What was Jesus’ personality like? If our culture were to create Jesus’ personae, it might look like Mr. Rogers’s personality: [i] gentle, unassuming, two-dimensionally meek and mild. In short, a sweet pushover of a man. There is truth in our culture’s depicture. When sharing the nature of his heart, Jesus says that he is “gentle and lowly” ( Mt 11:29 ) So he is. He is patient and merciful. He is kind and caring. And yet, Jesus cannot be flattened. He raised his voice ( John 7:37 ) and spoke harshly ( Mark 1:43 ). And no one in scripture speaks of hell more than Jesus. Jesus was the first and greatest fire and brimstone preacher. He referenced hell more than any other figure in Scripture. How do we make sense of Jesus being gentle and lowly and yet seemingly obsessed with preaching on hell? Why does Jesus preach about a place of eternal damnation and fire where “the worm never dies” ( Mk 9:48 ), and there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth” ( Mt. 13:42 )? Is Jesus not as gentle and lowly as he claims to be? Certainly not, for that would make him a liar. But what we find in Jesus is the incredible coupling of compassion and courage. Why does Jesus bring up hell? First, Jesus speaks of hell to warn us of the danger of our flesh. Jesus cautions us that we ought not underestimate where our judgmental hearts and sharp tongues can lead us: “And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” ( Matt 5:22 ). Jesus warns us of the power of lust in our lives, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” ( Matt 5:29 ). Jesus isn’t advocating mutilation; he intentionally uses strong language to communicate the serious danger of lust.  This is the most frequent lesson Jesus draws from when referencing hell. He also commands the same call to action of our hands and our feet as they are directed by our lust. Jesus alerts the slothful and undutiful of the danger they are placing their souls in when he speaks of a servant set over his master’s house. “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” ( Matt 24:50-51 ). Second, Jesus speaks about hell to warn us of the danger of hypocrisy. Jesus alerts the religious that their place in heaven is not reserved because of their heritage. When meeting a Roman Centurion with faith, Jesus says, “When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” ( Matt 8:10-12 ). Jesus informs his hearers that it might not be obvious from appearances who is righteous in this life. In his parable about the weeds, Jesus says, “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear” ( Matt 13:41-43 ). Such religiosity without true faith can lead others to hell. Jesus cautions, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” ( Matt 23:15 ). And again, he proclaims, “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” ( Matt 23:33 ). Our personal beliefs about God are inconsequential if our faith is not lived out. Jesus says, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ ‘Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life’” ( Matt 25:41-43 , 46). Finally, Jesus speaks about hell because he does not want us to be surprised by the consequences of our choices. Jesus directly warns that the concerns we feel toward the rulers in this world is of no comparison to facing the mighty King of Kings. He says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” ( Matt 10:28 ). In the parable of the wedding feast, where some take the invitation to the wedding flippantly, Jesus does not mince words, “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” Matt 22:11-13 ). Similarly, in the parable of the steward, Jesus records the master’s response to the steward who is irresponsible and fearful by making no return on the talent given him by the master, “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” ( Matt 25:28-30 ). So, why hell? There’s a fair amount of preaching today that steers clear of hell. “Don’t preach on hell because it makes God seem angry.” “Don’t preach on hell because we don’t want to scare people into heaven.” In reality, it would be unloving not to preach on hell.  We must preach out of the well of God’s compassion and mercy with an invitation to Jesus’s Kingdom. We don’t preach on hell because we believe that the best way to move people to Christ is through fear. We preach on hell because we take God’s at his word that judgment awaits those who reject him. While we preach on hell, we ought to preach on heaven too. Jesus did and so should we. The reality of hell reminds us of the trap of our flesh, the dangers of hypocrisy, and of the final judgment to come. If Jesus believed preaching on hell was loving and gracious, then I do too. [i] For the record, I think Mr. Rogers’s life beautifully demonstrated the love of Christ in many ways. In our contentious and divisive world, his commitment to gentleness and kindness was and remains Christ-exalting.

Our thoughts are powerful. They change our perspective, impact our decisions, and influence our habits. But what do we do when we become trapped by our thoughts, unable to escape negative and unhealthy thinking? Let’s learn what it means to take our thoughts captive and win the war in our minds. - Huh, here we go again. Another sermon, and I never feel ready. You'd think after 25 years, I feel confident, but I'm always nervous, always insecure, I know God’s Word is powerful. I feel so weak. Pathetic is more accurate. No matter how much I work, no matter how hard I've try, I just never feel like I have what it takes. Okay Groeschel. Game on, smile, don't suck. Let's roll. So I'm curious. Does anyone else have an ongoing war in your mind? I don't know about you, but so often I battle in my mind between thoughts of faith, and thoughts of fear. I so often want to trust God, and yet I also want to control. Maybe you're like this. Maybe you can walk in one moment and you feel full of spiritual confidence, that God is with you, and He's for you, and He's called you, in the next moment, you have this crippling insecurity that paralyzes you, and holds you back. What I discovered is that the mind is a battlefield. And most of life's battles are won or lost in your minds. The more I've studied scripture, and the more I've even looked at what neuroscience would say, most of life's battles are won or lost in the minds. The good news is, who's ready for some good news? The good news is that God’s Word is powerful, not just to help you, but to transform, and to renew your mind with truth. And because His word is powerful, I would love it if you would today at all of our Life.Church locations, if you're watching in your kitchen, you could even stand to your feet in honor, of the reading of God’s Word. Today we're gonna be looking from 2nd Corinthians 10. And over the next few weeks, we're gonna try to get into the mind of the Apostle Paul. Is interesting to look at him. Have you ever heard of the ultimate warrior before? In many ways, Paul was what I'd call the ultimate thought warrior. When you look at his life, you'll notice early on we see him become a follower of Jesus. And then we watch as Jesus renews his mind over time. Romans 7, we looked at that a couple of weeks ago, and you see the battle in his mind. He says, the things that I wanna do, I don't do. You can probably relate. He says the things I don't wanna do, I ended up doing, the things I wanna do I can't seem to do, and he almost sounds crazy with the thoughts in his mind. We're gonna watch him progress throughout his life in ministry, as he learns to wage war against the lies that attack his mind. We're gonna see him capture wrong thoughts, and replace them with truth and win the war in his mind. This is what the Apostle Paul says. He says, "For though we live in the world, "we do not wage war as the world does. "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power." The Greek word translate it as power, it's the word dunamis. It means the explosive, miraculous power of God. We get our word dynamite from this. "The weapons that we fight with, "they have divine power to demolish, "to destroy strongholds." You may not use the word stronghold in your everyday life. What is a stronghold? It comes from the Greek word ochuroma, and it's a military stronghold. It was like a fortress that was often built in the middle of a city. This fortress could be surrounded by a wall that would literally be 20 feet deep. And it's where the military officials might be kept during battle to keep them safe, or where prisoners were kept to guard them from the enemy attacking. The devil, our spiritual enemy wants to attack your mind, and create strongholds of deception. So you believe something that's untrue, and takes you away from God's healing, and calling for your life. What is the devil do? The devil tries to shape your thinking. One lie at a time, until you're a prisoner of deception. What does the devil tell you? You can't trust people. You'll never succeed. You're always gonna be broke. You're never gonna have a good marriage. God doesn't hear your prayers. God doesn't care about you. You're never gonna make a difference. You're never gonna amount to anything. How do we do battle in our mind? Well, scripture tells us this. "That we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge God." And what do we do? With God's help, "we take captive every thought and we make it obedient to Christ." The title of today's message is, "Winning the War in Your Mind." Would you pray with me. Father we ask, that by the 1 WTWIYM_1_Transcript power of Your living word, You would renew our minds with truth. Set us free God from believing the lies that rob us, joy, peace and calling. And God may Your truth set us free. We pray this in Jesus' name. And everybody say, Amen. - Amen. - Look at somebody next to you, air five them and say, get your mind right. Just tell them, get your mind right. Put that in the chat. I'm getting my mind, right. Just type it in the chat. I'm getting my mind right. Today, we are launching into a new message series. And the message series is the same title as my new book, "Winning the War in Your Mind: "Change Your Thinking, "Change Your Life." And this book and this message is incredibly personal to me because I've been on honestly, a several-year journey, asking God, begging God, pleading with God, to renew my mind. And by the power of His word, I've made so much progress that I thank God for it. I wanna share with you through God’s Word the journey that He's taken me on. And as I've studied the mind, both in scripture and just through science, what I've discovered is this. That our lives, are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. What we tend to think comes out in our life, and both science and scripture agree. In fact, I've done a lot of research on cognitive behavior psychology, which shows that a lot of problems, are actually related to wrong thought processes. Some relational challenges. Some eating disorders. Addictions, some forms of anxiety are actually a direct result of toxic thinking. That's what science says. God’s Word is true, and it says it this way. Proverbs 23:7 says, "For as he thinks in his heart, as a person thinks, "so is he." What do we know? That the life we have so often is a reflection of the thoughts that we think. What we think determines who we become. In other words, if you tend to think I can't do something, I'll never be able to do something. I don't have what it takes. If you think you can't, you probably won't. If you think you can, by the grace of God, you probably will. If you dwell on your problems, the world is bad, it's getting worse, your problems are gonna overwhelm you. But instead, if you look for some solutions, if you believe you can have faith, you'll find some solutions and you'll see faith arise. If you always feel like you're a victim, you will likely become a victim. If instead, you believe that you can overcome, by the power of Christ within you, you can overcome. In so many cases, the life we have is a reflection of the thoughts we think. And what I wanna do today, is I wanna encourage you for a moment, just to stop and think about what you think about. We're gonna pause, and just kind of go through our minds, and I'm gonna encourage you to do what I call a thought audit. We're going to audit our thoughts, and think about what we think about. I'm gonna show you three different categories to try to determine where you actually would fall on this list. The first scale I wanna look at is contrasting your mindset. Are you characterized by worried thoughts, panic, anxiety, fear, or would you say, that your thoughts are typically characterized by being full of peace? We'll start on the left side. Do you tend to wake up and have your mind drift toward fear? What could go wrong? I'm worried about my kids. I'm worried about my health. I'm worried about the economy. I'm worried about the state of the world and the direction that our world is heading and our countries out of control. Do you find yourself more typified and characterized your mind by worried thoughts or even if things are bad, and complicated, do you find yourself casting your cares upon God, and recognizing there is a peace that goes beyond all human ability to understand. And you sense His presence, and His goodness, and His spirit with you, even when things aren't the way you want. What would you say if you're auditing your thoughts? Are you more characterized by worry or by peaceful thoughts? A second category would be this. Do your thoughts 2 WTWIYM_1_Transcript drift toward the negative? Or do they drift toward the positive? Do you wake up and find yourself like negative and critical of people? And assuming the worst, instead of believing the best? Do you look at your day and say, Oh it's gonna be hard, and it's gonna be bad, times are tough. And I'm always so busy. There's not enough of me to go around. And the world's going to hell in a hand basket. Or do you wake up with positive faith? And again, even if things are difficult, you say you know what, Christ is with me. He helps me overcome. And things may be difficult in the world, but I'm thankful for a God who is working in all things to bring about good to those who are called according to His purpose. What would typify your thoughts? So let's look at a third category, and ask yourself, when it comes to what you think about, are your thoughts more worldly, toward the things of this world that were just temporary, or do they drift toward that which lasts forever? Your thoughts may be more worldly where you're just concerned with what you have? And what you wear? And what you look like? And who liked your post? And how many followers you have? And about what everybody thinks about you? Or they drift toward more eternal? Which is God has given you a life to steward, and spiritual gifts to use. And what you have is actually to be invested and given to make a difference in the lives of the people around you, so when everything else burns away your life will count eternally. What would you say characterizes your thoughts? What we think about matters more than you can imagine. What comes into your mind, comes out in your life. No matter what you do, or what you have, or who you know, or what you buy, or where you live, or where you travel, you cannot have a positive life, when you have a negative mind. Why? Because your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts. The question I want you to ask yourself is this. If your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts, are you excited about the direction your thoughts are taking you? I asked myself that very question several years ago. And my answer was, no. If my thoughts are directing my life, and I looked specifically at my thoughts, I did not like the direction they were taking me in. They were consumed with negativity, and fear, and self-doubt, and my inner dialogue would often be discouraging and talking myself down over and over again. So several years ago, and through this period, my number one top personal spiritual priority was to invite God, to renew my mind with truth. And I've been on a passion for it. So much so that I got consumed with it , and had to get it out in the form of a book, hopefully to help other people the way God’s Word has been helping me. God I need your help to renew my mind, to replace all the lies that replay in my mind with Your spiritual truth. And so over the next few weeks, we're gonna go on a journey. And we're gonna look at the Apostle Paul, and we're gonna ask God to renew our minds with truth. And today we're gonna lay a foundation, that we'll build upon in the weeks to come. So we can win the war in our mind and change our thinking, so God can change our life. Are you ready for it? If you're ready to say I'm ready. Are you ready? Type it in the chat if you want to, I'm ready. Two foundational thoughts that we're gonna build upon. The first one is this. What I wanna do is just encourage you to identify the biggest stronghold, this holding you back. Remember the stronghold, it's you're your prisoner locked by a lie. What is the biggest mental stronghold that's holding you back? You might think over and over again. I'm not good enough. Or my past is too bad for God to use me. Or I can't trust the people around me. Or I'm always gonna battle with my weight. Or I'm never gonna be good with money. Or I can never be close God. Or I'll never be in a job that is fulfilling with something that I love. Or all of my relationships are always gonna breakdown. I only date psychos, whatever it is. Okay. If you find yourself identifying your negative thoughts, what I want you to do is embrace the reality that your negative thoughts, they are changing the chemical makeup of your brain. The reason is because every thought creates a neurochemical change in your body. When you think a positive thought, you 3 WTWIYM_1_Transcript get a surge of rewarding neuro-transmitters releasing a very legal and exciting drug called dopamine. It's legal and it's powerful. And every time your brain drops some dopamine, you get this hit, this buzz, this thrill. Someone you like and respect comments on your latest Instagram posts. You get some dopamine. Someone says, Ooh, girl, your hair looks so good. Dopamine. Amy texts me and says, thinking about you, come home soon. Dopamine. Okay. It's that positive surge of release in your brain. And what's so interesting is the more often you think a thought, science tells us it's easier to think that thought again. Once you think a thought, you're creating neural pathways in your brain. And literally we have billions of neural pathways in our brain. The more often we think that thought, the more the connection is there, and it's easier to think that thought again, and before long, whatever we have been thinking becomes our default thought. Stronghold. If you believe a lie for long enough, you start to be impacted as if that lie were true. You get stuck in a rut. Imagine this. If I walked out in my front yard, and I walked across the lawn for a 100 days straight. If I walked across that, what would I do? I would create a path in my yard. In my mind if for a 100 days straight, I think on a lie, I start to believe the lie, and I create a neural pathway through my brain. With God's help, what we're gonna do is renew our minds. We're gonna stay off that old path. And if I stay off that path for a 100 days, what happens? The grass grows back. There's more resistance. It's not as easy to walk. And I forge a new pathway in my brain toward the truth, and the truth ultimately sets me free. This is science and is Godly, because God created science. Romans 12:2, Paul said it this way. He said, don't be conformed to the patterns of this world. We could maybe say it's like, don't be conformed to the wrong ways of thinking. He said, but be transformed. How? By the renewing of your mind. We're staying off the destructive, negative paths and we're creating new paths of truth. I don't know how this will play out in your life. But maybe your path is this. It's a frustrating day at work, and you come home, and it's been crazy at home, because it's always crazy when you homeschool, is a spiritual principle, and all of your homeschooling and you have some degree of that, and you walk in and your old path says, yell at your spouse. And what you do is you stay off that path. You capture that thought, and you might count to three, or 10, or 110 in your case. And you say a prayer, and instead you walk a different road, and you come up and say, I'm sorry, it's been a difficult day. And you hug and you change the tone by changing the path. Or maybe you feel bad about yourself. And so when you feel bad about yourself, there's a very direct path to the freezer. And you eat ice cream when you feel bad, and then you feel worse because you ate the whole thing. What you're gonna do is create a new path. Instead of walking to the freezer, you walk to the front yard, and you take a little walk, and you exercise. And when you exercise, you get some dopamine, and some adrenaline, and you feel better about yourself and you create a new path. When you're bored, what do you do? You pick up your phone, you look at Instagram, you scroll through it all your friends, and you hate them. Because their life seems better than yours. And you're not there. Why weren't you there? And you feel like a loser. And so what you might do is create a new path. You open up the YouVersion Bible App, and you put something different in your brain that renews your mind. To think in a different way, we're gonna forge a new path in our brain because the more you walk that path, the easier it becomes to travel, and the more you stay off the old one, the more it weakens, and it's harder to think those same thoughts again. Here's your assignment. Identify the biggest stronghold that's holding you back. Just one. Just one. We're not gonna attack all 73. What we're gonna do is we're gonna start with one. What is it for you? You might battle with identity and you might feel like I'm just not lovable. That's your one. Or you might wrongly believe because you've set it for 1,000s of days, I'll just never be good enough. Or I don't deserve anything good. Or I'll always be broke. 4 WTWIYM_1_Transcript There's the haves and have nots, and I'm just a have not, okay. You feel helpless, hopeless, worthless. Like life is pointless. Identify that one stronghold, name it. Because you can not defeat what you don't define. Identify, that biggest stronghold. And then the second part of your assignment is this. Name the truth that demolishes that stronghold. Name the truth that demolishes that stronghold. Why does the truth matter? Jesus said this. Jesus said, you'll know the truth, John 8:32. He said, you'll know the truth. And what does the truth do? The truth, it sets you free. The lie puts you into spiritual bondage. And some of you you're living a life based on a lie. And you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. I'll illustrate it with one of my favorite stories from the history of our church, staff, family, I'll show you an old photograph. These are the directional leaders of our church that have been together for years. This an old photograph back when we had style. We're not as stylish today, but you've got 'em on the left, Pastor Jerry Hurley who's been with me for about 23 years. Pastor Bobby created the YouVersion Bible app over 20 years. There's me. There's Pastor Sam, over 20 years. He's over all the campus. There's Pastor Kevin. Pastor Kevin, didn't get the memo of how you're supposed to hold your hands on that day. He was always a little rebellious, and Kevin was with us for 20 years before retiring. We used to play a game years ago, called capture the flag. And it was a violent game. We had lots of injuries and such. So we had to come up with some rules for safety. One of the rules was you couldn't go attack an enemies flag until 8:00 a.m., because there was just wasn't fair. And so one day I came into our offices about 7:00 a.m., and my spiritual spidey senses, told me something was amiss. And it was captured the flag gaming. And so I just thought, I'm gonna go, where is it? I'm gonna go look in the closet. And that's what I did. I opened up the closet, and sure enough Pastor Kevin had been waiting in the closet, who knows since 4:00 a.m., waiting for the eight o'clock bell to sound so he could go and capture my flag. And so I thought, well God prompted me to lock you in here all day long, and I immediately just slammed the door, and put my foot up against the door, and grabbed an office chair, and slammed it under the door, to make him pay, because you reap what you sow. And there are spiritual consequences, and God is the one who brings justice. He just chose me to bring justice on that day. So I tried to lock him in, but the chair didn't fit. So in love and war, everything is fair, so I just lied. And confess my sin to God, and God forgave my sin. And I said, Kevin, you're locked in by a chair. It wasn't true. The chair didn't fit. But I told him with all pastoral confidence, you're locked in, and you'll spend the day locked in this closet. God is my witness. Pastor Kevin never tried to open the door. He just started whining. Let me out. This is unfair. And I sat there and laughed. For several minutes. While he tried to open the door. Eight o'clock came around, I had a premarital counseling appointment. I was sitting in my desk, while Kevin was in an unlocked door. And 20 minutes or so later, God is my witness, I heard something in the ceiling tile above me. Pastor Kevin had scaled the shelves in the closet, gotten up in the ceiling tile, and was trying to make his escape, because he believed a lie that an unlocked door held in prisoner. Some of you right now, do not have what God wants you to have, and are not living the life that God wants you to live, because you're stuck behind an unlocked door. And you'll know the truth that Jesus has set you free. Scripture says this, and I'm gonna look at it again. This is what the Apostle Paul says. Whatever that stronghold is, that's holding you prisoner in your mind, what do we do? We demolish it. "We demolish arguments "and every pretension that sets itself up "against the knowledge of God." And here's what we do. "We take captive." We are not prisoner to our thoughts. "We take our thoughts captive "and we make them obedient to Christ." We take our thoughts captive. Whatever it is, we take it captive. In fact, the Greek term that's translated as take captive, it's a term that means to attack with a sword or with a spear. And I love this. When you talk about the 5 WTWIYM_1_Transcript weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. Ephesians 6 tells us that we have spiritual armor. What do we have? We have the helmet of salvation. The breastplate of righteous. The shield of the faith. The belt of truth. The shoes prepared with the gospel. And the readiness of peace. All of those are defensive weapons. We have one offensive weapon and you know what the weapon of offenses is? It is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. It is the word of God that sets us free. It's his powerful living word of God that is sharper than any double edged sword. And it cuts away the lies of the enemy. We let God’s Word take captive any lies that have held us hostage. What's your stronghold? What's the dominant lie that your spiritual enemy has tried to use to destroy your faith? Kill your relationships? Robbed you of the intimacy that God wants you to have with Him? What's your stronghold? Mine, the one I've been attacking with God’s Word is the one that's haunted me since I was a little kid. The lie that I've always believed is that, I am never enough. I'm never enough. I'll never preach a good enough sermon. I'll never be righteous enough to lead the church. If I give my best to the church, I fail Amy, and my six kids, and 43 grandkids or however many we have now, I don't... You know, or if I bring my best at home, then I fail in leading the church that God has entrusted me. I can't live up to your expectation. There ain't no way. I mean, I can't meet with everybody, and I can't deliver, and I can't, I can't get it all done. I am not enough. And the challenge with that lie is that there is some truth in it. I mean, there's some truth, which makes it easy to believe. Because of my sinfulness, and because of my limitations, there's a lot of me that never will be enough. But thankfully I don't have to rely only on what's inside of me. But there is a power greater than me that absolutely and completely is more than enough. So here's my truth. And it's from the word of God. 2nd Peter 1:3 says, that God's divine power, "His divine power has given us everything we need "for a godly life." I'm gonna personalize it. God's divine power has given me everything I need to do. He's given me the time to do what He's called me to do. He's given me the strength to do what He's called me to do. When I'm weak, His strength is made perfect in me. I've got the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwelling inside of me. His living word doesn't work that I cannot do. His power is there for me when I don't have what it takes. He has given me everything I need for life and godliness. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What's the driving lie that has held you back? And what's the truth that will set you free? Maybe you think I can't get it all done. I never can get it all done. And your truth is, I can do all things through my Savior Jesus Christ, who gives me strength when I'm weak. He makes me strong. Maybe you feel like I'm never gonna be attractive enough. I don't like the way I look. No, no, no. You are fearfully and wonderfully made by the grace of God. He's given you gifts to make a difference in this world. Maybe you feel like I'm always gonna be miserable. I'm always gonna be depressed. Know the joy of the Lord is your strength. The moment the lie tells you you're gonna always be alone, No, my God is with me. He's never gonna leave me. He's never gonna forsake me. Oh, but you're just nothing but a victim. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God’s Word tells me. I am an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb, and by the words of my testimony. I am not who others say that I am. I'm not even who the lies in my own mind say that I am. I am who God says that I am, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Your life in so many ways is moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts. What comes into your mind comes out in your life. You cannot have a positive faith-filled life, when you have a negative fear-filled mind. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna capture those lies, name it. We're gonna replace it with truth. And by the power of God, you will not stay locked in a prison. when Jesus holds the key that sets you free. You will know the truth. And truth isn't just a concept, truth is a person. His name is Jesus. He'll set you free. So Father today, we ask it by the power of Your word, You would renew 6 WTWIYM_1_Transcript our minds with truth. At all of our churches or those of you watching online, who say I need, God's help. There's a war going on in my mind. I wanna name that one stronghold, and I want God's truth to set me free. If that's you, would you just lift up your hand? You can type it in the chat. I need His truth, just type it in the chat. I need His truth. Father I pray right now that You would begin a work of renewing our minds, and God in the same way that it may take years and years to have a lie ingrained in our neural pathways, we recognize it may take some time for You to renew our minds. God give us the faith to walk this journey with You, to stay off the old paths of lies and destruction, and God create a new path of truth. Renew our minds. God, I pray that over the next few weeks, as we look at Your word, and as we discuss in small groups, in our life groups, that You would use Your body and use Your word to help renew our minds. God change our thinking. And change our lives. As to keep praying today at all of our churches, or maybe you're watching online, there's some of you that perhaps the biggest lie that's impacting you right now is a distorted view of who God is. Maybe for years, you've had a wrong view of God. You thought He's angry at you. He's mad at you. He could never love you after what you've done. You've just used up goods. You've been too bad. Lemme try to help you replace those lies with truth. Lemme tell you about who God is and how He sees you. Our God is a loving Heavenly Father. And He loves you more than you could ever imagine. Even if you've done some really shameful things, there's nothing that you could do that would make God love you any less, or even if you're trying your best to be perfect, there's nothing you could do to make God love you even more. He simply loves you. And He loves you so much that He became like you in the person of His Son Jesus. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus was perfect in every way. Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth. Jesus is the truth. If you wanna know who God is, look at Jesus, Jesus all around sinners, really pathetic people, and He loved them. And He gave His life as the perfect gift, the innocent sacrifice, and God raised Him from the dead so that all of our sins could be forgiven. That's how much God loves you. That's how much God loves you. No matter what you've done, He loves you. And He wants you to know that love. At all of our churches, or those of you watching online, there's some of you you felt distant from God. And today, guess what? You're creating a new path. It's directly to God. It's one prayer that opens up Heaven and gives you access to a relationship with God. It's getting off that old path, that old sinful path and we're gonna turn toward Jesus and surrender our life to Him. And when you do, God will hear this prayer, He'll forgive every sin you've ever committed. He's gonna open up the heaven and show you His love, And you'll be completely new. Today at all of our churches, those of you online who say, now I wanna get off that old path, I need His love, I need His forgiveness, I want His grace. Today I'm repenting of my sinfulness, I'm turning toward Jesus, and by faith, I'm giving it all to Him. Those who say yes, I want His forgiveness. Today, I surrender my life to You, that's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now all over the place and say, yes, Jesus I surrender my life to You. As we've got hands going up at all of our different churches, those of you online, just type in the chat. I'm giving my life to Jesus. I'm giving my life to Jesus. And I would love it if all of you would pray with those around you. Just pray a loud pray. Heavenly Father, - Heavenly Father, - Forgive all of my sins. - Forgive all of my sins. 7 WTWIYM_1_Transcript - Jesus save me. - Jesus save me. - Make me brand new. - Make me brand new. - Fill me with Your spirit. - Fill me with Your spirit. - And fill my mind with truth. - And fill my mind with truth. - Renew my mind. - Renew my mind. - So I can follow You. - So I can follow You. - And live for You. - And live for you. - And all I do, - And all I do, - my life is not my own. - my life is not my own. - I give it to You. - I give it to You. - Thank You for new life. - Thank You for new life. - Now You have mine, - Now You have mine, - in Jesus name I pray. - in Jesus name I pray. 8 WTWIYM_1_Transcript - Could somebody celebrate big. Welcome those born into God's family today. 9 WTWIYM_1_Transcript www.life church.tv/open

During the earth’s greatest trial and tribulation will also come its greatest opportunity for salvation. Even after the church is raptured off the earth and ensconced in heaven, there will be gospel preaching during this time of global pain. This is the flicker of hope that will be offered to the world while God pours out His wrath on it. There are three unexpected discoveries we make about the upcoming tribulation period. This teaching is from our series What’s Next? with Skip Heitzig from Calvary Albuquerque. The World's Greatest Revival Transcription Hello, and welcome to this teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque. As these teachings are shared worldwide, our prayer is that God uses them to draw people to himself. If this message resonates with you, we'd like to know. Email us at mystory@calvaryabq.org. And if you'd like to support this ministry financially, you can get online securely at calvaryabq.org/giving. We look forward to the day that God calls us home. And in the next installment of our series What's Next?, we find out what will happen on earth after God raptures His church. As Skip shares the message The World's Greatest Revival, we'll learn how the world's greatest trial will also become the greatest opportunity for salvation. Now let's turn our Bibles to Revelation chapter seven as Skip begins. Turn to Revelation chapter seven please If you would. Revelation chapter seven. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Recognize that? The opening line of Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. There is coming a period in the future when it could best be characterized by that line in Dickens' book. It will be a period of history in the future that will be the worst time in human history. But at the same time, it could be said it will be the best time in human history. It will be the worst time physically, but it could be the best time spiritually. It will be great tribulation, but it will also be great salvation. It will be an intense time of trouble. It will be an immense time of revival. That is coming in the future, a great incredible revival. Now when you hear the word "revival", maybe your mind goes back to some of the revivals you have heard about in history. I think of what happened in the book of Acts. That was revival. Holy Spirit moved through Jerusalem and thousands upon thousands of people gave their lives to Christ. My mind goes back to Europe and the great reformation period or the Welsh revival. Or if you know your church history, the Moravian movement under Jan Huss and Count Zinzendorf. I think of the Great Awakening in 18th century America when I think of revival. Or the revivals in New York and Chicago under Dwight Moody and Jeremiah Lanphier. All of those come to my mind when I think of revival. I think of the '60s and '70s in America with the Jesus movement sweeping so many young people off their spiritual feet, self included. Great revival. I even think of modern revival. Right now I've heard that in China under the government controlled, communist government controlled, churches the three-self movement churches, there's an incredible revival happening. All of those revivals, I believe, pale in comparison to what revival is coming to planet earth. The greatest revival is yet to come. It will be a worldwide response to the gospel. It will far exceed any in history. It will sweep through the earth in a very short period of time. It will produce a vast multitude of saved people from virtually every nation. One commentator says it will be the greatest movement of God's saving power the world will ever see. Revival. Have you ever seen those church signs that say revival on it? Have you ever driven by a church that says revival? It's funny. Sometimes it'll say revival tonight, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. As if you can schedule when God's going to revive something. I've always been fascinated by that. Revival. I heard about preacher at a revival meeting. He was scheduled to preach 25 minutes. They could never asked me to do that. I don't clear my throat in 20 minutes. So they wanted him to preach 25 minutes. He preached 25 and then 30 and then 35 and then 45. And he went an hour and then he went an hour and 10 minutes. Well, people were sick of it, falling asleep. One guy decided, he was in the back row, he decided to take a hymnal and throw it at the preacher. So he tossed this hymnal across the church at the preacher. It didn't hit the preacher, it hit the guy in the front row who was asleep. Got beaned by a hymnal. As he's falling to the ground, the man who was hit said, hit me again. I can still hear him preaching. Revival. When the world will be hit the hardest, will come some of the greatest activity in terms of salvation. What I want you to notice with me in chapter seven is that three astonishing discoveries can be made about this coming great tribulation period. The first is there will be good news in the midst of bad news. The second, there will be God's protection for God's covenant people. And the third, there will be great multitudes who will experience great salvation. I'll tell you why that's important. It's important to some of you, because I've gotten your questions. Questions like, well, if the church goes up in the rapture, what about my relatives and my friends who have not responded? Does that mean that the door of opportunity is closed for people to be saved during that time? And the answer is an absolute unequivocal no. God's Spirit will still be moving incredibly on planet earth. So let's consider the good news in the midst of the bad news. I want to draw your attention to chapter six. You say, you did that last time. I know that. But before chapter seven, verse one is chapter six, verse 17. Look at the last verse of the previous chapter. It says, "For the great day of his wrath has come. And who is able to stand?" You see that question? Who is able to stand during the lamb's wrath? That question is answered in chapter seven. Chapter seven is the answer to the question in chapter six. Chapter seven introduces us to two groups who are able to stand during that period of tribulation, the wrath of God. Now here's something that will help you. And there's a pattern in the Book of Revelation. It's a hard book for some people to read because of the judgments that are one on top of another. But the way it's written is you have chapters that are written that tells you bad stuff, bad stuff, bad stuff. And then all of a sudden, you have a parenthetical chapter, a pause. Sort of a pause so you could take a breath. I mean, this is bad. So we get a pause here in chapter seven. We're introduced to two groups. And then more bad stuff is predicted. And then you'll get a couple chapters where there will be a pause. And then that pattern goes through the book. So this is the first pause, the first parenthetical chapter. And so the question who is able to stand, and then two groups are introduced. And something else-- back in chapter six, though we did not cover it yet, we covered four of the seven seals. The fifth seal that is broken open, the seal that announces another judgment, is all about martyrs, people who are killed because they believe in Jesus Christ during that tribulation period. They're wearing white robes and they're before the throne of God. So just reading that and reading this chapter, we understand somebody is getting saved during the tribulation period because there's martyrs. They have a relationship with God. It happens during the tribulation. There's good news in the midst of bad news. So here's something I think I hope you know by now. The tribulation is really, really, really, really bad. Right? We've discovered that so far. Jesus said it will be the worst time ever. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, the worst time ever. We saw last week when we met a leader comes on the scene, promises peace. He's a slick politician. It doesn't happen. He brings in war, famine, and death. A quarter of the earth's population is decimated. That's pretty bad. And so you might be wondering, well, could it get any worse? I mean, that's bad. How bad could it be? Well Jesus said, that's just the beginning of sorrows. It can get really bad. In fact, after the seven seals come seven trumpet judgments. And just listen to these. I'll sum it up for you. In Revelation eight, hail and fire come from the sky. It falls in the water sources of the earth including the rivers and the springs. The grass on earth, or a lot of it, is burned up, the vegetation. In Revelation nine, the bottomless pit is opened. Hell belches out its demons in the form of designer locusts that torment people on the earth for several months. Then after that, we get seven bulls. Bull judgments poured out upon the earth. Chapter 16, malignant sores. Water sources are poisoned. The sun scorches people on the earth. Hail comes out of heaven. Not like hail in Albuquerque, but 100-pound hailstones. So there's smoke, fire, heat, lightning, darkness, beasts, falling stars, the bottomless pit is opened, the devil and his angels are extremely active. That's really bad. Sounds like a really gnarly country song, doesn't it? Just one bad thing on top of another happens. So to sum it all up, the tribulation period will be a period of divine reckoning where God shows that he is supreme over nature and over nations. Second, it will be a time of demonic trouble making. Satan will take advantage of the pandemonium, the confusion on the earth. And he and his demon hordes will be very active. So it's a time of divine reckoning, demonic trouble making. But third, the tribulation will be a time of spiritual outpouring, spiritual awakening. And you need to know this is the heart of God. It is not God's heart to judge. It's God's heart to save. What did Peter say? God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So his merciful heart is to reach out to people even in the worst time, especially in the worst time of their life. That's his mercy. That's his long suffering. Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter two. And he says, he desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. OK, so some of you might have another question. I get it a lot. And that is how will it be possible for people to be saved in the tribulation if indeed the church is taken up before the tribulation? I mean, who's going to preach them? I'm glad you asked that question. Because they will be able to hear the gospel from a few different sources. Number one, there will be two witnesses introduced in chapter 11. Some people guess as to the identity of the two witnesses, unimportant. What you need to know is two witnesses come to Israel, come to the city of Jerusalem. Not only do they have a message, but they can do miraculous works. They will get people's attention. The Bible says the whole world will be watching them. That's not even possible before the advent of satellite television. John made that prediction 2,000 years ago. The world will be watching them at one time. So there will be two witnesses in Jerusalem doing miraculous works. That's number one. Number two, there's going to be 144,000 Jewish evangelists unleashed on the earth. And number three, there's going to be an angel flying in the atmosphere of the Earth around the earth preaching the gospel. So all that the church hasn't been able to do for 2,000 years, the angel will do in a couple days. Listen to what it says, Revelation chapter 14, verse six, "Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth-- to every nation, to every tribe, to every tongue and people." So God's salvation will be on display at the most unexpected time. There's going to be good news in the midst of bad news. That's the first amazing discovery. Here's the second one. There will be during that time God's protection for God's people, for his covenant people. Verse one of chapter seven, "After these things, I saw fours angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the east having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea saying, 'Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our God on there foreheads.' And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed." And just so there's no mistake as to who they are, the children of Israel, from verse five to verse eight, there are 12 tribes that are mentioned. See it? All the way beginning with the tribe of Judah, ending with the tribe of Benjamin. There are 12 tribes enumerated. 12,000 sealed out of those 12 tribes. I've always been amused at how many groups of people try to identify with the 144,000. We're the 144,000. The Jehovah Witnesses have done that. Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God for years said they're the 144,000. Seventh Day Adventists claim to be the 144,000. Who are the 144,000? Thank you. You've read it. It says so right here. You don't have to guess who they are. They are Jews. They're of the children of Israel. And here are the tribes listed just so you won't misunderstand. These are Jewish people. Why? The Jews have always had a special place in God's prophetic plan. God made covenants with the Jewish nation throughout history. Do you know that 3/4 of your Bible is about the Hebrew race? 3/4 of the Bible you hold in your hands is about the Jewish nation. Most every author of scripture, Jewish. The apostles of Jesus Christ, all Jewish. Jesus himself, our Savior, was Jewish. The first church in Jerusalem, a Jewish congregation. The prophetic calendar given to Daniel the prophet is all about Jerusalem and the Jewish nation the angel said to him. So Paul summed it all up in Romans chapter nine by saying this, there's-- that is, the Jews-- there's is the adoption as sons. There's the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. There's are the patriarchs. And from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God overall, forever praised. You see, the tribulation, in part, is to prepare Israel to receive its messiah. That's why it's called the time of Jacob's trouble. The tribulation is given that title in Jeremiah 30. A time of Jacob, or Israel's, trouble. It's to prepare Israel to nationally receive Jesus as the messiah. They don't do that today. They didn't do it the first time he came. It says he came into his own and his own received him not. But that day will end one day. And many will be saved and sealed. 144,000 saved and sealed. Now, it says they were sealed. By now you know what a seal is, right? Not just a little animal that does that. But you know that a seal was a little wax imprint made by a ring. And we saw it on the scrolls of the one sitting on the throne of heaven that had to be unfurled. So a seal was a piece of wax. And an impression was made upon that wax with a signet ring. the seal meant two things. It meant ownership and it meant protection. I own it. There's my ring, my signet ring, my signature. And I will protect it. We've been sealed. Ephesians chapter one, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise unto the day of redemption. These are saved Jewish people. And how do I know that for certain? Because we see them again in Revelation 14. They have survived the tribulation period. They have been protected by God during this time. And they show up again on Mount Zion with Jesus Christ, the lamb. And when they show up in Revelation 14, this is what it says of them, they are redeemed from the earth. And they follow the lamb wherever he goes. They are redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits to God. So if the Bible says these 144,000 are Jews and they're redeemed, guess what, I believe they're Jews and they're redeemed. They're saved Jewish people protected during the tribulation period. Sealed, just like their ancestors were sealed when they left Egypt. And they fled. And that night they put the blood of the lamb on the door posts and lentils. And the blood was the seal that they were to be passed over. Or Rahab the harlot who put that scarlet cord out of her house in Jericho so the people would not capture her house or destroy her people. That was the seal of her faith in God. And there's a better example than even those two. In fact, it is the example of which Revelation seven is taken from. It's in Ezekiel nine. I'll just mention it to you. And for those Bible nerds, you know what I'm talking about already. If you're a Bible nerd, God bless you. I am among your company. But Ezekiel nine is sort of an obscure passage for some. But here's what it says. God tell someone to go through Jerusalem with an ink horn and mark with ink the foreheads of those Jews who are sighing and crying because of all the sins and abominations committed in their city. God says, I will spare them from judgment. And so like that, 144,000 are sealed and protected by God during that tribulation period. What is their purpose? What's the purpose of God doing this with 144,000 Jewish people? Why? I believe they will become evangelists during the tribulation period. Have you ever seen a born again Jewish person? Ever talked to one? They are a force to be reckoned with. When you find a messianic Jew, somebody who was raised Jewish who comes to believe in Jesus as the messiah, look out. Listen, the world in the first century heard the gospel around the known world because of 12 Jewish apostles. They turned the world upside down. Imagine 144,000 of those dudes. I was online this week and I found this little clip. I think it was a YouTube clip by an orthodox Jew raised in an orthodox Jewish family. You just look at him and you go, that guy's like a rabbi or something. And he did a little video clip called "I Met The Messiah". And he gives his testimony of how he came to faith in Yeshua, Jesus Christ as the messiah promised in the Old Testament. It's so compelling. But it went viral. Within a short time, 8,750,000 hits. Imagine 144,000 of those guys. And they will be out in force. They will come to faith in Christ. And they are the firstfruits it says of the Jewish nation that will be saved during that time. So God's protection for God's people. Here's the third and final discovery of the tribulation period that is encouraging. There will be great multitudes that experience great salvation. Not just 144,000. Ah, watch this. Verse nine of Revelation seven, "After these things, I looked. And behold, a great multitude which no one could number of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues standing before the thrown." Now when it says no one can number, it doesn't mean that they were unable to be counted. It just means that no one person could stand there and count accurately how many were in that crowd. It doesn't mean that you couldn't affix a number to it. But one person couldn't tell you. And they are from, notice, "all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.'" These are saved, praising people. "All the angel stood around the throne. And the elders and the four living creatures, they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying, 'Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom. Thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.' Then one of the elders answered saying to me, 'Who are these arrayed in white robes? Where did they come from?' I said to him, 'Sir, you know.' He said to me, 'These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation and wash their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.'" That's all salvation language. "'Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them, nor any heat. For the lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.'" There's a lot there. But notice a few things. Number one, they're standing. They're not seated. They're standing. This indicates, first of all, this group is not the church. Because the 24 elders are seated in heaven. John knew who they were. They represented the church as we've looked at in previous studies. He doesn't recognize this group. When the elder says who are they? John goes, I don't know. You know. And the question was asked so it could be answered. These are the ones who are washed with blood. In other words, these are saved people from the tribulation. Look at verse nine. It describes their ethnicity. They're from virtually every culture, descent, race, and language. And notice, they're also wearing white robes. This describes their spirituality. In chapter six there's a group of martyrs under the altar that cry out to God. That's the fifth seal. They're wearing the same thing, white robes like this. So as the tribulation wears on, all those judgments, all that persecution from Antichrist, the number of martyrs, people who believe in Christ who will be killed for their faith, will just rise and rise and rise and rise. That number will be added to. These have palm branches in their hands. That describes their festivity. In the celebratory feasts of Israel, especially the Feast of Tabernacles, you still see it today, they wave palm branches all around symbolizing their worship, symbolizing their joy. Look at verse 17. It's the best part. God will wipe away every tear. They're not going to hunger anymore. They're not going to thirst anymore. The sun isn't going to scorch them anymore. What does that mean? Well, it means that during the tribulation period, they will have hungered. Because the Bible says you won't be able to buy or sell anything unless you take a mark of the beast. They have refused to do that. They will have starved because of it. They're not going to thirst anymore. The sources of water on the earth will have been polluted by the judgments of God. That's over. And it says, they won't be scorched anymore. The sun, Revelation 16, will scorch people on the earth in an unprecedented manner. But God will wipe away every tear. What a great promise that is. Listen, God's handkerchief is the only one that could wipe away every tear. You could wipe away somebody's tear, another one will replace it very shortly. I've always loved the story of an elderly couple. It's Valentine's Day so-- this elderly couple, they had been married for years. The wife was on her deathbed. Her husband was sitting at the edge of her bed holding hands. They both knew that she had a very short time before she would die. She was in and out of consciousness. And she woke up at one point and she knew it was just moments away before she'd take her last breath. And she looked over at her husband. Their eyes met. And a tear rolled down her cheek. And her husband gently wiped it away with his handkerchief and said to her with a smile, "Thank God, Mary. That's the last one." And then she went in the glory. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Can't wait. What we're reading about is worldwide revival. A multitude so big no one person could count them from every place on earth, every language, every background, saved, singing songs of praise. How do they get saved? My guess, no, my conviction, my strong belief, is they get saved as a result of the preaching of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists. I think that largely the 144,000 come to Christ by the witness of the two witnesses that come to Israel, Jerusalem. 144,000 unleashed on the earth will produce by their preaching this innumerable multitude. Besides, the angel flying through heaven preaching the gospel. I mean, come on. There's going to be a lot of opportunities. So I believe that this is a result of the 144,000 preaching. And I believe that as a logical deduction and as a theological conclusion. Let me explain. It's a logical deduction. They're the only two groups mentioned in this chapter. And one follows the other. So if I look at it sequentially, one is the result of what happened to the first. That's the logical deduction. But there's a theological conclusion. You see, Jesus already tells us in Matthew 24 what the tribulation is going to be like, right? In fact, the book of Revelation is sort of just an amplified version of Matthew chapter 24 where Jesus talks about the tribulation. And this is what he says. Listen to the sequence. "And this gospel--" Jesus said, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations. And then the end shall come." This gospel will be preached around the world to all nations. And then the end will come. I don't know how many times I've heard that verse butchered by well-meaning missionaries or pastors saying, listen, we've got to get the gospel out around the world because then Jesus can come. Let's hasten the day of the Lord. Let's bring Jesus back. That's like trying to schedule revival from 7 to 9. Jesus will come back when his father thinks and knows it's the right time and not before and not after. And no individual or no church can schedule the return of Jesus Christ. That is not what that verse means at all. He is speaking of the tribulation period when in the midst of mayhem and famine and death and persecution, the gospel will have a worldwide impact. And then the end will come. And so we may be wondering what that means in Matthew 24. By the time we read the book of Revelation, we understand, oh, there's two witnesses and 144,000 and an angel preaching the gospel. And then the end will come. Here's what I like to think. Here's what I like to boil it down to a irreducible minimum. When the world will experience its greatest mess, God will still be preaching the greatest message. The greatest message of the gospel will be inculcated and permeating into the greatest mess the world will ever know. I love that. God loves your mess. He has a message for you to change that mess into something different. I want you to think of your life for a minute. What's your life like? You might say, it's sort of like what Dickens said. It's the best of times, it's the worst of times. It's good, it's bad. There's some good stuff, there's some bad stuff. Maybe you're facing some challenges, conflicts, struggles. I want you to hand that over to God this morning. I don't want you to walk out these doors with that burden on your shoulder. I want you to roll it over onto God. I know some of you are thinking, oh God's tired of hearing from me. I've done this. He's heard that voice and that plea so many times. He's sees me coming. He goes, oh, it's you again. There was a woman in a worship service. And the closing hymn was "We Exalt Thee, Oh Lord". Remember that? We exalt thee. And her hands were raised up. She was singing. Next to her was her three-year-old daughter. And you know, kids hear words differently, right? They say words differently. My grandson last night said happy "Valentime's" Day, Papa. That was so cute. It doesn't get any better than that, "Valentime's" Day. So she's singing, "We exalt thee, oh Lord." Her three-year-old daughter next to her was singing, "We exhaust thee, oh Lord." we exhaust thee. I'm here to tell you, you cannot exhaust God. He doesn't get tired of hearing the burden you have. If I learned anything from Revelation seven, it's that even in the worst of times, God can make it the best of times. He can do that for you. You turn that over to him. You roll that over onto him. You let him carry that burden. Oh, I'm going through a tribulation. Let it be the best season of your life. Watch what he can do with it. I love what happened when the little boy walked into the pet store and he was looking for a puppy. Dad said, you can have anyone you want. And he saw a little puppy wagging its tail. He goes, I want the one with a happy ending. Isn't that what we all want? Don't we want the life with the happy ending? The story with a happy ending? Well, there is a happy ending. The book will get incredibly awesome, the book of Revelation. But there is this, the tribulation. There are these, the judgments of God, the activity of Satan. But it will also be a time of great revival and great salvation. Here's the deal. That's going to happen. We don't know when. But it'll happen in the future. It could happen shortly in the future. We're waiting for the Lord to come back. It could happen, I believe, at any moment. It might not. But we're not living in the great tribulation right now. I know things are bad out there. But life's good in the neighborhood of the earth compared to what's coming. Right now is the day of grace. It's the age of grace. It's the age of opportunity for anyone at any time to say yes to Jesus. And you're probably not going to be killed for your faith tomorrow walking through Albuquerque. So life's pretty good right now. And you have an opportunity now to say yes to Jesus Christ before that age of grace finally closes. And it will close one day. Why would you ever want to wait? When God says, I will forgive you now. I will push the reset button. I will give you would do over. Why would you say, I don't know, I'm going to think about that? I'll forgive you of all your past. I don't know. Well, you can go to heaven. I don't know if I want to go heaven. There's a good restaurant around the corner, I'd kind of rather go visit that. What? Well, it's an opportunity. And it's your choice. So Father, we pray. That's what we can do. We can preach. And we can pray. And we can hope. And we can watch you move. And I pray for those who may be gathered with us who haven't yet said yes to Jesus personally. They may be churchgoers. They may have a tacit belief and understanding of spiritual things. But it's not a real dynamic daily experience. They're not walking with the Lord. Some others have wandered away from you and they need to come back home. Would you do the convincing, Lord? Would you do the conviction, Holy Spirit? And draw those who need to come to your salvation to come. Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. Mine will be open. If you are willing to give your life to Jesus Christ, to ask him to save you, to forgive you, to give you eternal life, you're willing to come to him, you're willing to turn away from your sins and turn to Jesus Christ as your savior, or if you need to come back after wandering away from him, whatever it might be, would you raise your hand up in the air so I can see your hand? I'll acknowledge your hand. And I'll pray for you as we close. Just raise your hand up saying, pray for me. God bless you right over here to my left. I love it. You put both hands up. Love that. Anybody else? Raise your hands up. You're saying pray-- God bless you, right up in the front toward the middle. Anyone else? Father, for those with raised hands or not who need to come to Jesus, I pray that you will enable them, having received Jesus, to make a stand for him in the world in which they live. Right where you're seated, if you raised your hand, you might be listening to this by radio or podcast or a number of other means. But wherever you are, God sees you. He knows you. He loves you. Would you just say to him, Lord, I give you my life. I know I'm a sinner. Forgive me. I believe Jesus came to this earth, that he shed his blood for my sin, that he rose from the grave. I believe that. And I turn from my sin. I repent of it. I leave it behind me and I turn to Jesus as my savior, my messiah, my master. Fill me with the Holy Spirit and help me to live for him and his name, I pray. Amen. Amen. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. Let's make sure the people in our lives don't miss out on the incredible love of Christ. Did this message inspire you to tell others about him today? Let us now. Email mystory@calvaryabq.org . And just a reminder, you can give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/giving. Thank you for listening to this message from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque. www.connectwithskip.com

Blood and Thunder  is about a recipe for revival. It’s about seeing more of God. In this series, Pastor Levi will show how a move of God takes power from above but it also takes tears, sweat, and blood from us. Generosity is a key point in the series. - Hey welcome to day two. All of our Life.Churches, our Open Network churches, our Church Online family all over the world, you guys are gonna be blessed again. Last week, we had the amazing Pastor Levi Lusko and I'm really excited to tell you that we've got him again this week. If you don't know who Pastor Levi is, maybe you're just joining us, he is the lead pastor at Fresh Life Church, a multi-site church based out of Montana. He's one of my closest friends in the ministry, a guy that I talk to and we encourage each other all the time. He is an amazing teacher of God's word and a fantastic author. In fact, if you haven't read his books, you have to read his books. Through the Eyes of a Lion was his first book. His newest book, Swipe Right, is all about sex and romance, and dating. In fact, parents, for those of you who have teenagers and you have that kind of awkward talk, this book will be a tool to help turn that awkward talk into an ongoing conversation. Pastor Levi is also a partner on the YouVersion Bible app. He's got different plans on different books you'll want to read those. Would you please help me show some Life.Church love for my good friend, Pastor Levi... Lusko? Thank you so much, love ya. Man, Life.Church, it is so great to be with you. Who's excited to be in God's house this week? So good. I am such a fan of what God is doing through Life.Church. And I don't say that word lightly, I'm truly a fan. I'm watching what God's doing from afar, just so excited, so engaged. And think about it, the church to God was worth Jesus. He spent Jesus. Like you, when you were lost in sin, you were worth Jesus to God. And so I think that we should give our lives for what God's gave the Son, His Son's life for? Anybody with me? I'm a fan, I'm a fan of Life.Church. God gave His Son's life to build it, and I'm gonna give my life to help add to it. I'm grateful for what you guys are doing and the way you're leading the way in so many ways. But especially as a young pastor looking at this church and seeing how you've gone and built and fought for people, and it's just so inspiring. And what we're doing at Fresh Life is, oh so much. We owe so much to you because everything that God does through you, you're doing. If you're giving here and serving here at your church, everything God does, as we get encouraged by the open We get encouraged by using the Church Online platform. Every time someone-- This is crazy, this should just blow you away. At our church in Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, Utah, as we do Church Online every single week. People make decisions for Christ and digitally push that button to raise their hand up, and if you understood how God sees it, remember Mario Brothers? When he would get the coin and go one up over his head, you know? Rar rar rar rar. He gets bigger? Every time someone gives their life to Jesus at our church, using a tool that you guys gave away, that's credit to your account. So just so you're aware of what God is doing, and we're just one small example of the thousands of churches around the world who get to use the stuff that you give away. 'Cause who does that really? And that all comes from, of course, the leadership that God's raised up. And so I think we ought to honor Pastor Craig and Amy Groeschel, there's no one quite like 'em, and Jenny and I are so thankful for them and the way they lead in their home, and the way they lead in the church, and the way they pioneer and just the tireless energy. And so I'm so thankful for 'em. And really grateful to be with you again as when I got to come the first time with Eyes of a Lion, that mini series was so much fun. I love it. And this time, the series that we're in, if you're just comin' in now, it's called Blood and Thunder. And we're talking about the recipe for revival. We're talking about how when God does something where He just moves in power, there's this multiple dimensions to it. And really you can understand it through a statement Jesus made. Jesus said that we ought to be as harmless as doves but we also ought to be as cunning as serpents. That's one of those strange Jesus sayings that you nod your head to but you're like, "I have no idea "what that means." That happened all the time. Jesus would be like, "The way I go you know, "and how I'm gonna get there you know." And all the disciples were like, "Yes." But Thomas would raise his hand and be like, "We have no idea "where you're going, "and we have no idea how you're gonna get there." But I, for one, am grateful. Though people call him Doubting Thomas 'cause of this, I'm grateful that Thomas asked all those questions because Jesus clarified. He's like, "Oh, here's what I mean. "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, "and no one comes to the Father "except through me." Come 1 BloodandThunder_2_Message on, let's hear it for Thomas askin' the questions, right? And especially when we think about Millennials and younger, if we, as those who are a little bit older, can understand all the questions they're asking, that's a good thing. Let's just teach them to ask it with the right spirit. 'Cause that questioning everything thing can be a game changer. And that's how innovation's done, and why did we do it this way? And it'll be, "Well that's just how we've always done it." Actually explain and maybe they'll go, "Well, 'cause it "seems like you could actually--" Listen, young people, if you ask it with the right heart, you're asking others could help us unlock something brand new and it could be how we change the game on all those things. So, it's pretty cool when those sorts of questions get asked. If I were there when Jesus said, "Um Jesus, what does it "exactly look like to be harmless like a dove "and be cunning like a serpent?" Because maybe Jesus would of said, "What I mean is, "you gotta be a snake bird," right? And you would say, my bracelet fell off. You would say, "What exactly does that mean?" And He would say, "Well, listen, you gotta worship "like it's all up to me, but you gotta work "like it's all up to you." You gotta be a snake bird. You see, 'cause a dove is a picture of surrender. And doves were offered sacrificially, so it was actually a picture of a blood offering. They would give blood and so that's a picture of saying, "God I need you to move in power. "Change my city, change this nation, change this state. "God work in my family, God, work generations from now "that my grandchildren will be saved." Right? That's worship. Right? But then the snake, what's a snake do? Man, a snake's not just like surrender. Snakes are like, first of all, they're evil, but let's just sidebar that. Snakes, they got a plan. They're hunting, they're goin' to find a hot rock to lie on. They're figurin' stuff out, they're settin' traps. Gah, you know? It's like ugh, I'm with Indiana Jones on the matter. But, I hate snakes. But I think this means then that we ought to have a mentality that's theological and logical. Meaning, we gotta work like it's all up to us but trust God like it's all up to Him. And both at the same time. So what does that mean? That means don't just pray for a job, hello, apply for a job. Don't just pray for a hot wife. Brush your teeth, pull up your pants, right? Ask a girl out. Pull out the-- Amen from all the sisters? You gotta be a snake bird. Come on, shove your neighbor, say, "Be a snake bird." Right? Be a snake bird. And that's really a perfect picture of what we're talking about in the Blood and Thunder series. We're talking about how a move of God requires tears, sweat, and blood, and power from above. That's the only way we're gonna see what God wants us to see. Last week, we saw a woman who poured out what she thought was perfume, but turns out, it was lightning in a bottle. She was the girl who was thunderstruck. It was a great time together. But this week, in our series as we continue it, I wanna talk to you today about how to ride the lightning. The title of my message is Ride the Lightning. Thanks Metallica, right? Ride the lightning. That's not only the title of this message, but that's also gonna be your assignment, Life.Church. Your assignment from heaven is gonna be to ride the lightning as you live perpetually with this thunderstruck generous spirit, you're going to get to ride the lightning. If you have a Bible, join me in two places. Matthew two and Luke two. Matthew two and Luke two. We're gonna look at two stories that are kinda connected to the Christmas story, but they both took place after the Christmas account. Two stories that kinda show us what happens when we live with this generous spirit. Because the truth is, none of us can command God's lightning. None of us are Thor. We can't raise the hammer up, you know, right? We can't command God's lightning. I don't want you to, in this series, get the image in your head that God's lightning, His thunder, can be coerced, or commanded, or controlled. That certainly is not what we're suggesting. But what we are saying is that we can live in such a way to make our lives conducive to His power that from above is just waiting for the opportunity to move. Does not scripture say, "God's eyes are scanning to and fro "on the earth, looking, looking, looking. "Is anyone's heart upright towards me?" Now how do you live with your heart upright towards Him? Well let me tell you one major component of it, Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, your... Heart. "heart will be also." So could you have a heart upright to God without a generosity in spirit, and generosity when it comes to your finances? I submit to you, you could not. Because you cannot have a greater heart for God 2 BloodandThunder_2_Message than your finances bear witness. For if your finances were going there, your heart would go there. Question. When you invest in a stock, a certain stock, do you not check out that stock's performance regularly? When you buy something on Amazon, do you not track it compulsively? "Where's it at, where's it at? "Where's it at, where's it at? "Is it just me on that? "Where's it at, where's it at? "Where's it at, hm hm hm? "Where's it at, dopamine? "Where's it at, where's it at? "Where's it at, ah heh heh, where's it--" Your money went into it, so your heart followed. We care about what we put our money in. So if God's eyes are scanning to and fro on the earth, He's goin' like, "I got lightning bolts. "I wanna throw 'em down. "I want my power to be thrown down." This is a picture of His power working in your life. I read recently there's eight million lightning bolts per day that strike our planet. A hundred a second. A hundred times a second lightning's hitting the earth somewhere. Hitting the earth somewhere. God wants to move in power. He's just sayin', "Give me a target, "give me a target, give me a target." I'm tellin' you, generosity, here's kinda the heartbeat of the series, generosity puts a lightning rod inside your soul. It helps you get your inner Ben Franklin on. It puts a kite on a key, it puts a key on a kite, it puts it up in the sky. For a God who is constantly wanting to surge His power down, wanting to reach the earth, He desires that none should perish but all should come to everlasting life. He's saying, "I'll use a church, I'll use somebody, "who's gonna rise up in generosity? "Who's gonna rise up with a passion for souls? "Who's gonna say, God, here am I, send me? "Who's gonna say, put the coal from the altar on my lips "and cleanse me because I'm ready to go?" Who's gonna have the mentality that says, "God, here's my life, I surrender it. "I give you my emptiness, I give you my future. "As I go to college, as I go to work, as I go to school, "put me in coach, I'm ready. "I wanna be on a team, I wanna be in a group. "I wanna build and expand. "I wanna be a pioneer." And God, who's up there with the bolt of lightning, the power from above, He's just lookin' for that tears, sweat, and blood, so he can sort of bring what he wants to. So when you're, listen to me, when you're living that thunderstruck life out, giving the blood, that's your part. God's part is the thunder. So when you've done all you can do and you've prayed for what He can do, you only have one job left. Wait for the rain and when it all hits, ride the lightning. Ride the lightning. And that's actually a scientifically accurate way to describe thunder. Thunder rides the lightning. Thunder follows the lightning. The sound of thunder is actual sound of lightning bolts super heating air as it pushes it's way through at the speed of light. It goes so fast it heats the air. How hot does it get? Well, we talked about last week. It gets about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is five times hotter than the surface of the sun. So it's super caliente. So the air gets really hot, then really back cold and that causes the contraction, expansion thing, and that sound is what you're hearing. You're hearing the sound of air. Lightning's silent. Lightning's silent. It's the sound of air getting pushed away that you're hearing. So it's chasing the lightning bolt, it's riding the lightning. That's what thunder is, and that's a beautiful picture, and that's what we'll get to do. And I'm gonna show it to you by connecting two seemingly unrelated Christmas stories. Alright? Check it out. Luke chapter two, Matthew chapter two. Here's what we read. It says, "And when eight days," someone say eight days. - [Congregation] Eight days. "Were completed for the circumcision," circumcision? Yeah, I told you, blood and thunder. "The circumcision of the Child," see what I did there? Look what you made me do. "His name was called," thank you, Taylor, "His name "was called Jesus." Back to the Bible. Isn't that so weird how the old Taylor's dead and can't come to the phone right now? Can we just talk about how much of a weird right turn that was? I was like, "That was kinda goin' with it for a second." I was like, "Wait a minute, why did the old Taylor die? "That's creepy." Shoop, some of you. Ask your kids. "His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel "before He was conceived in the womb. "Now when the days of her purification according to the law "of Moses were completed," listen to this. "They brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord "and to offer a sacrifice," someone say sacrifice. 3 BloodandThunder_2_Message - [Congregation] Sacrifice. "According to what is said in the law of the Lord, "A pair of turtledoves." That's two, if it's a pair, two turtle doves. We don't know anything about a partridge or a pear tree. But the true love gave to Jesus, for Jesus, two turtledoves. All right, moving right along, Matthew two now. Here's another story. It seems like it's not connected but I assure you they are. It says in Matthew two, verse one, both of these took place after Christmas already was done. I know I'm screwin' with your Nativity set here, alright, "Hold on pastor," yeah well, it's in the Bible. So chill. Verse one. "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days "of Herod the king, behold, wise men came from the East "to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He who has been born "King of the Jews? "For we have seen His star in the East and have come "to worship Him. "And behold," verse nine now, we jump forward a little bit. You're like, "wait a minute, what happened "in the intervening passages?" Herod was trying to kill Jesus so He can stay the king forever, and really, there's only two ways to live. Thy will be done or my will be done. And Herod refused to do what we must all do, and we will all do eventually, bow our knee before Jesus as King. Your only choice is whether you bow your knee in life or death. Because one day, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. We'll stand before God and you'll have no choice but to bow before Him when you see His glory. And so Herod did not want to bow his knee, so he instead decided, "I'm gonna kill this Jesus, "I'm gonna kill this king." And so that's what he tried to do in the verses that we didn't read. But then in verse nine, it says, "Behold, the star "which they had seen in the East went before them, "till it came and stood over where the young Child was. "When they saw the star," I love this, this is so cool. Underline it if you like to underline stuff, or highlight in your YouVersion app, right? "They rejoiced with exceedingly great joy." I love that, we'll come back to that, it's so good. "And when they had come into the house," see? They're not in the manger anymore are they? They're not in the stable anymore are they? Into the house, I'm screwin' with your Christmas, aren't I? Yeah, almost everything about your Christmas is wrong, God bless you. "When they had come into the house, they saw the young Child "with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. "And when they had opened their treasures, "they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense," what's the last one? Myrrh. Myrrh. That's a weird one. It's basically embalming fluid, all right? Thank you. I think? They didn't get that at Babies R Us, right? Funeral Supply Co. Verse 12, the Bible's amazing. There's just so much weird stuff in here. You know Mary's had to smile and nod, right? Verse 12. "Then, being divinely warned in a dream "that they should not return to Herod, they departed "for their own country another way. "Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord "appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, "take the young Child and His mother, flee." What's this next word? "To Egypt." Egypt. "And stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek "the young Child to destroy Him. "When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother "by night and departed for Egypt, and he was there "until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled "which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "saying, Out of Egypt I have called My Son." Mary and Joseph, here, gave a gift. And then a little bit later on, we see another gift given. And I wanna talk about these gifts, 'cause that's kind of our heart here. We're talking about, in this series, how we can, above and beyond our tithing, which isn't truly giving, it's actually returning to God, what we can do by way of our life of generosity above and beyond our normal tithing, to really expand the Kingdom and make a difference in that way. How to live that thunderstruck life out. Giving the blood, believing God for the thunder. And I wanna kind of attack these two stories from three different lenses. So, if you take notes in church, which is so helpful to do, 'cause then you can remember it later, first let's talk about it from the perspective of contribution and capacity. Contribution, what you're giving, and capacity, what you've been given. Mary and Joseph gave a very small, almost despicable gift. At the circumcision of Jesus, which translation, our baby dedication would be loosely the equivalent, there's this token gift they give. Two turtledoves the text says. Now what's interesting about that is they were actually in the law of Moses supposed to give a lamb and a dove. A lamb and a dove. But, there was provision in the law for the poor to participate. 'Cause 4 BloodandThunder_2_Message God's heart is always, no matter where you're at, no matter what level you're at that you always can participate. That's why the tithe is so even. It's whatever you've been given, it's a 10%, or a tenth portion, the first tenth of that. So, the provision in the law said if you can't afford a lamb, which are pricey, I've never bought one, but I imagine, you could just, instead, give two turtledoves, and that's what Leviticus 12:8 says. "If she can't afford a lamb, she shall take then "two turtledoves." So, we know something about Mary and Joseph, they're poor. But still, they're participating. They're participating at the level where they could. Here's what you need to understand. God never holds you accountable for what someone else has been given. He never asks you to give what you can't give. He always measures your contribution against your capacity. But, listen to me, He actually does measure your contribution against your capacity. So what that means is, like a golfer's handicap being tabulated, what might seem like a huge gift to you or to me, as God sees things might actually be a very small gift after all. Think about this small illustration. I have two balloons here. I have one that's green and like a grenade. And I have another one that is electric red, right? And you think about it and you go, "Which gift is bigger? "Which is the bigger gift of these two?" And you're like, "Well, the red one's obviously bigger, "look at that." "No, that's, oh man, wow. "Look at that big giver, wow. "That person gave a lot of, whoa." But there's a story in the Bible where Jesus watched people give. By the way, Jesus always watches us give. And He watched them give and He saw some people come in and give big gifts. And He's like, "Wow, "look, all that is happened, look at those big givers," right? And they were looking at all the big checks and, "Man look what they give out. "Man, a $15,000 gift, that's huge." But then Jesus said He saw this little old lady come and she gave two mites. Pfft, think about what God wants to do through Life.Church in the coming days. What does a campus cost? How many millions of dollars are gonna be spent on office supplies? Out of necessity because it's important? And the digital technology, all that. And sometimes we can almost despise our gift because we're like, "What is this gonna do?" I remember when we were preparing for a year end offering in our church and our daughter had saved up $100, but as she was asking me like, "How much is it "actually gonna cost?" And I was tellin' her the five million dollars for this and this, for this. And I could almost tell that she got a little deflated just thinking like, "What's my gift even gonna do?" But the truth is, this gift is actually much bigger than this gift. Because God doesn't measure the size of the gift. He measures the size of the stretch. You see, this gift is almost completely stretched. If I go any bigger, y'all, we're gonna have some thunder striking all up in here, give somebody a heart attack, alright? This gift though, I could go all day y'all. This thing this person will not even feel this gift because it's not about what you give, it's about what you have that God has given to you. He measures your contribution against your capacity. He knows that the person who gives a token gift that's actually impressive by any account, you won't feel it. It would not rightly be called a sacrifice. All of us should actually have the mentality that says "I will not give to God that which costs me nothing. "He gave me everything, He gave me life, "He gave me salvation, He gave me the Holy Spirit, "He gave me a calling, He gave me my marriage back, "He gave me a healing from alcoholism, "He gave me strength, "I'm not gonna give Him that which cost me nothing." If we're gonna use the word sacrifice to talk about a gift, that this is blood. If it's like, "I'm giving you, God, a gift "that means something," we're gonna use the word sacrifice knowing He measures contribution against capacity. And that means, then, that just because you can't give a big gift doesn't mean you can't make a big difference. God sees your gift, and if all of us had the attitude that says, "Well someone else will give, someone else "will give." Guess what? No one would give and nothing would get done. And so all of us, of what we've been given, we're gonna give big of what we have in our hands. Second lens that we wanna come at this through is through the lens of sacrifice and supply. Jot that down. Sacrifice and supply. This was, thought it didn't seem like a big gift, this actually was a sacrifice for Mary, and I guarantee you it was a sacrifice for Joseph. Think about it. "Gosh, so we gotta get Jesus circumcised." And if I'm Joseph, like, put yourself in his sandals for a second you guys. You're walkin' up to the temple and you remember "Oh my 5 BloodandThunder_2_Message gosh, we're supposed to give a lamb. "We can't afford a lamb." And Mary's like, "We got an overdraft email "from Bank of America last night. "What are you talkin' about?" And he goes, "Well, we're gonna have to give "the turtledoves then." But then, as he's going to purchase them, you know part of him's goin', "Wait a minute here. "Wait a second here. "This isn't even my kid. "This is technically "Your kid. "And let's think about things for a second here. "What you've put me through, I'm getting made fun of, "I've been cuckolded, like this whole thing "that I've gotta live with, and let's talk about "how somebody didn't even make a reservation "for His Son's birth, right? "No hotel reservation? "You didn't help me out with the tax bill, "Caesar Augustus, right? "Oh how about the fact that we were saving for a wedding "and now all of a sudden I'm takin' care of, like, "where's the child support there? "And I'm gonna pay you, now, an offering-- "This isn't even right. "Right? "No hotel? "We had your Son in a cave. "I wasn't asking for the Ritz, maybe the Red Lion "of the Tribe of Judah Hotel or something." Church jokes, guys, right? Settle down. So if I'm Joseph, I'm goin' like, "You pay me "two turtledoves. "I'll dedicate your son." So it was a sacrifice. And I love so much that in their heart, there's no trace of that you get. Out of their lack, having nothing, to honor God, with the very little that they had. Though it would cost them, as they would try and eat dinner, as they would try and live in the coming days, secure temporary lodging in the area, because we know they got into a house by the time the wise men came. So now, it's a stretch. Joseph is havin' to make tables, whatever he's doin' as a carpenter. "But we're just gonna honor God, we're just gonna honor God. "This is our Savior, we're gonna honor God. "Remember what Gabriel said, remember what God said. "Let's just remember what God's done for us." So they give these turtledoves. And they go their way thinkin' that's that. But they didn't hear it, but in heaven, God was sayin', "One one thousand. "Two one thousand. "Three one thousand. "Four one thousand." Not many days later-- ♪ Ding dong ♪ "Honey, someone's at the door." "Who is it?" "Um, you're gonna need to see this. "There's like 300 camels out here. "Like, for real. "One of 'em's stretch. "Camelach Escalade, it's right there. "Spinners, "spinners have been spinning." That's good right? So, Joseph comes out, Mary comes out, baby Jesus is in His little crib. And they open the door. ♪ We three kings of orient are ♪ ♪ Bearing gifts we traveled so far ♪ Mary's just like-- Thunderstruck, for real this time, right? And these guys come in, and one after the other they open up chests of gold. Frankincense. The weird one, myrrh. And then they ask permission to bow down at the feet of Jesus, and then they worship, warn them to not go, "Get out of town y'all, Herod's psycho, cray cray. "Twitchy eye." They're like, "Guy's bad business. "I don't know what that dude's all about. "Bad deal, get outta here," right? Okay, listen to this, listen to this, listen to this. They received the gold after they gave the blood. Why? Because five golden rings comes after the two turtledoves ♪ Hey ♪ So, here's what you need to understand. Here's what you need to understand. God could've given them the plan. "Hey don't worry about this sacrifice, "don't worry about it. "I've got these guys comin' in a couple weeks "with cash for you." But God never tells us how He's gonna provide for us. But His promise is that where there's that spirit of sacrifice, He will take care of the supply. That promise is given to you in II Corinthians chapter nine, verse 10 and 11. "Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food "will also supply and increase your store of seed "and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. "You will be made rich in every way," how many ways? Every way, "so that you can be generous on every occasion, "and through us your generosity will result "in thanksgiving to God." And that's Mary and Joesph. Man, they got chests of gold. Myrrh, just sprinklin' myrrh everywhere they go now, man. Makin' it rain everywhere they go to bless people. But had they had it before, the turtledoves wouldn't have meant anything. "Oh sure, you want turtledoves? "You want five lamb, whatever, right?" ♪ Baby back baby back ♪ ♪ I want baby back baby back ♪ You can all have ribs, right? But they did it when it was a stretch. And as you think about how you're gonna give how you're gonna above and beyond your normal giving, as you're gonna honor God for what He's done with gratitude, show it because love always gives. God's gonna, I guarantee it, allow some things that are gonna break in your life. Almost like right as you're about to do it. I 6 BloodandThunder_2_Message wouldn't be surprised if some of you are preparing your gift and the washing machine breaks. Dryer breaks, something goes wrong, something happens to the car, why? Because it's an opportunity to see if you're gonna trust God. That way it will really, truly be a sacrifice. Just as you're writin' the check, there will probably be somethin' that'll happen that'll cause you to think "No we shouldn't do it, we shouldn't do it, "we shouldn't do it." If your hand doesn't shake as you write that check, you're not goin' big enough. I'm tellin' you something. There needs to be faith. If we don't wanna use the word faith, fine. Give some small little gift. But if we're gonna call it faith, let's go big, let's give big, let's change the world. Let's do what God's called us to do. He will supply so that you can be made rich to do even more than you're doing today. So maybe this is why God takes it so seriously when we don't give. How seriously does He take it? Well, in Malachi, He uses the word robbery to describe not tithing. That's aggressive and forceful. And manipulative, probably, right? Really, is it? 'Cause what robbery are we even talking about? Sometimes I hear preachers talk about it and I'll actually get to thinking-- I believe the text is exactly what it says, but I don't think it means what you think it says. Does a robbery occur if you don't have anything less than you had before the robbery? Do you think God's saying "you're robbing Me" because money that should be mine isn't mine anymore? If God can't have any less, ever, did a robbery occur? I don't think so. Keep reading in Malachi. It actually says, "Test me and I'll open the storehouses "of heaven and pour out on you treasure you won't even have "windows to contain, capacity for." Listen, I believe what God's saying is the robbery is you robbing God of the only thing you can keep from Him, the right to bless you like He wants to. That's what you're robbing Him-- You're robbing Him of the ability to bless you and to use you and to multiply you like He wants to. All right, so that's the sacrifice and supply. When we don't sacrifice, we rob Him of the right to supply. There's one last lens we're gonna look at this through, the lens of price and privilege. There's a price to give. There's a price to change the world. It's not free to do church, it's not free to open campuses, it's not free to expand YouVersion, none of this is free. It's very expensive. But let me ask you this question. What's the value of a soul? What's the value of your soul? Because it was worth someone else giving so you could have this church to stroll into. - [Man] That's right. It was worth someone else giving so you could be watching the Church Online the day you got saved. You're sitting, literally, in someone else's sacrifice right now, in the building you're in. So there is a price, yes. But the privilege of giving always exceeds the price of giving. And that is why we bet the farm. That is why we are big thinking, big dreaming bet the farm risk takers. That's why we won't insult God with our safe thinking and small living, why? Because the privilege is really bigger than the price. And we save lives as we give. We're a part of God saving lives, literally. This church, over 300,000 decisions for Christ in Life.Church history. Literally, lives being saved. Passing from death into life. What is the value of 300,000 souls? It's gonna take millions and millions and tens of millions, though, to reach those that you still have not reached. 'Cause this church was not built for those who just are already in it. It's always gonna be a micro church and a mega world with a vision to reach those who are still outside. 'Til heaven is full or hell is empty, one of the two. And so, there's always gonna be a price. But the privilege is greater because when you think about getting to be a part of lives getting saved, pfft, pfft, say it with me, pfft. - [Congregation] Pfft. Pfft, right? You're child's in jeopardy, what will you pay? And that's the mentality of the Father who will stop at nothing to save the lives of His lost children. Now what's so cool about the story is that we just don't see spiritually, figuratively, lives getting saved. But literally, actually, physically, in blood and life, life was saved by their gift. Let's work it through. Mary and Joseph are told to go where? Egypt. How do you live abroad when you can hardly afford two turtledoves? You fund it with a trunk of gold. You fund it by sellin' the frankincense. You fund it by sellin' the myrrh. Listen, they gave the two turtledoves, givin' the blood. God 7 BloodandThunder_2_Message provided, with His provision when the wise men showed up with these trunks of items that were precious, He provided the thunder, and all the way to Egypt and back, they got to Ride the Lightning. Life.Church, my question to you is if the wise men paid for Jesus to go to Egypt, where will your generosity allow Jesus to go, amen? Let's pray together. - [Congregation] Amen. Father, thank you so much for this time in Your word. Even now as we're speaking, we're just believin' You're touchin' our hearts. You're givin' us a figure, a way we can, in a sizeable way, get behind what You're doin' that will give us a greater heart for You. At every single Life.Church, as we're hearing this message, if you're responding to God, if He's speaking to you, or He's nudging you to step out in a big way, in a way of generosity to build God's house, and expand above and beyond, if He's talkin' to you right now, and you know it, would you just raise your hand up? If you're sayin', "I wanna commit to, above my tithe, "I wanna give in a significant way, to see the footprint "of what this is doing expand, to see more lives touched." If that's you, maybe your way to come into this would say, "I'm gonna "begin tithing. "I can't give an offering," but you say, "I wanna begin "to be faithful bringing God the tithe." If that's you I'm describing, just raise your hand up. Every location. Thank you, Jesus. Give us strength to live out what we're committing to in Your presence. All of our heads still bowed, eyes still closed, you can put your hands down. I wanna give an invitation to anybody who's come in here today and you've never trusted Christ for salvation. And let me just tell you, we don't want anything from you. God has something for you. Salvation. The Christmas story is all about God bein' willing to come to this world so that His Son could grow up and die for you on the cross. If you're here, even if you're successful in your career. Even if you have money in the bank, even if you have everything made from a earthly perspective, let me ask you this question. Don't you feel that emptiness inside? Don't you feel like the world is not enough? Don't you lie awake at night sometimes wondering where you're gonna go when you die? Let me tell you somethin', there's a God in heaven who loves you, wants to save you. You are made for a person and a place. The person is Jesus, that place is heaven. Until you know Christ and are headed to heaven, things will never be right on the inside. If you're here and you would say, "Man, I wanna give "my heart to Christ. "I'm ready to trust Jesus for salvation. "I wanna be forgiven, I wanna go to heaven, "I wanna live with purpose, on mission." If that's you I'm describing, would you just raise your hand up right now? Every single Life.Church, just raise your hand up, raise your hand up right now. Raise them up all over the church. And if you're watching the Church Online, you can click the link below the screen that says, "I'm making a decision." You can raise your hand digitally. God'll see you right where you are. Now for everyone of you, I wanna pray with you in a simple prayer as you ask Jesus to come into your heart. I'm gonna ask the church family to pray this with us, out loud. Our way of standing with you in this decision. Pray this to God. He will hear you, He will heal you and make you new. This is your day of salvation. Say this, say, "Dear God," - [Congregation] Dear God. I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm a sinner. I can't fix myself. I can't fix myself. I ask for you to come into my heart. - [Congregation] I ask for you to come into my heart. Give me new life. Give me new life. Save me from my sins. Save me from my sins. Fill me with Your Spirit. Fill me with Your Spirit. Thank you for new life. Thank you for new life. I give You mine. I give You mine. In Jesus' name I pray. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen, come on, let's hear it for all those makin' that decision this week! 8 BloodandThunder_2_Message www.lifechurch.tv/open

The church isn't a building - it's people. We belong together as the church, and we are called to help others belong. When we live this out every day, not only are we loving other, but we're also building the Kingdom of God! https://www.teachonevoice.com/sermon/belong

Let’s begin with a hard thing to reconcile between the Bible and the Constitution. Consider these two statements. From the US Bill of Rights, First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”   Essentially, this means that there should be no law restricting religious exercise or establishing an official American church or denomination. Now consider the First Command in Exodus 20:3 :   “You shall have no other gods before me.”   Both are statements of law. One restricts religious freedom, and one upholds it. As statements of law, they seem to contradict one another.   There is a modern idea that America’s founders wanted all religions to have an equal place at the political table in America. But when we read their personal writings, essays in defense of the constitution, and the constitutions of the first 26 states, we see something altogether different.   For our talk today, I’m going to focus exclusively on the first constitutions of the first 26 states, broken down into five categories.   Now, let me begin with two disclaimers. First, I’m not advocating for a particular political view or party through this study. We’re simply looking at the past and how the founders of America were influenced by the Bible.   Second, I’m not a historian or legal expert. This presentation was pieced together from a group of books and documents that I collected in the 1990s and turned into a short Bible study for groups interested in the Bible’s place in American history. All of the books I used dated to the 18th century to 19th century. This included school books written by pastors for children’s education. So, let’s begin.   The American Conscience   From the first colonists to the Continental Congress, the Bible was the defining source in American culture for morality, education, and political liberty. Unlike personal writings and speeches, the first constitutions tell us what our leaders collectively agreed to, what they desired for America through the consensus they struck.   In Deuteronomy 6:20-21 God gave Israel instructions on passing their nation’s history and heritage to each successive generation. God made the very survival of the nation dependent upon the values passed on to the nation’s descendants.   “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ Then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand…”   In 1652, what we know as Maine was actually part of Massachusetts territory. It didn’t become a separate state until 1820. Maine’s Constitution was similar in many respect to the first constitutions of the first 13 states. Many contained their state’s Declaration of Rights at the beginning and not the end of the constitution—unlike our federal document. Doing so signified that the state founder’s first order of business was the rights and liberties of the people, followed by the responsibilities and limitations of government.   Maine’s paragraph 3 of Article 1 reads:   “All men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and no one shall be hurt or molested, or restrained in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience…and all religious societies in this state, whether corporate or incorporate, shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their public teachers, and contracting with them for their support and maintenance.”   Conscience is a critical concept to understanding the idea of religious freedom during the 1700s and 1800s. Conscience, in pre-21st century American culture, did not mean believe what you will do what you will.   One of the greatest warriors for “rights of conscience” was Pennsylvania founder William Penn. During Penn’s years living in England, he was brought to trial repeatedly for holding religious views contrary to the established Church of England. As a Quaker, his religious views were strict, yet Penn’s testimonies on behalf of his persecuted brethren encouraged the allowance of difference in how men serve God based upon their Christian faith. Some of this came out of Penn’s own troubles. On one particular occasion, he was ordered by a presiding judge to plead guilty to violating religious laws which were enforced by England’s legal system. Penn refused. Later, when migrating to the new world, he fought for rights of conscience.   Most of the first state constitutions contained provisions for worship according to “conscience,” though some, like Delaware’s Article I, Section I, went further to say it was the   “Duty of all men (to) frequently assemble together for the public worship of” God.   Notice the language used by Delaware’s framers: It is the DUTY of all men to worship. Delaware’s Constitution was adopted in 1792, one year after the US Bill of Rights. This might be considered a violation of today’s First Amendment freedoms. But this shows us that the primary source for the founder’s governing principles was not secular in nature. Education   America’s first educational institutions were founded as what John Adams called the “Architects of the soul.” Morality and religion, being inseparable, are imparted primarily through the education of the mind. Restricting the liberties of religiously based educational institutions can result in a mis-trained conscience.   Just like Delaware, the Massachusetts Constitution called religious worship a “duty.” Notice this language from their 1780 constitution. From Part I, Article I, Paragraph 2:   “It is the right, as well as the duty , of all men in society , publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the Great Creator and Preserver of the Universe.”   To secure these religious duties, notice what they said in Part I, Article I, Paragraph 3:   “As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused throughout the community, but by the institution of a public worship of God, and of public institutions of piety, religion, and morality; therefore, to promote their happiness, and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this Commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic , or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense , for the institution of the public worship of God…”   Not only did the elected representatives of Massachusetts see the need for public worship, but they also insisted upon promoting worship within “bodies politic!” Nor should we miss the point that this government-prescribed worship would involve some financial costs, and any government-instituted public worship was to be paid for by the government “at their own expense.” This is radically different from today’s practices!   Fundamental Principles & Personal Behavior   The Framers set a course to promote moral values within government. This was done by encouraging, through their constitutions, public morality. They affirmed that the citizenry represented had a right to require their leaders to live in a moral manner. Massachusetts Part I, Article I, Paragraph 18:   “A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the Constitution, and a constant adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty and to maintain a free government. The people ought, consequently, to have a particular attention to all those principles in the choice of their officers and representatives, and they have the right to require of their lawgivers and magistrates an exact and constant observance of them in the formation and execution of all laws for the good administration of the Commonwealth.”   Essentially, the framers made moral issues a governance issue. This was important because the state framers believed that only moral people should occupy office and that those people were tasked with protecting what are known as “Natural rights” and “Rights of conscience.” Look at what New Hampshire’s Constitution said about these things in Part I, Article I, Paragraph 2:   “All men have certain natural , essential, and inherent rights —among which are the enjoying and defending of life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting; in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness.”   Paragraph 4 defines those rights:   “Among the natural rights, some are in their very nature unalienable because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the rights of conscience.”   Like other states, New Hampshire provided for private values in public education. Part I, Article I, Paragraph 6, sounds in no way like a “secular” admonition:   “As morality and piety, rightly grounded on evangelical principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay, in the hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection…”   Stopping here, we should consider the language: The concept that proper subjection to good government comes through the propagation of values “ rightly grounded on evangelical principles ,” is completely unlike the concept of secular neutrality found in courts, schools, and legislatures today.   All of these things come from a deep-seated sense of morality that the framers felt, which in the culture of the day came from the Bible. Thus, the personal behavior of their politicians was, to them, of utmost importance. Look at what some of the other states said about this issue.   Vermont said in Chapter I, Article III of its Declaration of Rights:   “All men have a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the Word of God .”   Vermont’s Framers believed that no man had a right to blaspheme God under the guise of liberty. This is similar to the biblical principle in I Peter 2:16 :   “…do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil…” (NIV)   Furthermore, let’s place this right of conscience in the article’s context. It says, “As in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God.” There is no mistaking that the Vermont framers desired the Bible to be the center of their society.   Part of Vermont’s encouragement had to do with the day of worship. To quote the same article:   “Every sect or denomination of Christians ought to observe the Sabbath, or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God .”   Notice that this clause did not require non-Christians to attend worship. More importantly, where is the “revealed will of God” found? The Framers understood this only as being the Bible.   Were these “unconstitutional principles?” Not according to Vermont, which put these principles into place in 1793, two years after the U.S. Bill of Rights was adopted. Other states did the same.   Four states, all before 1840, adopted clauses in their first constitutions that addressed the problem of religious freedom used for evil purposes. Three of the four states, Connecticut, New York, and South Carolina, were among the first thirteen states under the federal Constitution. One, Mississippi, joined the Union as the 20th state. The clause in each constitution is virtually identical among the four, with a one-word edition, “conscience,” in South Carolina’s. To quote: Connecticut’s Article I Section 3, New York’s Article VII, Section 3, Mississippi’s Article I, Section 3, and South Carolina’s Article VIII, Section 1:   “…the liberty of conscience thereby declared, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state.”   What is licentiousness? A good definition of licentiousness comes from commentator William Barclay.   Licentiousness is the action of a man who is at the mercy of his passions, and his impulses, and his emotions, and in whom the voice of calm reason has been silenced by the storms of self–will…(it) is violent, insolent, abusive, audacious… completely indifferent to public opinion and to public decency.”   America’s settlers didn’t leave their European homelands over the right to be anarchists. They understood that religious freedom comes with civil responsibilities.   Separation of Church & State   Looking at the stories in the Bible, have you ever wondered why Israel, when faced with an evil King bent on oppressing the people and abusing his power, that God simply did not replace that King with someone after His own heart? Has it puzzled you why God would send prophets to warn the kings, and even develop relationships with them—but they were not to be replacements? Why didn’t God just replace Saul with Samuel at the first sign of trouble; or Ahaz with Obed, or Jehoiakim, or Zedekiah with Jeremiah? Part of the answer rests in the covenant God made with King David to continue his descendants on the throne. But, there may be an additional answer: God called certain men to preach and teach, not to rule.   God has separated the work of the ministry from the work of political leadership. When King Uzziah tried to perform a priestly function, he was smitten by God with leprosy. Eli the priest was a Judge (Governor) for a time, but not the kind he should have been. His combined political and priestly leadership was the only time such a Judge ever existed in Israel. The callings, one of ministry of the Gospel, and the other of political leadership, are different. The church is to act as the conscience of society—not its overlord. Some of the early framers did subscribe to a kind of separation. Listen to the 1821 Constitution of New York in Article VII, Section 4:   “Whereas the ministers of the Gospel are, by their profession, dedicated to the service of God, and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of their functions: therefore, no minister of the Gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever, shall, at any time hereafter, under any pretense or description whatever, be eligible to, or capable of holding any civil or military office or place within this state.”   The callings of politics and pastoral ministry operate in different spheres. This article not only protected the state but, more importantly, it protected the ministry from conflicts of interest.   This should not be construed to mean that Christians, in general, are forbidden from holding office. In fact, some states required political positions to be held by Christians. Notice North Carolina’s Declaration of Rights:   “That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the Divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the state, shall be capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this state.”   John Jay, America’s first Supreme Court Justice, said:   “Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”   Maryland’s Constitution also enforced this standard in its Declaration of Rights under Right 35, Section 55:   “That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this state, and such oath of office as shall be directed by this convention or the legislature of this state, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion.”   Massachusetts had a similar requirement in Chapter VI, Article I:   “Any person chosen governor, lieutenant–governor, councilor, senator or representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, take, make, and subscribe the following declaration, viz” “I, A.B. do declare that I believe in the Christian religion and have a firm persuasion of its truth; and that I am seized and possessed, in my own right, of the property required by the Constitution, as one qualification for the office or place to which I am elected.”   There was one politician who summed up the founding of America having a Christian source. That was Patrick Henry, the five-time governor of Virginia.   “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”   Marriage   Here’s a little bit of information about marriage in the early states that you may have never heard about. While virtually any couple could get married, for some states, like Alabama, getting divorced was a bit harder. Listen closely to Article VI, Sec. 13:   “Divorces from the bonds of matrimony shall not be granted but in cases provided for by law, by suit in chancery: and no decree for such divorce shall have effect until the same be [ratified] by two–thirds of both houses of the general assembly.”   Talk about making divorce tough; the legislature had to vote to make it final! Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi had similar, though less severe, provisions.    In Conclusion: Fundamental Principles Revisited   We’ve already touched on this subject, but I think it’s good to review here just how serious the founders were about the role of what they called fundamental principles in their constitutions.  This article comes from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, North Carolina, and Illinois.   “A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, and a constant adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry, frugality, and all the social values, are indispensably necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and good government; the people ought, therefore, to have a particular regard to all those principles in the choice of their officers and representatives: And they have the right to require ( Vermont adds, “in a legal way” ) of their lawgivers and magistrates an exact and constant observance of them in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for the good administration of the government.”   The Founders intended to separate government from religion but never intended to separate religion from government. They never intended to ban prayer from classrooms, lunchrooms, and graduations. They wished for each citizen to exercise as much liberty as possible in a responsible manner as guided by a biblically influenced culture—not a religiously oppressive government.   The Founding Fathers are dead, but their ideas still live today. By their actions, they bound us, their descendants, to ideals that made America a “light to the nations” and the first truly Christian country in the modern era. We are bound and responsible for the legacy the Founders left to us.

Hey, it's a great honor to have all of you with us today at every single Life.Church across the country, all of our Open Network churches. We are so thankful for you. And all over the world, on the other side of computer screens, at Church Online, you're a part of our family and we absolutely believe that you're not here by accident. Welcome today. We're actually in part four of a message series called Selfless. If you weren't here in previous weeks, we actually talked week number one, about being bold in spirit. Week number two, we talked about being faithful in service. Last week, we talked about being extravagant in generosity. And today, I want to talk about a phrase that may sound a bit odd to you at first, but I think it might actually sink in. We're gonna talk about being grateful in the grind. Grateful in the grind. Let me introduce this idea to you, and I'm guessing that a lot of you may be able to relate on one level or another. For so much of my life, I've lived under the illusion that there's something around the corner, something out there that's coming that really really matters and it matters more than what I'm doing right now. There's something around the corner that's going to make the difference. It's that thing that I desire, it's the event that I'm looking for, it's that whatever that something that's gonna bring meaning and fulfillment and give me that significant moment that I've been looking for. It's not here. It's somewhere out there. I'll give you an example of kinda how the story has played out in my life, and I can almost guess for sure that many of you have a similar version of your own story. Let's talk about the category of ministry for me. When I was 22 years of age, I went to work for First United Methodist Church. I was so so so so so excited but I was in full time ministry and I was in seminary full time and commuting and dying, because it was so hard. And in my mind, I consistently said, when I get out of seminary, then real life is going to start. Then when I got out of seminary, I had another when-then, and my new one was well, when I get to start my own church and do things my own way, then life is gonna be really amazing. Then we started Life.Church and my next one was when I get a staff member, somebody else that can help, someone else that cares, then it'll be amazing. Then it was, when we get out of this dumpy little building and get into a real building that we could meet in seven days a week, then it's gonna be amazing. Take the category of family. When I finally meet the girl that I'm gonna marry, then life is gonna start. Then I meet Amy. When we finally get married. Oh dear God, thank You, Jesus, hallelujah, thank You, Lord, then. Life is going to start. When we have our first baby, that's when our family is gonna be amazing. When our first baby gets out of diapers. Then it's gonna be incredible. Now they're growing up, you know. When they're in college and we have. When they're out of college, we'll eat again. You know, all these different things. When, then, and I found myself whatever season I was in, wishing the current season away, waiting for the next one to come. One day, just around the corner. They'll be that something, that achievement, that accomplishment, that friendship, that possession, that vacation. They'll be that something that fills the emptiness on the inside. But, around every corner, there was just another challenge. Another goal, another vision, another dream, or another perceived prize. I've lived long enough now to kind of look back and to see a real weakness in my own life. And what I've noticed is for so much of my life, I've been pursuing what I want. My dreams, my passions, my goals, and whatever it is that I get, there's gotta be something else out there that's better than what I have right now. And what does culture do? Culture totally and completely feeds into this mindset, right? What does every commercial, every advertisement, everything you see on social media, it all just kinda says gratify yourself, indulge yourself, get whatever you want. You deserve it. Treat yo self, right? The problem is, Jesus said, if you want to follow Me, you don't treat yo self, but He said, you deny yo self. That's what He said. He said, if you want to be My disciple, you don't indulge yourself. You deny yourself. Then He said, you take up your cross, a metaphor, a picture to say, you're 1 Selfless_4_Message actually dying to your own fleshly desires so you can live by My Spirit and then He said, then you follow Me. You don't treat yo self. Jesus said, you deny yourself. There's a verse that I want to use kind of as an anchor verse for our message today. It's from the Apostle Paul and we're gonna talk a lot about the Apostle Paul today. He says this in 1 Corinthians 10:31, he says, Whatever you do. Let's all say that aloud. He said whatever you do. Say it aloud, all of our churches. - [All] Whatever you do. - What did he say? He said, do it all for the glory of God. Whatever you do. Whether you're doing laundry, you're picking up your kids from their events, you're running errands for your boss, you're doing something that isn't that big of a deal. Whatever you do, you do it for the glory of God. When I look at so much of my life, if I'm really honest, whatever I do is mostly for me. I want to do what makes me happy. I want to do what makes me feel good. I want to do what fulfills my dreams. I want to do what fulfills wants and desires. I want to do what I want to do. I want to gratify myself. And Jesus says that you deny yourself. Whatever you do, to really have meaning in life, you do it for the glory of God. And here's what I'm beginning to recognize, this truth. That the prize isn't out there, somewhere. The prize isn't what you accomplish occasionally. The prize is in what you do daily when you do it for the glory of God. Let me say this again, because I really want it to sink in. The prize isn't what you accomplish occasionally. I got the raise, I got the thing. The prize isn't what you accomplish occasionally. The prize is in what you do daily when you do it for the glory of God. So I want to ask three questions and I'll tell you in advance that these questions are gonna become statements that are gonna drive everything that we talk about in our message today. What if, what if, what if, what if what if the work is the reward? What if the prize is in the process? What if you can be grateful in the grind? What if, whatever you do you can find meaning and fulfillment and divine satisfaction when you do it all for the glory of God? I want to show you a text that, it's very personal to me by again the Apostle Paul. 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 9. This is what Paul says. He's kinda being transparent and maybe a little bit vulnerable. He says, I'm the least of the apostles and I don't even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. In other words, before I was a Jesus follower, I was really really bad. I hated Christians, so much I even killed them. He says, but, everybody say but. - [Congregation] But. - He said but by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect. But, this is my story, by the grace of God, I am what I am, because His grace to me was not without effect. For many of you, that's your story. You weren't good, you weren't faithful, you weren't always righteous, but by the grace of God, you are now what you are not because you're good, but because He was good. Now you are becoming who He wants you to be, because His grace for you was not without effect. The sad thing is there are some of you that are here today that His grace has been without effect, because it hasn't yet touched your heart. You haven't yet been changed by it, and the good news is, you are in the right place at the right time to be available to the work of God, and maybe your story might become a but, by the grace of God, I am now who I am. Paul goes on to say this, and I love what he says. He says, no, I worked harder than all of them. I am only what I am by the grace of God and I worked harder than any of the rest of them. Yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. What did he just say? I wasn't any good, but the grace of God transformed me. And because of 2 Selfless_4_Message who Jesus is, and because of what He did, I worked hard. I worked harder than the rest of them. But it wasn't me doing the work, it was the grace of God through me doing what God called me to do. I worked harder than all of them. That verse ministers to me on so many different levels. What I like about it is I don't think Paul was bragging. I don't think he was complaining. I think he was just stating the truth, matter of fact. By the grace of God, I just worked hard. I've been so transformed by Jesus, because of who He was and what He did, I just got to work. Whatever I did, I was doing it for His glory. I worked harder than all of them. I can't even begin to imagine the depths of the sacrifices that the Apostle Paul would have made. In fact, I would give anything if I could like go back in time and be there with him and like sit down, just bro to bro, 'kay, by a fire pit, you know. He's drinking wine, I'm drinking water, 'cause I don't drink wine. But you know, he's had a couple glasses and we're just chatting. Like, unpack that for me, man. Tell me what you mean by that. You know, just guy to guy, you know, follower of Jesus to follower of Jesus, what do you mean you worked harder? And I can imagine him saying, like, well, okay, you know, I'm not bragging, but, you know, while other people went to bed, I probably stayed up a little later praying and strategizing. I got up a little earlier and got into the office, you know, really to do things right for God. When most desired comfort, I realized that following Jesus was not gonna be comfortable. You know, I was beaten, had to go on. Shipwrecked, well, you just move on. One time I was bitten by a poisonous snake. I didn't like that, but I shook that thing off, you know, and he just kinda tells the story. While others took a short cut, I always tried to do the right thing. I can just see it. I memorized so much of God's Word, I hid it in my heart, I let it renew my mind. I focused on His Word. If he wasn't being really humble, he could say, and I wrote a lot of the New Testament, but I'm just saying'. I did that as well. I can imagine him saying, you know what, when I was in prison, I kept on working. I served Jesus even when I was in prison. When we went to cities that didn't have a single Christian, we managed to start churches in cities without a single Christian. We'd lead someone to Christ, and someone else. We'd raise up leaders and we didn't have a lot of resources, we just got the job done. I worked harder than everyone else. I think if you can look at this kind of objectively and step back, what you would find is you would probably say Paul was not wishing his current season away. Wherever he was, he was all there. Whatever he did, he was doing for the glory of God. When he was in prison, he didn't say, one day, when I'm finally out of prison, then I can get back to doing what I'm called to do. No, he just said, whatever you do, I'm gonna do it for the glory of God. If there's someone chained up to me, I'm gonna be a witness to that person right now. Give me a pen, give me some paper. I'm writing the Philippians a letter, 'cause they need it. I'm just gonna do whatever I have to do. When he shipwrecked, do you know what he didn't say? Well, God let me down. I mean, I prayed for protection, and here I am, shipwrecked again. He's like, you know what, we didn't die so we might as well keep on going. God must still be with us. Whenever Barnabas turned on him, he didn't go, oh, I can't take it anymore. Christians, you can't trust any of them. I'm leaving the Sunday School class because Barnabas hurt my feelings. No, he said, you know what, I don't have time for this. I'm not gonna get bitter. We just, we still have work to do. Because whatever I'm doing I'm doing it for the glory of God. I don't know how this would apply to you but you're changing diapers, you're making sales calls, you're doing laundry, you're doing something for your boss. You just say, in this moment, at this time, even though it may not be incredibly sexy from the outside, I'm doing it with integrity, with the purity of heart, with the heart of a servant, and I'm declaring that this task is now for the glory of God. And when you live this way, suddenly you wake up when you start to realize wow, maybe the work is the reward. Maybe the prize is in the process. And in everyday life, when you're grinding it out, doing just normal things, you can say, I can be 3 Selfless_4_Message grateful. I can be grateful in the middle of the grind. What I want to do is show you what I call three enemies of the true reward. Unfortunately some of you will know these enemies as I do. Three enemies of the true reward. The first one is what I call the pillow. The seduction of comfort. The pillow, the seduction of comfort. And I don't know how this plays out in your life but at some point it might be what you really need to be happy and comfortable is a better home. And then just fill in the blanks with the type. If you don't have walk-in closets, it's walk-in closets. If it's not granite countertops, it's granite countertops. Maybe it's a gas stove, maybe it's a three-car garage, maybe it's heated tiles in your bathroom. Whatever it is, if I just had that, then I'd be happy. Same thing with the car. Years ago, you know what I needed? I needed windows that went down when you did this, because mine went down when you did this. Then it's the sunroof, then it's the butt warmers, then it's the, you know, whatever it is, if I can just have that one, then I'll finally be happy. Well, if I was just the boss, if I had enough money, to take life easy, that's what I want. Enough to take life easy. I hope you'll understand that God never called us to easy. - [Woman] Amen. - He called us to deny ourselves. Easy never changed the world. And yet the pillow cries out, the seduction of comfort. There's also the distraction of what I call the shiny thing. The shiny thing. The allure of constant distractions. You know what's important but bing, notification. Oh my gosh, I wonder what she posted on Facebook. And the next thing you know, you're in here. Netflix, it just keeps on running and the next show is recommended 99% chance that I'm going to like it. This must be God's will. We over program our kids, because we're so distracted. We gotta have Johnny in the elite traveling soccer league if he's gonna get a scholarship for the NCAA, because, I know he's only three, but he's gotta, you know, we really got to get him involved in this. And it's the shiny thing. It's the carrot and the donkey continues to chase the carrot and you never ever ever seem to find real satisfaction because you've been fooled by the shiny thing. Then, there is the enemy called the towel. The perpetual temptation to quit, to throw in the towel. When the marriage gets difficult, I'm not in love anymore, this isn't worth it. Throw in the towel. Trying to get our finances together, trying to get out of debt. Oh my gosh, it just broke. Here's another bill. Charge it, let's go out to eat and let's go shop for a new dress. You know, throw in the towel. Christianity, I can't tell you how many times I've heard some version of this. Well, I tried God. I went to church twice. You know, I read my Bible for a day. You know, and they were mean. I didn't like it, I couldn't get a parking place, so forget it, I'm just out of here. I'm throwing in the towel. You know how it is. They didn't appreciate me. I'm not making that much of a difference. This is just too hard. Throw in the towel. Listen, you can throw in the towel or you can pick up the towel and wipe the sweat off your brow and get back in the daily grind. Of doing whatever you do in this moment for the glory of God. And suddenly you realize, the work is the reward. The prize is in the process. And I can be grateful every single day in the grind. Tell you a little pet peeve I have. Graduation speeches. I've given a couple and mine are different. The normal graduation speech is this. Follow your passion, follow your passion, follow your heart, do whatever your heart tells you. Here's the problem, you young graduates. Your passion doesn't always pay the bills. Your passion doesn't always keep the lights on. The problem with passion is selfish passion is about us. There's a higher calling and it's not selfish passion but it's selfless purpose. It's a higher calling. And once you start to recognize that you're doing God's purpose, what's so amazing is the passion always follows purpose. So instead of me being the starting point of I need to do what I want to do to be happy, instead, when God is the 4 Selfless_4_Message starting point, whatever you do, you do it for the glory of God and you start to realize in the middle of even what you may not have chosen, God still has a purpose and then you recognize that you're doing what God has called you to, even in this moment, though it may not be your favorite thing. When you're serving His purpose, your passions starts to always follow purpose. Think about Paul for a minute. The guy was passionate about something. He was a regular person. I don't know what it would have been. Maybe it was music. Maybe he had a guitar and he's like, he's really good, he's like putting his clips up on YouTube. Like, first Justin Bieber, then you have Apostle Paul. They're gonna discover me, I know they are. You know, maybe it was music. Maybe it was art. Like, you know, let me get my paintings done, I'm gonna sell them really big. And you know, they're gonna want them all the time. You know, if he was living today, it's like, it's cars. I know what is. The Tesla, that's what I need to be happy. You know, whatever it is, Paul had his own passions. There were things that he was excited about. What he was not passionate about, let me promise you, was getting beaten and left for dead. I promise you, that was never on his, oh, if I could only do that, I'd be so happy in life. But instead of pursuing selfish, self-centered passion, what he did was he pursued God's purpose. And suddenly he would say things like Acts 20:24. I consider my life worth nothingto me. None of my dreams, my wants. My only aim is to finish the race, complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me. We can say this, my only dream is to fill God's purpose. And what is that? The task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. What does purpose do? Purpose helps us feel passionate about ordinary things. Something mundane, something ordinary starts to take on meaning. Whatever I do, even if it's boring, even if it feels insignificant, I'm doing it for the glory of God. Some of you, you experience that this week when you're serving. You found joy when you're simply making someone else coffee. When you're in the two-year room, holding a baby and you're praying over that two year old. When you read an eighth grade group of Switch girls and you realize in this moment, God is using me to pour spiritual life into the emerging generation. When you simply open up your home and provide a LifeGroup a place for people to find spiritual connection. What normally seems ordinary becomes more extraordinary because it's not just a task, but it's a purpose directed by God and passion always follows purpose. Paul, he gives us really profound images. He says this. He says, I'm not running like someone who's running aimlessly. I love that image. I'm running in a direction. He says I'm not boxing like someone who's shadow boxing. I'm in a real spiritual fight. He says, I run with purpose. This is what he said. I run with purpose in every single step. Imagine that. When I wake up, God, today this is Your day. This is the day the Lord has made. And whatever I do, whether it seems big, exciting or small and insignificant. God, I am choosing to find purpose in this. I am doing this for Your glory. I'm not running like a man running aimlessly. I am running with purpose in every step. I'm directed by Your Spirit. I'm empowered by Your Word. I'm loving people everywhere I go. When I walk into the room, the Spirit of God walks in the room with me. I'm a climate changer. I'm a people lover. I lift the moods of people. When I come into a dark room, light comes in with me. There's nowhere I go that I don't go on purpose. I go with the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, dwelling within me. I walk in with purpose. I am here as an ambassador of the Most High God, the highest ranking diplomat sent from heaven to earth to represent the goodness and the love and the grace of God. This step is on purpose and this step is on purpose. And my word of encouragement to you is on purpose. And this gift is on purpose. When I lift you up and when I love you, it's on purpose because I don't do anything halfheartedly. Whatever I do, I'm doing it for the One who changed my life. You see, if you knew me before, you would think, you're not good enough. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And because of what He's done in me, you need to know, I work hard. But it's not me doing 5 Selfless_4_Message the work, it's the grace of God in me that's getting it done. Whatever you do, and I don't know who this is gonna speak to, but when you're driving your kids all over town, you're doing it for the glory of God. When you're preparing for grad school, or you're fighting to hold your marriage together, you're doing it on purpose with purpose in every step for the glory of God. When you're crying with your spouse because you want to conceive, and you cannot conceive, when you're carrying for your aging parents, when you feel like you're called to do something more and you're stuck in a job that you don't love, when you're healing from a crushing disappointment, or when you're battling cancer or when you're paying down debt, you're doing what you do for the glory of God, recognizing His purpose in the moment. And somehow passion seems to always follow purpose. The prize is not when you get the promotion. The prize isn't when you get the fancy car. The prize isn't when you go to the beach or to the mountains or to the place with the big mouse. The prize isn't when your five year dreams all come true or when you get discovered or when you finally make the big bucks. The prize is now. The prize is here. This is the day that the Lord has made. And because of the grace of God, I will rejoice and I will be glad in it. You see, life isn't about me. It's not about indulging myself. Not about treating myself. It's about denying myself. And when I deny myself, guess what happens? Week number one, I become more bold in spirit because we speak boldly about what we believe deeply. And because the grace of Jesus has so transformed me, I cannot contain His goodness and people are amazed by my boldness. I also become faithful in service because serving is not something that I do. A servant is who I am. I am a servant of the Most High God. And when I serve others, I am serving Christ. I'm not trying to be the goat of this world. I'm trying to be great by serving, so that one day when I stand before Jesus, He will say, well done, My good and faithful servant. When I'm selfless, I become extravagant in generosity. I give without holding back because we truly believe, as followers of Jesus, that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. Therefore we lead the way with irrational generosity. And when I recognize that I have been transformed, by the grace of God and for His glory, then whatever I do is not for me. But it's all for the glory of God as I run with purpose in every single step. And as I serve Him faithfully in His purpose, the passion follows, because I'm not doing it for me, and I'm all doing it all for Him. And then one day, I wake up in the middle of the mundane, and the middle of the normal and I say, God, I have experienced You here and I am full of Your goodness and overflowing with Your joy because I've discovered that the work is the reward. It's a joy to serve You and to sacrifice for Your kingdom. The prize is in the process. You are with me, Your Spirit is guiding me and strengthening me. And I am grateful in the grind. Finding joy in all things, rejoicing always, God, because Your Spirit dwells within me and You're working in all things to bring about good. So therefore, God, because I am selfless, denying myself, I can be grateful in the grind. And whatever I do, I will do it for Your glory because of who You are and what You've done for me. All of our churches, let's take a moment and pray together. Father, we thank You so much that I know Your Spirit is speaking to people today in a way that will be powerful, God, and I hope life-changing. At all of our different churches as you reflect today in prayer, I wonder how many of you would say, okay, I am totally there with you, Craig. I've wished away so much of my life, hoping for the next season and failed to embrace the goodness of God in the moment. I want to do everything I do, God, help me to do it for Your glory. If you could relate to that and you want it, would you lift your hands right now? All of our different churches. Oh God, thank You so much that You're speaking to so many people right now. Father, I pray that You would give us a sense of purpose, knowing that even though we may be doing something that seems like preparation for a future season, this moment matters when we do it for You. God, give us a sense of purpose. Help us to see 6 Selfless_4_Message joy and find fulfillment in serving, even doing the little things, God, when we connect it to You. Whatever we do, wherever we are, God, whoever we're helping. Even when we're struggling, God, help us to serve You faithful, being faithful in the small things. You could trust us with even more. God, help us to recognize that the work can be the reward. That the prize is in the process. That we can be grateful in the middle of the grind, God, because You are with us, but by the grace of God we are what we are, and because Your grace was not without effect, God, help us to serve You faithful in all that we do. But not us, God, but Your grace working through us. God, help us, that whatever we do, we would do it, God, for Your glory. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, some of you, you're gonna recognize, just like I did years ago, that life is all about you. Man, when I look at my life, as I look back, I recognize it was all about my dreams, what I wanted. If there was anything to do with God, it was only what God could do for me. I came to recognize that Jesus, who He was, what He means. He is the sinless Son of God. He was selfless in every single way that while we were still sinning, Christ was obedient, even to death on the cross. He died in our place, the sinless One for us, who are guilty. On the third day, God raised Him from the dead. Why, so that He would defeat death, hell, and the power of the grave so that anyone, and this includes you, who calls on the name of Jesus, the name that is above every name, when you call on the name of Jesus, you would be saved. Every sin you've ever committed, forgiven by God, transformed in a moment by the grace and the goodness of God. Up to now, His grace may have been without effect, but in this moment, you're gonna say, I've been transformed. Forgiven, made completely new. Not because you're good, but because He's good. But by the grace of God, you're about to be transformed, all of our churches, those who say yes, I need His grace, I need His forgiveness. Life is not about me. I turn from my sins, I turn toward Him. I give my life to Him. That's your prayer, lift your hands high right now, all over the place and say yes. As we've got hands going up at all of our different churches, those of you at Church Online. Would you simply click right below me, and we're all going to pray together. Would you simply pray aloud with those around you? Pray, Heavenly Father. - [Congregation] Heavenly Father. - Today I trust You. - [Congregation] Today I trust You. - To save me. - [Congregation] To save me. - And forgive me. - [Congregation] And forgive me. - Of all my sins. - [Congregation] Of all my sins. - Fill me with Your Spirit. - [Congregation] Fill me with Your Spirit. 7 Selfless_4_Message - So I could know You. - [Congregation] So I could know You. - And serve You. - [Congregation] And serve You. - And follow You. - [Congregation] And follow You. - For the rest of my life. - [Congregation] For the rest of my life. - My life is not mine. - [Congregation] My life is not mine. - I give it to You. - [Congregation] I give it to You. - Thank You for new life. - [Congregation] Thank You for new life. - Now You have mine. - [Congregation] Now You have mine. - In Jesus' name I pray. - [Congregation] In Jesus' name I pray. - Life.Church, would you celebrate big today? Welcome people born into God's family. 8 Selfless_4_Message Every new year, we make decisions about who we want to be. We make resolutions; we set goals. But often these goals are focused on ourselves. Losing weight, saving money — even the best goals are often inherently self-centered. To live the life God has for us, we must be willing to reject our own comfort for the good of others. It’s not easy, and it sure isn’t comfortable. But when you deny yourself, God can do so much more. www.lifechurchtv/open. Used by permission.

Pastor Chris Brown January 8-9, 2022 Message #1 / 1 Samuel 15-16 northcoastchurch.com/sermons David: A Man In Need Of A Hero Setting the scene: 1 Samuel 15 To reject _____________ is to reject God’s ________. To reject God’s ________ is to reject His _____________. To reject God’s _____________ is to reject ________________. Simply put, Saul has chosen himself as ________. Is there true _______________ without ___________? What worth is a ___________ without the ________? The true hero takes over: 1 Samuel 16, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 2 Chronicles 16:9, John 15:18-25 There is a time to _________ and a time to _________________. Sometimes God needs to save us from our ___________. Irony: Kings and cultures will reject the very ________ and _________ sent to ___________ them. Observations from the opening scenes: The true King will never _________________ of His Kingdom, or be ______________ by yours. If we want to have real _________________ and __________, we will focus on our _________, not on what others _______. The best way to connect with us is the Connection Card in the bulletin. For the Digital Bulletin, visit myncc.info Pastor Chris Brown January 8-9, 2022 Message #1 / 1 Samuel 15-16 northcoastchurch.com/sermons David: A Man In Need Of A Hero Setting the scene: 1 Samuel 15 To reject OBEDIENCE is to reject God’s WORD. To reject God’s WORD is to reject His AUTHORITY. To reject God’s AUTHORITY is to reject GOD HIMSELF. Simply put, Saul has chosen himself as KING. Is there true REPENTANCE without REMORSE? What worth is a KINGDOM without the WORD? The true hero takes over: 1 Samuel 16, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 2 Chronicles 16:9, John 15:18-25 There is a time to MOURN and a time to MOVE FORWARD. Sometimes God needs to save us from our SAVIORS. Irony: Kings and cultures will reject the very SALT and LIGHT sent to DELIVER them. Observations from the opening scenes: The true King will never LOSE CONTROL of His Kingdom, or be SURPRISED by yours. If we want to have real SIGNIFICANCE and IMPACT, we will focus on our HEART, not on what others SEE. The best way to connect with us is the Connection Card in the bulletin. For the Digital Bulletin, visit myncc.info. Food for Thought for the week of January 9, 2022 1. During the kickoff of the new sermon series, Chris shared a few observations we could reflect on from the beginning of David’s story. David’s life will reveal his ongoing struggle with feeling significant. Can you think of someone in your life who recently has made you feel important, seen or valued? Was there anything out of the ordinary they did to make you feel that way? The good news is that we don’t have to earn our worth because, as children of God, we have significance. How do the following passages reinforce your sense of significance? Ephesians 2:10 New International Version (NIV) 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Jeremiah 29:11 New International Version (NIV) 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Psalm 139:13-14 New International Version (NIV) 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 2. The weekend’s message challenged us to redirect our focus to the development of our heart versus our outward identity. Chris pointed out how Saul focused almost exclusively on his outward identity while David demonstrated a great commitment to developing his heart. What do you learn about how David engaged in developing his heart from the following verses? Psalm 26:2 New International Version (NIV) 2 Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; Psalm 51:10 New International Version (NIV) 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 19:14 Psalm 51:10 New International Version (NIV) 14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 139:23-24 New International Version (NIV) 23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. What are a few ways you could work on developing your heart in this new year? Welcome to this first message on the life of David, but we have to warn you that if you grew up just hearing about his stories in Sunday School, then this adult version may be a whole lot different than what you expect. David will not turn out to be the hero in this story, but rather a living example of how our pride, passions, and priorities can lead us far from the life that we desire the most. Sermon begins at 11:19. www.northcoastchurch.org .

Not long ago, Pew Research released a survey [i] on why Americans do and do not go to church. While 73% of Americans identify as being Christian [ii] , surveys say Americans who report going to church weekly is only around 35%. [iii] Our best estimates for our own city (Tucson) are that less than 3% of the population gathers in a local body of believers on any given Sunday. [iv] I write this as an appeal to the 65% nationally and 90%+ [v] in Tucson who don’t attend church regularly. First, I want to understand you and your reasons for not attending. In a recent survey, those reasons were expressed this way [vi] : Does that list express your reasons for why you don’t attend church? I would love to hear from you what your reason is. I am going to walk through the reasons given for not attending and ask if you would reconsider: “I practice my faith in other ways.” The largest group of those who don’t attend (37%) say that they practice their faith in other ways. That is wonderful! I’m so glad that you practice your faith beyond Sunday morning. Our faith is to be expressed daily and through various means (prayer, reading the Bible, service, stewardship, etc.). However, let me be very blunt: there is no space in the New Testament for authentic Christianity expressed outside of the context of the local gathering of believers. From the resurrection of Jesus forward, the New Testament is the story of God’s work of salvation in and through the local church. Why is that? I can think of a number of reasons for that, but the simplest is that God designed it that way. That’s the only reason we need for church to be important, but I’ll offer a second for good measure: God’s work has always been done through a people and is leading toward the union of a diverse people. [vii] Our three-in-one God is a God in whom perfect community exists and he calls us to community, not merely to a relationship with him. “I’m not a believer.” The second largest group who don’t attend are the 28% who share that they aren’t believers. Each of you has a different story. Maybe you grew up in a Christian home but rejected Christianity at some point in your life, or maybe you are Jewish or Muslim or an atheist. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, I would encourage you to attend church, and not just once or twice. I would encourage you to attend for a season of your life. Whatever your beliefs, you owe it to yourself to examine the claims of Jesus of Nazareth and re-consider at this stage of your life what he might mean for you. “No reasons is ‘very important.’” The third largest group says that “No reason is ‘very important.’” Oh, friend. Are you letting the niggling realities of life (sleeping in, work, football, etc.) prevent you from a weekly re-setting of the priority of your commitment to your God and Savior in your life? “The church failed me.” The next three reasons all point the finger at the church: “I haven’t found a church I like” (23%); “I don’t like the sermons” (18%); and “I don’t feel welcome” (14%). I don’t, for a second, doubt that you have been failed by the church. Churches are filled with humans who can fail in all sorts of ways. We can be lousy at welcoming newcomers, choosing instead to catch up with our friends; we can play good music badly or bad music badly, and I’ve preached more than a few sermons that I wish I could’ve had a chance to redo—whether because they were boring, awkward, or unclear. But give us a chance. You might’ve hit us on a bad day. Give a church at least three Sundays before writing it off. And you have the ability to read up about the church on its website and watch many services online before you go (you can do that for our services here at New Life) so that can help you find something that might be a fit for your theological bent or worship style preference. On his final night before he was crucified, Jesus drilled into his disciples how important it was for them to love each other. At the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples that their discipleship is marked first by their love for one another: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” [viii] And then, later that night, Jesus tells his disciples that their unity is of the utmost importance. He prays to his Father that his disciples: “…may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” [ix] The early Christians understood this well. Irenaeus (who lived in the second century) said that the church “is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers.” [x] Origen (who lived in the third century) said, “Let no man deceive himself. Outside this house, that is, outside the church, no one is saved.” [xi] And Augustine (who lived in the fourth and fifth century), “No man can find salvation except in the church.” [xii] Friends, you need the church. In all its messiness and in all its faltering, you still need it. You need it because God’s Kingdom is bigger than you. You need it because God’s work on earth is through his church. You need it because just like the church, you are also messy and you also falter. And you need her to call you back to him. [i] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/july/church-attendance-top-reasons-go-or-stay-home-pew.html?utm_source=ctdirect-html&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=14808244&utm_content=597764807&utm_campaign=email [ii] https://www.barna.com/research/state-church-2016/ [iii] See https://www.barna.com/research/state-church-2016/ . If you lower the threshold to attending once a month, the number rises to 50% https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/religious-participation-survey/496940/ . However, both numbers are self-reported, and thus are both almost certainly lower. [iv] Our numbers were arrived at by computing Tucson’s population and dividing that by the number of churches in Tucson (of all types) and their average size. Our numbers have been confirmed externally by 4 Tucson. [v] The number of those who attend church regularly is somewhere around twice of those who are in attendance on any given weekend, so the likely number of those who attend church regularly in Tucson is about 6%. [vi] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/july/church-attendance-top-reasons-go-or-stay-home-pew.html?utm_source=ctdirect-html&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=14808244&utm_content=597764807&utm_campaign=email [vii] See Revelation 5 , 7, 19. [viii] John 13:35 [ix] John 17:23 [x] Against Heresies , Book III. [xi] In Iesu Nave homiliae [xii] Sermo ad Caesariensis Ecclesia plebem

Most people get their understanding of Christmas from Christmas cards and not from Scripture. There are some very familiar and accurate understandings. Obviously, Joseph and Mary and the Baby, and the shepherds; pretty clear to all of us just exactly who they were. We understand the shepherd were in the field in Bethlehem, and the angels came and sent them to see the Child that had been born. But the question comes as to who are the wise men, or the magi, as they have been called? They’ve even been called kings. But exactly who are they and why were they there? Obviously, it is important to the narrative of Matthew, and therefore to the Lord Himself who designed that this be included in Holy Scripture, that we know something about these men called the magi. Now let me dispel some of the things that are inaccurate. They were not kings as such and there weren’t three of them. So there goes We Three Kings of Orient Are. Some have suggested through the years that they were actually specially chosen representatives of the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. For that, there is absolutely no sensible evidence. They actually acquire names in church history. They became known as Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior. Those names were added long after the actual events and have no connection whatsoever to the actual wise men. The magi number was unlikely three. There were three separate gifts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there had to be three men. We don’t know how many there were. But there are traditions in the Roman Catholic Church that say there were three, and in the twelfth century, someone discovered their three skulls. And there was a little battle, I think, about who had the right skulls, because they were supposed to be in a cathedral in Cologne, and there were others claiming that the actual skulls were in the Cathedral of Milan. I might add, skulls found in the twelfth century would have absolutely no way to be connected to these men. And, certainly, three skulls is totally arbitrary. Just exactly who are they and why are they there? Well, the question as to why they’re there is answered in the text, and that is to worship Him. They came to worship. That becomes absolutely clear. In chapter 2 and verse 2, they say, “We have come to worship Him.” That is their point. Herod even acknowledges this in verse 8 and says, “Come back and tell me when you find Him, that I too may come and worship Him.” Their desire again is indicated in verse 11: “When they arrived and saw the Child with Mary His mother, they fell to the ground and worshiped Him.” They are worshipers. They acknowledge that the King has been born and the King is worthy of worship. This is another way that Matthew can identify the nature of the one that is born. We know He’s a king from the genealogy in verses 1 to 17 of chapter 1. He’s in the royal line. We know He is more than just a royal son of David, He is also a Son of God, verses 18 to 25, what we looked at last time. He was born of a virgin. He is created in the womb of Mary by God Himself through the work of the Holy Spirit. So His birth is a royal Son on earth and a royal Son from heaven. And here we find that He is given worship from a group of men whose unique responsibility in their culture was to identify kings. They were Middle Eastern king makers, the magi. For us to really understand this, we need to go back and do a little bit of church history, a little bit of ancient history, I should say, before the church. We need to go back and learn something about the magi. And we do have information about them. The term used to describe them appears in the New Testament here, as you see in verse 1, and then down in verse 12 again, Greek word  magos . But there is also an equivalent in the Old Testament in the Hebrew, and they appear on a number of occasions as well in the Old Testament. So we can trace their history, and that helps us understand exactly what is going on here. Essentially, the word “magi” is not a word that can be translated, although it has come to mean something associated with magic and magicians. Magi was just the name of a tribe, a tribe. It happened to be a priestly tribe, a very religious tribe from which there were priests that arose to very significant prominence. It appears that this tribe is extremely ancient. Some would trace this tribe back to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees and see them as an extremely old tribe, a kind of wandering, meandering, nomadic tribe during the time of Abraham. Not all historians would push them back that far, but all agree that they are a very ancient people. They appear in the time of the Babylonian captivity. They appear in the Medo-Persian Empire, which followed the Empire of Babylon, and they’re still around in very significant positions of influence and power at the time of the birth of our Lord. Now what do they know about the birth of Christ? How could they know anything about the birth of Christ? The answer to that is that you do remember there were a series of deportations into Babylonian captivity that God brought upon Israel, upon Israel, first of all, the northern kingdom, and in Judah, the southern kingdom. The southern kingdom Jews were taken in three waves into Babylon: that’s the Middle East, that’s the Fertile Crescent, that’s the familiar Middle East that you know today. The Jews were taken there into captivity by the Babylonians. They were kept in that captivity for 70 years, and then they were sent back to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, which they did. But during the 70 years that they were there, many of those Jews intermarried. Many of them remained in the Middle East in the Babylonian Empire. One of those that remained was Daniel. Daniel extended beyond his role as a significant prime minister in the Babylonian world right on into the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. Daniel was not the only remaining Jew, there were many others; and as I said, there were many who intermarried. Some of the nobles in the history of the Middle East had Jewish blood; and even, we are told, some of the kings may well have had Jewish blood. It was the dispersion of the Jews into the Middle East that brought the message of the Old Testament to that part of the world. They brought with them the Scripture. They brought with them the prophecies. In fact, Daniel himself was a prophet, Ezekiel was a prophet, and there were other prophets who ministered during the captivity. Whatever their history might have been prior to that, however far back they may have gone, we do know that they were in Babylon, they were in this subsequent Medo-Persian Empire, and they remained there in the Fertile Crescent all the way until the time of our Lord Jesus being born, and they were extremely influential. They had great power. Most historians would say that they were Semitic people, that is they descended from Shem. They have been, through history, able to retain that designation  magos , which is translated magi. That word later became corrupted to mean magic and magician, but originally identified this tribe of people who particularly were religious and marked by a significant noble kind of priesthood. They did apparently use occultic powers, they were not only involved in some level of astronomy, but even astrology, which is the kind of mystical partner to astronomy. They had some features in their religion. Fire was a main feature in their religion. In fact, it might have been the principle element of their worship. They had an altar that had on it a perpetual flame that they said was lit by heaven, and they drew the fire off of that flame, put it on another altar, and burned up animal sacrifices on that other altar. And after the animals were burned on the altar, they were eaten by the worshipers and by the magi priests as well. So they had a sacrificial system. Their priesthood was also hereditary. They carried around bundles of divining rods by which they used techniques supposedly to reveal to them the will of the gods through these mechanisms. They believed in the destruction of certain unclean forms of life, unclean animals, much as the Jews did. They were realistic about death and judgment after death, individual judgment. They also didn’t touch dead bodies, again very much like the Jews. By the time we see them in the Babylonian Empire and we see them there, they are identified as magicians. We see them in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah 39, we see them there. In fact, we meet the chief of the magi who is named Nergalsarezer, and he is in the royal court, because they were very, very prominent, influential priests. They sustained that prominence on into the Medo-Persian Empire, and we see them there as well. They played a role under Nebuchadnezzar the great familiar king that we know so much about from the book of Daniel. And in Daniel, chapter 2, a couple of times, and in Daniel, chapter 4, a couple of times, we are introduced to the magi in the royal realm of Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter 5 of Daniel in verse 11 says Daniel was made the chief of the magi, the chief of the magi. They were involved in trying to interpret dreams; that was something they did, and we know that Daniel did that as well in an accurate way, because God enabled him to do it. So Daniel connected to these magi in such a way that he communicated to them the truth of Old Testament Judaism and the promise of the coming Messiah; that is obvious. Messianic prophesies of Daniel and the other prophets, which Daniel would know, were revealed to these very prominent king makers – and I’ll more about that in a few moments. They absorbed them and they believed them, at least to the degree that they actually came to worship when the King was born. They were no doubt excited about the fact that Daniel had told them, and others had prophesied, that there was coming a great world King, a great Jewish monarch who would bring in a divinely inspired monarchy of righteousness and rule the world, and they wanted to be in on that, they wanted to be a part of that. Daniel made such an impact on them that you have to note this when you’re going to the book of Daniel. And you remember that Daniel basically was put in a difficult position, because some of the very influential people in the court of Babylon came to the king and said, “Daniel doesn’t bow down to you, Daniel bows down to his God and he fails to worship you.” And they got the king previously to make a decree that if anybody didn’t worship him they’d throw them in the lions den. We remember the story; Daniel was thrown then into the lions den and survived, as we know. But just keep this in mind that the regional governors who are identified as the ones who pulled the plot off and got Daniel thrown into the lions den are satraps, regional governors, not magi. Daniel was the chief of the magi, which means that he had been elevated in their eyes and respected by them. It wasn’t the magi that put Daniel in that lions den. They continue in providence and in prominence, as God’s purposes unfold, through the Medo-Persian Empire. Along the way, there appears to have sort of merged with them a religion called Zoroastrianism. We don’t know exactly the time of the prophet Zoroaster, a very, very ancient prophet who appeared in, I guess we would say Modern Persia and Iran – again, in the Middle East. And Zoroaster established a sort of state religion. It’s kind of a pre-Islamic religion in the Middle East. It became the state religion of Persia, and the magi absorbed it as well, anxious to maintain their political and religious power. They went along with royal decrees and allowed the merger of Zoroastrianism with their own form of religion. It may be that Zoroastrianism carried with it more of the astrological things that seemed to be associated with them. So they are a very hybrid religion. They are whatever they were to initiate that religion, and then mingled with prophecies that they were taught by the Jews, and then with the addition of things from Zoroastrianism, they were an eclectic kind of religion. But among those magi were some who had actually come to believe in the truth revealed to them by the Jewish people in dispersion. Now they were so powerful in the Middle East that no Persian was able to become a ruling king in the empire unless he first mastered the scientific and religious discipline of the magi, which wisdom was called the law of the Medes and the Persians. And you’ve heard that expression. The law of the Medes and the Persians refer to in Esther, chapter 1, and Daniel, chapter 6, was essentially the wisdom of the magi. And it may well have been that which was taught to the young men, Daniel and his friends, when they were originally taken captive into Babylon. The magi also in ancient times controlled the judicial office. They were a kind of combination of senate and supreme court. It was among their ranks from which the bench of royal judges was chosen, referred to in the 1st chapter of the book of Esther. They basically were in a position to check and balance the monarchy so that ultimate despotic authority didn’t reside in one man. They were the king makers. No one could be king unless they appointed them. And they kept the king, to whatever degree they could, in check. The law of the Medes and Persians, the teaching and the wisdom of the magi involved astronomy, mathematics, natural history, agriculture, architecture, and any other sciences. You do remember a parallel to that. You remember that when Moses went into Egypt and was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He was disciplined, Scripture says, in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The Egyptians had their own elite, as the magi were in the Middle East. They were, to Babylon Medo-Persia, what the wise men of Egypt were to that great country. No one ruled apart from their approval. And Daniel rises to be the chief of the magi; really an amazing thing for a Jew. He ruled under various monarchs, Daniel did, for 64 years, all the way from Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus the Great. And during that time, not only was he faithful to pray to his God, but he was faithful to proclaim his God and the prophecies of a coming Messiah and Savior. Strangely enough, the syncretistic hybrid religion of the magi had some things in common with the religion of the Jews. Each was monotheistic. Each believed in one God, and that was in a world where there was virtually everywhere the belief in many gods: polytheism. But the magi and the Jews believed in one true God. They both believed in angels, they both believed in demons, and they both believed in a deliverer or a savior. They both had a hereditary priesthood, which was identified as the mediator between the one true God and man by means of blood sacrifice. Each priesthood was wielding overwhelming political and social power; and we know that to be the case with the priests of Israel at the time of our Lord’s birth. Each – that is both the magi and their religion, and the Jews and theirs – depended on supernatural revelation gained by the priests in their religions. The magi and priests gained their revelation by some form of divination, and the Jews, early on as you remember, received revelation from God by the Urim and the Thummim on the breastplate of the high priest. Each of these two religions claimed prophetic insight, and therefore prophetic authority. Each had a coming Messiah at the end of history in an apocalyptic judgment, and to establish a final kingdom of righteousness. So we can see there were common realities in their religion. And when they were exposed then to what the Old Testament said about the Messiah, about the coming of the Lord, it fit many of the things that they already had preconceived. Now as we come to the birth of Jesus Christ, there are some further facts about them that you need to know. I think we look at the magi and we think of them as really benign guys dressed up in women’s clothes, riding on camels, as harmless as harmless gets. But the reality is this: they came from the Middle Eastern Empire from the historic Babylonian Medo-Persian Parthian Empire, the massive Middle Eastern Empire that eventually became Persia and Iran, and is broken up to into component parts today. That Middle Eastern Empire was the sworn enemy of Rome. Rome was the massive monolithic power in the west, and this empire was the massive monolithic power in the east. And they had gone to war significantly three times: in 63 B.C., in 55 B.C., and in 40 B.C. And as you would expect, because Rome is to the west, and the great Medo-Persian Parthian Empire is to the east. When they fight, they’re going to wind up fighting in Israel. Israel becomes sort of the no man’s land between these two massive powers. And that is exactly what happened. That is precisely what happened. By the way, as a footnote, when you’re reading the book of Acts, you’ll come across Simon Magus, and Magus Elymas, in Acts 8  and 13 , who had obviously – Jewish men who had identified with the influence of the magi. Just to let you know that they not only were there at the time of Christ, but even in the years after, they had some influence. Now at the time of Christ that the Persian Parthian Empire to the east is dominated by the magi in their dual role as religious priests and governmental officials, they compose the upper house of the Megasthenes, which would be like their ruling body. They had absolute power to select the king of the empire. They were the royal king makers. And interestingly enough, they had a king, Phraates, who had recently been deposed, and they had at the time of the birth of Christ no reigning king. So they were in the process of trying to find the next monarch, somebody obviously better than the one who was deposed. Combine that with the fact that they knew the prophecies of Daniel, and that would mean that they may well have known the prophecy of the 70 weeks of Daniel and could have calculated the years from the decree of Artaxerxes to the very time when our Lord lived, they were aware that they were probably in that time period. This may well be the time. Daniel would have interpreted his own prophecy for them. They’re without a king. They know they’re at the time when the king is supposed to come, and so they head for Jerusalem from deep into the Fertile Crescent, the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in the Middle East. Now if you think there were just three of them you are so wrong. They came in full force. They are not just meandering isolated wise men, they are the king makers of the massive empire of the Middle East, the pre-Islamic Empire. They come with all their oriental pomp. They come escorted by perhaps several thousand soldiers, riding on magnificent steeds, Persian steeds. They come with servants and slaves and cooks and all kinds of craftsmen. They come with all oriental pomp and circumstance, and they show up at Jerusalem, this huge entourage numbering in the thousands, and they are there looking for the King of the Jews. They go to Jerusalem and to Herod, who is at the time the king of the Jews – the Romans let him have that title – and they tell him, in verse 2, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star and we’ve come to worship Him.” Verse 3 says, “When Herod heard this, he was troubled.” Of course, he was troubled. He was more than troubled, he was terrified, he was panicked. He had secured for himself the title king of the Jews from Augustus Caesar, but what he got with it was this little piece of buffer land between these two massive empires with huge contending armies. At the time of the birth of Christ, Herod was close to death. He certainly died within about a year of the birth of Christ. Augustus Caesar, who had given him that title, was aged. Rome, since the retirement of the great general Tiberius had no commander in chief for its army. Rome had great vulnerability, and Herod had very little protection. The time may have been right in his mind, and maybe in the minds of those in the east for another attack on Rome, and they could begin it in Israel. And, oh, by the way; the troops that had been given by Rome to Herod at the time that the magi arrived were somewhere else dealing with some other issue. So he is a king without an army. He is a king in a position of becoming a victim caught in the middle of a fourth war between the west and the east. And then they say the reason: “We’re here is because we’ve come to see the King of the Jews, for we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” Not only are there natural forces working here, and biblical or prophetic forces, but there is a supernatural sign going on. And they’re saying, obviously, the magi, “Could this be the invincible Monarch that we will crown, as the official king makers of the east? Could this be the one we’ve all been waiting for, the one Daniel spoke about, the one the Jews called their Messiah? And can we, with the coming of Messiah, crown Him King and take back Israel from the Romans, and then march beyond Israel to the Roman world and exterminate even the Romans?” So into Jerusalem comes this massive entourage, led by the magi, to identify this new King. Riding their fine horses, the king makers of the east with their conical-shaped headdress – it’s a symbol of their power – they scare the wits out of Herod. They’re on a mission to check out a new king. This is about sovereignty, and sovereignty could mean war. It certainly can mean that whatever title Herod had, he’s about to lose. But it’s beyond that, because we find in the account that they are honorable, they are deeply religious, they are God-fearing, and they believe in what they have been told from the Old Testament, and they have been told it by Daniel, the chief of the magi. So the stage is set – Bethlehem, Joseph, Mary, a little Baby; a panicky, terrified Herod; and a powerful group of magi – and Matthew unfolds what happened. And, oh, by the way; one other misconception: they didn’t come to the manger. Where did they come? Verse 11 says they came to the house. This is after Joseph and Mary and the Baby have left the manger and are living somewhere in a house. Why, again, does Matthew include this? Because he wants to demonstrate that not only is Jesus a King by virtue of royal lineage – verses 1 to 17 of chapter 1; He’s in the line of David, He’s a descendant of David – but he wants to demonstrate that He is even viewed as a King in the non-Jewish world, because those who are the highest level of king makers acknowledge Him as King. This is another way for Matthew, for the Lord Himself to reveal to us the royal identification of the Lord Jesus. His royalty is recognized by His royal line from David, but it’s recognized by Gentiles as well. He is the King of Israel, but His is also the King of kings. Chapter 1: Jesus deserves royal honor; He is a son of David. Chapter 2: He receives royal honor, but not from His own people, but rather from those who came from afar – Gentiles. So the magi represent the first fruits of the Gentile nations and remind us again that God always had them in His heart. Now for just a moment we’ll look at the text itself. Verse 1: “After Jesus was born.” We’ve now moved after Jesus is born. They’re out of the stable; He’s out of the manger; they’re in a home. In the days of Herod the king Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem. We all know about Bethlehem where He was born, a little town six miles south of Jerusalem. It was once called Ephrata, and then Bethlehem – house of bread, because it was a fertile countryside in which there was produced wheat that could make bread. The town of Bethlehem rests on top of a gray limestone ridge more than 2,500 feet high. The ridge has a summit at each end, and it’s kind of a saddle in the middle. It looks like a town set in an amphitheater. It had a long history, Bethlehem did. It was there that Jacob buried Rachel and set up a pillar by her grave. It was there that Ruth lived when she married Boaz; and from Bethlehem, Ruth could see across the Jordan Valley to her homeland of Moab. But above all, this was the town, the home, the city of David; and it was for the water of the well of Bethlehem that David longed when he was a hunted fugitive. This is David’s city, and the Messiah is to be born as David’s son in David’s city. Bethlehem is so very important. They didn’t go to Bethlehem, however, they came to Jerusalem, and they came in the days of Herod. We’ll look at a little more history about Herod. But he was not a Jew, he was an Edomite – an Idumean, another way to say it. He made himself useful to the Romans when they occupied Israel during the civil wars in Israel, and so the Romans came to trust him. He bought his way in by favoring the Romans. Once Rome had captured Judea, they set up a procurator there by the name of Antipater, who was also an Edomite, and he was allowed to appoint his son Herod as tetrarch of Galilee in 47 B.C. In 40 B.C., that was the last of those. Three times I told you that the eastern forces came and fought a great battle in the land of Israel 40 B.C. Herod fled to Rome. When he got to Rome he asked for help from the Roman senate, so they made him King of Judea. They gave him a small army, sent him back. Took him three years to kind of win back the territory; but by 37 A.D., 37 years before B.C. the time we mark the birth of Christ, he had won back his land. He was essentially Rome’s appointed king. Rome gave him the title King of the Jews until he died around 4 B.C. So that’s the setting. He has fought for this petty kingdom, this insignificant – in one sense – place; and now he is threatened like he’s never imagined with the force coming from the east. They’re looking for the one who is King of the Jews. They saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him. Just a few words about this and then we’ll wait until next week for the rest. What is His star? What is it? And I know you have imagined many things, and perhaps been told many things. Some say it was a genuine star, it was an actual star. The Lord blew on it and kind of enriched its flames a little bit, and it got brighter than normal. Some say it’s Jupiter; that has been called the king planet. Some say it was sort of a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of a fish – there’s some imagination. Some say it was an erratic comet. Some say it was a low-hanging, flying, small meteor. And some say it was the star of destiny in the minds of the magi. None of that makes any sense, of course. But one thing does make sense, and it is this: if you go to Luke, chapter 2 – just to comment on it – and verse 9, when the shepherds are out in the field and the angels come and make an announcement, it says, “The glory of the Lord shone around them.” The shekinah glory of God appeared. The glory of the Lord shown around them. The chief word in the Hebrew Old Testament is  kowkab , the shining, the blazing forth, the shekinah. It is used to speak of stars in the Old Testament, of angels, of men, and even of God. And in  Numbers 24:17 , “There shall come a  kowkab , a shining out of Jacob; a scepter shall rise out of Israel.” Christ is that  kowkab . This is further described in Matthew 24 . At the second coming of Christ, glory appears. Everything goes dark and glory appears in the sky. His  kowkab , His blazing forth. So at the second coming of Christ, the glory, the shining shekinah glory of God appears. He reveals Himself in blazing glory. And I think that’s what you have here. His star, His unique  kowkab , His unique  aster , from which we get the word “asteroid,” which is a New Testament term. His own shining. His star, not any other one, but His star. The star that accompanied the birth of Christ is the same shekinah glory that will accompany the second coming of Christ. It appeared, it appeared. Verse 7, “Herod asked at what time the star appeared,  phain , that which lights up like lightening. It’s used as lightening in  Matthew 24:27 , a kind of blazing out of nowhere like lightening. So we can assume that with all the prophetic knowledge they had and all the timing they had learned from Daniel, they were ready to come. They needed a king; maybe this was the one. They began their journey when there was in the skies something that they had never seen, the lightening of the shining of the glory of God, the star that marks the coming of the Messiah. It will mark His second coming; it marked His first coming as well. Chapter 2, verse 9, says, “They went their way, and the star which they had seen in the east went on before them.” No real star can do that. This is a star that is like the shekinah glory of God in the Old Testament during the exodus that was a glory cloud in the day and a pillar of fire by night that led the people of Israel in the direction that God wanted them to go. So here again the glory cloud appears, and it led them  . They saw it in the east. It came, stood over the place where the Child was. When they saw the star, they greatly rejoiced with great joy. This is an indication of the genuineness of their interest in the God of Daniel and the God of Israel, and the King that the God of Daniel and the God of Israel was sending into the world. I like to think that the star is the sign of the Son of Man. Remember in Matthew, “You will see the sign of the Son of Man.” The glory that accompanied His birth and led these magi is the glory that will accompany His return. They came to worship Him. Pagans guided by a prophet, guided by Old Testament Scripture, guided by supernatural presence of the glory of God come enthusiastically and authentically to seek the King. While the Jewish hierarchy, with the Pentateuch and the prophets, are content to be ruled by Herod, and remain totally indifferent, hostile, and even murderous toward the true King. When they arrive and confront Herod, the story becomes tragic. Just for today to conclude, there are only two possible responses to the arrival of Christ. One is the response of His own people: “He came unto His own and His own received Him not,” or the response of those who were not His people, who came from afar to worship Him, and rejoiced with great joy – the only two options. No middle ground. You either reject Him like His own nation or you receive Him like those from afar. He came unto His own, His own received Him not. But to as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the children of God. His own were cursed, but these Middle Eastern king makers were blessed because of their response to Christ. Father, we thank You for, again, a glimpse of history, and yet it informs so richly the account of the magi and what is about to happen. Lord, thank You that You have not only given us Your Word, but that You have even preserved resources throughout history that we can draw from so that we can better understand the things that are written on the holy pages of Scripture. May we be made worthy by Your grace; we’ll thank You, in Christ’s name. Amen. www.gty.org . Resources of John MacArthur.

The Festival of Lights For many people in the diaspora – both Jews celebrating Hanukkah and Gentiles observing this celebration – Hanukkah is all about dreidels and latkes. However, if you happen to be in Israel during Hanukkah, go to a children’s party in a kindergarten or elementary school. You would be amazed, as was I many years ago, that it is all about light and lights! Many Hanukkah celebrations begin in full darkness, then the light of a candle – the first Hanukkah candle – pierces the darkness, and then – more candles and more lights! It’s very beautiful and very impressive!  One of the central songs sung during Hanukkah is called BANU CHOSHECH LEGARESH – “WE CAME TO DRIVE AWAY THE DARKNESS” – and this is indeed the overwhelming feeling one gets during these celebrations:  The light came to overcome the darkness!  In this sense, one can’t miss the connection between Hanukkah and Christmas. that seems to me absolutely amazing about Christmas, is the fact that it happens in the darkest time of the year (at least, in the northern hemisphere). This is so beautiful and symbolic: In the world’s darkest hour, the light comes!  And the same is true about Hanukkah: BANU CHOSHEKCH LEGARESH – Light comes into the world, and darkness cannot overcome it!   Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah We read in the Gospel of John:  And it was at Jerusalem the Feast of the Dedication, and it was winter.  And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. What is this winter “Feast of Dedication”? It’s not mentioned in Leviticus 23, where all the biblical feasts are described and their observance is commanded. So what did Jesus celebrate in the Temple? Of course, John is referring to Hanukkah (Hebrew for dedication.) The story of Hanukkah is preserved in the books of the Maccabees. However, these books are not part of the  Tanach  (Hebrew Bible), and therefore, surprisingly, we find the clearest mention of Hanukkah in the Bible, in the New Testament!  Not only did Yeshua celebrate Hanukkah, according to the Gospel of John,  but he observed it in the same Temple that had been miraculously rededicated by the Maccabees just a few generations earlier. In order to understand it, let’s turn to the history. History of Hanukkah Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire.  It happened in the 2nd century BCE – the intertestamental period – which is why Hanukkah is not mentioned in the Tanach. The Jewish people were then living under the oppression of King Antiochus IV and Hellenistic pagan practices. The ruling Syrian dynasty of the Seleucids required full assimilation in all aspects of life: language, arts, lifestyle – everything was to conform to the Greek way of life.  Antiochus enacted a series of harsh decrees against the Jews. Jewish worship was forbidden; the scrolls of the Law were confiscated and burned; Sabbath rest, circumcision and the dietary laws were prohibited under penalty of death. In 164 BCE, Antiochus even desecrated the Temple: the altars, the utensils, the golden Menorah were all defiled. Antiochus’s men went from town to town and from village to village to force the inhabitants to worship pagan gods. One day they arrived in the village of Modiin where an old priest, Mattityahu, lived. There they built an altar and demanded that Mattityahu offer sacrifices to the Greek gods. Mattityahu replied, “I, my sons and my brothers will remain loyal to the covenant which our God made with our fathers!” After that, Mattityahu left the village of Modiin and fled, together with his sons, to the hills of Judea and all loyal and courageous Jews joined them. Thus, the uprising began. After Mattityahu’s death, his son Judah became leader. Judah was called “Maccabee” – a word composed of the initial letters of the four Hebrew words  Mi Kamocha Ba’eilim Hashem , “Who is like You, O Yahweh?” – and therefore it is called the Maccabean Revolt. Realistically, the Maccabees had absolutely no chance of winning. The Syrian army consisted of more than 40,000 men – it was another David vs. Goliath scenario – but, as in the story of David, God performed a miracle, and after a series of battles, the war was won. When the Maccabees, miraculously, recaptured the Temple, they had to cleanse and restore it. They entered the Temple and cleared it of the idols placed there by the Syrians. They wanted to light Menorah, as it is commanded in the Torah:  Bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually.  However, according to the Talmud, they found only a single jar of undefiled oil, and that was only enough to last a single day. Taking a leap of faith, they relit the Menorah , and by a miracle of God, it continued to burn for eight days, till new oil was made available. In memory of this, Hanukkah, an eight-day celebration, was established. On each day, an additional branch of the nine branched  Hanukkiah  is lit with the  shamash  (“helper” candle), which sits on the middle branch.   The Light Shines in the darkness This is the traditional story – but there is something more to be aware of. Not many people realize that the Maccabees  had not  won their independence when they proclaimed the Festival of Hanukkah.  Antiochus was still their ruler, and Syrian troops still occupied Eretz Yisrael and even most of Jerusalem. The light of the first Hanukkah truly shone in the midst of the darkness! In this sense, the light of Hanukkah, shining in the darkness, prophetically foreshadowed this Light of the Messiah! This reminds us of the words of John about Yeshua:  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.   According to the Gospels, the Light of Yeshua also came at a time of the darkness and foreign oppression; the hand of Rome was heavy upon Israel, the nation could hardly bear this oppressive yoke. No wonder everybody waited for a deliverer – hoping and believing the footsteps of this deliverer had already been heard! Thus, we may say that both celebrations, Hanukkah and Christmas, look to the Messiah, but from two different perspectives – like two olives on each side of the Menorah in the beautiful vision of Zechariah that is read in synagogues on the Sabbath of Hanukkah: “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. 3  Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.” 4  So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?” 5  Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.' Zech. 2:4-6 www.eteacherbiblical.com.

Pandemics and crises feels a little bit like the GRINCH that stole Christmas for some of us, but we made a decision at the beginning of this ADVENT series—CHOOSE HOPE. It’s been a hard year in lots of different ways, but that is when and where and why we celebrate Emmanuel, God with us. This Christmas we remember the reason for the season: the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior. It’s a season to WORSHIP GOD like the wise men, SEEK GOD like the shepherds, and TRUST GOD like Mary and Joseph. NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH December 24, 2020 Hope – Christmas Eve Dr. Mark Batterson I wish we were together right now. COVID feels a little bit like the Grinch that Stole Christmas to some of us. But you know what we made a decision at the beginning of this Advent series that we choose hope. It's been a hard year in so many different ways. But that is when and where and why we celebrate the reason for this season, Emmanuel, God with us the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So Merry Christmas Eve to each and every one of you. I'm going to keep it short and sweet. I know you have dinner in the oven, you have stockings to open, you might even have a few gifts yet to wrap and so three simple thoughts on this Christmas Eve - One, worship God like the wise men. Two, seek God like the shepherds. Three, trust God, like Mary, and Joseph. In Matthew's Gospel, we read the story about the Magi who followed the star all the way to Bethlehem best guess they traveled about 1,000 miles one way. Pretty impressive given the fact that the average person didn't travel outside a 30 mile radius of their birthplace and their GPS was a star. They didn't know where they would end up but that didn't keep them from starting out. That sounds a lot like faith. Faith is taking the first step before God reveals the second step. And they don't come empty handed, Wise men come bearing gifts. Matthew chapter two verses 11, says they entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary. They bowed down and worshiped him. Now, this is not normal, right? They bow down and worship Him. They open their treasure chest and give him a baby Yoda. Not exactly. They give him an ancient action Jewish action figure. No. What do they give him? It says they open their treasure chest and give him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. A few years ago, someone sent me an email subject line said the three wise women. It said do you know what would have happened if there had been three wise women instead of three wise men? They would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, clean the stable, made a casserole and brought practical gifts. I think the Christmas story reads wrong in so many different ways. Right? I mean, a virgin gets pregnant, a baby born in a manger because there's no room in the inn. The angel appears to shepherds instead of religious leaders and it sure seems like the wise men bring the wrong gifts. But what happens next? Well, Joseph is warned in a dream to flee to Egypt because King Herod is about to go on a rampage. And so here's the $64,000 question. How does a minimum wage carpenter who broke open his piggy bank to pay his back taxes fund a trip to a foreign country? Well, gold is the gift that keeps on giving, right. Gold is a currency in any country. Simply put, the Wisemen’s gift is Joseph and Mary's miracle. - 1 - At the end of 2020 I want to say a heartfelt thank you for your generosity in giving during this COVID crisis you've given more than $600,000 to this Relief Fund so that we could bless and help hundreds and hundreds of people. I just heard this week about an NCC small group packed 1000 shoe boxes for Samaritan's Purse for Christmas. You know DC Dream Center served more than 55,000 meals. Listen, those aren't just gifts those are miracles for those who are on the receiving side. Your gift is someone else's miracle. And so, we worship God, like these Wiseman and we seek God like the shepherds. Luke's Gospel says that there were shepherds out in the fields by night, an angel of the Lord, with or without sunglasses, appears to them, and it says they were sore, afraid. I kind of like the Christmas story in the original King James. "And the angel says, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Well, what do the shepherds do? Luke 2:17 says they hurried to Bethlehem. I love the way that Max Lucado captures this moment. He said, "Had the angels gone to theologians, they would have first consulted their commentaries." Now, listen, nothing wrong with commentaries. "Study to show yourself approved," II Timothy 2:15. But birds don't need ornithologist to fly and fish don't need ichthyologists to swim. Are you picking up with throwing down? God doesn't need theologians to do miracles? "Had he gone to the elite," says Max, "they would have looked around to see if anybody was watching. Had he gone to the successful they would have first looked at their calendar. So he went to shepherds - Men who didn't have a reputation to protect didn't have an ax to grind didn't have a ladder to climb. Men who didn't know enough to tell God that angels don't sing to sheep that messiahs aren't found wrapped in rags and sleeping in a feed trough." This, I believe, is the season for us to seek God and I don't mean second, or third, or 10th. "Seek first His kingdom and his righteousness," Matthew 6:33, "and all these other things will be added unto you." Now we want God to add all these other things to us first, right then and only then we'll see God. But that isn't the way it works that sequence is backwards. And so here's my advice going into a new year. Don't seek opportunity, seek God and opportunity will seek you. And so we worship God, like the wise men, we seek God like the shepherds, and we trust God like Mary and Joseph. When the angel tells Mary that she is going to conceive and give birth to a son. Mary asked the obvious question. How can this be since I am a virgin? Now we know the rest of the story but Mary does not. Luke 1:29 says that Mary was troubled and disturbed and confused. Sounds an awful lot like 2020, doesn't it? The Christmas story is not neat and clean but Mary makes a choice she chooses to trust. Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrists and Holocaust survivors said that everything can be taken from a man but one thing. What is that one thing? Te last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. I'm talking to you today. This Christmas we choose joy. We choose grace and - 2 - peace. We choose faith, hope and love. And we choose to trust, we trust God's will, we trust God's way. And you know what maybe the hardest thing of all we trust God's timing. Just a little reminder, the virgin birth is an oxymoron. This is biologically impossible. Faith is not logical, but it isn't illogical. Faith is theological. In other words, it adds God to the equation of every situation we find ourselves in, that's what Mary does. I think part of what makes this impressive is the fact that best guess Mary is a teenager. Okay, that means her prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for consequential thinking for complex decision making, isn't even fully developed. Well what does she do? It says that she pondered these things in her heart. It reminds me of the kaleidoscope that Pastor Joel looked through last weekend. Scripture says she kept revolving in her mind what the angel might mean. In other words, she kept turning that kaleidoscope. If you're in a situation, you're having a hard time figuring some things out. Listen, 2020 - hard to make sense of it. You know what; there are some situations you can't reason your way out of them. You need a revelation from God and Mary gets a revelation. In fact, a couple of revelations - you are blessed, you are highly favored, and God is with you. All of us want a miracle. None of us want to be in a situation that necessitates one, but you cannot have one without the other. And this is when we choose to trust not when everything makes sense. No, we choose to trust when nothing makes sense. I have a Deuteronomy 29:29. File, you've heard me talk about it. It says that the revealed things belong to us, but the secret things belong to God. There are some things that won't make sense on this side of the space time continuum. Why? Because we're not omniscient. There are lots of things that are past our pay grade. So guess what, my file got a little thicker this year, but I am exercising my trust muscle and I am exercising faith and hope and love as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior. And as we look to a New Year one or two things will happen over time. Either your theology will conform to your reality, or your reality will conform to your theology. Trust is the difference between those two things. I want to invite our worship team to come back we're going to continue to worship God with a couple of Christmas carols. Let me say this trust is not naive. We confront the brutal facts, but we do it with on wavering faith. And so when you cannot see the hand of God, you have to trust his heart. I remain confident of this Psalm 27:13 "I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." And so this Christmas, we worship God like those Wisemen, we seek God like those shepherds, and we trust God like Mary and Joseph. Merry Christmas. - 3 - www.thetheaterchurch.com