Our hearts are broken for the people of Israel who have endured such great atrocities inflicted upon women and children and the elderly, slaughtered mercilessly. I also pray for those who seek peace, including believers in Jesus in Gaza, who will inevitably suffer as a result of Israel’s justified actions in defense of its people. (What else can Israel do but retaliate and try to bring justice to the perpetrators of these terrible crimes? What would the U.S. government do in the same circumstances? What would we want them to do?) It is Hamas that has done this, a terrorist organization, and if there was a way to punish Hamas, and only Hamas for this, it would be ideal. But that would be like saying in World War II one should wage war only against the Nazis, not against the people of Germany, which included many who did not support the Nazi government, though there were, unfortunately, many who tolerated it. My heart breaks for innocent Israelis and innocent Palestinians, but for sure any chance of peace in the Middle East, at least in the near future, has been decimated by the horrific actions of Hamas against innocent men, women, and children. Gavin Ortlund  writes , “There is some evil in this world, like what Hamas terrorists are doing, that is hard to account for apart from belief in supernatural evil (demons). God, protect the innocent and break the teeth of the wicked ( Psalm 58:6 ).” I have met genuine believers in Christ in Gaza and in Israel. Let’s pray for those Christians, and their influence on those around them. Pray that in the midst of tragedy—and the further tragedies that are almost certain to follow—hearts would be turned toward Jesus, who is not only King of Kings, but also the Prince of Peace. In his article  “Rachel weeps for her children: Israel’s fight is our fight as well,”  Al Mohler writes, The cumulative shock, grief, and horror experienced in Israel over the last few days is unspeakable and incalculable. The anger is palpable and justified. The righteous wrath of Israel is now to be unleashed, and difficult days lie ahead. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem.Among the residents in Gaza are Christian believers, trapped in a war started by Hamas and now prosecuted by Israel. We pray for those Christians even as we pray for Israel. Some of these believers are also victims of Hamas and its ideology. A brother in the U.K, Gavin Drake, has a written a helpful article on  “What’s happening in Israel and Gaza, and how should Christians pray?”  He explains some of the history of the Gaza strip, and writes: There are two evil positions: one is to be so pro-Israeli that you want to see Palestinians crushed, the other is to be so pro-Palestinian that you want to see Israel destroyed. Peace will only come to the Holy Land when Israelis and Palestinians – Jews, Muslims and Christians – feel secure and live in justice.…In  Psalm 122 , King David extols us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. That has never been more important. Many people are thinking about prophecy right now and wondering if these events are a specific fulfillment of any particular biblical prophecies. Biblical scholar Chad Bird  addresses , “Is Psalm 83  predicting events in Gaza and Israel?” and reminds us to be responsible with our treatment of the Scriptures. We know for sure Jesus is going to return, and we long for His return, but we don’t know when it will happen. Sometimes it is obvious when biblical prophecies are being fulfilled, but often there is such out-of-context speculation that the same passages have been cited as being fulfilled dozens and dozens of times by different events. This goes back at least to the 70s when as a young Christian, like many others, I was reading Hal Lindsey’s  The Late Great Planet Earth.  He was saying, based on his interpretations of passages, that Scripture was clear that Jesus would have to return by 1980. Then there was the bestselling book  88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Happen in 1988.  A variety of biblical passages were interpreted in ways which history did not bear out—and obviously, Jesus did not return in 1988. He said we do not know the day or the hour of His return. We need to believe that. The errors of that popular book (and many others have made similar errors since) were dealt with in  this article  by the Christian Research Institute, and can still be learned from today. Finally, let’s be careful in how we talk about these subjects with others. No doubt, we will disagree about various aspects of this conflict, the specific actions of Israel’s response, how this particular war does or doesn’t fit into prophecy, and countless other things. I have already heard some sad stories of this issue dividing brothers and sisters in Christ. Remember that Satan is called the accuser of God’s family ( Revelation 12:10 ) and uses every means to undercut our love for each other. Too often we do his work for him. His goal is to divide churches and keep people from believing the gospel.  (See  Healing a Pandemic of Disunity , and  When Christians Disagree about Beliefs and Actions .) God’s people  can  be united in our desire to pray for peace, for His work in the hearts of both Israelis and Palestinians, for the growth of God’s Kingdom, and for His will to be done. We can be gracious with each other and believe the best of others. Let’s “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” ( Psalm 122:6 ), always looking forward to the day when we will experience everlasting peace when Christ reigns from the New Jerusalem. God promises that He has a great future in store for Jerusalem: “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream” ( Isaiah 66:12 ). One day, Scripture’s repeated promises about land, peace, and the centrality of Jerusalem among all cities and nations will be fulfilled: “I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.” ( Isaiah 65:19 )“They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the Yahweh—the grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more.” ( Jeremiah 31:12 )“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’” ( Revelation 21:1–5 ) www.epm.org

Make Jesus Christ Your Living Hope You can lose a lot of things and still have hope.  Hope is the last thing ever lost.  You can lose a marriage, your health or your job and hope continues. But when hope is gone, you are in trouble. All of us can reach a point of losing hope. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (NIV). When you defer something, you hold it off. A hope deferred is a hope delayed. What is hope? Hope is the confident expectation of God to do what He promised through His strength and in His faithfulness. Hope is an actual reality in Christ. 1 Timothy 1:1 says that Jesus is our hope. And it’s vitally important for those of us who are Christians to understand that our hope comes from that deep level of our relationship with Him. Hope is assured, but experiencing hope is optional. Hope is not dependent on us. It’s like a giant reservoir of hope promised to us. It’s never going to go away. It was there in the past, and it will be there in the future. So, ask yourself,  Am I going to partake of the hope that Christ has given me or not? How do you experience hope? In this blog and the next, I have a total of 10 verses to use to illustrate how we can experience hope. Celebrate Being Alive For those who feel like they’re losing hope, you can encourage them to e njoy today. Across the airwaves and in our content, we’re bringing people together. We are celebrating life. As long as we are breathing, we are to celebrate being alive. Enjoy today! “There is hope only for the living. As they say, ‘It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion’” ( Ecclesiastes 9:4 NLT )! In the wisdom of Scripture, Solomon is encouraging, celebrate your life.      2.  Wait patiently and confidently. Paul says we are to wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something we do not need to hope for, but if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently ( Romans 8:23-25 paraphrased). For those who are losing hope, you can help them wait patiently and confidently. Create a waiting room in your life. We all need a place that gives us a sense of calmness, patience and perspective in our lives.      3.  Start with the end in mind 1 Corinthians, 15:19 says, “And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world” (NLT). There were people in this time, as there are today, that believe when we die, the body and everything disappears. But we know that our hope is in Christ. On that day when we leave earth, we are immediately in His presence (See 2 Corinthians 5:8 ). You can experience hope when you start with the end in mind. Keep your eyes on the prize. It is so easy for us to focus on the feelings of loss, loneliness or whatever it is, that we lose the big perspective. Jesus says to His disciples – don’t do that! “I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” ( John 14:2-3 NIV ).  Jesus is giving them that hope of the future. The hope that you can have in Christ is a powerful thing.       4.  Hope against hope . That little phrase “Hope against hope” was first said back in the 1800s by a person who had been reading Romans 4:18 . “Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations” (NLT). Look for a miracle. Have you ever reached a place where you said, “God, if you don’t do something, there is nothing anyone else is going to do. I have done everything I can.” We’ve got to trust God for a miracle. We believe in miracles. Perhaps you’ve even seen Him do them in your own life. God is still in the business of miracles. www.intentionallife.com

We are experience one event of mayhem after another. It feels as though every institution is failing, every norm is collapsing. Many of you, from what you’re telling me, are feeling numb and helpless and overwhelmed. That’s a scary place to be. Several weeks ago, I pulled out one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books in order to talk about it on one of the “Reading in Exile” videos. The book was  The Weight of Glory , a collection of essays, and my copy has been with me all of my adult life. Flipping through it to remind myself what would be of interest, I scanned over all the pages that I had marked and highlighted in the years past. One of them was less marked-up than the others, and that was Lewis’ “Learning in Wartime,” a sermon that he delivered in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford in the autumn of 1939. The reason, I think, that this essay was not as marked-up as the others is, I’m sure, because my younger self would have seen it as more of a historical relic than a matter of ongoing concern. After all, Lewis’ subject was students at Oxford wondering how and why to study when their country was under attack and the entire globe was convulsing under the weight of World War II. That seemed to be a distant time, a far-off concern. It doesn’t seem that way now. In the weeks since, I’ve noticed that many others are also turning back to “Learning in Wartime.” Margarita Mooney penned a  moving essay  in the  Hedgehog Review  about how the sermon can help us “prune our minds” in a time of crisis. Jonathan Adler also  examined  the sermon in light of the present moment over at  Reason  magazine (note: y’all know I’m not an end-times conspiracy theory hawker, but when libertarians are turning to C.S Lewis, turn in your Bibles to Revelation because, friends, we’re almost there). In his sermon, Lewis addressed a number of obstacles to focusing the mind in a time of crisis. All of them are relevant, but I want to focus on one here that seems to be of particular concern to many of us, and that is what Lewis calls “frustration.” The frustration Lewis talked about was both a sense of limited time, “the feeling that we shall not have time to finish” and a sense of futility—this is going to fail so why do we give attention to it? That certainly seems relevant to the present moment. Much of what we face leaves us helpless before it, no matter how much motivational talk we give ourselves. No matter how we declare ourselves “re-opened,” a virus pays no attention to government edicts or human psychology, and it is not going away. Racism is not swept away by the upward march of history. Racism is a religion, and that religion is Satanism, the idolatry of the flesh and the will-to-power. And when we see the images by video done secretly of these killings, or the television images of the protests and riots in the aftermath, we wonder, “What can be done?” And that’s where Lewis cheers me with his motivational pessimism. He tells us that we should not be surprised by the helplessness and frustration we feel because, in one sense,  everything  we do comes to nothing. One could easily conclude, “I am going to die someday so why would I bother with nutrition and hydration?” or a Christian could say, “I’m still going to be a sinner twenty years from now, if I live that long, so why do I try to pursue holiness now? Let’s just find some cocaine and prostitutes.” God forbid. What we have is the present, and for that we must give an account. “It is our  daily  bread that we are encouraged to ask for,” he said. “The present is the only time which any duty can be done or any grace received.” Knowing that, we can be faithful in the moment, even when we don’t know the future, the outcome, our success or failure or even how to gauge those things. That’s because, Lewis reminds us, the crises we face are unveilings of awful realities, heightened manifestations of awful things, but they are all pre-existing conditions. We face life-or-death questions—personally and societally. Will the virus kill us or someone we love? Will injustice triumph in our legal system? Will our social and civic norms hold or splinter apart? Those are all very real questions but they are heightened intensifications of what we face every second of our lives. That’s why Lewis wrote that “there is no question of life or death for any of us, only a question of this life or that—of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later.” We will die, and wars and pandemics do not make death more frequent. That sort of pessimism can lead to devilish places of cynicism  and inaction. “Well, we’re all going to die of something, so let’s pull off themasks and dance” or “Well, hatred goes all the way back to Cain and Abel so let’s just ignore our consciences when they show us our part in it.” Jesus warns us against this sort of sloughing off of our stewardship ( Matt. 25:15-28 ) and so do his apostles ( 2 Cor. 5:10 ; Gal. 6:9 ; 2 Thess. 3:13 ) Instead, Lewis argued, that frustration and feeling of helplessness should lead us somewhere else—to the right kind of disillusionment.  “All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered on this world, were always doomed to a final frustration,” he said. “In ordinary times only a wise man can realize it. Now the stupidest of us knows. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it.” We come to terms with it not by sanctifying it, but by seeing what is wrong and crying out for the alternative. The death of our illusions, then, isn’t meant to paralyze us but to re-shape us into the people who know how to weep and how to groan and how to point to a different sort of kingdom. As he said: “If we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.” Not a moment too soon. Disillusionment can be soul-destroying. I see it all the time in people who have just given up, and made peace with the way-things-are. But the right kind of disillusionment can be a blessing. As David Foster Wallace  pointed out  (though never, it seems, really grasped himself) the moment that your idols disappoint you, that is a moment of revelation. Disillusionment can lead to awful places—to cynicism, to laziness, to inaction, to despair. Or it can lead one to let go of every other stable place, and retrace one’s steps to the bush aflame with the Weight of Glory, a bush that does not tell us why things are the way they are, but tells us only “I Am That Which I Am.” These days I find myself thinking quite a bit about the transfiguration, that moment when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up onto a mountain and then, mysteriously, exploded with radiant glory. They heard there the voice of God, and they saw Moses and Elijah with him. I identify with Simon Peter who “did not know what to say, for they were terrified” ( Mk. 9:6 ), and so, as he often did, said something stupid. He asked to build “tabernacles” there for the three of them. He wanted a monument, a marker, that would make that place a place of stability, a memorial of where the glory had appeared and who had been there in it. But, from the cloud, the Voice of God countered:  “This is my beloved Son; listen to him!” ( Mk. 9:7 ). And, after that: “suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only” ( Mk. 9:8 ). The glory of God was not in stable monuments but in the life of Christ, and the life of Christ only. Everything else is stripped away. “All other ground is sinking sand,” one might say. And that’s true for all of us as we follow the Way of the Cross. Stripped away from everything but life in Christ—from all the glories you thought you wanted in order that you might see the Glory of God reflected in the face of Christ Jesus ( 2 Cor. 4:6 )—that’s what gives us the will to keep going—to love neighbor even when hated for doing so, to love life even when you know it will end, to love God even when you cannot see how he’s at work. That’s how we can walk back down the mountain to follow him, even in—especially in—times of blood and plague and terror and tragedy.

The best predictor of success in life, in love, and in leadership is your proficiency at please, sorry, and thanks. Those three words are the foundation of all healthy relationships and successful careers. Those three words are the only ceiling on achieving your dreams. Words become worlds, so you can change your world just by changing your words. Please, Sorry, Thanks April 16, 2023 Speaker: Pastor Mark Batterson Scripture: Proverbs 18:21, Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:28, John 1:1,3, Deuteronomy 30:11-14 Sermon Overview: The best predictor of success in life, in love, and in leadership is your proficiency at please, sorry, and thanks. Those three words are the foundation of all healthy relationships and successful careers. Those three words are the only ceiling on achieving your dreams. Words become worlds, so you can change your world just by changing your words. Sermon Series Questions: 1. Homework from Pastor Mark: Memorize five promises of God. Use these five promises to change your mental outlook and the words you are prophesying over your life. 2. How has God used His Word to change the world you live in? Sermon-Specific Questions: 1. The Book of Proverbs says the power of life and death are in the tongue (Prov 18:21). What does this Scripture mean? How can your words affect your attitude and perspective today? How did they affect your attitude and perspective over the past week? 2. In Exodus 4, Moses told God that he could not speak properly. What was God’s response? What was God’s promise to Moses? Has God put a task or a dream on your heart? How have you responded to God? What is God’s promise to you? Speak that promise aloud. 3. Because Jesus has risen from the dead, all things are possible with God. What are you afraid to believe is possible in your life? Believe again. What words have you been using to counter this dream? What do you need to stop saying? What do you need to start saying to get in agreement with God’s promises? Digging Deeper: ● Compare Exodus 4, Jeremiah 1, and Joshua 1. What are the instructions that God gives to Moses, Jeremiah, and Joshua? How are they similar/different? What are the promises that God gives to these men? Spend some time reflecting on these promises. What measure of faith rises up in your spirit in response to these promises? Practical Application: ● God’s Word creates and blesses. Pray Numbers 6:24-26 over someone else this week. © 2023 National Community Church Page 1 ○ Lord, thank you for making us a part of your Kingdom as royal priests. Please bring people in my path whom you want me to speak life over. ○ May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. ● Download the NCC app or visit ncc.re/daily to listen to short, daily teachings M-F accompanying this series. ● Make a Bible reading plan a daily discipline and connect with NCC Daily. (Download the NCC app to find our plan). ● Check out our upcoming May pop-up groups on our website. They are all listed at ncc.re/groups . www.theaterchurch.com

Don’t Let Fear Control You Steven Fur ck The Lord said we're going to deal with the spirit of what if that has been making you an insomniac, that spirit of what if that has been running the show in your imagination. The Lord said we're going to deal with it today in the Word of God. I confess to you that I am a world-class "What-iffer". In the beginning of this ministry, it worked for me to say, "Man, what if we started a church in Charlotte? What if by faith we launched a worship ministry? What if we did a second campus? What if we did a third? What if we did a fourth? What if we dropped eggs out of a helicopter on Easter? What if? What if we baptized people and had bathing suits and toothbrushes and toothpaste and sports bras so they had no excuse, and we called on them and said, 'Get baptized right now. Not after 17 weeks of class, not after you memorize Augustine and Spurgeon, and not after you can quote the book of Romans, but right now get up here and get baptized'? What if"? What if you just did it? What if you just got up today and gave your life to Christ? What if you just raised your hand in the middle of the prayer they pray at the end and said, "I'm coming just as I am"? What if? It's kind of a recklessness that can serve you well in certain seasons before you know all of the reasons to answer "What if…"? with a whole lot of why nots. I now find that what if is a weapon the Devil uses to keep me from doing things I know good and well in my spirit God has called me to do. So, for the five people who are like me in church today, and this what if thing has been really grinding in your mind, we are going to have a talk, just me and the crazy people. The rest of you will have more Bible verses by which you can pray for us when we're finished with this 22 minute sermon. I went all the way back to the book of Exodus and introduced this character named Moses to talk about what to do with the "what ifs". Just so I can see if I heard from the Lord or if I was offtrack this week when I was praying, how many of y'all have been wrestling with some "what if" scenarios that have been messing with you, and how many of you feel like it's getting worse the older you get? Moses said, "What if they don't believe me"? and he had good reason to ask that, because chances were they wouldn't. God just appeared to him in a bush and said, "I want you to go tell the most powerful person on the face of the earth, the pharaoh of Egypt, to let my people go and to release his entire slave labor, which will decimate his economy. By the way, while you're at it, do it at age 80". Moses said, "What if it doesn't work"? I get it, because it probably won't. I mean by human standards. This is not going to work. So what if? Now, Holly is a great… I'm going to just say this. She's the best person I know. For real. She's less petty than me. She has more energy than me. She's definitely more optimistic than me. When we were going on our twenty-year trip… We went to Northern California. She was like, "Can we just make a rule before we go on this trip that whatever happens, we'll just make it a part of the journey and you won't freak out too much"? Our whole trip was to go drive the PCH and get out there and see stuff. She's like, "We're probably going to get lost, and I need you to commit to me, before we buy these plane tickets, that that's going to be okay. We'll just be lost together, and that'll be part of the day that we got lost. It'll be part of the story later that we got lost". "Yeah, but what if…? What if we get where there's no cell signal? What if we can't get un lost? What if we starve out there? Did you see that movie Wild with Reese Witherspoon where she got out there? What if my feet get banged up in my shoes, and what if I can't walk? What if you have to carry me out, and what if you're not able to do that? What if you get a hernia trying to carry me out, and then we'll have to tell the whole church that you're the new pastor, but you have to pastor with a hernia? What if…"? She's like, "Can we just go, and we'll figure that out"? It's horrible. I can't even let my phone get below 80 percent. I have issues. I always pray before I preach, "God, help me tell them enough where I can be relatable, but not so much that they become distracted by how ridiculous I am and can't receive the word I'm going to preach". You know, you read about Moses, and you hear about the great things he did. I want to take this apart for just a moment today. God has been speaking to Moses for an entire chapter of Scripture about all of the awesome things he will do…not Moses, but God. He said, "I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard their cries, and I will compel Pharaoh to let them go. If he doesn't let them go, I'll put a plague on him. If he still doesn't let them go, I'll put another plague on him. And if he still doesn't let them go, I have more plagues than Pharaoh has patience. I'll kill everything that matters to him until what matters to me is accomplished. I will do it". So, Moses is like, "All right. Well, who are you? We haven't heard about you much since Jacob and Joseph and since a Pharaoh died who didn't know who you were and the Pharaoh who rose now doesn't really understand who you are". God said, "I Am That I Am". "That you are"? "That I am". This is an amazing conversation. You have Moses, who's 80, hearing from a God who's eternal about something God has seen that he has promised to do that he will do. Not might do. Not thinking about doing. Not flipping coins. He's going to do it. I'm not talking about somebody you work with. I'm talking about somebody who started this whole thing called the human experience, who speaks into what he started to tell you what he intends to do. Moses is like, "Cool. But what if…"? I want you to notice something very key. He doesn't really doubt God. Verse 1: "Moses answered, 'What if they do not believe me or listen to me and [what if they] say, "The Lord did not appear to you"?'" Moses is so good, because Moses didn't say, "What if you can't do it? What if you aren't great? What if you run out of plagues? What if you run out of strength"? No. It's not about Moses' doubt directed toward God. He said, "What if they…"? Now, as I was studying this text, it was very interesting to me that Moses is afraid of the Israelites, and he is called to deliver the Israelites. He said, "What if they…"? Who are they? The Hebrews. Who is he afraid of? The Hebrews. Who is he supposed to help? The Hebrews. Who is he delivering? The Hebrews. Who does he doubt? The Hebrews. Isn't it interesting how the thing you're most afraid of can be a clue to the thing you're assigned to? Think about it. The deepest insecurity in your life reveals something about the assignment God has given you. The thing the Enemy resists most about you is often the greatest thing God has put inside of you. He said, "What if they…"? This is the crazy part about life. Not wondering about "What if God can't"? or "What if God won't"? but "What if they don't"? "What if the thing you're speaking to me about doesn't want to hear what I have to say? What if the thing you're calling me to…"? Now, this is something I've come to believe: when God calls you to something, he sees everything about it at the moment he's speaking to you about it. So, there is nothing God did not see about you when he spoke to you. There is nothing God does not know about you when he placed you where he put you to do what he called you to do. So, when we doubt our capacity to do what God called us to do, it is not us we doubt, but it is God who made us and placed us who we doubt. But we don't want to say we doubt God, so we say, "What if they…? What if I can't do it"? But it's not really me I'm doubting, because I didn't manufacture me. If I really, for one moment, believed God made me how he wanted me, gave me what he wanted, did inside of me what he wanted to do inside of me, put me where I needed to be, planted me by where I needed to be planted by… If I believed that for one moment, it would kill my what if before it got out of my mouth. Any view of God's sovereignty that does not make room for your struggle is a false claim. Any view of God's will that is not wide enough to accommodate your mistakes is too narrow. Any belief about God you have that is not big enough to take into account all of the flaws inside of yourself is too small. At certain times, asking "What if…"? can be productive, but then it gets past the point where you're making plans. I mean, there are good things. I'll just break it down real quick. Before I come out, I have a whole check. "What if my zipper is down? Okay. Let me check that". You know, I have my undershirt, so I put my hands up. I don't want anything to be showing that's not supposed to be showing. You came here to see the Lord's glory…not to see anything else other than the Lord. So, I have to get this down. Okay. What if my mic isn't on? Okay, okay. I have to turn it on. What if…? But then it comes to a point where I stop solving problems and start shrinking God. I get caught up in my what if. "What if I get up to preach this and they don't like it? What if I get up to preach it and it doesn't go well? What if I get up there to preach it and forget what I'm supposed to say"? It takes faith for me to preach how I preach, because I don't look at notes. I mean, I guess I could. I don't think the Lord would strike me with anything if I looked at notes. I don't think it's bad to look at notes, but I want to be in the moment with you, and I want to see what God has to say. It takes faith, because what if I forget? What if I get to a point and I can't even remember if I'm preaching on Moses or Abraham? What if I say something in this sermon, and they clip it and put it online and take it out of context and make me look like I said something I never said before? Oh, that would never happen. That doesn't happen. Now I have to get up here and think about not only what I'm going to say. It's not only "What if I don't hear from God and say it to you"? It's "What if I hear from God, I say it, somebody takes what I said, puts it where I didn't say it, and says something around it I didn't say"? It's enough to make you want to stay back there and suck your thumb and sing "Way Maker" by yourself. But I have to get through the what if so I can get to what is. And what is today…let me remind you…is somebody is here who is going to hell if they don't give their life to Jesus. Somebody is in here who is living in hell, and they have given their life to Jesus. Somebody is in here today who doesn't really feel like going on next week, and their life might be on the line. So, the big question isn't "What if I got up here and preached and said something wrong"? It's…What if I didn't give you what God gave me and you didn't make it because I didn't show up? It's not really "Well, what if I do it and fail"? That's what God gave you grace for to begin with! That's not the real fear. See, the real fear isn't "What if I fail"? It's "What if I'm not enough to recover"? "What if they…" The moment Moses said they, he was in trouble. There are a few things in life you can't control. The weather is one. Just put your hand on the shoulder of the person next to you real quick. That's another one. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But you had faith to drive here. You had faith to drive here with all of the bad drivers you passed on the way here. No, not you…the other drivers. That's what you tell your kids when they're learning to drive. "It's not you I'm worried about; it's the other…" You know good and well it is they who have no business driving. But I want you to think with me. "What if…"? is a game you can't just play a little bit. Once you start playing the "What if…"? game… I mean, you get in that, you know… Let me think of one from your life this week. Okay, I've got one. You text somebody. They start texting back, and you see bubbles. The bubbles go away. "What happened? Are they mad at me"? You go back and read the text. You start looking. "Maybe I should have put a heart after the text". Then you start sending a follow-up text to make sure, and you start layering it. "Lol. Ha-ha". "Do they hate me? I think they hate me. What if they hate me? What if they never text me back? What if nobody ever texts me back? What if I die alone right here in this…"? It has been three minutes. It has been five minutes. The more you love something, the more opportunity the Enemy has to get in it and make you afraid about it.

There was a time when going to church is what respectable people did. Church was a place not just of worship, but, for the worldly-minded, of upward mobility. My childhood was at the tail end of these days. When I was in sixth grade, our family became acquaintances with a businessman at church. My mom and dad ended up doing business with him only to be burned by his less-than-ethical business dealings. Church, it turned out, was just a handy place for him to expand his business. Long gone are those days. And good riddance to them. I have no desire to have our society return to “the good old days” of church attendance done for the sake of appearances. Any vestige of attending church because it is the right thing to do was killed by Covid. With online services and world class worship artists a click away, why go to your local church? Why not just sleep in? But the local church is not just a dispenser of spiritual wares, it is the local manifestation of God’s people, where we are called to serve and love. I long for people to come to church not because I want an outdated institution propped up. Attending your local church isn’t propping up the last physical movie rental store in your zip code. Participating in your local church is choosing to encounter your holy and loving God in the presence of his people, experience the warmth of God’s family, and steward the gifts God has given you for the sake of others. A recent survey asked people why they do and don’t attend church. Those who attend cited reasons such as “to get closer to God,” “because I find the sermons valuable,” and “to be part of a faith community” as some of their answers. Those who don’t attend listed these as their top reasons for not attending: 1.      I practice my faith in other ways 2.      I am not a believer 3.      I haven’t found a church I like 4.      I don’t like the sermons 5.      I don’t feel welcome That’s a helpful glimpse into the heart of the non-church attender. You might notice that four of the five reasons don’t have anything to do with their beliefs. That means that the most significant objection you might fear from your neighbor (disagreeing with your faith) is unlikely to be the main reason they aren’t attending. If we consider that in a town like Tucson somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of residents very rarely, if ever, attend church, each of these reasons represents a huge number of people. An argumentative approach is certainly not the way to go. Instead, lovingly addressing each of these concerns is far more effective. So let’s consider these reasons: 1)     I practice my faith in other ways . Sharing with this person the benefits and blessings you have experienced from church is a wonderful way to gently push back on this belief. You can share what you’ve learned through sermons or how you have been challenged. You can share how blessed you are in worshiping alongside others. You can share how the family of God has come alongside you in times of need. You can also, more boldly, but just as lovingly, suggest that the Bible doesn’t have a category for Christianity without meaningful connection to other believers. Our witness is predicated on our unity ( John 15 ), our spiritual gifts are given for the benefit of other Christians ( 1 Corinthians 12 ), and we are directly told not to forsake gathering together ( Hebrews 12 ). While individual expressions of faith are important and purposeful, they are not the entirety of the Christian experience. 2)     I am not a believer . While the main purpose of the gathered body is for the encouragement and upbuilding of believers, the church always welcomes unbelievers. In fact, it’s a great way to test out what someone has heard about Christianity. Some sects and cults don’t allow unbelievers in their worship. That is not so with Christianity. There are no secrets behind the veil. And doesn’t such a significant decision—what one chooses to believe about who God is and what we were made for—merit meaningful time, energy, and inquiry? 3)     I haven’t found a church I like . The best way to find a church that is a good fit is to go with a friend. And you never know what you might end up liking if you give it a shot. What wound out being some of my favorite TV shows, I almost didn’t make it to the second or third episode. If your friend doesn’t like your church, maybe you know another church they might like, or maybe your pastor can suggest a church that might better fit their preferences. Ultimately, of course, our commitment to the church shouldn’t be predicated on our preferences, but rather our commitment to Christ and his people. 4)     I don’t like the sermons . Why doesn’t your friend like the sermons? Because of a disagreement? Because they are boring? Because they are too elementary? Because they aren’t grounded in the Bible? Each of these reasons has a different response. If the sermons aren’t grounded in the authority of the Bible, then it is a good idea to consider a different church. If you disagree with the pastor, perhaps you can walk through those disagreements, or even encourage your friend to sit down with the pastor and walk through disagreements? If the sermons are boring or too elementary, perhaps digging into the Bible during the sermon you yield even deeper insight as the pastor preaches. Or perhaps there is a loss of thirst for spiritual things. Pray earnestly for a true spiritual thirst. 5)     I don’t feel welcome . This is an easy one! There is no better way for someone to feel welcome than you driving with them to church, walking through the doors with them, and sitting next to them. In fact, it’s hard to imagine them not feeling welcome in that scenario! Every church is flawed. I wish our church perfectly welcomed everyone who walked through our doors; I wish my sermons never left a single person bored, frustrated, or turned off, and I wish that we were able to play music that meaningfully connected with every person. I long for us to continue to grow to be the church God has called us to be. And we won’t ever stop challenging ourselves to have the next Sunday be even better than the last Sunday. But I still believe in the church! Every gathering of God’s people is a place where God brings his transformative power, where God spills his love out over his people, and where he calls unbelievers to himself. Don’t stop believing in God’s church. And don’t miss out on your opportunity to invite the many who are disconnected from God’s family to come and see what God is doing. www.thebeehive.live .

The Bible is God’s precious gift given to all. And on it, He placed no age restrictions. Accordingly, it is vital that we understand one very important thing.  The Spiritual Discipline of Engaging with the Scripture is not limited to adults.  Teens can engage. Children can engage. Engaging the Younger Generations What matters is that we are helping our teens and children spend time in the full counsel of God’s Word. 10 Ways to Help Children Engage with Scripture 1. Involve Your Children as Cast Members As you read the actual Bible narratives with your children, turn your home into a theater. Let each child assume the role of one of the characters, and if you run out of children, let them play multiple roles (or grab some stuffed animals and dolls from their rooms.) 2. Commission Them as Artists There are many, many passages of Scripture that are story-driven. When you get to these, take the opportunity to activate your children’s imaginations. Give them a sheet of paper and a pencil or some crayons and ask them to draw what they hear. The act of drawing will engage your children with the text as it is being read. Additionally, the completed drawings will become a reference guide. They will help your children remember the people of the Bible and their stories, help you make connections for your children as you read on, and create opportunities for you to incorporate the gospel into what your children have seen and drawn. 3. Create a Mural Involve your entire family in the art-making. Grab some poster board or butcher paper, and as a family, create a mural of what you are reading. Feed the imaginations of your children as you read by creating your own scenes of what is happening in the text. 4. Turn the Bible Passage into a Family Research Project Passages about constructing the tabernacle (Exodus), building the temple (1 Kings), and others of similar nature are often ones we skip over when reading the Bible with children. After all, these passages are what cause even grown adults to abandon yearly reading plans. When you get to Bible accounts of this nature, increase your children’s interest by looking things up. A new furnishing for the tabernacle? An article of priestly clothing? The layout of the temple? Google it or look it up in a reference book. Add to your child’s view of the passage by providing visuals as seen through the eyes of an artist. 5. Shout “Amen” Genealogies can be tough. All those names… of people you’ve never heard of. Adults skirt around them. Surely, children won’t get anything from them. Help your children engage with these passages of genealogy and draw their interest by asking them to shout “Amen” each time they hear a name they are familiar with in the very long list being read. EXAMPLE: “Jesus  (“AMEN”) , when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph  (“AMEN”) , the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi  (“AMEN”) , the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph  (“AMEN”) , the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos  (“AMEN”) , the son of Nahum  (“AMEN”) , the son of Esli, the son of Naggai.” Luke 3:23-25  [(“AMEN”) added for emphasis.] 6. Play “Banker” Another idea for engaging with passages of genealogy is to let your children be the “banker” as you read. Before embarking on your reading of a lengthy genealogy, fill a large container with beads. Then provide each of your children with their own smaller container or cup. Instruct them to take a bead out of the larger container and put it into their own cup every time a person’s name is read. When you come to the end of the genealogy, count how many beads are in each cup. 7. Write Songs Prior to reading the Bible text together, ask your children to listen for thoughts or phrases that would be a great song title.  When you’ve finished reading your Scripture, add to the fun by writing your own hymn or worship song.  Bonus points for verses or phrases that come from your reading passage ! 8. Pray the Scripture Model the praying of Scripture for your children as part of your Bible reading. Periodically, allow them to take turns praying the Scripture for themselves. 9. Encourage Retelling Before closing your Bible and moving on to other activities, ask your child to retell the reading passage in their own words. This is a wonderful way for you to ascertain what they grasped from the reading and where you may need to make some clarifications. Let your child know that they will be asked to retell the passage BEFORE you read through it together. This will help them be more engaged with the text and “read” with purpose. 10. Let Them Wiggle Children need to wiggle. Their bodies aren’t built for long periods of sitting. Consider making it part of your routine to play Scripture music before or after you read the Bible together. Let them wiggle and dance so they can better focus. www.deborahhaddix.com .

The Good Father Luke 15:11-32 After my husband died, I was struggling to fall asleep at night and I was struggling to stay asleep. I had tried singing praise songs in my head while I was unwinding from a busy day, but these lovely melodies were creating brain worms in my mind that were keeping me awake. Thinking of what I could dwell on, that would help me slow my brain down and give me peaceful thoughts I wondered if quoting scripture would help me, and amazingly it did. Sometimes I would even repeat the scripture out loud because I was sleeping alone for the first time in over forty years. And, sometimes I fell asleep before I could finish quoting a passage. After a couple of weeks of success I decided to tackle memorizing some longer passages like Psalm 23 to help me find rest. It was going well, but there was one line I consistently kept forgetting as I was reciting the passage. It was the phrase, “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake,” in Psalm 23:3b . As I meditated on this I realized I have always want to pick the righteous acts I do for God and of course I pick activities that will make me look good. I began to wonder if this verse was so difficult for me to remember because my brain was deliberately rejecting it. As a new widow I knew God was leading me down a path that was going to make him look good, that was going to be for his name’s sake, but I wasn’t exactly happy about it. I knew I was right in the middle of God’s will, but I didn’t think I was looking good. I was crying, I was grieving, I was struggling, and this was the exact path of righteousness God wanted me to walk. God’s perfect plans will often surprise us. When Jesus walked upon this earth he didn’t behave the way the religious leaders thought the Messiah would act. He hung out with sinners and even shared meals with them ( Luke 15:1-2 ). When Jesus walked his righteous path his godly behavior attracted rebukes and complaints. So, in Luke 15 Jesus tells three parables that will explain his motives for spending time with sinners. In the first parable Jesus’ likens himself to a Good Shepherd who leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep to search for his lost lamb, and in the second parable Jesus likens himself to a Good Woman who turns her house upside down to find a lost coin she has misplaced. It is this last parable I want us to consider now. In Luke 15:11-32 , Jesus portrays himself as a Good Father whose two sons are initially, blinded to his goodness. Luke 15:11-32 reads, 11  He also said, “A man had two sons.  12  The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.’ So he distributed the assets to them.  13  Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living.  14  After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing.  15  Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.  16  He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything.  17  When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger!  18  I’ll get up, go to my father, and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.  19  I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers.”’  20  So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.  21  The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22  “But the father told his servants, ‘Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  23  Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let’s celebrate with a feast,  24  because this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate. 25  “Now his older son was in the field; as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.  26  So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant.  27  ‘Your brother is here,’ he told him, ‘and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 28  “Then he became angry and didn’t want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him.  29  But he replied to his father, ‘Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends.  30  But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’ 31  “‘Son,’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  32  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” CSB If we want to imitate the Good Father, we will need to be filled with his compassion. At the beginning of the story the youngest son comes to the father asking prematurely for his share of the legacy. The father chooses not to be offended by this request, even though the younger son’s attitude is basically, “Dad, if you would just die, I could get my part of the money.” In fact the father never reacts negatively in this story toward his younger son or his behavior. Why? The good father’s love for his son is unconditional. This father’s love has no strings attached. This parable is a picture of grace. The younger son never has to earn his father’s favor. This is how Jesus sees the lost. He compassionately loves them. This is not how the religious leaders looked at the undesirables, but to Jesus they were precious. In Luke 15:31b when the father tries to talk the older brother into joining the welcome home party, we see this line, “…everything I have is yours ” in the CSB, and the ESV translates this phrase “…all that is mine is yours.” Do we know this? Do we know the father’s wealth extends to his children? God’s resources are vast and as his children we have entered into a family relationship with Jesus. Everything he has, has generously been imparted to us too, and this is the only reason we can afford to be generous. Jesus is good. He is on our side, but he is also on the side of those who are lost. He is not stingy, never has been. He is a perfect God with a perfect agenda. Will we join his path of righteousness, the one he has designed to advance his namesake, or will we pursue our own selfish plans? Will we let him grow a compassionate heart within us? Remember, Jesus is teaching these religious leaders about God’s eternal plan of salvation. Have we ever truly envisioned God’s compassion toward the lost? If we want to imitate the Good Father, we will need to embrace his mission. This loving father had two sons. One who had wandered off and one who had stayed near. The Good Father desired for both sons to come home, and enjoy a relationship with him and with each other. Unfortunately, at first neither son actually knew their father was good. How is that possible? In the imagery of this parable the younger son who traveled far away, represents the gentiles who are far from God and the one who stayed near represents the Jews. This phrase, “Those who are far off and those who are near” is often found in the scriptures. For example: In Isaiah 33:13 we find this wording, “You who are far off, hear what I have done; you who are near know my strength” CSB. And again in, Isaiah 57:19 the prophet Isaiah hints at this concept with these words, “…Peace, peace, to the far and to the near, says the Lord, and I will heal him” ESV. From these prophetic passages we see the coming Messiah’s perfect love will reach beyond the Jews. Paul picks up on this thought in Ephesians 2:11- 19 , 11  So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands.  12  At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.  13  But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  14  For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh,  15  he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.  16  He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.  17  He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  18  For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.  19  So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, CSB It has always been God’s mission to bring his gift of salvation to the entire world. We see this foreshadowed in the Abrahamic Covenant found in Genesis 12 . First, Abraham was blessed by God, and secondly, Abraham was blessed so that he could bless others. How were Abraham and the Jews going to bless every other ethnic groups in the world? By introducing them to the real God. From their earliest call, Abraham and his descendants were chosen by God to draw their near neighbors and their far off neighbors into a loving relationship with their creator. Even the promise land’s location would prove to be advantageous to God’s mission. Caravans of different people groups were constantly traversing the ancient trade routes found in Israel’s narrow plot of geography. God literally planted Israel’s promise land at the crossroads of the ancient world, all because he wanted her to make his goodness known to the nations. Unfortunately, throughout their Old Testament history the Jews were often reluctant evangelist. For example: remember when God sent Jonah to Nineveh? His is not a pretty story, but some Jews were faithful like Joseph and Daniel. In Luke 15 , Jesus is appealing to the religious leaders of his day, to remember the privilege given to the Jews to be God’s ambassadors to the world. Fortunately, Jesus’ very Jewish disciples came to embrace God’s compassionate mission. They will take the gospel to the known world of their age. For example: In Acts 8 we see Philip sharing the gospel with an Ethiopian eunuch and in Acts 10 we see God sending a vision to Peter so he will go and preach to the gentiles. Eventually, this early Jewish church will be transformed from one single ethnic group into a diverse and multicultural entity. Every character in the Good Father story can understand the purity of the father’s desire for a celebration, except the jealous older brother. In Jesus’ three parables finding the lost will bring people together to express a communal joy. The Good Shepherd invites his friends and his neighbors to celebrate with him, the Good Woman calls on her friends and neighbors to share her joy. The Good Father instructs his servants and his family, “We must celebrate,” so they kill the fatted calf, crank up the music and start the dancing. Only one sinner has to repent to initiate these parties, but it will take a village of people to properly celebrate them. This kind of eternal joy is too good to keep to ourselves. Jealousy and judgement squash and kill evangelism. But, Jesus is committed to pursuing everyone. Are we? With the Good Father parable we see God was never that concerned about our behavior, he was always more passionate about establishing a good relationship with us. If we want to imitate the Good Father, we will need to be filled with his compassion, and we will need to embrace his mission.

So, who are you? Many respond to that question by sharing their roles: “I am a mom.” “I am a dad.” “I am a sister.” “I am a wife.” “I am a husband.” “I am a lawyer.” “I am a teacher.” “I am an athlete.” It’s not surprising that we answer the question this way. One of the first questions we ask children is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s a fine question, but by asking it over and over again, we teach kids that they are what they do. We coach our children to substitute roles for true identities. As youngsters grow into teenagers and teenagers into young adults, it is more likely that roles become substitute identities. The amorphous blob of elementary children separates into distinct groups—the geeks, jocks, thespians, musicians, punks, emo kids, mean girls, preps, and church kids. What teenage movie doesn’t riff on the interplay among these groups? Despite what they say, every teen longs to embody a label. We want to be able to make sense of who we are and where we fit in this world. The hunt for our identity doesn’t stop as adults. We latch onto identifiers. We join Facebook pages, read books and blogs, join clubs, and make friends with those who are like-minded. We hunt for those like us. When we learn someone else has the same quirky tastes, we light up. The two of us appreciate undiscovered music and strategy board games. When we find someone similar, we think, “You’re one of us!” And so, we identify ourselves by family, marriage, vocation, political party, style, where we grew up or where we live, even by the grocery store we frequent. (Can we get an “Amen,” fellow Trader Joe’s loyalists?) We assert that making our vocations, our families, our independence, our personalities, or our righteousness into our identities will not sustain us. We will deal with each of these issues in the chapters of Trading Faces. God has given you valuable roles. But don’t confuse them with your identity. They make poor substitutes that will not satisfy. Who you are in Christ is unchangeable and nonnegotiable. If and when you experience the transforming work of Christ in your life, you are given new identities that cannot change. Christ offers us multifaceted identities in him. In him we are saints, sons, servants, and much more. Coming to grips with these true identities brings about holistic peace and radical freedom. To answer the question “Who am I?” is to set the true north of your life. Understanding that your true identities are in Christ allows you to step into being who you were made to be and living how you were designed to live. So, who is the real you? Which false identities are you tempted to believe are really “you”? Many of these false identities are not bad in and of themselves, but when we allow our roles, groups, or distinctives about ourselves to define who we are, there will be consequences for us. My wife, Angel, and I have written our forthcoming book Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity to help us identify these false identities and put on the true identities we have in Christ. We have developed a quiz to help you begin your journey of self-discovery. We would encourage you to take the quiz and pass it along to friends if you find it helpful.  Check it out here. www.thebeehive.live.

We do these practices like (slowing, simplicity, silence, solitude, sabbath and more) in order to grow the fruit of the Spirit within us and cultivate compassion like Christ within our hearts. We don’t want to grow old and grumpy, as followers of Jesus we must grow our compassion like his! Tonight we look at 4 practices we can do to help grow our compassion. www.elementscitychurch.org .