantage to look like the father to encourage paternal investment. 122 people matched photos of children ages 1, 10, and 20 to photos of adults. Nobody could consistently match photos of 10 and 20 year olds with their parents. Nor could anyone match 1-year olds with their mothers. But they did match 1-year olds Ñ both sons and daughters Ñ with their fathers.” This is why Jesus said so often, “I and my Father are one.” He was consistently doing the things God would do if He were on earth. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:8b: he humbled himself and became obedient to death- Does anybody remember a modern-day athlete whose tag line is, “I am the greatest”? Muhammed Ali. He tells this story about himself. One time, he was on a plane, and everybody was supposed to buckle up their seat belts, but he didn’t want to do it. The flight attendant said, “You have to put on your seatbelt.” He answered, “I’m not going to put a seatbelt on, because I’m Superman.” He went on about how he didn’t have to do this, and she kept telling him that he had to do it, explaining to him that it was like a safety law. They couldn’t take off until he put it on. And finally he said, “I’m not going to do it, because I’m Superman, and Superman don’t need no seatbelt!” And she said to him, “Superman don’t need no airplane!” Charles Jefferson wrote The Minister as Shepherd. Not on main street. ·SLIDE: “A Pastor’s greatest works is done on the backside of the desert where nobody is looking.” Christ’s best work done under the cover of darkness. Media gives glory to everybody but the servants. Over 100 murders will occur in Tucson this year and everyone of them will make the front page of both newspapers here in Tucson. On the other hand, 40 or 50 of you will donate your cars to Casas instead of trading them in to a car dealer and we will pass them on to needy single moms. And not one of you will make the newspaper. Two weeks ago I reached the largest funeral I ever preached. It was for J.L. Goodman. The sanctuary was filled. Here is my last picture of J.L. and me under the Big Tent on our new property. Two hours later he had a heart attack. Two weeks later he died. I invited people to give testimonies at the funeral. Set up microphone. •Young man told of rough growing up. “Always a meal and bed at J.L.’s house.” •”I served in the air force with J.L. He wanted to know where I was going to go when I died. I didn’t know. He led me to Chhrist.” •Single Mothers’ ministry at NW Baptist •Repair service: Widow’s repairs for free when they couldn’t pay. •Pastor: “Up at three to cure concrete for our church floor.” J.L. developed the of Christ. He had a servant’s heart. I knew why the church was full at his funeral. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:8c: even death on a cross! The word “unto” is a translation of a Greek word which means, “up to the point of”. Our Lord was obedient to the Father up to the point of dying. He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” (Heb. 10:9). Many people wear today beautiful crosses of glittering gold. These are not at all like the one on which Jesus died.” He died on one of rough-hewn wood, with splinters in it, stuck into a hole on Jerusalem’s common crucifixion ground. ·SLIDE #22: But God did not leave Him there. Now we see the exaltation of Jesus Christ. Notice the three steps back up! He grasps once more the ladder, and we mark… ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:9a: Therefore God exalted him to the highest place ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:9b: and gave him the name that is above every name, On earth He was given the name, Jesus. The angel said, “Call Him Jesus because He’ll save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) After His exaltation, He was given the name, “Lord.” Observe how aptly this view fits the context. In verse 10, which is the climax of the whole passage, we read that God gave Jesus Christ as a gift, “echarisato” the name above every name (including position, dignity, and authority, of (Greek looks like “Κύριος”), Lord, the name which represents the Old Testament Jehovah. But this is the highest place Christ has reached. He has always (in Paul’s view) shared the divine nature (μ. Θεοΰ). But it is only as the result of His Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, and Exaltation that He appears to men as on an quality with God, that He is worshipped by them in the way in which Jehovah is worshipped. This position of “Κύριος” is the reward and crowning-point of the whole process of His voluntary Humiliation. “He hath changed the ineffable name into a name unutterable by man, and desirable by all the world; the majesty is all arrayed in robes of mercy, the tetragrammaton or adorable mystery of the patriarchs is made fit for pronunciation and expression when it becometh the name of the Lord’s Christ.” ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:10: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, Charles Lamb, a literary genius, said that if Shakespeare were to enter a room, all those present would rise to their feet, but if Christ should enter that room, all would bow. ·SLIDE: Philippians 2:11: and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. “Eis doxa theos”. The whole purpose of the working out of salvation is the glory of God the Father. This end is attained when men yield to His operations and acknowledge Christ as Lord. Cf. esp. Eph. 1:9-12. “Jesus Christ is Lord” became the earliest creed of the Christian church. This put the early Christians in direct conflict with the emperors of Rome: Annual ceremony offering incense to Emperor declared: “Caesar is Lord.” Then you could worship any god you wanted. You just had to acknowledge Caesar as your Lord. Early Christians refused. Many took the moment to declare “Jesus Christ is Lord,” and paid for it with their lives. As many Christians around the world still do today. There is a DAY APPOINTED in God’s future time scheme when every creature will acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Of course, it is possible for people to bow before Him and confess today, and receive the gift of salvation. To bow before Him now means salvation. To bow before Him at the Judgment means condemnation. ‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ SLIDE: Some PRACTICAL LESSONS WORTH CONSIDERING SLIDE: 1. A Servant’s Heart Yields. Why would a servant yield? When Jesus saw the crowds like sheep without a shepherd he was moved with compassion. When your heart is finally filled with compassion, the head of a servant bows, the heart of a servant yields. I’ve tired a number of different “hoods” in my life – Childhood, Manhood, Brotherhood, Fatherhood – but the toughest “hood” of all is servanthood. Anyone who has a new baby at home knows what it means to yield. As a parent, you give up everything. You give up your schedule, give up your sleep, give up your leisure time, give up your hobbies, give up your privacy, give up your sex life (Julie told me not to say that). But how many would give up that new baby. The baby cries and the heart is moved with compassion—instantly we move into action. As we develop into servants, our hearts are more and more like Jesus moved by compassion, and we start yielding our rights to meet the needs of other people’s children. SLIDE: 2. A Servant’s Heart Develops Over Time. This verse troubles me—and to speak of Him becoming bothers me a bit. He did not, as St. Alfonsus suggests: “Shortly after birth, sat up in straw, umbilical cord still wet and said, ‘Hi, Mary, I am Jesus, the Son of God.’” That is not what happened. His mind had to develop. So must ours When did He finally know that he was Messiah? Not at 2 or 4 when – Holman Hunt’s painting of Mary seeing the shadow of His cross on the wall of the carpenter shop. When Mary taught him Psalm 22? Isaiah 53? Passover Lamb? I love the idea of Jesus Christ discovering who He is—learning—studying—understanding—and the discoveries go on and on through His ministry. I love to watch the development in my little ones: I remember one day when one of my children was quite young. “Raining cats and dogs” Oh, dad, it’s not really… “Teaching to swim”…”The goggles make me float” “Why are you kissing…” The mind of a servant is always in the process of becoming. Not only that: Nobody does servanthood right the first time. It is something we grow into. We teach our children to be respectful. And, then, one day, the children turn around and take care of their aging parents. I grew up in a household of boys. When my brother and I were in our teenage years my grandmother, Nana, had a stroke and I watched my mom care for her. My brother and I were still in the process of developing into servants. I remember the day my mom went on strike. I am sure Ron and I were not very sympathetic with her plight. When boys go to the bathroom where they aim can be rather hit and miss. One day mom called from our bathroom. Holding in her hand the small, blue, plastic trash can that sat beside the toilet. Well, boys will be boys, it was an inch or so deep with some of the hit and miss—more miss than hit. She was livid. I think it was Ronnie who said, (I can’t imagine me being so calloused), “Well, I can’t imagine why you are so upset, all you have to do is pour it back in the toilet—no big deal.” Can you imagine? Well, if you have teen-age boys, sure, you can imagine. We were clueless. At that point she went on strike: fix own meals, wash clothes, etc. Not much servant there. But it was at that same time that we watched her caring for her dying mom. She gave up everything for a while to nurse her in her time of need. Made a deep impression on both of us: “Oh, this is how you are supposed to do it. We never got over that. SLIDE: 3. A Servant Is Often Forced To Live With Mystery. I love those passages in Christ’s life when he had to say, “I don’t know everything!” One day the disciples asked, “When will your coming be?” And Jesus, not having the read Tim LaHaye’s new Left Behind Prophecy Series, was forced to say, “I don’t know.” One day James and John asked, “Can we sit, one on your right and one on the left?” And He said, “I don’t know. That’s not mine to give.” It was a mystery to Him. When did he finally know that He was Messiah? Not 2 or 4 or when – Mary first read Psalm 22? Isaiah 53? Passover Lamb? He as forced to live with mystery: Even at the end, “Is this the right way? Nevertheless, thy will be done.” All the time He was serving on earth, He did not know who would respond and who would not. Rich Young Ruler? Nicodemus? Judas? Or Peter? Or John? When we are serving, we live in mystery as to how much of it will turn out. We often don’t know whether or not any particular action will be worth it, or do any good. But, we serve anyway. How does an adult know, when he or she is sacrificing their own time and energy to work with some hyperactive, disrespectful, attention-deficit, trouble making eleven year old that one day that child will turn out to be Glenn Barteau?! That is the mystery a servant lives with. STORY of boy two Sundays ago who reminded me of praying with him and his mom one night in a concert of prayer. I love old fable about the traveler going through the night. He sees a monastery up ahead of him in the dim rainy mist. Cold and indecent was the weather. And when he stopped and knocked on the door the keeper of the monastery came and he said, “May I come in?” And the abbot said, “Not only may you come in, you may eat with us.” The food was wonderful. The monks were warm. It was a wonderful evening, safe and dry and warm. The monks, because the weather was so bad, asked the traveler to spend the night. He agreed on the basis that they would supply him with three or four things. “What is it that you want?” they asked. “If I spend the night with you, I must have in my own room a pound of butter, a pair of rubber pants, a poker, a cricket bat, and a bass saxophone.” It was unusual. But they scurried around the monastery and found it all. Weather continued to be bad. As they went to sleep that night, the monks heard an awesome progression of half tones and squeaks and squawks coming from his room. Because the weather continued badly they asked him to stay another night. He did do that, and he asked again for that mysterious list: a pound of butter, a pair of rubber pants, a poker, a cricket bat, and a bass saxophone. Each night he requested these things and each night they heard those awful noises. And finally it was time for him to leave. The old abbot walked him to the door and said, “We were glad to supply all of those things, but if you don’t mind, would you mind telling us why you asked for those things?” Traveler said, “Well, it is a family secret. It’s been in my family for years and years. But if you promise not to tell another living soul, I’ll tell you.” And so he told the old abbot, and the abbot, being a man of his word, never told another living soul. And so we shall never know. When we serve, we often have no idea of how it will all turn out. And that is OK. Following Jesus Christ, and developing the mind of Christ, is sometimes like that. If Jesus cannot answer it all, neither can we. And we wait in darkness and talk of God giving light, and live without knowing, inhabited by the mind of Christ. Let me share the words of one Methodist poet: •SLIDE #29: “That fool Noah trusted and built a stupid boat on dry land for years and years…and man lived. •SLIDE 30: “That fool Job trusted and the world kicked him, and his friends did, too, and so did his own religion…and, he showed us a new face for God. •SLIDE #31: “That fool John the Baptist trusted and ate crunchy insects and dressed like a jerk…and, baptized Jesus. •SLIDE #32: “That fool woman trusted, squeezing and elbowing through the crowd just so she could grab at Jesus with her hand frail…sick, sick, sick from years of a woman’s sickness, and she was healed. •SLIDE #33: “But now, we don’t have to trust. We have aptitude tests, counselors, advisors, rest camps, psychiatrists lots of brains. “We don’t trust anymore. We act. We run to counseling more than the word of God.” SLIDE: 4. A Servant’s Heart Is A Humble Heart. Charles Jefferson wrote The Minister as Shepherd. Not on main street. ·SLIDE #36: “A Pastor’s greatest works is done on the backside of the desert where nobody is looking.” Media gives glory to everybody but the servants. Over 100 murders will occur in Tucson this year and everyone of them will make the front page of both newspapers here in Tucson. On the other hand, 40 or 50 of you will donate your cars to Casas instead of trading them in to a car dealer and we will pass them on to needy single moms. And not one of you will make the newspaper. SLIDE: 5. Servanthood Is Not Without Reward. The Velvetine Rabbit is a delightful children’s story about a little stuffed rabbit, all shiny and new, who goes through the process of becoming “real” in the toy room. He is not long in the toy box before he has a conversation with the Skin Horse about reality. The skin horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the other toys. He was no longer very pretty to look at. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed seams underneath. Most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out long ago. “What is real?” asked the Rabbit one day, “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s something that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real.” “Does becoming real hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to toys who break easily, or have sharp edges. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” We are all looking for love with skin on. As we give ourselves away, the love relationships we develop forever enrich our lives. One day Jesus became love with skin on. He took off His glory so that He could love and be known and real to us. Only Xnty offers a God with skin—not some impersonal force, not some undefinable inner consciousness, but a God who got dirty and tired and suffered for us—to show us what it really means to be real. Close with this Sonnet to Jesus. If you are a Christian, here is your example. If you are not a Christian, here is the man who died to save you from your faults and imperfections and make you forgiven before God. ·SLIDE #41; 1478: “It was Jesus’ hands I noticed first. Big, tough, weathered, hammer gripping, sweating fists. Quite used to driving nails into the rough. ·SLIDE #42: And bronzed, blue-bruised, where once the iron missed. A hand’s a thing of beauty in the eye. Whose trained vision can pierce the skin And see the study steel of bone laid white ·SLIDE #43: And fragile tiny filaments – and thin. I understand the riddle of a hand. How leathered callouses breed tougher skin Hiding tiny porcelain machines within. ·SLIDE #44: Yet, yet love defies my will to understand How hands that swing the crushing iron grow frail And welcome to each palm, a killing nail.” SLIDE: 6. Responding To The Sacrifice Of Christ Is The Only Relational And Logical Thing To Do.

The Prodigal Son: A Story of Grace UNPLUGGED S-1809 Andy and Me: Picture of Grace Mrs. Crosley got me in. My performance wasn’t good enough. My performance doesn’t get me in with God. Jesus invited me in. Contrast: with a story from the “Good and Beautiful God” by James Bryant Smith: “Woman calls Smith: I just have one question. May I come to your church?” “Surely, of course you can come! Why would you feel like your couldn’t? “Before you answer, let me tell you my story:” Got pregnant in junior year in High School by a young man who had no interest in me or the baby. After much soul searching, decided not to get an abortion. “Thought other girls might benefit from the story of her mistakes, so asked pastor if she could speak on the pressures of dating and sex. Pastor said, “No, I’d never allow that. I’m afraid that you’re just the type of person who might rub off on them.” Liked child hood church so decided to stay. Began to feel the need to get my life in order. Decided to get child baptized. Pastor: “Not in my church I’d never baptize an illegitimate child.” Pastor’s attitude is not new. Trace it back to the whole story of Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Most well known Parable: the prodigal son. Profligate son. Welcomed with opened arms: that’s grace. Elder brother: Performance based religion of legalism. ☻SLIDE: Prodigal Son: Grace Based Christianity ☻SLIDE: Luke 15:19-24: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.” So he got up and went to his father. (What is he thinking dad will say? “I knew this would happen, waste all that money and then come back for more!” Where have you been all this time? What kind of friends did you have?) But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate. High school curfew :”disappointed in you” story. According to the Prodigal Son story, God did not respond at all like my mother (although I deserved what she said. ☻SLIDE: Hebrews 9: ☻SLIDE: Older brother: Performance based religion: Have to do all sorts of things in order for God to like you and invite you into the throne room. ☻SLIDE: LUKE 15:25-27: Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. “Your brother has come, “he replied, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.” The older brother became angry and refused to go in. Why so upset? Performance-based religion and love. ”He was all wrong and I was all right and it’s not fair. He needs to be punished for his behavior and I need to be rewarded for mine.” Pastor we mentioned earlier was the Elder Brother: I would never let a person like you talk to our teenagers—you might rub off on them.” John Dvorak: “If your Methodist pastor dad had been a Baptist this never would have happened.” Performance based acceptance began in our families. Do well in school and are praised. Make winning goal and praised. Handsome or beautiful well affirmed. We quickly learned that our acceptance is based on talents, abilities and performance. How do we gain God’s acceptance? We must perform. Ask average person: “What do we do for God to bless us or like us?” Answer is clear and consistent: “Well, I think that I should go to church, read my Bible, give some money and take care of some people: and by the way, stop sinning.” This is called, “legalism.” Legalism is an attempt to earn God’s love through our own actions—and to avoid God’s punishment by our religious activities. This is a narrative for many of us. Thank God this is not Jesus’ narrative. The actions of God show just the opposite. He welcomes sinful, broken down people—He doesn’t ostracize them or turn away from them and reject them. Matthew 9:9-13: As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Despicable tax collector; sat at roadside booth and worked for the bad guys, the Romans, and skimmed money off the top for themselves. Cheating traitors. Follows Jesus and friends all follow Jesus and Jesus’ choice is ludicrous and shocking. More comfortable if said, “God was so mad at the world that He sent His one and only Son who came down to tell all people to shape up and those who measure up will have everlasting life.” It appears to me that God is fond of sinners. The stunning reality is there is one thing that separates us from God is not our sin. It is our self-righteousness. Our self-righteousness doesn’t turn God away from us. It turns us away from God. “The Good and Beautiful God” by James Bryan Smith Love III poem by George Herbert. The invitation to draw near to God and you want to draw near, don’t you? but we hesitate. Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lacked anything. “A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here:” Love said, “You shall be he.” “I, the unkind, ungrateful? ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.” Love took my hand and smilingly did reply, “Who made the eyes but I?? “Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame Go where it doth deserve.” “And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?” “My dear then I will serve.” “You must sit down,” says, Love, “and taste my meat.” So I did sit and eat. Quite an invitation Focus on “Sit down and eat.” Must unplug. Popcorn Brain Text during meals 2.5 hours per day on TV. Jesus knew the benefits of Unplugging. When we unplug, good things happen. He Unplugged From The Crowds And Spent The Night In Prayer to know God’s heart. He liked being with Him. Jesus: “I am gentle and humble in heart. He unplugged to rest when He was tired and woke up to calm the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Looking for a miracle? Marriage, Cancer, Teens Unplugged from jostling, demanding crowds long enough to feel the timid touch of a woman with an issue of blood, So self focused we fail to see the needs of those around us. Hurting teenager, facing loss of house; Unplugged and took a two week walking vacation from Jerusalem to Tyre. Unplugged in Garden of Gethsemane to know the will of God for His life. Struggling to know God’s will and to do it. “Your will be done.” I surrender. Make will so clear I can’t miss it. Unplugged long enough to fulfill all of God’s will for His life: “It is finished.” REST STOP Applications Unplug and try to reconnect with the loving heart of the real God. Disconnect from for 15 (10) minutes per day this week the things that create static and distractions from Jesus’ narratives about love and life. I put a clock in my office that plays different tunes at the top of every hour. Hear it and it is m y signal to quiet down and regroup for the next hour. Play some instrumental music and listen to the voice of God. Be still or go on a long slow walk and enjoy the wonders of the desert. Disconnect from the TV. Go to the mall and deliberately find a bench and be an observer. Try to imagine the needs of the people passing by. Once a week take a time of silence and read the poem, “Love III.” Read some Psalms to get to know the heart of God. Read some Proverbs to know how to get along with people. On another morning read Zephaniah 3:17 and ponder the implications. The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Consider throwing away the religion-based resume you are building to please God and rest in the free grace He gives you in Christ. ●SLIDE #: Revel in what God thinks of you when you wake up in the morning. How deeply we can go into the throne room in Heaven is directly related to what we think God thinks of us. He is disappointed in me: I never am good enough. “Oh, great, roger is waking up. I wish he wouldn’t bother. I am so disappointed in him.” He is inspecting me. Oh great, roger is waking up. I wonder what sort of trouble Roger is going to get into today. He is distant. He doesn’t know I am awake. Right view of the real God. Psalm 139:1-3: You are intimately and caringly involved in my life. Grandma, “He’s awake, He’s awake.”

The will of God is a lot less circumstantial and a lot more attitudinal than we imagine. The circumstances we are asking God to change may be the circumstances God is using to change us. How do you cultivate the attitude of gratitude? 1.) Whatever you don’t turn into PRAISE turns into PRIDE. 2.) Your FOCUS determines your reality. 3.) Don’t let what’s WRONG WITH YOU keep you from worshipping what’s RIGHT WITH GOD. When I was a kid, one of my early memories is playing a game called Hide the Thimble. My grandparents lived in an old house with lots of nooks and crannies. And my grandma would hide one of her sewing thimbles. Now, pretty small, about the size of the tip of the index finger. And the grandkids would search all over the house trying to find that thimble. This is what we did before video games. Here’s how it worked. If we were getting further and further away from the thimble, my grandma would say, “You’re getting colder, colder”. If we were getting closer and closer, she would say, “You’re getting warmer, warmer”. And when we were about to find it, right on top of it, you could almost touch it, my grandma would raise the pitch of her voice a little bit and say, “You’re getting hotter, hotter”. I want you to hold that thought. One of my favorite authors, Aiden Wilson Tozer, said something that we cite quite frequently around here. He said, “What comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you”. I think he’s right. But here’s the challenge. In the beginning, God created us in his image. We have been creating God in our image ever since. And when we project our inclinations, our imperfections, our idiosyncrasies onto God, what we end up with is a god, lower case g, who looks a lot like us, who talks a lot like us, who thinks a lot, who acts a lot like us. It’s a false image, it’s a false idol. Now, I’m not gonna deep dive this. I do a little deconstruction in Chapter Five, God in the hands of angry people that, let me cut to the chase. What comes to mind when you think about God? What is God’s posture towards you? What expression is God wearing on his face? What is the tone of his voice? If God has frown on his face, I think you’re getting colder, colder. If God has smile lines around his eyes, if he’s reaching out with arms wide open, I think you’re getting warmer, warmer. And if God’s posture is one of blessing, if you are the apple of his eye, if you can hear the love and pride and joy in the tone of his voice as he says, “You are son, you are my daughter in whom I am well-pleased,” I think you’re getting hotter, hotter. Well, welcome to National Community Church, all seven campuses. We are in a series called Double Blessing, and I wanna pick up where we left off last weekend. Before original sin, there was original blessing. That sequence is significant. Blessing is God’s most ancient instinct. It sets the tone, it sets the table. Now, God won’t bless greed or pride or laziness. We have to position ourself for the blessing but make no mistake about it, God’s posture is one of blessing. This is God’s default setting. God wants to bless you beyond your ability to ask or imagine. God has blessings in categories you can’t even conceive of. If you have a Bible, you can meet me in first Thessalonians. Paul planted the church in Thessoloniki on his second missionary journey. He is writing this letter a few years later, right around 51 A.D. The church finds itself in some challenging circumstances. Maybe you’re in some of those challenging circumstances this weekend. And Paul offers this exhortation in Chapter Five, verse 16. Now, these are some of the shortest versus in the Bible, but they pack a punch. Verse 16, “Rejoice always”. Verse 17, “Pray continually”. Verse 18, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”. If we were to play a little word association game and I were to say, “Discerning the will of God,” I’m guessing that many of us, maybe most of us, would think logistics. We think who, what, when, where, and how. Discerning the will of God is decision-making. It’s making the right move at the right time. And that is certainly a piece of this puzzle. Listen, I have no doubt, God is ordering your footsteps. God is preparing good works in advance. God is setting up divine appointments. And listen, we need to obey those promptings of the Holy Spirit. That said, the will of God is a lot less circumstantial and a lot more attitudinal than we think. In fact, you already know the will of God. Rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Now, when I was in my 20s, that was a few years ago, I was way too worried about making wrong turns. I was afraid that one miscue and the whole house of cards might come down. Let me take a little bit of pressure off of us this weekend. God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you wanna get where God wants you to go. And God is really good at getting us there. Listen, the will of God is less about logistics and more about cultivating the character of Christ in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. I said this last week. Listen, the circumstances you want God to change may be the circumstances that God is using to change you. In their brilliant book, “Decisive,” Chip and Dan Heath, talk about four mistakes we make when it comes to decision-making. One of those mistakes is narrow framing, it’s defining our choices too narrowly. It’s thinking in either or categories instead of both and categories. Or maybe it’s answering it as a true, false when God is actually giving us a multiple choice. And we do this when it comes to the will of God. The Heath brothers tell a story about Father Brian Bransfield, the General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. And Father Bransfield makes this observation about when parishioners kinda seek out his advice. And he said they have a tendency to narrow frame. They find themselves in a dilemma. Should I marry this person? Should I take this job in another city? Should I become a priest? Bransfield said this, “There’s a myth that there’s only one thing that God wants you to do. We spend so much time trying to figure out that one thing and become so fearful of making a mistake”. We miss the will of God because we’re afraid of missing the will of God. We miss out on the will of God because we don’t wanna miss out on the will of God. Are you pickin’ up what I’m throwin’ down? He says, “Actually, there are 18 things that God would be very happy if you chose. You’re not cornered into becoming a priest or not. You’re not cornered into marrying this woman or not”. He says, “You’re telling me that God looked at you and said, ‘There is only one thing you can do in your life. ‘I know it and you have to guess it, or else.'” Could it be that we are putting our constraints on God? Just take a deep breath this weekend and let it out. We narrow frame God and we narrow frame God’s will. What I’m getting at, will of God less circumstantial, more attitudinal. So, what I wanna do this weekend is unpack these verses. And I wanna talk about cultivating the attitude of gratitude. If my math is right, we’ re 40 days from Thanksgiving. And so, great time for a little tune up. Three things. Number one, whatever you don’t turn into praise turns into pride. James 1:17 , “Every good and perfect gift is from above. coming down from the Father of Lights”. This is the genesis of gratitude. It’s all from God and it’s all for God. And it’s not just what we perceive to be blessings. I’m not sure we know enough to know whether something is a blessing or a curse up front. I think sometimes, what we discern to be a blessing actually backfires because we don’t steward it the right way and it becomes a curse. Or what we perceive to be a curse, actually is a blessing in disguise because it’s the catalyst for who God is creating us to be. Now, let me go old school. According to the “Talmud,” the Jewish commentary on the Old Testament, it says, “A man embezzles from God when he makes use of this world without uttering a blessing”. In other words, if you enjoy something without thanking God, it’s as if you have stolen it from him. So, anything less than gratitude is grand larceny. Now, an observant Jew would pronounce 100 blessings per day. Those blessings would start with… and then they would fill in the blank with a thousand different things. We’ll kinda go back to basics. According to rabbinic tradition, a man should taste nothing before he utters a blessing. And so, they would offer a blessing before a meal like many of us, but then they would take it a little bit further because they would offer blessings during the meal for different tastes and different smells. Now, an observant Jew would bless God for a new day, new article of clothing, a new experience. One of my favorite blessings is zoological. On seeing an elephant, a tailless ape, or a long-tailed ape one should say, “Blessed be he who makes strange creatures”. And I don’t know why they’re choosing these particular animals, but I love this approach path to life. Whenever they experience something pleasurable, they would bless God. When was the last time you blessed God after having sex with your spouse? I mean it was his idea, right? Maybe we ought to bless him more often. Now, I think what impresses me most is the way that Orthodox Judaism would nuance blessing. Now, let me explain what I mean. They wouldn’t simply bless God for rainfall. Rabbi Judah said, “We give thanks unto you for every rain drop you cause to fall on us”. There are 90,921 drops in a gallon of water. Do you see what’s happening here? I think too often generic gratitude is about as good as generic confession. I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done. Oh, that’s great. Like, we didn’t let our kids get by with that when they were little, no. You gotta, what are you sorry for? ‘Cause if you’ can’t answer it, you’re gonna do it again. Listen, in the same way. Lord, thank you for everything you’ve ever done. Oh, really? Well, that’s great. But could we nuance it a little bit more? Let me ask the obvious question. Why 100 blessings? Well, during the days of King David, a devastating plague is said to have claimed the lives of 100 Israelites every single day. That’s when a council of Jewish rabbis prescribed this practice of reciting 100 blessings per day to counteract the plague. And according to tradition, the plague stopped immediately. Now, listen, I can’t promise that gratitude is going to cure whatever ails you. But it is a pretty good antibiotic, is it not? It is all purpose. We won’t get into the science of gratitude, but this is where the double blessing begins. Bottom line, whatever you don’t turn into praise, turns into pride. Now, let me push the envelope a little bit further. And if you’re taking notes, I want you to jot this down. Praise God for partial miracles. In the gospels, there is a two-part miracle that I find fascinating and encouraging. Jesus lays hands on a blind man. And this man experiences a partial miracle, his sight is restored, but not completely. People still look like trees walking. This is where many of us doubt God instead of praising God for a partial miracle. Listen, this is where many of us give up because we didn’t get the whole miracle. Even Jesus had to pray twice. Okay, some miracles happen in stages. There are moments when we need to double down with prayer and fasting. And so, all too often, I think we withhold praise for partial miracles and then wonder why the whole miracle never happens. But why not praise God every step of the way, even if it’s two steps forward and one step back? This is I so personal for me. You know, July 2nd, 2016, I pray a brave prayer after 40 years with asthma. God heals my lungs. I have not touched an inhaler in 1,203 days. Praise God. Now, you know that. But there’s a backstory that I’ve only shared a time or two. About a month before that miracle, I climbed Cadillac Mountain in Maine. Now, not the tallest mountain I’ve ever climbed, but I did it without an inhaler, which was huge for me. In fact, it’s one of the longest streaks that I can remember in 40 years. I went four days without an inhaler. And I remember thinking to myself, God, did you heal me? And then day five, I had to take a couple of puffs of my inhaler. You know what? It almost knocked the wind out of my faith. But instead of focusing on the fact that I had to take my inhaler on day five, I decided to praise God that I went four days without it. In fact, I remember this moment on a prayer night, that I just felt like I needed to share this testimony. I needed to praise God for a partial miracle. And so it was deeper night, way back when. And I shared this testimony, do you know? It was about a week later that God then healed my lungs. Now, listen hindsight’s 20/20. And Oswald Chambers said, “Let God be as original with others as he was with you,” okay? This is less prescriptive and more descriptive, but I believe that publicly praising God for that partial miracle was one small step, one giant leap toward the blessing, double blessing of two healed lungs. So, praise God for partial miracles. All right, number two. Your focus determines your reality. In case you care, this is what Qui-Gon said to Annakin Skywalker in “Star Wars: Episode I”. Now, I know, sounds like a Jedi mind trick, but Paul was preaching this gospel 2,000 years ago. Philippians Four. He says, “Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things”. If you are looking for something to complain about, you will always find it. If you are looking for something to be grateful for, you will always find it. A few decades ago, a study was done with college students consisted of two questions. One, how happy are you? Two, how many dates have you had in the last month? Researchers found a weak correlation between the level of happiness and the number of dates. But then those tricky researchers flipped the questions. How many dates have you had in the last month? How happy are you? All of a sudden, a strong correlation between those two things. Why? Because the sequence of questions. The students were now focused on their dating status or lack thereof. Psychologists call it the focusing effect. And one of my favorite studies involves Olympic medalists. A professor at Northwestern University, Vicki Medvec, found that bronze medalists are quantifiably happier than silver medalists. That makes no sense at all, ’cause silver medalists beat the bronze medalists, which means they should feel better about the outcome than those who lost to them. Yes? Here’s what Medvec discovered. The silver medalists tended to focus on how close they came to winning gold and weren’t satisfied with silver. Bronze medalists focus on how close they came to not winning a medal at all and were just happy to be on the medal stand. Now, the technical term for what’s happening here is called a counterfactual. And they’re two kinds of counterfactual. There’s an upward and a downward counterfactual. An upward counterfactual is focusing on how things could have been better, like winning gold instead of silver. And it tends to produce feelings of frustration. A downward counterfactual is focusing on how things could be worse, like not winning a medal at all, and it produces feelings of gratitude. May have had a little bit of fun. Came across a fictitious letter a few years ago written by a college student that I think illustrates this idea well. “Dear mom and dad, I have so much to tell you. Because the fire in my dorm set off by student riots, I experienced temporary lung damage and had to go to the hospital. While I was there, I fell in love with an orderly. We moved in together. I dropped outta school. When I found out I was pregnant, he got fired because of his drinking. So, we’re moving to Alaska, where we might get married after the birth of our baby, your loving daughter. P.S. None of this really happened, but I did flunk my chemistry class and wanted to keep it in perspective”. Downward counterfactual. Let me go back to Philippians Four. “Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things”. Joy is not getting what you want, it’s appreciating what you have. It’s not changing your circumstances, it is changing your focus. A few weeks ago, I was at the Mall of America in Minnesota, there for some meetings. And I had no idea all the things I did not have. I had no idea how much I wanted and how much, yay, I even needed until I walked through the Mall of America. It is the mall of fact, it is a upward counterfactual that causes us to focus on what we do not have, but we want it. Flip that coin. In the last two decades, we’ve taken 272 mission trips as a church. But we say this all the time. What one mission trip, worth more than 52 sermons. Why? Well, listen, I believe we make a difference when we love people and serve people wherever we go. Do you know what I’ve learned? Every trip I’ve gone on, I’m the primary beneficiary because if you go on a mission trip to a third world country, it is a reality check. Most of our problems, first world problems. And we’ve spend enough time in a place where people make $2 a day. It’s a downward counterfactual. And you’re filled with gratitude for things like indoor plumbing, things that you would take for granted otherwise. I want you to hear what I’m about to say. You can be stressed and blessed at the same time. Blessing is not no problems. In fact, the blessings of God, talked about it last week, will complicate your life. But it will complicate your life in a way that it should be complicated. At the end of the day, here’s the bottom line, either your theology will conform to your reality or your reality will conform to your theology. Either you will filter your circumstances through the character of God, or you will filter the character of God through your circumstances. One way or the other, your focus determines your reality. Number three. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. If you focus on what’s wrong with you, it is game, set, match. Listen, and to be pretty good at this, accuse your other brethren, this thing called condemnation. You know what it is? It’s feeling guilt over confessed sin. It’s already forgiven and forgotten, but we can’t quite forgive ourselves. Now, if you focus on what’s right with God, well, now it’s game on. Listen, the good news of the gospel is this. You aren’t defined by what you’ve done wrong. God made him who had no sin to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of Christ. You are defined by what Christ accomplished on the cross. And so, when I’m frustrated, when I’m discouraged, when I’m lonely, when I’m scared, I make a beeline for the cross. Why? Because I know that no matter how bad my circumstances may be, my sin in nailed to the cross. And I know that I am worth the cross to Christ. Listen, the cross is where the curse is broken. The cross is where the blessing is bestowed. And I think that’s where we’re getting hotter, hotter. Let me close with a challenge. If you were here last week, Laura and I gifted a copy of “Double Blessing” and you’ll find a gratitude journal on page 92. If my math is right, 40 days ’til Thanksgiving. Perfect time for a gratitude, an attitude of gratitude to kind of exercise this muscle. So, let me give you three things real quick. Simple as one, two, three. One, buy a journal. It doesn’t matter what size or color or shape, but there’s something powerful about writing things down. And I found this to be true, whether I’m writing out a confession or I’m writing out a gratitude. I think this is one way that we take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. Number two, I wanna challenge you to write down three gratitudes each day. I thought, observant Jews, pronounce 100 blessings a day. Yeah, but if you try to go from zero to 100, you’re going to pull a gratitude hamstring, right? And so, maybe we start with three gratitudes a day and if you do that, you’ll have a 120 by Thanksgiving. The base of your brainstem, there is a cluster of nerve cells called a reticular activating system. It determines what we notice, what goes unnoticed. When you set a life goal, for example, it creates a category in that reticular activating system and it helps you notice anything and everything that will help you accomplish that goal. I think a gratitude journal has the same effect. It creates a category. This is about sanctifying the reticular activating, love God with all of your, wouldn’t that include that little cluster of cells at the base of the brainstem? This is where the battle is, won and lost, is it not? What we notice, what goes unnoticed. I think a double blessing mindset begins with looking for those things to be grateful for. And then finally, number three. Write down something different every day. And this is where I wanna push you a little bit. Listen, you can thank God for the sunrise, day one. But can you get a little bit more creative day two or three? You know, maybe take the photosynthesis angle, okay? Or the vitamin D angle, or if you like this kind of stuff, the Goldilocks zone angle, okay? Find something else, a unique way to thank God for that. Now, the English author G.K. Chesterton once stated that his ultimate goal in life was to take nothing for granted. Not a sunrise, not a flower, not a laugh. And I love that goal and I think this gratitude challenge kinda points us in the right direction. So, one of the great challenges we face is this thing called inattentional blindness. It’s the failure to notice the things that are in right in front of us, hidden in plain view. You know, Leonardo da Vinci said, “The average person looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, inhales without awareness of odor or fragrance and talks without thinking”. I’m gonna give you an example. Right now, it feels lik you’re sitting still. No, you’re not. You’re on a planet that’s spinning around it axis at 1,000 miles per hour. You’ll make one full rotation today. And not that, we’re traveling about 66,000 miles per hour. You’ll travel 1.3 million miles today through space and you didn’t have any big plans. Question. When was the last time you thanked God for keeping us in orbit? When was the last time you hit your knees and said, “God, I wasn’t sure we were gonna make the full rotation today, but you did it again”. Probably never because we don’t think that way. Here’s my point. There are macroscopic miracles happening all around us all the time. They’re hidden in plain sight. And then there are microscopic miracles, about 37 sextillion chemical reactions happening in your body at any given moment. I think that’s about 37 sextillion thank yous that we owe God. Here’s the thing, so easy to go through the motions, so easy to put it in autopilot, so easy to start complaining about what’s wrong. In Genesis 28 , Jacob is on a little camping trip in a city called Luz that gets renamed Bethel. And, wow, Jacob gets woke, right? He wakes up in more ways than one. It says, Genesis 28 , verse 17. “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.'” Listen, I think the goal of this gratitude challenge is to wake up to all the different ways that God is working in us and around us all the time. Listen, God is present. God is omnipresent. What’s absent is our awareness. May God remove that veil. May God give us spiritual eyes to see. I’m gonna invite our worship teams to come at all of our campuses. Our team write a song that we sang last week and we’re gonna sing it again this week. Last weekend, did little bit of a SWAT analysis of ourselves. This weekend, I want us to count our blessings, wanna get a jump on this gratitude journal. I bet you could come up with three in just the next couple of minutes. Now, yes, confession is admitting what’s wrong. But confession is so much more than that. Confession is the declaring what’s right with God. Last time I checked, we enter his gates with thanksgiving. And so, you don’t even get in the front door without the attitude of gratitude. Do you remember what Jesus did before he broke bread? It says “He gave thanks”. We read right past it. Listen, it was his body that was about to be broken. It was his blood that about to be shed. Give thanks in all circumstances. I think that’s what Jesus was doing. So, can we take a few minutes this weekend, as we prepare to take the communion cup, that cup of blessing? Let me just say, you might be here for the first time or maybe you’ve never celebrated communion before. Can’t think of a better way to take first step or next step in your relationship with God. Listen, open invitation to take those elements. His kindness leads us to repentance. His mercies are new every morning. God demonstrates his love for us in this that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And so, before our campus pastors come, and they’ll lead us in communion in just a few moments, could we exercise the attitude of gratitude? www.nationalcc.com .

Intercession: An Invitation to the Banqueting Table “For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. ”Ephesians 2:18 When’s the last time you heard a good “rags to riches” story? The movie “Annie” comesto mind or the more recent “Slum Dog Millionaire.” But none can rival the story in God’s word of a man named Mephibosheth (hence forthknown as M). The very meaning of M’s home, Lodebar, meant “not having” or “nopasture”. It was a town of forgotten people including M, son of David’s best friendJonathan. The Scripture records in 2 Samuel 9:4 that M was brought from “far off.” M’s fortunes changed dramatically on the day he was shown kindness. He was adopted as one of the king’s sons, given access to the King’s table and feasts, and granted abundance! All the lands that had been taken from him were restored along with the resources (35 men put at his disposal) to cultivate and bring in the harvest. Does M’s story sound familiar? It should because you too have been brought from afar, shown kindness, given access, and granted abundance. The Bible’s authors are not shy to speak of the great abundance that is our though Jesus Christ. He’s abundant in grace. “And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. ” 1 Timothy 1:14 He’s abundant in goodness and truth. “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,” Exodus 34:6 He’s abundant in mercy. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” 1 Peter 1:3 He gives an abundance of peace. “But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. ” Psalm 37:11 In abundant suffering, there’s abundant comfort. “For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.” 2 Corinthians 1:5 He wants us to overflow or have abundant hope through faith in Him! “May the God of all hope fill you with joy and peace in believing so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit! Rom. 15:13 In the devotional, Streams in the Desert, Nina Cowman writes this about the place of abundance: “The land whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys and drinketh water of the rain of heaven; a land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year (Deuteronomy 11:11-12). All our supply is to come from the Lord. Here are springs that shall never dry; here are fountains and streams that shall never be cut off. Here anxious one, is the gracious pledge of the Heavenly Father. If He be the Source of our mercies, they can never fail us. No heat, no drought can parch that river, “the streams whereof make glad the city of God.” Intercession is an invitation to the banqueting table to fellowship and receive from the Living God His abundance. It could like look saying “Here are my needs, Lord. I’m coming hungry and thirsty for you.” God is saying to us: here is my banquet. Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you that we are beneficiaries of being brought from afar, adopted as Your children and thus granted access, shown kindness, and given abundance. We give You praise that our supply from you will never be cut off! May all our FICM Staff and CFMAs live in these glorious truths and go forth in courageous faith to intercede for this ministry crying out for your honor and glory! In Your Magnificent Name we pray, Amen.

You see, the gospel is not about bad people becoming good. It’s about dead people coming to life. And only through the blood of Jesus and his resurrection can we come to life. And if you’re lost today, if you’re hurting today, there’s life in Jesus’ name for you. There is an answer to the ache within, to that loneliness you feel, even in the middle of a crowded room, that nagging sense of meaning and purpose that you lie in bed aware of, acutely aware of, but that shouldn’t make sense if life’s just an accident. If you have your Bible, Luke 15 is where we’re going to be today and then next week as well. Let me begin with a touching story. A couple celebrating their wedding anniversary, I think they were close to 50 years married, as I remember the story being told, the details. And they were at a very nice restaurant. In fact, they booked and got a table at what became, and at one point was, the number one rated, reviewed, Michelin-starred, endorsed, criticized restaurant in the entire world, if you can believe it, a restaurant that was called and is called Eleven Madison Park, in New York City. It, at the time, was owned by the same restaurant group that owns Shake Shack. And actually, at one time, Eleven Madison owned Shake Shack as well. And since then, Shake Shack became its own 9 billion pound gorilla. It was just a seasonal hot dog cart experiment for the summertime. And it did so well, it actually surpassed all the restaurants in the restaurant group. And of course, it is what it is. But Eleven Madison Park was this fine dining experience. And this couple was excited to honor the occasion of being married so long by getting a table at this restaurant. And so they were all excited. And they get seated. And the captain comes over to figure out whether they want still water or sparkling water or because they’re in New York City, how many of you know just the tap water will do? Because that’s some tasty water, right, and some, a little insider secret. Some people think it’s why the bagels are so good in New York City is because the tap water just tastes fantastic. And so they go through all that. Then the maitre d’ comes by and brings up the wine pairings and all the things that are going to be happening through the course of this meal, that is going to probably cost one arm and one leg at the end of it. And at that point, when wine was brought up, one of the two, the man stood up and goes, oh, my gosh, the champagne, the champagne, The maitre d’ is like, OK, what’s happening here? We’re having a senior moment, or something, the champagne. He goes, sir, sir, what happens when you put champagne in the freezer for too long? And the maitre d’ says, it’ll explode. And he goes, I bought this really nice bottle of champagne for us to celebrate later when we get home. And I forgot to put it in the refrigerator before I went to work. And so before we left for the restaurant, I stuck it in the freezer. And I meant to take it out and put it into the refrigerator when we left, but I forgot. And a dinner at this restaurant can take three or four hours. It is not something to rush. It is something to savor, something to enjoy. And he says, what’s going to happen by the time we get home? And the sommelier gets consulted. He said, I’m almost positive it’s going to have burst by then, sir. And so the man reluctantly looking for the coat check ticket in his pocket says, I’ll go, honey. You enjoy the first couple of courses. I’ll be back and begins to kind of… and at that point, the maitre d’s heart just, his heart, just breaking for them, says, sir, give me your keys. Tell me your address. You sit down. You enjoy your meal. I’ll get on the subway. I’ll go across town. I’ll go to your apartment. I will get this bottle out of the freezer. I’ll put it into the fridge for you. When you get home, it’s going to be taken care of. And both the man and the woman are just, of course, like, their hearts are just like, unbelievable, this treatment. This is crazy. And so they do. They give the keys to the man. And I was telling this story to my daughters this week, just practicing it before I told this tale. And my daughters are so sick. You know how sick they are? They go, I bet when they got home, he had stolen all their stuff. I’m like… what’s the matter with you? What’s the matter? Why would I tell a story like that in church? That would be a good ending. But that’s not how the story ends. They have their great meal, and they have their creme brulee. And they go through all the deal. And they leave, and they get home. And would you believe it? Nothing had been stolen. The champagne, though, is sitting safely chilled in the refrigerator, where next to it is a tin of caviar, a box of dark chocolates, and a note from Eleven Madison Park, saying, Happy Anniversary. This story is, in addition to just being heartwarming, is powerful for us to consider for a moment. Because it is not only something that just happened out of the goodness of this maitre d’s heart, but this was him literally following orders. You see, Danny Meyer, the founder of Shake Shack and at that point, the owner of Eleven Madison Park, explained in his book Setting The Table that it fits perfectly within the culture of the Union Square Hospitality group, that he leads, and that he instructs, using this story as an example of how to illustrate a principle that the employees are regularly encouraged to practice. And that is going the extra mile. You see, he postulates that there’s a massive difference between service and hospitality. By the way, you can’t spell “hospital” without using the same basic letters for hospitality. And so there’s something inside all of us that craves and needs both the giving and the receiving of hospitality. It fixes things inside of us. And they have this principle in their secular employee culture and handbook, that is going the extra mile, that everyone’s supposed to not just do service, people getting a meal in exchange for money, that has no hair in it or bugs in it, right is service, right? That’s what you paid for. That’s what you expected, but ways that they can go above and beyond or go the extra mile. And you’re like, wait a minute. Go the extra mile, is that the gas station? Yeah, it’s the gas station. But it’s not just the gas station. It’s also straight Bible. That phrase “go the extra mile,” it comes from the mouth of Jesus, as so many wonderful things in our world, that we don’t even realize, are coming from scripture and coming from the Bible are. Matthew 5:41, Jesus said, “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles”. And you’re like, Levi, what weird scenario under which would I ever find myself in where someone would make me go one mile? You have to understand, in that day, the nation of Israel was under the control of the Roman Empire. And as a conquered territory or province, there would be Roman soldiers routinely coming and going. And there was a Roman governor, we know, the one when Jesus died. His name was Pontius Pilate, and he ruled. And he allowed there to be quote, unquote “king” under him, King Herod and other rulers. But make no mistake. Caesar was in charge. But Caesar liked to allow the idea of autonomy to exist within the conquered territories. It seemed to go better for him if he allowed them to think that they were still going through the motions of being in charge. But at any point as you were going about your day, you could confront the Roman authority. And if you did, you had to do exactly what they said. One of the strange laws that existed was that if a Roman soldier, who had all of his gear and all of his bulky packs, was walking around from place to place, from assignment to assignment, from one jurisdiction to another, and grew tired of carrying all their gear, all they had to do was walk up to anybody within the Roman Empire and with the end of their spear, touch your shoulder. If they touched your shoulder, it meant one thing. You needed to turn around, gather all of their gear, and be willing to walk with them a distance of precisely one mile. And if you did that, at the end of it, you could literally put the gear down, and they could make you walk with their burden no more. They had to go find someone else to carry their stuff. But Jesus in this statement was saying, do not do merely the service requested of you. Go above and beyond. Go the extra mile. When they ask you to do one, because it was common in that day to be counting your steps. And when you got exactly to one mile, you would throw that down and be done with it. But Jesus says, no, I want you to go the extra mile. I want you to do more than asked of you. I’m not looking just for service. I’m looking for a spirit of hospitality. I’m looking for the caviar. I’m looking for the chilled champagne, but also the… you see what I’m saying? And so the story is, in their culture, as a way of just saying, look for opportunities to do what is not requested of you. And it goes into their culture as a legend. And in staff meetings, they’ll say, let’s all look today for opportunities to create legends. You can be sure that anybody that week that asked that couple, how was your anniversary dinner? I heard you got reservations at that restaurant. They’re going to be telling that story and doing the viral marketing for the company. Because they have people who are literally believing in the mission, believing in the vision of the dream of hospitality, and looking for ways to go that extra mile, doing more than is requested of them and not just going through the motions. This, by the way, illustrates perfectly a statement often misattributed to Maya Angelou. But it’s actually Carl Buechner, who said, people may forget what you said, but they will never forget, look at it, how you made them feel, great inspiration for us as we follow Jesus and as we seek to understand his heart for his house. Welcome to week three of “Make Yourself At Home,” as we’re seeking to get our minds, get our hearts, get our feet, on top of the who, the what, the when, the where, and the why of church. And this is exactly what Jesus’ heart is for us as we live and as we do life’ and as we serve him in this world. Matthew 5:16, Jesus said, “let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”. Well, this week, the title of my message is “What Satan Fears Most”. And we can get to know God’s plan for us by understanding what the devil hates, what the devil fears. And there are things that he does hate. And scripture says we’re not to be ignorant concerning Satan’s devices. And so by understanding what the enemy hates about what we can do in the church, we can understand God’s plan for us all. It says in Luke 15, “then all the tax collectors and sinners drew near to him to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. So he spoke this parable to them, saying, what man of you having 100 sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you that likewise, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. Or what woman, having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost. Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of God and the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Then he said, a certain man had two sons”. And what follows is what commonly gets referred to as the parable of the prodigal son. But I read the setup, the opening bands before the headliner, you could say, the first couple of choruses before the main event, so that you would notice two things; number one, that you would notice that there’s only one parable. Jesus said to them, “this parable”. And it began with a shepherd. It moved from there into a woman, and it culminated into what we mistakenly referred to as the parable of the prodigal son. But it is, in fact, only the third portion of the one parable that has multiple different movements, much like the artsy movies, that as they begin, open up multiple plot lines. And you’re not quite sure until the end, if the director is doing his job, what they all had in common with each other. But that’s Jesus’ goal here. He’s a master communicator, and he understands what you need to know, that stories are facts that get wrapped up in emotions. So as opposed to just telling them a true statement, he makes them feel something along the way of this journey. But it’s not three parables. So it’s not the parable of the prodigal son. It’s one parable that has these three movements. The second thing we need to realize is that he’s exposing how the church is supposed to work, how Jesus thinks and how he looks at situations, through it all coming in reaction, or correction, we could say, to some criticism Jesus was getting about the kind of church he wants to build. Which is a table where there are seats for people from every walk of life, from every background conceivable, and people who are messed up and sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors all being told, it doesn’t matter where you’ve been. It doesn’t matter where you’ve done. There’s room. Come on in and touch me. Come on in and be healed by me. Come on in and receive living water. Come on in and receive life. I love you. I care about you. I don’t just see what’s damaged about you. Now, of course, this exposes the tension that we need to address. Because we’re living in a world where we are increasingly being told, that if I don’t approve of everything you do, I must not love you. Therefore, I do not accept you. But Jesus never condoned sin. Find me one time in scripture where he ever said to someone doing something that was pulling them away from God’s command and God’s blessing, and he encouraged. He would say, neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more. He called people to their best. Because every time we choose to sin, we choose to suffer. So Jesus never condoned sin, but he always accepted the sinner and welcomed them to relationship and welcomed them to be at his table and welcomed them to do life with him, even if they didn’t agree with what he agreed with and saw, what he saw. But that truth that’s been distorted, that we can love someone while not accepting what they’re doing, because it’s pulling them back from God’s best, is, in our day, being blurred to where if I don’t accept what you do, therefore I must not accept you. But I can love you, but still speak the truth about what God says about what is best and what is good and what is for your long-term enjoyment. And we need to understand this desperately. Otherwise, we’ll end up just being silent, or we’ll end up pulling back in the love that God wants us to give. And so it is, again, a tension to be managed. And the devil doesn’t care which side of the horse we fall off of. He just doesn’t want us to stay in the saddle and ride. And so we have to remain in that messy middle, where there is sin, and it’s not God’s best. And this is true about what God has revealed about who he is and what salvation looks like and what marriage is, which was his invention, to give to us; and at the same time, where we would say, hey, right here with you. Let’s eat. Let’s talk. You’re welcome here. You think differently? That’s OK. You’re welcome here. We want to point you to Jesus and believe that he is willing to touch you as well. And so that’s what Jesus is exhibiting. It’s called the church. And the religious people were not such big fans of it. They were not keen on being around the messy people that Jesus was willing to touch. And that’s because they didn’t consider themselves as a part of the club of sinners. They didn’t see themselves as sinners. Why would you eat with sinners? He’s like, because otherwise, I’d have to only eat all my meals by myself. Right? Even the asking of the question insinuated that they should be welcomed in. But they were the worst sinners of all. But they just put this religious wall up of, this is what we’ve done that God must be so happy with. And so in response to their criticism of his being there with the sinners, building the church, where broken people are welcome and embraced and called to God’s best plan for their life, he gave this parable to them. And then follow the math. Follow the math. I know I lost some of you. I’m not a big fan of math myself. But this is easy math. This is easy math, OK? His point was, and if we missed it, if we just jump into The Parable of the Prodigal Son, one shepherd has 100 sheep. Some of you, your eyes are already glazing over. And he loses one. And he leaves the 99, safely protected, and goes out and risks everything to get that one back. What is that percentage-wise? 1%. That sheep represents 1% of 100. OK, next story, we have a woman who has 10 coins. She loses one coin. What does that represent? That’s now not 1 out of 100, or 1%, that’s 1 out of 10, or 10%. But the woman who lost only 10% of what she had did not say, well, I’ve still got 90% of my stuff. I’m good. No. She put everything in her life on pause to ransack the house. The things we will do to get lost stuff, have you ever lost your phone in between the seat and the console in your car? You will bloody your knuckles up all day to get that phone back or that chapstick back. You’re going to recover the lost possession. Anybody with me? Am I preaching good up in here? That woman bloodied her hand to get that coin back. And if that shepherd, hey, Jesus was saying, you would do the same. And every one was like, you’re right, we would do the same if we lost 1% of our livestock, if we lost 10% of our financial net worth. He said, now let’s make you feel real bad. Because the father had two sons and lost one of them. What percentage is that? 50% of something that’s got a lot more value than things or possessions or things you could own. And he says, and that’s how I see these people at this table. I care about them. And I (news flash, Jesus said) came (here is Jesus’ mission statement) to seek and to save that which is lost. It’s what Jesus said is the whole purpose of his coming to the world. He didn’t come just to give us epic statements that could end up in fortune cookies one day. He didn’t come to just be Mr. Rogers with a beard on and tell us we should recycle, and stuff. Jesus came to be slaughtered on the cross and rise from the dead, so that we, if we’re lost, can be found. You see, the gospel is not about bad people becoming good. It’s about dead people coming to life. And only through the blood of Jesus and his resurrection can we come to life. And if you’re lost today, if you’re hurting today, there’s life in Jesus’ name for you. There is an answer to the ache within, to that loneliness you feel, even in the middle of a crowded room, that nagging sense of meaning and purpose, that you lie in bed aware of, acutely aware of, but that shouldn’t make sense if life’s just an accident, that shouldn’t make sense if you’re just atoms that collided in the night, and the monkey one day put on pants. And now here you are, well done, well played, mud. And why do we all long for immortality? Why do we all dream of greatness? Why are all of our hearts stirred by the nobility of a maitre d’ going above and beyond, out of his way? That makes no evolutionary sense, right? This is survival of the fittest. I mean, you see what I’m saying? There’s something in our hearts that yearns for things that on paper, we shouldn’t believe to even be true, forgiveness, charity, and compassion. Why do all the stories we love involve someone sacrificing themself, that others may live? Does it matter? Those are themes that have resonant sympathy inside of our souls. And it’s all hints and echoes of the great story, of a Savior who came through his own expense to save that which is lost. And if we’re to be a part of his church (follow me) we are to be his hands and feet, giving everything we can to the mission that consumed him. In other words, we are to give our lives to that noble pursuit of hospitality, being the agents of his love, inviting others into the house where we were welcomed in, that we are God’s way of saying to the world, make yourself at home in the kingdom. Come on in. That’s what lights up God’s heart. And that’s what Satan fears most. He would have us focus on anything else, anything else. Bible trivia? Yes. The disciples are standing there. Jesus is like, all right, I’m coming back. Until then, go into all the world. Preach the gospel to every creature. And he’s been gone 10 minutes, and what are they up there doing? Just derdy, derdy, der, looking at clouds. Angels had to come back. They’re like, hey, hey, hey, didn’t he give you a job to do? He’s coming back, y’all. Come on, go reach some people. Go touch some people. Go seek and save some people. Do you like how it is to be saved? Pay it forward. You see, that’s what the angels came back and said. And I think that’s what they would say to us. And the enemy will do anything to keep us back from our hospitality that we’re called to, being his ambassadors. So what does Satan fear most? Four things, jot them down. Number one, the attention on Jesus. Need to know about Satan. We’re learning by contrast today. We’re learning, what does Satan hate? He hates attention on Jesus. Why does he hate that? It reminds him of his past. Satan’s original name was Lucifer. Lucifer was a worship leader. Yeah, that’s what his job was before he fell. And when he fell, he forfeited the right and the privilege to cover God’s throne in praise. And when he did, he turned back from living a life focused on worshiping the Ancient of Days. So, of course, he would hate us living a life focused on Jesus. But in the church, nothing makes sense if we’re not lifting up the head. Have you ever seen a headless horseman? I know Halloween’s coming. That’s not natural. Right? But if the body doesn’t have a head, if we’re not focused on Christ, or as we say in our values, and if you look on our website, you’ll see our statement of faith. What do we believe here at the church? What’s most important to us? Number one, right at the very front is this. It’s not about us. We’re here to make Jesus famous. We exist to bring him glory. We exist to do what he wants us to do, which informs mission. Because if Jesus, who’s the head of the church, the body, was focused on seeking and saving that which is lost, should we as his body do something different than what the head wants us to do? Wouldn’t it be unnatural if my arm was just doing stuff over here? I’d be like, what you doing back there, pal? Oh, I’m just doing my own little thing, you know. No, that’s called cancer. It’s called a seizure. When our body does not respond properly to the head, but chooses to do its own thing, something’s wrong. Colossians 1:18, “he is the head of the body the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things, he may have the preeminence”. Revelation 12:11, why does Satan fear our focus on Jesus? “They overcame him”, hello, “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death”. There is power in the gospel. There is power in the name of Jesus. There is strength. There is salvation. There is light. There is love. There is healing in the name of Jesus. So we, if we’re going to be anything in this church, we’re going to be focused on Christ. Secondly, what Satan fears most, willingness without understanding, willingness without understanding. I see the brother outside the party, which is so sad to me. Because the heartbreaking part of the story at the beginning is that the father has lost 50% of his sons. He’s got one son at home and one who’s out at a wild party, paying for the prostitutes and buying casamigas for the whole room, making all kind of bad friends. And then you see the story shifts at the end. When that son has come home, and the father receives him and welcomes him, though he shouldn’t have, and calls him son again, but sadly, the enjoyment of it’s not long-lasting, because he still got a son outside the house. Elder brother is out there with his arms crossed. Now, many commentaries have pointed out that it should have been the job of the older brother to be out looking for his bro. And there’s a pattern that’s established and then interrupted, that’s meant to, by negative space contrast, what should be the natural thing that’s taking place. Guy loses 1%, goes out looking for it. Woman loses 10%, goes out looking for it. Family loses 50%, no one goes out. Well, maybe the father’s old, can’t go out. He’s there to hug. He’s there to embrace. We know, by the end of the story, the young son was strong enough to be out working in the fields, which meant he had more than enough physical dexterity to handle the rigors of international travel in that day. And some have postulated that Jesus was seeking to tug out or tease out all of their outrage that he wouldn’t be out doing what would have lit his father up, going to do the job of the shepherd, the job of the woman looking for the coin, to seek out his younger brother. No one goes. And there is within the story some sense of his unwillingness to do it. Because he didn’t understand why. It didn’t make sense to him. I’m not going in, because what makes sense to me is I do this, therefore you do that. His relationship with God was all transactional. If I do this. This is how God should respond, and he should be lucky to have me. That makes sense somewhat. But to us who love to stand and to peg our identity on our accomplishments, and our ego craves that validation of, if I do this, then you should have given me a goat, and you should have given me these accolades, which just reveals he was festering bitterness all along anyway. Couldn’t even say, my brother. He said, as soon as that son of yours has come home. So there is some sense of him only being willing to comply if it made sense to him. But what if we eradicate that in the body of Christ, in this house and no matter what God calls us to do, we’re willing to do it because we’re just grateful to be saved? We’re just grateful that he died for us. We’re just grateful, right? I think, sometimes, we’re like, if I see it, I’ll believe it. We shift into Thomas mode. I’m not going to be made to a fool by coming and worshiping you. But you might not even be alive. So if I can stick my finger, that makes sense. That’s older brother thinking. It makes sense to be Cain, angry about what he gave, not being accepted, and jealous of Abel. Because Cains never understand Abels. It makes sense to me to see Saul’s daughter Michal angrily judging her husband David for dancing as a fool. Because her frame of reference for a king was someone who lorded it over people, someone who was strong and full of natural ability and took all the attention and took all the glory. So when she saw her husband, who was not a king like Saul, he was a king who was a shepherd. He was a king who was a simple poet. He was a king who was pulled up from “I didn’t deserve it. I’m the least of my family”. And that king, who’s just grateful to have a Savior who included him in the story, who’s going to dance before the Lord joyously and foolishly and be even more undignified than this, and it didn’t matter what God called him to do. Because if God’s speaking, and he says to do something, the answer is yes. Now tell me the question. But listen to me. If you need control, and you need to understand, and you need to know, if I obey, what are you going to do? And when are you going to do it? And if I clean my life up a little bit, when can I expect Mr. Right to show up on my doorstep? And when can I expect the raise, if I’m willing to be a good, put my time, hold, that’s not ever how God works. Just ask Jehoshaphat. Yeah, we’re going to go into a battle against this huge overpowering force. Love you to send some worship leaders on ahead. Doesn’t make sense. But God’s not asking for you to understand him. He’s asking for you to obey him. It doesn’t make sense to be Gideon and to see your army get smaller before you go into battle against a bigger force. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make sense if you’re Esther, and you’re going to go into your husband, even though he didn’t call for you. And if you didn’t call for you, but you come, you die. It doesn’t make sense. Welcome to the kingdom of God. He chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. It’s never going to make sense to obey. It’s never going to be a good time to give. It’s never going to be a convenient time in your schedule to begin to prioritize serving or community service or any of these things. So we need willingness without understanding. Why? Because this is the victory, 1 John 5:4, that has overcome the world, our faith, our faith. And if we fully understand it all, exactly how it’s going to work, and what’s going to be over here, and then I’m willing to begin to obey you, God, we will never see the powerful things he wants to do. It’s faith that the devil hates the most. He was so sure, that if he could just touch Job’s business and touch Job’s money and hurt Job’s kids, Job would curse God. Because that makes sense. But Job, having no clue why his health was in shambles, his children had died, his entire net worth reduced in a moment to nothing, got on his knees and said, I don’t understand what you’re doing, but I will worship you even if you slay me. And in all these things, Job refused to do what made sense, even to his wife, who said, curse God and die. He would not sin with his tongue, but honored God and worshiped him on an ash heap. Come on, we will be unstoppable if we have that posture. God, I’m going to trust in you and do what you called me to do no matter what. I don’t need to see it to believe it. I’ve already seen your resurrection through your spirit in my heart. I’ve already seen the cross. I’ve seen enough. Come on, turn to your neighbor and say, I’ve seen enough. I’ve seen enough. And the blessing comes not to those who believe after they see, but see even when they haven’t believed, Jesus said. And that kind of enthusiasm is contagious. So we’re going to fight for willingness without understanding because the devil hates it. And then thirdly, hilarious generosity, what Satan fears most, hilarious generosity. Why? Because he’s a taker. He’s a taker. You want to understand him? He’s a thief. He takes stuff that’s not his. He’s a murderer. He takes life that he shouldn’t take. And he got kicked out of heaven because he tried to take the throne that was not his. Long before Jay Z, he was trying to take the throne. He was. He literally, Isaiah says, says, I will put my star above his star. I’ll put my throne above his throne. He wanted the glory. So he sought to take. He was a thief. And so, of course, he wants to lead us down that same path. So any time we give of our own accord, anytime we have that spirit, he would be afraid of that because he knows we’re doing what’s going to move us towards God’s best for our lives. And he wants to take us in the opposite direction. So whatever Satan hates, God loves. It’s a study in contrasts. 2 Corinthians 9:7, “so let each one”, this is about financial giving, “give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly”, oh, I’ve got to give something, “or of necessity”, well, I really need to probably. But what does God love? Say it with me. God loves a Cheerful giver. “Cheerful” is a good word. Cheerful people are a blessing to be around. But guess what? That’s not even the tip of the spear of that word. Because in English, cheerful is a wonderful word, right? But in Greek, which is what Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 9:7 in, it’s even better. Because the Greek word is… Guess what English word we got from…?? Yeah, yeah, you’re laughing because it’s funny, right? But the Greek word means a cheerfulness that comes through involuntary laughter, not the chuckle that’s polite, right? Oh, that’s so funny. Right? But we all have that friend who we just love being around them. Because they get us to belly laugh. They get us to laugh until we cry. That power which is meant to be, what the church is all about, the inside jokes and that joy that comes from laughter, not at someone’s expense, but your own expense, that’s some of the best laughter, right? And when you really can laugh about those things, I’m just telling you something, it’s hilarious. And what he’s saying is not someone who gives like, well, I have to, or I should, or, you know, blah, blah, blah, yeah. But where there’s this sense of, oh my gosh, I can’t believe what God’s given to me. I can’t believe what he did for me. I can’t believe I ran from him, and he ran to me. I brought shame to his name, but he has won me back through his death. It’s hilarious that he would allow me to be a part of that. It’s hilarious. I mean, if you help me rescue one of my kids, you saved a child of mine that was drowning, what would my response be? Not some grudging gift card to Applebee’s. It would be hilarious that I would get to do anything for you because of what you gave back to me that was valuable to me. When we give, why do we clap as a church? Why have we chosen a posture of unashamedly talking about how important these things are? Because we can’t believe we were given our lives back. And we know we could never pay it back. But we will pay it forward. And pay it forward we must. Because fatted calves are expensive. Rings, they don’t pay for themselves. Royal robes and seats at banquets and sandals for the feet, these things cost. Every person entering into the waters of baptism, every one of the tens upon tens of thousands of incarcerated individuals who will hear the preaching this weekend, every single person by the million who will hear a little clip, short form encouragement, from God’s word as we as a ministry are committed to being the hands and feet of Jesus, inviting the world to the banqueting table of the King, saying, make yourselves at home. It doesn’t matter where you’ve done. It doesn’t matter. Come on, are you hungry? Come on, do you like peach pie? That’s fed. Fatted calves, they’re not cheap. They’re not. Doing what we’re doing, the ministry, all of the things, and the campuses and the reach and everything God’s doing, it’s not cheap. It’s expensive. And I was thinking this week about how… I don’t know why I’m yelling. It took me a second to catch up with my tone. And I was thinking about how funny it was, when I first moved to Montana, and people began to say something to me that no one ever said to me living in California. And that was, you want to go in on a cow? Do you want to go with me on a side of beef? Do you want to go in with me on half a cow? It’s this thing out here. I like it. I like it. I like it. Let’s go in together on a cow. You want to go in with me on a fatted calf? Come on, who wants to go in with me on a fatted, I can’t pay for the whole thing myself. I can’t do everything. But we can all do something. And God loves it when there’s a spirit of generosity with what’s in our hands. There’s nothing you have entrusted to me that I’m not willing to see be a part of it. And I don’t want to just give my leftovers. I want to give my best. 1963, one of my favorite rides at Disneyland opened up. Tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, Tiki Room, anybody ever been in the Tiki Room? Anybody? No, you’re like, I’m going to Space Mountain. No, Tiki Room’s where it’s at, man. Tiki Room was the first ride in Disneyland to have audio-animatronics. It would show up later, Jungle Cruise. It would show up later, Pirates of the Caribbean. It would show up later. Here’s the deep cut, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. But it was the first to have any creatures that could move and talk. And what you would hear would match what you would see. It was also the first ride at Disneyland to have air conditioning. It’s one of the great things about it to this present day. You’re super hot? Go get some Dole Whip. Sit in there, air-conditioned. Listen to some birds sing. It’s amazing. Yeah, it’s fantastic, right? Why did it have air conditioning? Because of the audio-animatronics. 1963, computers filled up warehouses. And there was an underground chamber full of the giant computers it took to make the little birds sing. And so they had to introduce air conditioning as a necessity to keep the computers for from overheating. And it was also one of the handful of rides in the park that Walt Disney personally worked on. And he was a notorious perfectionist. So he’d cast a vision, and his imagineers would have to make it work. So he’s got this idea for a restaurant. It’s going to be sponsored by United Airlines. Because Hawaii had just become a state. And United Airlines had daily service to Hawaii. And so they got behind it as a natural extension of this Caribbean lifestyle, this Polynesian lifestyle, rather, and this idea of tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room, right? And so they got behind. Now it’s sponsored by Dole, the pineapples. And to this present day, it has a sponsor. Because originally, he couldn’t afford all the rides. And so he had to get sponsors to help pay for them as they would open. So the team is there. And they are bringing the prototype birds. If you go into the Tiki Room, you’re going to be underwhelmed. But promise me, DM me and tell me you went because it’s awesome, OK? You’re going to see these birds just singing a song to you. There’s a French bird. There’s a German bird. There’s a Spanish bird. It’s total cancellable now. We’re appropriating culture because these birds speak these accents, and stuff. Oh, it’s very bad. But the bird… Levi is quiet. You haven’t been canceled this month. So you’re working on it, though. OK, so the crazy thing is, when he saw them, he said, not good enough. Now, the birds were amazing. They had blazed a trail technology-wise to make these birds sing, dance, move, ruffle their feathers, the whole deal. And even their eyes would move back and forth as they would sing these songs. He said, not good enough. The imagineers are like, we… we… what… you… ah. He said, the birds need to breathe. I couldn’t help but notice, during the whole song, they never breathed in and out. Can you make their chests rise and fall as they breathe, so that they can… and here’s the direct quote from one of the imagineers. He said, Walt, 1% out of people maybe will notice this. But if we make them breathe or don’t make them breathe, 99% will never know, what difference does it make? People aren’t going to understand, and this is too much perfection. And Walt’s response back is legendary. He said, you’re right. People might not notice the birds breathing, but you can feel perfection. You can feel perfection. And that’s why Disneyland’s better than Knott’s Berry Farm. And cleaner, too. Just unnecessary burns right here on a Sunday, that most people are not getting in our churches around Montana. But let me say this to you. I throw Montana jokes out. I throw California jokes out. It’s what it is. All right, so we might not notice, but God feels perfection. God feels excellence. It might seem to other people, even, we’re very generous people. But David said it well. I will not give to God that which costs me nothing. And I think all of us should have that desire in our hearts. I want to give God my best, not my leftovers. Because God can feel that, too. And I love this. Just let’s just throw it up. “Whatever you do, Disney said, do it well. Do it so well, that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again”. This is just good advice. Some of you didn’t have parents telling you this stuff. “And they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do”. What a great thought, amen? I think of that verse that says, everything you do, do it all in the name of Jesus. It should inform not just what we do in the church, but out in the world, at our jobs as well. Fourthly, what does Satan fear most? All hands on deck. All hands on deck. The enemy loves it when, if you do get saved and squeak by, that you would stay selfish your whole life serving God by not serving God. And tragically, in the church, many people are saved, but not serving. They’ve been given everything, but aren’t giving their all and using their natural, God-given talents to be that hand and feet of Jesus. What a sad thing that is, when Ephesians 4:7 says, but to each one of the worship team and campus pastors and church staff. Nope. “But to each one of us was grace given according to the measure of Christ’s gift”. You are gifted. You are called. You are equipped. You have been given tools to build the house to be served, to be used as a brick built up to be a house for God. And the church will always have something missing when you’re not using your gift, using your story, using what you’ve been given, to make it better for more people to be reached. And then when you use those gifts on team, to use them heart and soul and not just going through the motions. So the gift that you have been given is meant to be explored and figured out through prayer and under leadership and watched, grown, where you can be handled more and more responsibility, more and more opportunity. It would be the goal with time. But then, like I said, when you leave the church, you’re still the church. Because this isn’t the church. You’re the church. We’re the church. So we use our gifts here. And then with that same spirit of excellence, that same spirit of integrity, that same spirit of supernatural hospitality, we go into the world. We scatter into our various areas of responsibility. We go to our job. We punch in at the school, at the hospital, at the real estate agent, at our job framing. And we do so, saying, I’m doing all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I’m going to do so with such a spirit of excellence, that people are going to want to know what’s different about me because they see my light, and they want to glorify my Father, who’s in heaven. Titus 2:10… team, come on out here. We’re close to done. “Not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity”. Pause right there, your attention, please. What’s going on here in Titus 2:10? He’s talking to some slaves who asked him a question. And they said, hey, we’re slaves. We’re saved now. What should we do at our job being a slave in the Roman Empire? He said, all right, here’s what you do. Don’t pilfer. Never steal anything on the job site. Always have good fidelity. Do exactly what’s asked of you at work, “that they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior in all things”. Do you see what he’s doing? He’s giving you permission to do everything you do with your hands, you do with your body, you do with your skills, you do with your education, you do in any sphere of influence you touch, to adorn the doctrine of God, to actually enhance the glow of the gospel, is what he’s saying. The NIV says, “Make the teaching about God attractive”. Another version says, “Add some luster and shine to the truth of who Jesus is”. This is what it means to be an ambassador. Paul said in 2 Corinthians, “Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God”. The goal was, Paul was saying, if people see you, your master or anybody else seeing you, the way you go to work each day in your job, and these were slaves, that they somehow connect the dots eventually to how good God is, just watching the gospel according to you. I heard this interview with the CEO of Coca-Cola. And he was asked something about how he thinks about it. And he said, well, my thought process on being a part of this team at Coca-Cola is I’m a brand ambassador. I’m an ambassador for the brand. A brand is only a promise you’ve made, but not kept yet. And my job, our job as a team, is to make sure that promise is true. We’re trying to keep a promise in a brand. And then he quoted the predecessor, a man named Don Keough, who was at one point the Coca-Cola president, and he said… by the way, he was the one who introduced the new Coke. That didn’t go so good, right? So that was a brand not… But mistakes are made. I love this question, though. He said, “I always want the answer to this question to be YES when I’m driving home each day. Did I polish the Coke brand just a little bit today”? What a challenging, thought-provoking question, that that man would drive home from work asking about sugar water with bubbles in it. But can we, if we are a part of an even bigger brand, the brand of Jesus, part of his house, can we as drive home from work, from school, from anything we do, from everything we do, say, did I adorn the doctrine of God? Or did I just go through the motions? Satan hates it when we’re willing without understanding, hilarious in generosity, have an all hands on deck, all of us using our gifts, all of us using our different assignments all around, and the attention focuses on Jesus supremely. This is what Satan fears most. Now, there’s this statement in culture. I’m going to close with this. And it’s something people say. If the job they’re doing or the place they work or the restaurant they are at is not providing the level of hospitality maybe a customer is hoping for, and it’s become a buzzword in our day. We’ll just say, like, this ain’t the Ritz. What do you think this is, the Ritz? This ain’t the Ritz. And that’s that mentality of dumbing down and diminishing the quotient of what we’re doing because we’re not at maybe what we could or would aspire to be at. There’s this freedom, though, in Christ for us to have that Ritz-level quality in anything we do, everything we do, doing it unto Jesus, knowing nothing is too small to be used by him. And what can happen where there’s that spirit of ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen? Which is the famous creed of those who work at the Ritz-Carlton. Well, let me close with this story, and we’ll see. A couple walked into the bar at the Ritz-Carlton, Marina Del Rey, California. They were wearing aloha Hawaiian shirts, even though it was a blustery, cold California day, gray in the sky, drizzly, not enjoyable. Bar was empty. No one wanted to be there. But they walk in wearing these bright, obnoxious Hawaiian shirts, sit down at the bar. Bartender’s a woman named Fran. Fran approaches the couple and begins quickly to, socially smart, figure out, what’s the deal with this couple? And why are they wearing these shirts? And they grimly toast their Mai Tais, which they ordered, by saying, we’re on our Hawaiian honeymoon. They were supposed to be at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua, on west Maui. They had been planning for it for years. But just before they got married, her husband was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a very, very, very grim prognosis with very meager chances for survival, even given the best treatment. And so they said, we pivoted so we could get treatment here in Los Angeles. And we booked a room here at this Ritz to make do with what life has handed to us. Fran made herself scarce, but holding back tears, ran to the front desk as quick as she could and informed her general manager of what was happening, at which point, they went into full-blown Ritz-Carlton “do something crazy” mode. They call it wow moments. They’re all trained to look for any wow moment they can find. You can’t find it really directly on a PNL. In fact, it might be even be waste on a PNL. But this is where they, all hands on deck to make something special happen. And what that meant was going into the prop closet for corporate events, where people, at some point, had had a corporate-themed luau-type event. And they found anything they could and everything they could that looked Hawaiian, and they rushed it up to this couple’s room, where they decorated it in every bit, the obnoxious Hawaiian aloha of their shirts and Mai Tais. They scavenged through the drawer of the front desk check-in and found a Kapalua Ritz-Carlton key card someone had left behind, and they coded it to their room. The general manager put on an aloha shirt. And after their check was presented, he said, it’s been paid for in full by the hotel. And he then offered to them this Kapalua key card and said, here’s the new key card to your room. And when they went up to the room, they found an Igloo cooler full of beach sand with a sign in it that had their name and then said their Private Hawaiian Vacation Getaway. And for the next three days, every single person who worked for the hotel greeted them with aloha and did everything they could to make them feel like they were very much in the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room. Why does that make us feel the way it does? Because this is what God has called us to. Let’s work at Ritz-Carlton? Maybe, maybe to blaze a trail of something even greater than the Ritz-Carlton, in Jesus’ name, but wow moments. Because this is the kingdom of the fatted calf, and there’s a seat for you in my Father’s house. Is anybody thankful for it? And so, God, we are grateful. And we ask for that spirit to rest on all of us of excellence and imagination and creativity and integrity, that we would do what you called us all to do. We’d show up at work, show up at that daycare, show up at that hospital, show up in that board room. We’re not real estate agents or builders building houses. We’re about homes and people and lives and family. That’s going to be noticed. We’re going to have great opportunity to point people to you when that’s our lives. If you would just say, man, I’m in on that. I’m in on that vision. Could I just ask you to raise a hand up? You say, I’m in on that. And if it means you begin serving, if it means you begin giving, if it means you get into a group, if it means you just take a step of faith to show up and actually try at work and not phone it in, I don’t know what God’s doing in your heart. But by raising your hand all across our church, you’re saying, “I hear the Holy Spirit blowing, and I’m in. I welcome the wind”. Thank you, Lord. You can put your hands down. And I want to invite now anybody who’s never yet said yes to Jesus, to take that important step of coming home. Let’s not be that young brother out in the world looking for satisfaction and sin. And let’s not be that older brother thinking we don’t need it. Let’s come into the house, humble ourselves and receive what our Father has given to us at the cost of the cross of Jesus. If that’s you I’m describing, and you want heaven to come touch your heart, for God to make it his home, I’m going to pray with you. I want you to pray it out loud after me. God will hear you. He’ll come into your heart. I made this decision when I was a freshman in high school. I had gone to church my whole life, but I was empty because it was kind of a religious duty. And then I got pulled into all kinds of sinful things, pornography and drugs and drinking. And I was miserable. But I knew too much about God to be happy in the world, but I had too much of the world to be happy with God. And there on that day, I was invited to come in and sit down and be a son, to receive Jesus. It’s changed that day and every day since. And that’s what God wants for you, a relationship with Jesus, your sins forgiven, your future is secure. And if that’s you I’m describing, and you would say, “I want that”, I’m going to pray with you. I’m going to ask our church family to pray with you. Say this out loud to God and mean it in your heart: Dear Lord, I know that I’m a sinner. I’m lost. I’m alone. And I need you. I can’t save myself, but I believe you can. Please come into my heart. Make it your home. Thank you for new life. I give you mine, in Jesus’ name. Levi Lusko shares how we can get to know God’s plan for us by understanding the things that Satan hates and fears. By keeping our attention on Christ and worshipping Him, even in moments of uncertainty, we will tap into a radical generosity that mirrors the amazing life we’ve been given through Jesus. www.freshlifechurch