Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. ( Proverbs 2:11 NLT ) Friendship is a wonderful thing and a gift from God to allow us to enjoy the company of another. But sometimes that relationship drifts away from being a true friendship and it becomes something else. Perhaps it becomes more of a ministry than a friendship. Whatever the case, here’s my Top Ten list for how to recognize when your friendship needs to either be FIXED, or FINISHED. You see your friend’s name on your caller ID, and you freeze. My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.  ( 1 John 3:18 GNT) You wouldn’t pick that person to be your friend, if you had to make that decision today. With all your heart you must trust the Lord and not your own judgment. Always let him lead you,  and he will clear the road for you to follow.  ( Proverbs 3:5-6 CEV ) You feel drained after spending time together with your friend. We never give up. Our bodies are gradually dying, but we ourselves are being made stronger each day. These little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing.   ( 2 Corinthians 4:16-17 CEV ) You feel obligated to spend time with your friend. “When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, ‘Come in and eat with me’? No, he says, ‘Prepare my meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later.’ And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. 10 In the same way, when you obey me you should say, ‘We are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.’”  ( Luke 17:7-10 NLT ) You feel used by your friend. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.  Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.  ( Gal 6:9-10 NLT ) You’re starting to pull away from your friend. But you must stay deeply rooted and firm in your faith. You must not give up the hope you received when you heard the good news.  ( Colossians 1:23 CEV ) You’re losing respect for your friend. Guard what God has entrusted to you. Avoid godless, foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge. Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness . ( 1 Timothy 6:20-21 NLT ) You’re losing trust in your friend. Even my best friend, the one I trusted most, the one who shared my food, has turned against me… They will not triumph over me, and I will know that you are pleased with me. You will help me, because I do what is right; you will keep me in your presence forever . ( Psalm 41:9 , 11-12 GNT) You no longer share the same values with your friend. But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”  ( Colossians 3:5-7 NLT ) You’ve outgrown your friend. But you, my friends, already know this. Be on your guard, then, so that you will not be led away by the errors of lawless people and fall from your safe position. But continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  ( 2 Peter 3:17-18 GNT) www.theintentionallife.com .

Many were alarmed and dispirited by footage of raucous cheering in the New York State Senate chamber. The “Happy Days Are Here Again” sort of celebration wasn’t for a bill to guarantee health care or repair roads or to reform the government. The applause and laughter was instead for a bill to remove any protections as persons from unborn children at any stage of pregnancy. While this video does indeed tell us much about the culture in which we live right now I actually think another piece of footage tells us more. A few weeks ago, I watched an episode of a video series in which children ask questions of an adult. One episode featured an adult who was a mortician, for instance, in order to talk about death and grieving. This particular episode was a conversation between children and a woman who has had an abortion. What struck me the most is that it was a kind of Sunday school. As someone who believes strongly in Sunday school, I’ve always bristled at the use of the term “Sunday school answer.” I get what the term is meant to imply: a shallow, surface-level answer that is given by children because they know what the adults around them expect. An old pulpit cliché would often talk about the Sunday school teacher who, about to tell a story about a squirrel, asked children what was furry, with a bushy tale, climbed trees, and stored up nuts for the winter. One child is said to have replied, “I know the answer is ‘Jesus,’ but I’m just trying to figure out how to get there.” The point of the cliché is that there’s a real answer, but then there’s the answer one is supposed to give. That’s what appears to have happened in this interview between the abortion-rights activist and the children. The children seem to be trying to give the “right” answer. One says that abortion is okay, as long as it for “good reasons.” This answer is obviously the wrong one, as the adult seems to chastise him for differentiating between “good” reasons and “bad” reasons. Children keep using the word “baby” in reference to the “choice” that abortion is supposed to be about. The activist, whenever encountering some moral hesitation about abortion, asks the children whether their families are religious, as if to explain some irrational repression. The children seem to be trying to find what it is the adults want them to say, but there are some moral realities they can’t help but bump into along the way. That’s both the good news and the bad news for those of us who believe in human dignity and the protection of human life, regardless of age, size, or vulnerability. In order to see the realities around us, we must have a thick Augustinian vision of both human createdness and human fallenness. The fallen nature of humanity is evident. Who could cheer the potential to stop the beating hearts of children who are, in some cases, just weeks away from birth? And the closer one gets to the issue, the more one sees just how blinded by injustice people can get. Some who claim to be about protecting the weak from the strong are able to nonetheless completely ignore those, the unborn, who are politically unpopular in their tribe. And others, who are allegedly “pro-life,” are sometimes viciously antagonistic to the lives of others who are similarly politically unpopular in their mirror-image political tribes. The culture of death means that life is valued in terms of its power, and that is far deeper, and more dangerous, than just a momentary culture war. If all we could see was the psychic wreckage of the Fall, we would be tempted toward despair, not only about justice for the unborn but about every aspect of the call for justice for the weak, a call for justice mandated by the life of Christ himself (Ps. 72:1-14). But the Fall is not the end of the story, nor is it the beginning. People are created in the image of God, endowed not only with certain unalienable rights, as Mr. Jefferson correctly put it, but also with consciences that, in moments when not protected by the sin nature, can perceive the goodness of creation and the inevitability of judgment (Rom. 2:15-16). We speak about those the world doesn’t want to hear about—whether they are unborn children or abused women or neglected elderly or scapegoated migrants—not because we are “winning” on the issue at the moment, but because we must speak, conscience to conscience, with Judgment Day in view. A sense of God’s creation keeps us from despair. A sense of the human Fall keeps us from triumphalism. In holding both together, we see the City of God and the City of Man together, one hurtling toward death, but the other Marching to Zion. Some of the consciences cheering on abortion, or slavery, or racism, or a multitude of other ghastly injustices may well be turned around, and may in good time lead in the cause of life and dignity and justice. Others will not. But whether we “win” or “lose” in the short-term, we see the full picture. We know, as Father Zosima put it in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, “Your work is for the whole; your deed is for the future.” The pro-life, pro-human dignity work is a long arc, and the more people know what we are talking about, the more will oppose it. We speak still, and, ultimately, we win. I suppose what I mean to write here is a Sunday school answer, one that is both true and beautiful. I know the answer is “Jesus.” We’re just watching to see how to get there.

You married with the hope of sharing your life with someone who’s as pumped to make the most of it as you are, so how did the two of you end up here? Maybe the turbulence of the recent months – with lifestyle disruption, threat of COVID and economic uncertainty – is taking its toll on how you both feel. Your daily activities are no longer what they used to be, and while there some changes you enjoy, your marriage feels worse than before. Lockdown has amplified all the annoying habits of your spouse. He chews his food too loud. She never gets out of yoga pants. You wonder to yourself, if you ever need to be quarantined again in the future, is this the person you want to be quarantined with? As a divorce attorney and mediator, I’ve walked with hundreds of people who’ve left unhappy marriages. If you’re like many of us, you’re not dealing with a harmful or toxic marriage, but an unhappy one. The line between harmful and unhappy is not black and white, and you may need to reach out to someone wise you trust to help you discern the difference. If you’re like most unhappily married people, when your disappointment feels strong, you wonder whether you’ve signed up for a lifetime of misery. I get it. There are times every marriage feels hard, even impossible. In today’s blog, I’m asking you to set aside your cynicism, your disappointment and your disillusionment for a few moments to ponder a few thoughts about separating . Why am I writing? Because I’m so grateful there were people, including friends, speakers, authors and counsellors who I listened to and learned from while our marriage felt like it was breaking down. Carey and I now enjoy a thriving marriage we wouldn’t dream of leaving. Who knows? Maybe one of these 3 things will help you start to move out of your distress, too: 1. Your Victim Story Will Blind You Let me guess – so you think it’s all your spouse’s fault your marriage is so hard? For many years when Carey and I had heated arguments, I would withdraw. I would slip off into my own little world and go silent and become basically unreachable. But going silent wasn’t Carey’s wiring and it drove him crazy. I would insist he leave me alone while he persistently tried to draw me back into some kind of engagement. I labeled Carey’s behavior as aggressive and this dynamic carried on over time only led us into bitterness and resentment. Years in without realizing it, I was telling myself a victim story that threatened to derail us. It was a tangled version of I can’t do this anymore and if only he would also fight for peace and leave me alone… Turns out, my victim story distorted the truth. When I slipped into silence during an argument, I wasn’t simply ‘fighting for peace’ – I was also stonewalling. There were times when I withdrew into my self-made fortress and treated every advance by Carey as an attack. It was only after I absorbed the wisdom of counselors, engaged in some serious self-reflection, and developed the maturity to face my own blind spots that I could see my role more accurately. My victim story was clouding my vision. When it comes to relationships, if there’s a victim, there’s a perpetrator. When you adopt a victim mindset especially in marriage, the psychology of ‘we’re a team’ breaks down. Then you feel divided and disconnected from each other. The vast majority of my family law clients saw themselves as having been victimized by their spouse in some way. Most people who were leaving said their spouse was emotionally abusive. That label has really caught on. A victim narrative is problematic because it takes relational dynamics with inherent complexity and oversimplifies them. You, like me, will have a human tendency to oversimplify the story in your favour, to help you avoid pain and cause you the least personal discomfort. A victim narrative is problematic because it takes relational dynamics with inherent complexity and oversimplifies them. Is there a subject you and your spouse avoid because one or both of you gets triggered when you broach it? How to get the other to stop being so negative? How to fight clean instead of ‘dirty’? How to solve that nagging parenting problem? How to handle your growing money problem? How to fix your failing relationship? How much sex? Chances are, you both believe the other person’s to blame for the unsolved problem(s) in your relationship. You too, may have a victim story running in the background, blinding you to your own part in whatever your problem may be. But if you walk away without trying to spot your own role or offense, you’ll leave believing your part truth, part fiction victim story. If I’d walked away when my victim story spoke to me the loudest, I would have carried the same stonewalling-under-the-guise-of-peace tendency into my next relationship. Maybe after two or three partners, the part of my story that was fictional would become more visible. I’m grateful it didn’t happen that way. And you don’t need to wait for the passage of time and experiences of life to open your eyes to the whole truth, either. As long as your marriage is unhappy and not toxic, you are not a victim. While the ‘blame’ for the struggles between you may not even out at 50:50, and perhaps your spouse is 90 % responsible – you still have your 10% to own. Make yourself a promise to look for your part. Avoid passively allowing time to teach you. Search for the fictional part of your victim story, with humility. When you find it, own it, apologize for it, and start taking steps to make it right. 2. You May Be Listening to the Wrong Messages Your friends will influence you either to lean into or away from your marriage. Research shows how much your marriage decisions are influenced by the people around you. In recent years, neuroscientific research has uncovered fascinating insight into how our brains respond to the influence of the brains of the people we surround ourselves with. Moran Cerf, a neuroscientist and professor at Northwestern University, has done research into the social aspect of decision-making. As one reporter says of Cerf’s research: So long as we make the right choices, the thinking goes, we’ll put ourselves on a path toward life satisfaction. Cerf rejects that idea. The truth is, decision-making is fraught with biases that cloud our judgment. People misremember bad experiences as good and vice versa; they let their emotions turn a rational choice into an irrational one; and they use social cues, even subconsciously, to make choices they’d otherwise avoid…” His neuroscience research has found that when two people are in each other’s company, their brain waves will begin to look nearly identical. Says Cerf, “This means the people you hang out with actually have an impact on your engagement with reality beyond what you can explain. And one of the effects is you become alike.” Cerf’s research findings don’t strike us as counterintuitive; in fact, our life experiences have already taught us that people tend to rub off on each other. We become more like the people we keep company with. If the norm among your friends or social circle is to get a divorce when the marriage feels over, then according to the research, divorce becomes a more likely outcome for you too. But it doesn’t have to be. You already know that you choose the company you keep and the voices you listen to. Look around you. Are the people you’re closest to cheering for your marriage? Or are they cheering for you to walk away? Look around you. Are the people you’re closest to cheering for your marriage? Or are they cheering for you to walk away?  While you need friends who will be with you through the ups and downs, you may need to be selective about who you receive advice from. Do the messages of your friends bring you comfort, or wisdom? If you were choosing between two job offers or two cities to relocate to, I’m guessing you would weigh the pros and the cons. You would try to see both the risks and the benefits as objectively as possible. You might also visualize what life would look like down the road for each option. But for me, during our rough season of marriage, that kind of objectivity was hard to grasp through desperate emotions. Your pain will push you to give up, and may even cause you to visualize what a new chapter of love might look like. But add your pain to the voices or influence of people around you who have left marriages, and you may do what you never would never do with any other major life decision. You may be drawn by your emotions and the social influence of your friends to only see the pros and not the cons of walking away. What to do? If you’re feeling stuck and unhappy in your marriage, you need to seek out some other voices to give you informed perspectives about your options. Commit to spending more time with people who value their marriage and yours. Invest in a relationship with a couple who have gone through unhappy seasons but are now deeply satisfied. Combat your internal resistance toward finding a qualified marriage counselor who comes with great reviews from couples who were distressed but aren’t anymore. Sign up for a marriage course, retreat or marriage support group. There are people who have invaluable messages for you while you’re struggling with your marriage, but chances are they won’t just show up. You need to make the effort to seek them out. Choose to listen for wisdom over comfort. 3. You Won’t Feel the Costs of Leaving Until You’ve Left Ever witnessed a divorce that seemed hasty and premature? After dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s on the divorce settlement, I had a few clients who said, “If I’d only known then what I know now, I would’ve tried harder to save my marriage.” There’s no way around it: splitting isn’t going to look or feel the way you imagine. I walked through divorce with many clients who were shocked by the gap between what they expected after separating and what they experienced. They had a hard time coming to terms with it. If you’ve been married any length of time, and especially if you have kids, even an out-of-court divorce will be harder and more complicated than you imagine. Many of the parents I advised told me the primary reason they were walking away was to stop the negative impact of their fighting or their indifference toward each other on their kids. Either through your own experience or that of others, you’ve seen the other consequences of divorce. Maybe you’ve helped a friend through the grief of their marriage breakdown. Maybe you’ve seen how the demands of making divorce arrangements pushed other priorities such as work or personal health further down the list. I’m sure you’ve heard about the financial loss people suffer when they divide the family income between two separate households. The costs of separating only become stark reality when you take the real steps. Please don’t hear me say that divorce is never an option. In some cases, the divorce is hard but spares the family from further harm. However, don’t make a hasty decision to split. Listen to wisdom first. Choose the hard work of facing the fictions in your own victim story. Chances are, your courage combined with action will keep you from the regret of wishing you’d tried harder. You may believe it’s your spouse who needs to do the hard work, not you. But this decision is high stakes, and you have more influence than you think. www.careynieuwhof.com .

Jesus honored a poor unnamed widow in the Bible because she freely gave all she had to the God she loved. Picture the scene: It’s a very busy day at the Temple.  Hundreds of people are crowding in for an opportunity to worship.  A part of their worship was almsgiving.  This day, Jesus is watching the people as they approach with their offerings. Among the crowd are the wealthy.  Many of them place large sums of money in the collection bowls.  I can see the smiles on the faces of the priests.  Most of the worshipers are regular folks dutifully participating.  Perhaps lost in the din and confusion of the crowd is a simple widow woman.  She’s insignificant to the system.  She has very little to offer.  She’s poorer than the poor.  I imagine the priest isn’t paying too much attention to her.  Neither is anyone else.  She’s kind of “in the way” of the Temple business.  Her presence is tolerated, not wanted.  Predictably, she puts into the bowl a tiny amount, less than one cent. Across the way is Jesus, the Jesus who knows us all fully and completely.  The Jesus who knows the very number of hairs on our heads.  The Jesus who knows our thoughts and hearts, our motivations and intentions.  The Jesus who is able to judge those thoughts and intentions with a terrifying accuracy.  Jesus sees all who approach the altar.  He sees the thoughts, hearts, intentions and attitudes of the givers.  He knows who is genuinely worshiping.  He knows who is pure of heart.  He knows who is playing games.  He knows the ones who are trying to make this whole thing about themselves, to win the applause of men. Jesus is moved deeply by the generosity of this simple widow woman, a true worshiper. He calls together his disciples for a teaching moment.  May I paraphrase what he said to them? “You know, I’ve spent some time here watching the worshipers place their offerings at the altar.  There have been some large amounts of money given today, greatly pleasing that priest over there.         But did any of you notice that widow woman?  She had less than a cent to give.  Then again, she had less than a cent to her name.             I want to tell you something very important.  She has given more today than all the other offerings combined.  You see, everybody else gave from their abundance.  They all had plenty left over.  Most of them should’ve been more generous than they were, but because they lacked faith in God to supply their needs, they held tightly onto the money they had.             But this woman gave all she had.  She must now trust the Lord completely.  Her offering was a true act of total faith.  As such, our Heavenly Father is pleased with her and has more regard for her offering than all the rest.”   How beautiful, right?  Let’s take a moment and examine why Jesus noticed this poor widow’s offering.   I           The Widow gave the First.   I believe that the widow’s offering represented her obedience in giving to the Lord first.  Her desire to worship and to participate in the offering was more important to her than anything else.  With less than a cent to give, her needs gave clarification to her priorities.  She trusted God completely.  The whole process of her economic expressions began in her relationship with God.  She gave to God first because giving to God was not optional in her heart. Herein is an important lesson for you and me.  Our offerings to the Lord, perhaps through our churches, must be prioritized as well.  Like the widow, we must give to God first, then let other things find their place. When we truly seek the Lord with all our hearts, all others things will be added to us, and will find their rightful place ( Matthew 6:33 ). Perhaps you, like me, have been tempted too many times to spend almost all we have, then give to God the leftovers.  We spend and spend on the best houses, cars, gadgets, entertainments, fancy diets, etc., with little regard to the outcomes, or perhaps with no regard to how God has directed us to handle money in his Holy Word, the Bible.  One thing is for certain, God has given us the power to become wealthy so that we then can share those blessings through our generosity and with our testimonies to God’s faithfulness ( Deuteronomy 8 ). When we participate in offerings, when we purposefully return to the Lord a portion of all with which he has blessed us, we are reminded of his goodness, love, and provisions.  We remember and worship the One to whom we pray: “Give us this day, our daily bread.”   II         The Widow gave the Most.   Again, Jesus said to the disciples, “I assure you, this poor widow has given more than all the others have given.  For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.” – Mark 12:43-44             You and I may think this poor lady has lost her mind.  Perhaps, if I had been advising her, I would’ve said, “Take that money to the grocery store and buy something to eat!”  Maybe because of my limited understanding or even lack of faith, I think I might’ve been more concerned about her physical needs than her desire to worship.  How about you? Maybe the widow is showing more faith than you and I are comfortable with!  Maybe we don’t attempt many things in this life that really require faith and action at all.  After all, if we are attempting to do something “in the name of the Lord” but we can see how, through our own strength and resources that we can accomplish that something, faith is not really required.  Faith is required to follow God and be obedient to him when the outcome is guaranteed only by his promises and his Word.  When the outcome is something only God can do, then we know faith is actually involved. Perhaps, even as she was making her offering, the widow was remembering the story of her ancestors as they wandered in the desert following their release from slavery in Egypt.  Hungry and thirsty, they cried out to God.  Their circumstances suggested they would die in the desert, but God intervened.  Exodus 16 records the marvelous story of how God “rained down bread from heaven.” They called it “manna,” asking, what is it? Interestingly, God was very particular in how much of the bread from the heavens that they could gather.  Specifically, God told them to gather only as much as they needed for today.  Naturally, being in want in the desert, and with no certainties about tomorrow, they would’ve wanted to store up manna.  If they did, however, it soured and filled with worms. What was God up to?  I think the answer is simple.  God was saying, “Trust me to meet your need today, then trust me again tomorrow.  I am your God.” I think that’s what motivated the widow’s giving at the Temple.  I also think God wants us to do the same.  And yes, faith is required to be truly, biblically generous.  Oh, and one other thing; God likes faith.  So when Jesus says she gave the most, he certainly means she gave the greatest portion.  Her offering had less to do with the value of the money in her hand, and much, much more to do with the faith in her heart.  Again, what about us?   I know someone else who gave it all away.  His offering to sinful, pitiful people sounds like this: For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life – John 3:16 .               May we all have the courage to follow this poor widow’s example of giving, and the example of the one who so loved that he gave it all.   May God bless you.

The Best is Yet to Come: Follow the Ark Dr. Mark Batterson September 4/5th “2021 is an outrageous time to dream!” - Pastor Mark Batterson Proverb 29:18 Thebestisyettocome.com Joshua 3 4 Focuses 1. 2. 3. 4. Get Up Early Follow the Ark Consecrate Yourself Step into the River 1. Get Up Early Joshua 3:1 EARLY in the MORNING Joshua and all the Israelites SET OUT from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. TIME is measured in MINUTES but LIFE is measured in MOMENTS. All of us are given the same amount of time every single day—1,440 minutes. Time management is a STEWARDSHIP ISSUE. How are you managing the minutes and the moments, the chronos and the kairos? You don’t FIND TIME, you MAKE TIME. You have to identify the TIME WASTERS and TIME MULTIPLIERS. How you START THE DAY sets the pace, sets the tone, sets the table. It starts with when you set your alarm and why? Psalm 57:8 You can be a morning person by discipline if not by nature. Biography about D.L. Moody said that Moody felt a twinge of guilt if the blacksmiths were up hammering before he was up praying. Every day of his life he arose very early in the morning to study the Word of God way down to the close of his life. Mr. Moody would rise about four o’clock in the morning. He would say, “If I’m going to get in any study, I have got to get up before the other folks get up.” And he would shut himself up in a remote room in his house along with his God and his Bible. - R.A. Torey 2. Follow the Ark Joshua 1:2-4 The Ark of the Covenant symbolizes the presence of God and the power of God. FOLLOW THE ARK. With this addendum: keep a distance of 2,000 cubits. That is the same distance the Jewish people were allowed to walk on the Sabbath. The principle is this: DON’T GET AHEAD OF GOD. Are you following the Ark or are you following the crowd? We are spirit-filled and spirit-led. “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.” - William Booth 3. Consecrate Yourself Joshua 3:5 Our job is consecration. If we do our job the Lord will do His job. The Hebrew word for CONSECRATE is qadash and it means to sanctify, to purify, to set something apart. You are ANOINTED and APPOINTED by God. We are MOST ALIVE when we are MOST DEAD TO SELF. A.W. Milne When he came there was NO LIGHT. When he left there was NO DARKNESS. Have you packed your coffin? Consecration is DEATH TO SELF. Consecration is DETRONING YOURSELF. It’s going ALL IN with God. It’s His Will, His Way. It’s giving the Holy Spirit VETO POWER. It’s SEEKING GOD first. It’s MY UTMOST for HIS HIGHEST. “The world has yet to see what God can do through one man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.” - D.L. Moody Why not you, why not now? 1Timothy 4:5 Hebrews 4:12 The primary purpose of prayer is to change me, to consecrate myself. 4. Step into the River Joshua 3:8 This is where most of us get stuck. We are waiting for God to part the river, while God is waiting for us to get our feet wet. We want God to go first because that doesn’t require any faith. Faith is taking the first step before God reveals the second step. What step of faith do you need to take? Joshua 3:15-16 We think RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. God is thinking NATIONS and GENERATIONS. We have a hard time believing God for CITIES. God says, “Ask of me and I will give the NATIONS.” God’s vision is so much bigger, so much better, so much longer. The miracle always happens 16 miles, 16 years upstream. You are the answer to someone else’s prayer. It’s time. You can look back on today and say it was an outrageous time to dream, but it was the day that decades happened. The Best is Yet to Come A PRAYER to PRAY: Our Father in Heaven thank you for the ability to not only pray for our children and our children’s children, but to also acknowledge that we are the answer to prayers prayed well in advance for us. Thank you that the miracles of the future can begin today with my prayers and my decisions. Thank you for the family members, loved ones, and friends who prayed for miracles that today we are the beneficiaries of those prayers. God Your ways are better than anything we could think of or imagine on our own. It’s time to get our feet wet, in Jesus’ name Amen.---ANNOUNCEMENTS: Sign up for a Group: ncc.re/groups For more info about following Jesus, go to ncc.re/followJesus---To dig deeper: Sermon Discussion Guide: ncc.re/discuss NCC Daily: national.cc/daily Upper Zoom: ncc.re/upperzoom We live at the intersection of two theologies, two realities. The faithfulness of God is pursuing from the past—SO FAR SO GOD. And the sovereignty of God is setting us up for the future. We live forwards, but God is working backward. God is ordering our footsteps. God is preparing good works. We live in a fallen world, a broken world, but heaven is invading earth right here, right now. We don’t believe in happily ever after. We believe in something so much bigger and better and longer—happily FOREVER after. THE BEST IS YET TO COME. Sermon begins at 16:15. www.theaterchurch.com .

Confronting the Prince of Darkness Transcription Confronting the Prince of Darkness - Luke 4:1-13 - Skip Heitzig Welcome to Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig. We're so glad you joined us for Dark Room. In this teaching series, Pastor Skip shows how God often develops his children through hardship, the dark times in life. Here's Pastor Skip. Well I'm glad we're at church today. And I'd like you, if you don't mind, to turn in your Bibles to the book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, the fourth chapter. We're doing a series called Dark Room, how God takes the negatives and makes positive results from them. And this is our final installment in this series. And I'm calling this "Confronting the Prince of Darkness", Luke chapter 4. So back in 1961 there was a band called The Tokens. You probably are not familiar with that name but you are familiar with a song they wrote. They probably had no idea this song would be as famous as it became. Here are some of the lyrics, see if you remember this. "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. In the jungle, the quiet jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. Near the village, the peaceful village, the lion sleeps tonight. Near the village, the quiet village, the lion sleeps tonight." Not much to the song, and then the best part of the song is this, "uyimbube, uyimbube, uyimbube," and they just kind of sing that over and over again and everybody still remembers that. What happens when the lion isn't sleeping? What about when the lion's on the prowl, on the move, ready to pounce on its prey? That's essentially what Peter announced in his epistle in the New Testament. He said, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." That's a very, very weighty statement. Imagine if you went to the zoo and over the PA system you heard an announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that our lion has escaped from the enclosure today and is roaming around the zoo. By the way, ladies and gentlemen, he hasn't eaten yet, so please be cautious." You'd be so cautious you'd leave the zoo. In the chapter we have in front of us, Luke Chapter 4, Satan, the lion, roaming around like a roaring lion, meets the lion tamer, or the greater lion, if you will, the lion of the tribe of Judah. In a confrontation, Jesus, the light of the world, confronts the Prince of Darkness in this classic text of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Now, over the years I've discovered a lot of people don't believe in the devil, really. They say they do sort of, but they really don't. They Don't believe he's a real, literal personality. Maybe a symbol of evil, maybe representative of bad stuff that happens, but not a real actual person. I understand why people would have trouble with that if they are not believers in scripture or born again. But what troubles me is that a poll was done, I think it was by Barna Research Group or Gallup, and they looked at people who claim to be born again Christians. And the poll said 32% think that the devil is just a symbol of evil, not a living being, 32%. Another 11% somewhat agree with that statement and 5% don't know. So if you add it all up, you have 48% of people who say they're born again Christians who think the devil is symbolic or they just don't know. I just want to tell you that I think the biggest mistake a person can make is when they have an enemy that exists but they deny that enemy exists. And I guess the question is how much stock do you place in what Jesus said? Do you place much weight in what his words were? When he referred to the devil he called the devil a him, a he. He said in Luke Chapter 10, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. It sure doesn't sound like he's thinking it's a symbol of evil, but a real person, a real entity. You should know that ever since Satan fell-- and that's recorded, by the way, in Isaiah Chapter 14 and Ezekiel Chapter 28. Ever since Satan fell he's tried to wage war on God, to some extent on the plan of God. And because that has been true, we would expect that once the Messiah comes to the Earth that there would be some kind of confrontation that takes place in this sphere called the Earth. And we have that confrontation before us. You should also know that Jesus has always been Satan's number one target ever since a promise was given to the Devil in Genesis chapter 3 that the seed of the woman would eventually be born and would crush the head of the serpent. Ever since then, the war was waged. But he also attacks people. And we would say if Jesus is Satan's number one target, then what does he care about people? It's called collateral damage. So Satan knows his fate, he knows that he will never have what he originally wanted, he'll never be able to overthrow heaven. So he can only cause collateral damage. He can only accuse people who are saved and he can only keep people or unsaved unsaved, distract them, deceive them, and keep them out of heaven. Jesus said in John 10, the thief, a reference to the Devil, "The thief comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy." He tries to plunge the world into disarray, disorder, rebellion, chaos. He's done a pretty good job. What I want to show you in Luke chapter 4, and we're going to look at verse 1 down to about verse 13, I want to go kind of quickly so we can cover all the material, is I want to give you five words to describe the nature of this confrontation. Five adjectives that will help you understand temptation and how it works. And here's the first word, tactical. The Devil is tactical. In verse 1 it says, "Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan," that is the Jordan River after his baptism, "and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness." Now, if you're just to read that verse, you think it's a peaceful story, it's going to be a peaceful story. Jesus going to the desert for a little R and R, you might think going to Phoenix or Palm Springs, a Diet Coke by the pool, all is good, and it doesn't last long. The point is that Satan, in his approach, is tactical and often he will attack after a time of blessing, after a time of joy. So I want you to go back with me to see this. Go back to chapter 3, and what we are looking at is an event that happens immediately before the temptation in the wilderness, and that happens to be in chapter 3 verse 21. Verse 21 and 22 of chapter 3 happened immediately before chapter 4. The rest of chapter 3 is just a genealogy. Luke is catching you up on his background. So in chapter 3 verse 21, it says when all the people were baptized it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized, and while He prayed the heaven was opened. And get this, the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon him. And a voice came from heaven which said, "You are my beloved son. In you I am well pleased," then chapter 4 happens. So immediately before this, heaven is opened, so now hell is opened. And that's the relationship I want you to see. That's the spiritual principle. The action of God invites the reaction of the Devil. You know this principle, bright lights attracts nasty bugs. You turn on a light in the summertime on your porch, you wait a little while, and there's all sorts of activity going on around that light. So the more you do business with God the more likely you are to do business with the Devil. Nothing promotes the activity of Satan as much as the proximity of a child of God to God. You can see that here. In verse 1 of Luke 4, "Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returning from the Jordan, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness being tempted for 40 days by the Devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterwards, when they had ended He was hungry." So you notice the language, filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and tempted by the Devil. I find this to be a pattern, not just here, but also in other parts of scripture. For example, as soon as the children of Israel were delivered out of Egypt, that's when pharaoh chased them, pursued them to destroy them. As soon as Hezekiah held a Passover in Jerusalem, a renewal back to God, Sennacherib the Assyrian surrounded the city to destroy it. As soon as the disciples of Christ saw the transfiguration of their Lord, they went down the mountain and there was a demonized kid, and his father said your disciples were unable to cast him out, challenged. Something else, I think it's noteworthy, it seems, as I read not only this account, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke's account, all of them, that Jesus goes out to the wilderness specifically to pray to his father, to be prepared for the next three years. This is the beginning of his earthly ministry, so to prepare for what is inevitable, the sacrifice on the cross. He gets alone with the father to pray, to fast, to seek his father's will, and Satan attacks him. Have you noticed that whenever you want to have quiet time things you never thought come to your mind? Things you'd forgotten about, and you get these weird phone calls and distractions. It's almost that the devil doesn't want you to have it. Yep, that's true, he hates us to draw near to God because that's where the power is. You've all heard of Murphy's law, right? If anything bad can happen, it will happen. Did you know there's-- I'm going to call it Lucifer's law? Lucifer's law, anything that Satan can ruin, he will ruin. So any time you decide to move close to God that's a good thing, and you shouldn't worry about it then go, OK, well then I'll just stay carnal. No, you want to be close to God because greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world. God's got you covered. But just know that when you do that, that is going to shake things up a bit in the kingdom of darkness. I say, good. I'm up for a good fight, especially when I know I'm on the winning side. But JC Ryle said this, "Nowhere perhaps, is the devil so active, as in church." That's an unnerving statement. But think about it. First of all, I'm convinced the devil doesn't want you to go to church. I think he'll put things in your mind like it's windy today, or it's cold today, or there's snow coming, or there's a good football game on, or whatever it might be. He doesn't want you to get fed, he doesn't want you to get encouraged, he doesn't want you to worship corporately. And then once you get to church, if God gives you anything and uplifts your spirit and you walk away better for it, then that blessing that God has given to you, Satan wants to steal it as soon as you leave the building. And get in your car and get out on Albuquerque streets, and the chances that you will have your joy stolen are pretty high. A lot of other things go missing around the town, and so you'll have drivers that'll cut in front of you and move into your parking space when you want to park, you know the routine. I have a question before we move on. Why was Jesus tempted-- this is a good question, I get asked this a lot. If Jesus was the perfect, sinless son of God, if Jesus never sinned, if Jesus, in fact, couldn't sin, the Bible is pretty clear on that, then why is He tempted? Let me give you three quick reasons why. Number one, to validate the father's approval. The father has just said this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. In other words, my son, Jesus, has never said, thought, or done anything that has ever displeased me. He's perfect, he's sinless. To validate the approval, to show it was deserved approval, He confronts darkness head on in chapter 4. That's number one, number two, to demonstrate his messianic credentials. To show that He is the promised, one the long anticipated one. And finally, number three, to indicate the tactics of the enemy. To expose Satan, to show people like us what kind of temptations we can expect and how to overcome them. Now a word about that. The temptations we read about in this chapter are unique to Jesus specifically. Nobody else gets tempted like this, nobody else could be tempted like this. We can't be tempted to turn stone into bread, and you know why? Because we can't turn stone into bread. It's never a temptation for us. Yeah, I think I need to turn this stone into a Big Mac. You can't do it, not a temptation. Likewise, none of us could ever be tempted to imagine that we are going to rule the kingdoms of the world. Not a temptation to us. We would never be tempted to jump 450 feet off of a precipice and expect a safe landing. These things don't tempt us. They were given specifically to Jesus because of who He is. But though they are unique to him specifically, they are common categorically. That is, Satan will suggest that we can trust the love of God, the plan of God, the protection of God, and we're going to look at that. So that's the first word, tactical. This is a tactical temptation. Second word is vulnerable. Jesus is in a very particular kind of state as He is being tempted. It says in verse 2, "Being tempted for 40 days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." So we notice He ate nothing, and afterward, He is now hungry. Satan is taking advantage of a weakened physical state. Jesus was more vulnerable. Yes, He was God in human flesh, but He was in human flesh nonetheless. By the way, fasting in the Bible. What does that mean, why do people fast? And people say to lose weight. Well, in the Bible it was a little bit different. In the Bible. It's not a sanctified diet. In the Bible, fasting isn't some means of twisting God's arms so you can get from God what you've always wanted but maybe God thought you weren't serious, but now He does because you're fasting. No, in the Bible people fasted as a sign of mourning for the dead, as a sign of personal repentance or national repentance, and as a sign of dependence on God. So it says Jesus fasted for 40 days. That's a long period of time. Very few people have been ever able to do that. I've read and I've been told that when you stop eating for a short period of time you actually speed up your metabolism. And when you hold off eating for a long period of time you reverse that, it slows down your metabolism. And you can go for a long period of time without eating. What happens is you start out very hungry and then you lose your appetite, which is helpful if you're trying to fast. But then eventually it comes back. Your body starts feeding on itself. And when your hunger, after a long, prolonged fast begins to return, that's an indication that you are starving to death and if you don't eat soon, you will die. Jesus was in that condition. Satan comes and attacks Him in that condition. Verse 3, he says, "if you are the Son of God." It's best to see this as a statement of affirmation not supposition. A better translation is since you are the Son of God. It's first class conditional in the Greek, since you are the Son of God or because you are the Son of God. The Wuest translation of the New Testament, Kenneth Wuest, a Greek scholar, said, "In view of the fact that you are the Son of God." Satan is not questioning the identity of Jesus. By the way, the devil never questioned the deity of Christ ever. No demon ever questioned the deity of Christ. In fact, in this chapter, chapter 4, verse 34, the demons say, "Let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." Every demon in hell knows exactly who Jesus is, that he is God in human flesh. Satan never questions the deity of Christ, only liberals do. Only liberal theologians do that. Satan knows better. So when Satan says, "Command these stones be made bread," It's not a slam on Jesus' identity. Satan is questioning God the Father's provision, his love. It's a slam on his love. Hey, since you're the Son of God, why didn't your father feed you? Why would he let you stay out in this godforsaken desert without any food for this long of time? Where is the love? Again, chapter 3 verse 22, God the Father says this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Where's the love? And so Satan suggests that Jesus use his own prerogative, His own power, to provide for Himself what the father did not provide for Him. It's sort of like the Garden of Eden. Same tactic in the Garden of Eden, right? All the trees that are in the garden and Satan comes along and says, why don't you eat from this? Well, we can't eat of these trees. We can eat from all of them except one. It's in the middle of the garden and God said, don't eat that. The devil goes, has God really said that? The suggestion is what kind of a God of love would not allow you to have fruit in the garden he puts you in? Why would he withhold that from you? And so you know what that's like in a difficult time. You've had that feeling, you might have heard that little whisper. You're a child of God and this is how God treats his kids? And so how does Jesus answer that? Verse 4, he said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." He's not suggesting you don't need food or bread, He is simply saying you need it, but that's not all you need. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. What sustains life isn't just physical food, but spiritual food. We found this out in the pandemic, didn't we? We found out when people were locked out and locked down and we were isolated and restricted how that wreaked havoc on the mental health of people all over the world, and the spiritual vibrancy of God's people, missing the mutual encouragement that the Bible says we all must have. Man shall not live by bread alone. We need bread for the body but we also need food for the soul, because the soul is the only part that is eternal. While we're out busy protecting our body, not realizing it's going to die, our soul will live forever. That needs to be taken care of. So two words, tactical, vulnerable, and let me give you a third word, an adjective to describe temptation, practical. Satan is a pragmatist, he's very, very logical, practical. So in Verse 5 the devil, taking Him on a high Mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Now, get this, the devil said to him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory, for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish." What's interesting about this is Jesus never rebutted Satan. He never said, uh-uh, that's not true, it hasn't been delivered to you. You know why? He knew it had been delivered to him. He knew that in the Garden of Eden, God gave the Earth to mankind. Mankind gave it over to Satan when he followed his suggestion. And that's why Satan is called the God this World, the Prince of the Power of the Air, The One who Works in the Children of Disobedience, and that's why redemption was necessary. So Satan said, "It has been delivered to me and I give it to whomever I wish." OK, Satan is suggesting that Jesus take a shortcut. The devil knew why Jesus had come. The devil knew that God the Father had promised Jesus the kingdoms of this world. Listen to this, Psalm 2, a messianic Psalm. God the Father says to God the Son, "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and all the ends of the Earth for your possession." So Satan gets Jesus to question God's plan and says, ask me for it instead, I'll give it to you. You don't have to go the way of the cross, you don't have to go the way of suffering, you don't have to become the suffering servant of Isaiah chapter 53. I know why you're here, I get it, but I'll give you a shortcut. If you will just indulge me for a moment of time and worship me, that's what he's always wanted, his day in the sun, if you just worship me, I'll give it to you. You don't have to die and redeem it, I will give it to you, for it has been delivered to me. Now you know that if you've had any dealings at all in temptation and with the devil, you know how the devil plays the if only game. If only God would let you do this, if only you would get what you want, if only you had what you deserve, then you'd be happy. God is holding back from you. And God's way is painful. So have it now, I'll give it to you. I read an article some years ago, it so baffled me that I cut it out of the newspaper, because I just thought I just got to look at this, this is how some people think. It was a teenager in Los Angeles being interviewed by a news outlet, and this kid said he was a Satan worshipper. And the news reporter said, why do you worship the devil? And the kid said, I think of the devil as a cool dude. And that sentence sort of arrested me, because there's a lot of things I think about the devil, cool dude doesn't come to mind. But I think the devil is a cool dude, because, he said, God restricts you and doesn't give you what you want. The devil lets you have what you want. Satan says, in effect of Jesus, what do you want? I know what you want. You want to redeem people back to God, so I'll give them to you. So let's see what Jesus says in Verse 7, "Therefore, if you worship before me, all will be Yours." And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord, your God, and Him only shall you serve." In other words, no thanks, I'd rather wait for the promise of my father. I know one day I'm going to rule the world, and I'm not going to depend on you to give that to me. I'm going to depend on my father in his own time. "Get behind me Satan, you shall worship the Lord, your God, and Him only shall you serve." You need to know something. There are no shortcuts to the Christian life. There's no shortcuts to spiritual maturity. There's no easy victory. There's no just do this and do that and awesomeness happens. There's no shortcuts. If Jesus, your Savior, had to hang on a tree before he could sit on his throne, don't expect easy street. You follow him. Immediate gratification often brings eventual dissatisfaction. I gotta have it now, got to have it now. Immediate gratification often brings eventual dissatisfaction. But also, delayed satisfaction, waiting for God in his own time to give you what he knows his best, will bring both immediate and eventual satisfaction. Immediate because you're pleasing God, eventual because you have what you've asked him for and waited for. So three words to describe it so far, tactical, vulnerable, practical, let me give you a fourth adjective, sensational. The third temptation Satan suggests to Jesus is let's put on a show. Let's do something really sensational, Verse 9. Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, if you are the Son of God, or since you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, He will give his angels charge over you, to keep you, and, in their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone." Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said you shall not tempt the Lord your God." You should know something, Alfred Edersheim, the Jewish scholar, said Jewish rabbis believed that when the Messiah came that he would stand on the roof of the temple. And the reason they thought this is because there's a scripture, Malachi Chapter 3, Verse 1 and 2, it says that the Lord will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the Covenant whom I will send. And so because of that, they thought, OK, so when the Messiah comes, he's going to show up at the temple, probably on the roof of the temple. So perhaps with that in mind, Satan suggests, jump off the temple. The pinnacle of the temple, by the way, was the tallest point from the roof of the temple down to the lowest spot, called the Kidron Valley, 450, 460 feet. Several years ago I was in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, and you can stand on the remains of that pinnacle of the Temple Mount and look down. It's this wide valley, way down there, and I happen to have a Frisbee with me. And so I chucked it, and I knew I'd never get it back, but I chucked the Frisbee out into the Kidron Valley from the pinnacle of the temple just to watch it fly. I think I'd probably be shot if I tried that today. But anyway, that has nothing to do with this text, I just thought I should let you know that I did that, confess my sin once and for all. So the suggestion is that Jesus jumps. But you notice that Satan alters his approach a little bit this time? This time, how does he tempt Jesus, what does he say to Jesus? Scripture, he quotes scripture this time. Jesus has been quoting scripture twice to Satan, so Satan pulls out a scripture of his own, and it happens to be Psalm 91. And he quotes it, "It is written, he will give his angels charge over you to keep you," that's Psalm 91. "And in their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone," that's the following verse. But here's what you need to know. Satan left something out when he quoted scripture, he always does. So in Psalm 91, this is what it actually says in verse 11, "He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone." And then he also leaves the verse out right before that, which is the context, which says, "Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the most high your habitation." So that's what Satan does when he quotes scripture. He takes it out of context and only quote certain things he wants to quote. Cults do this all the time. You can make the Bible say anything you want to, and people do it all the time. Now, it shouldn't surprise you that the devil quotes scripture. The devil knows of the Bible inside and out, and that shouldn't surprise you. Did you know that the devil is a very shrewd theologian? He's been trained in the world's best seminary, the very throne room of God itself. But again, it was a misquote. And the whole context suggest that a child of God, in the will of God, doing the ways of God are protected. Satan quotes it out of context. So why the suggestion that he jumped? I think the devil hoped that one of two things would happen if Jesus jumped off the pinnacle of the temple. Number one, he'd be killed by the fall. And if he was killed by the fall, he couldn't be the atoning sacrifice, according to Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Or, number two, he would, by jumping, force God the Father to rescue Him, to deliver Him, which means he will cease to be in submission to the timing and the will of the Father. So follow these three temptations. The first temptation, stone into bread, is to question God's provision. The second temptation, I'll give you the kingdoms of the world, is to question God's plan. The third temptation, jump off the temple, is to question God's protection. His provision, his plan, his protection. Verse 12, Jesus answers him, "It has been said, you shall not tempt the Lord, your God." In other words, you can't deliberately place yourself in temptation and then expect God to deliver you. If you go over the speed limit while, at the same time, pray that God will keep you from getting a citation, duh. You don't walk into a bar and ask God to help you not drink, you get out of the bar. You don't feed on pornography and ask God to deliver you from lust. You don't walk into temptation saying, deliver us from evil. God gave you two legs, like he gave Joseph, who ran the other direction. Go the other direction. So he says, "It has been said, you will not tempt the Lord, your God." So we have four words that describe this temptation. Technical, vulnerable, practical, sensation, and I'll give you a fifth, and we'll close with this, seasonal. Temptations are seasonal. Just when you go, whew, it's over, hallelujah. Yeah, Let's see what happens. Verse 13, "Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time." Satan wasn't done, this Is just round one. Like the former governor of California, he'll be back. And he'll be back, he'll be back through Peter suggesting that Jesus not go to the cross, to which Jesus will reply, get behind me Satan. He'll be back when he prompts Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus. The Bible says Satan entered him. He'll be back in the Garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers arrest Christ, and Jesus will say to them, this is your hour and the power of darkness. So when you successfully deal with the temptation that comes to you and you have the victory, awesome. You've learned a great lesson, you made a great step, you're making great strides, but just know, Satan doesn't go, OK, well I'm done now, you're just too strong for me. He'll just get tactical all over again, he'll observe, he'll find vulnerabilities, he'll wait till your week, and he'll look for an opportune time. That's why Andrew Bonar said, "Let us be as watchful after the victory as before the battle." so let me offer you a quick three things to walk away with in fighting temptation. Very simple to remember, all begin with an S. Stand your ground. It is time, if ever there was a time for Christians to stand up and stand their ground, it's right now. Stand your ground. The Bible says, submit, therefore, to God. James chapter 4, submit therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. It's a military term, standing immovable, resist. So that's number one, stand your ground. Number two, study your Bible. Each temptation is met with a quote from scripture. And it's not that Jesus is just going, oh, I'm going to throw out a scripture to the devil. The idea is I live my life under the submission to the principles of my Father. Stand your ground, study your Bible. Children of God, there is a great danger in you not knowing the Bible. We can't plead ignorance anymore. Oh, I don't know what it says. Find out what it says, study your Bible, read it. Jesus said to the religious leaders, "You error not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God." You open yourself up to temptation. So stand your ground, study your Bible, third, stay near your God. Yes, he was tempted by the devil, but at the same time, he was filled with the Spirit, he was led by the Spirit. Stay close to God. Don't make God a once a week, go to church thing, make God a constant companion, your best friend. Stay near to him-- Jesus called it abide, abide in me. I learned a principle long ago, I forget exactly who said this, but I wrote it down. "Unless there is that which is above us, we will soon yield to that which is about us." if you don't have an authority that you stay close to, a companion that you draw near to, you will succumb to the value system of the world and all its messages in all its social media. You'll think and act and do like them. So, in the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion is not sleeping tonight. Your enemy, your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, but he is no match for our lion tamer. He is no match for the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who has prevailed, as John said. So stay close to Him. Father, thank you for six great weeks of looking at this incredible principle of how you take hard times, dark times, difficult situations, negatives, and develop in us positive results. And once again, that great, great promise that God causes all things to work together for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And perhaps you have called people today, according to your purpose, to hear not only this truth but to get close to God's people enough to, in their heart, know that's where they need to be. It could be that some have never surrendered their life to Christ who are here right now. Or some who have once done that, but are not obeying and following him today. If that describes you I'm going to give you, right now, an opportunity to change that, and to come unto the love, plan, and protection of the very God who created you. Again, I'm speaking to you, if you have never given your life to Christ. I didn't ask you were you a religious person growing up, do you believe that God exists. Do you have a relationship with the living God, have you surrendered your life to Christ? If you've never come to a moment where you have consciously turned from your past and turned your life over to him, I'm going to give you that opportunity. Or, if for some reason you've wandered away from him and you need to come back home, I'm going to give you that opportunity. If you want to receive Christ right where you are, right now, I want you to raise your hand up in the air. Just raise it up and keep it up. Our heads are bowed, my eyes are open, but I just want you to hold it up so I can acknowledge you. God bless you, to my right, in the middle. Yes, ma'am, right up front, right in the middle. Who else just raised that hand up, please? In the back, thank you. To my right. Different parts of the auditorium. Anyone else? In the family room? In the back, God bless you. Father, thank you for these. Lord, we love this. We love when people admit they need you, that they're not complete without you. That kind of humility is so heartwarming. Seeing you work in lives is so encouraging to us. Thank you, and we pray, Father, you'd fill them with your Spirit. Fill them with the sense of belonging and purpose and love. In Jesus' name, Amen. Let's stand to our feet. We're closing with this song. If you raise your hand, I want you to get up from where you are standing now, find the nearest aisle, please, and come right up here. I'm going to lead you in a prayer to make Jesus your Lord and Savior once you get up here. If you raised your hand, please come and stand right up here. [MUSIC PLAYING] Come on, right up here. Just make your way through. Yeah! I Come on. [MUSIC PLAYING] This won't take much time, but it's very important that you make this choice. Jesus called people publicly. And it does something in the heart of an individual who makes that public stand, and you're making a stand in front of a cheering crowd. You get out in the world and they're are jeering crowd. I admire that. Quickly, anybody else? OK, those of you have come forward-- come on up, come on up. I'm going to lead you in a prayer, and I'm going to ask you to say this prayer out loud after me. Just mean these words from your heart. Say, "Lord, I give you my life. I admit I'm a sinner. Please, forgive me. I believe in Jesus. I believe He died on a cross. I believe He shed his blood for me. I believe He rose again. I turn from my past. I turn to Jesus as my Savior. I want to follow Him as Lord. Help me, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Now begins the Greatest Journey of your life. Thank you so much for joining us for this message from Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig. We would love to know how this message impacted you. Share your story with us. Email mystory@calvarynm.church. And if you'd like to support this Bible teaching ministry with a financial gift, visit calverynm.church/give. As we have seen in this series, some of the Bible’s greatest heroes had darkroom experiences. They were developed by those painful experiences and used by God to impact their world. Today we examine Jesus Himself, the Light of the World (see John 8:12 ), facing off with the Prince of Darkness (see Ephesians 6:12 ). Five adjectives describe this confrontation, giving us insight into both the nature of temptation and the resolve of Jesus to follow His Father’s plan for saving the world. connectwithskip.com .

Outsiders: Your Faith Has Made You Well Luke 17:11-19 Outsiders Jesus Loved the Lepers Greg Lavine and John Beeson G: Does Jesus actually make a difference in our lives? As we head toward Easter we consider the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Amazing! But does it change anything in our lives today? If we have faith in him, will it make a difference in our lives? Jesus promises us that faith alone can make us well. Lk 17:19. J: Back up: we are going to drop into the middle of the book of Luke. The first part of this sermon series was in 2019. Luke writes a story of Jesus that highlights how Jesus was an outsider who came for outsiders. From the very first chapters of Luke, where Luke shows us a child born to an unwed mother in a stable with animals and then shepherds, not in a palace with royalty, to the ministry of Christ, where he is rejected by those in his hometown and pursues those who are on the fringes: women and paralytics and those who are demon possessed. Women: second class. Not for Jesus. Do you feel uncomfortable in church today? Jesus comes for you. Have you ever felt unlovable? Unclean? Jesus comes for you. Lk 17:11: Headed to Jerusalem from his ministry in Galilee. Samaritans: second class. Not for Jesus. The Good Samaritan. G: Lk 17:12-13: Double outsiders. Stand at a distance. Lev13:45-46: Do you feel like you can’t come to Jesus until you clean yourself up? What shame is separating you from Christ? What is your leprosy? Abuse? Divorce? Sin? Socioeconomics? Addiction? Anxiety? Am I too far away from Jesus to love me? Too undesirable? Too unlovable? “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” This is the gospel! This is where a relationship with Christ begins. We recognize Jesus as master, and we beg for his mercy. We come on his terms, not ours. J: Jesus asks for our trust. Walk away from me. Lk 17:14: Jesus sends this to the priests not to be cleansed, but to take away the social stigma, the shame. They are healed as they go to the priests. Jesus offers whole healing. We are forgiven of sin, shame is removed, and in the new heavens and new earth, we will experience our new bodies. Jesus brings healing, he welcomes us to believe. Guilt, shame, body: what do you struggle believing? For me: body. Dad. G: Lk 17:15-16: This is the response of faith! The heart of faith is a heart of gratitude. Where is there gratitude in your life? Phil 4:6: Have you offered God thanks? He does so loudly! For others to hear! Gratitude is evangelism! Do others hear your praise? J:Faith and gratitude are conjoined twins. HS prayer journal. Today: daily journaling. Lk 17:17-18: Christmas lists to Santa: what about thank yous? Is God the dispenser of goods, or is he the source of life? Are we connected and needy? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: do you want the chocolate bars or the factory? Do you want Jesus or what Jesus does? Do you want the Healer or the healing? 3/13/22 Outsiders: Your Faith Has Made You Well Luke 17:11-19 We play with a charade of worship. We don’t really go to him. G: Lk 17:19: Your faith has made you well! Singular! He has experienced a transformation of soul, not just of body! What about the rest? It seems as though they’ve experienced a transformation of body, but not soul. They are those who said, “Lord, Lord,” but whose faith was not connected to the source. J: 1) Run to Jesus. Have you experienced the joy and gift of your faith making you well? Do you believe Jesus can make you well? What prayers are you filtering out? God wants your big prayers and your small prayers. My foot: healing. G: 2) Experience Jesus’ healing. Jesus doesn’t do superficial healings. Guilt + shame. J: 3) Tell people about Jesus. Baptisms. Faith and gratitude are conjoined twins. Who has heard your story? How can you be a faithful in praising his name? Withholding gratitude for kids on social media b/c of criticism. Don’t hold back. God is good! Reclaimed story: NL people: raw, filled with gratitude and joy. 3/13/22 Luke writes a story of Jesus that highlights how Jesus was an outsider who came for outsiders. From the very first chapters of Luke, where Luke shows us a child born to an unwed mother in a stable with animals and then shepherds, not in a palace with royalty, to the ministry of Christ, where he is rejected by those in his hometown and pursues those who are on the fringes: women and paralytics and those who are demon possessed. Women: second class. Not for Jesus. Preached by Greg Lavine and John Beeson. SERMON BEGINS AT 29:00. newlifetucson.org .

Jacob, Blessings Back to Bethel Kevin DeYoung Father in heaven, help us now once again as we come to Your Word. We bow before You, not simply because we think this is how sermons begin but because we really need Your help. I need Your help if I’m to speak clearly and humbly and with power and unction from on high, and we all need Your help if we are to listen and these are to be words that fall upon good soil. So teach us just what we need to hear in these minutes together. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. The book of Genesis, which we have been in for the better part of two years, and which Lord willing we’ll be bringing to a close at the early part of this summer, is essentially about God working out His promises and His providence in one very messed up family. You family has issues, this family has more issues. Genesis is one of the longest books in the Bible, 50 chapters; only Psalms, Isaiah, and Jeremiah have more chapters. Of these 50 chapters, the first 11 of them cover creation, fall, curse, flood, the confusion of languages. By contrast, 39 chapters are needed to cover the lives of just four individuals in this family; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. After spending 11 chapters on thousands of years, then we really slow down and the microscope zeroes in on this one family across four generations. God in His wisdom apparently gave us what we needed to know in those first chapters about creation and fall, and in some ways that was a preface to the main story. The main story is about this family. And lest we think it’s just about a family 2000 years ago, it’s our family that we are a part of by faith. This morning we come to bring the Jacob cycle to a close. Now Jacob doesn’t die, he’s very much going to appear in the Joseph story yet to come. He has an important role to play. But this is really the passing of the baton from one generation to the next. You may recall that the book of Genesis, though we have 50 chapters, those chapters aren’t inspired. Really, a more clearly inspired delineation are these 10 toledoth sections in the book of Genesis. Toledoth is the word translated “generation.” Even though the very last one is chapter 37, verse 2, says these are the generations of Jacob, it’s actually about the generations that came from Jacob. It’s not so much the story of Jacob as it is about his sons. So chapter 35 brings to a close this cycle of stories about Jacob, and then there’s something of an addendum in chapter 36, the toledoth of Esau, of course, his brother. What we have in chapter 35 is the tying up of loose ends and a final look at Jacob in the spotlight, and then chapter 36 summarizes Esau before we move on to this novella, this story within a story about Joseph. I’ll refer to chapter 36 at the end, but the action is in chapter 35, and so we’re just going to read chapter 35. Hopefully, you have your Bibles open there, Genesis 35. “God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.” “And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth.” “God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.” “Then they journeyed from Bethel. When they were still some distance[f] from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor, and she had hard labor. And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for you have another son.” And as her soul was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.” “While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine. And Israel heard of it.” “Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s servant: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s servant: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.” “And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. Now the days of Isaac were 180 years. And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.” There are three themes in this final major section on Jacob’s life. These three themes are going to be our three points: Correction, confirmation, and completion. So notice first in verses 1 through 8, correction. What do we mean by correction? Well, you recall in chapter 24 this horrible story of Dinah and the Shechemites as Dinah is violated and then her brothers, who have a right to vindicate her, and yet go about it in the wrong way. They should have trusted the Lord to vindicate. Remember, because you may say to yourself, “Well, what were her brothers to do?” Jacob was passively indifferent, it seems, to this great atrocity against his daughter and against their sister Dinah. But remember, three other times in the book of Genesis one of the women of God, one of the matriarchs, was taken; taken by Pharaoh when Abraham liked, taken by Abimelech, later another Abimelech when Isaac lied. Three times, with Sarai, with Sarah, with Rebecca, three times it happened that she was taken by a foreign king and each time the Lord sovereignly intervened to rescue her. Now we’re not told that explicitly, but surely one of the lessons to learn is that Jacob should have led his family to trust that the Lord was able to vindicate and able to rescue their sister, but as he was passively indifferent, so his sons took vengeance into their own hands. We left off in chapter 33, remember he erected the altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel and then chapter 34 has no mention of God, very deliberately, as everything seems to go off the rails. But now, coming back on track, chapter 35 begins, arise, go up to Bethel, the house of God. Remember, Jacob had made a vow earlier when he was fleeing the Promised Land, went up to Paddan-aram to his father’s or to his mother’s household, that he would come back. He had made a vow, promised to come back to that very spot at bethel. Well, Jacob came back to the Promised Land, but he settled there at Shechem. He wasn’t in the right place. He didn’t fulfill his vow. So God corrects him now. You came back to the Promised Land, but you didn’t do all that you had promised. So arise, this isn’t where you’re supposed to be. You made a vow to me, now come back to Bethel. So God speaks to Jacob. Last we saw Jacob he was anxious over the troubles Simeon and Levi had caused him. He was floundering as the family leader. He had set up his camp too close to Shechem. He had neglected the vow he made 20+ years earlier when he set out from Paddan-Aram but now God holds him to his promise. The only time that God directs a patriarch to build an altar. Other times it’s a response, here God says, “No, this is to be a place of worship,” and God wants Jacob obedient and worshipful, but not on Jacob’s terms, on God’s terms. He needs a course correction, a literal course correction because he did not settle in the wrong [sic] place. He says, “Look, you made a promise, you made a commitment, now you need to come all the way back to Bethel and you need to renew and to keep this vow.” He does so. Now notice what happens. The correction is not just for Jacob, but the correction needs to happen for his whole family. He leads them, finally Jacob is growing, and it’s a stark contrast. The leader he wasn’t in chapter 34 now he is the sort of leader God wants. Men, this is the sort of patriarch, if you can use that language, the sort of leader that God wants over His household. Look at what Jacob does. Verse 2: He said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods.” He’s leading them in repentance. Part of being able to lead them in repentance is he first had to come to grips with his own failure. See, it’s one thing to say yes, I’ll be the leader of the household, everyone needs to repent. That’s good. I like this, you know, male headship thing, leadership thing. You all need to get your act together. Well, Jacob first had to get his act together. He needed to show the people that he was serious. He wasn’t just calling them to a standard he wasn’t willing to live up to. He needed to repeat. He had gone to the wrong place, so once he goes to Bethel, an altar there, now he’s going to lead his people in this reversal, this repentance. I hope you realize repentance is not just feeling really bad about things. In fact, God isn’t interested in one level and you just feeling bad. The world feels bad; that’s regret. Uh, I messed up my life. Ah, now work is bad. I failed a test. My family doesn’t like me. That’s regret. You don’t the spirit of God to regret bad decisions. Non-Christians regret bad decisions all the time. Repentance realizes ah, I need to not just feel bad, I’m turning around. I’m changing. I was going this way, I need to go this way. The Puritan Thomas Watson said repentance is a spiritual medicine made of up six ingredients: The sight of sin, sorrow for sin, confession of sin, shame for sin, hatred for sin, and turning from sin. Leave to the Puritans to say six special ingredients. Well, it’s that last one that’s often lacking. Oh, I feel bad, I confess it, I hate it, but do you actually turn from it? I’m not doing that anymore. That’s what Jacob has to do. Turn from one place, go to Bethel, and now to his family he leads them in repentance and renewal. Look at verses 2 and 3. He gives four commands: Get rid of the foreign gods, purify yourselves, change your clothes, and come with me, we’re going to Bethel. Get rid of the foreign gods. We’ve seen not so subtly throughout Genesis the way that Moses, the author, inspired by God, is making fun of these gods, the sort of gods that can be covered up and can be sat on in a woman’s menstrual impurity we saw earlier. These household gods that you can steal. What kind of God can you sit on? What kind of God can you steal? Well, do you see what’s happening here? When we come to the end here in verse 4, they give all the foreign gods and the rings. Now what’s the big deal, earrings. You’re saying, “uh, oh, Pastor, earrings.” Well, these earrings very likely would have had pagan sort of amulets. They were part of the idolatry, these earrings, so they needed to take the foreign gods, the earrings, what do they do? They give them a funeral. They bury them. They bury them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. So I want you to get rid of your foreign gods, they’re not real gods, but we’re going to give them a nice funeral. Here we are, they’re dead, they’ve always been dead, we’re going to bury them. Get rid of the foreign gods. Purify yourself. Change your clothes. So there’s a symbolic representation, we’re starting over. We’re having a fresh start. And then he says, “Come with me to Bethel.” Verse 3. Essentially obey. The primary requirement in the covenant is exclusive allegiance to the Lord. “I’m the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other gods before Me.” Remember at the end of Joshua, Joshua chapter 24, “Choose for yourselves whether the gods beyond the river be gods or whether Yahweh be God,” but Joshua says, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” It was never a problem to add a god. It’s never a problem. You don’t have a problem adding a god to your life. It’s never been a problem add Jesus to your life. The problem is always subtraction. To have the gods of the pagan nations, not a big deal. Everyone adds gods. You just hedge your bets. Amorites got gods, Amalekites got gods, we got gods, yeah, keep adding. But the one true God says you’re not really adding unless you subtract every other god. That’s why idolatry is so often linked to adultery. Because when you get married, you make the vow, “And forsaking all others.” To get married as addition without subtraction, not a good marriage. Oh, I got married again and again and again and again. We see that happening in the Bible. It’s not God’s plan. It never goes well. It didn’t go well for Jacob. So you need to subtract these gods. You need to be serious and single-minded. And notice where they’re buried – the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. You probably don’t recall, it’s just easy to miss, but back in Genesis 12:6, the very beginning of this story of the patriarchs, when Abram is going to the Promised Land from Ur, it says “Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem to the oak of Moreh.” This is where Abraham started his journey in the Promised Land, and since then this had been a special place. So it’s fitting this terebinth tree, this special tree near Shechem, that marked out the beginning of Abram’s journeys in the Promised Land, would be the place where you are symbolically doing away with all of the gods outside of the Promised Land. Bury them. Jacob and his family needed a big time course correction, and surely there’s a good example and a spiritual lesson for us here, because it’s really easy when we think we’ve reached our goal to suddenly become apathetic and lethargic. You know you’re driving, driving, driving, whether it’s to a certain career, a certain graduation, just a certain spiritual goal in life, and you seem to have arrived and then you let your guard down. Well, isn’t that exactly what happened? They’re on this journey back from Paddan-aram, back to the Promised Land after all of these decades, it’s a difficult journey, they have all of these flocks and herds, they’ve gone by Esau, ah, we thought we were going to die there but we didn’t. It’s easy for them to think, “Ah, we made it. We made it. We did it.” And then they let their guard down. This happens in such subtle ways for us. It’s at the end of some hard strenuous activity or labor that you think, “Ah, I deserve a few wandering clicks over in this direction,” or “I deserve a little self-pity after all that I’ve been through.” You think that as you’re coming to the end of your, you put the hard work, the hard work behind you. It’s like the sort of people that figure that once you run a 5k, you can now eat whatever you want for the rest of the week. “Ok, I think I probably burned 30,000 calories. Let’s go for it. I did 3.1 miles.” That’s not how it works. But here Jacob easily thought we finally made it back, here we are, and they let their guard down. But things were not right, mission not accomplished. They needed a correction. First with Jacob, and then leading his family. So that’s the first theme, correction. Second. Notice in the next paragraph, verses 9 through 15. There’s not only a correction, but a confirmation. Now it’s easy to get confused with this story because you may recall back in chapter 28 where he leaves the Promised Land, there he has an encounter with God, he names it Bethel, Beth-el, house of God. Here he names the place again, house of God. This is not a confusing story told twice, it’s actually two distinct episodes with the second one confirming the first. It’s very deliberate that Jacob needs to learn this lesson again. You ever wonder, “Why am I in the same place I was before? Why does God keep teaching me the same lessons?” Well, maybe because we need to learn the same lessons. You remember that famous line from Paul? He said it’s no trouble for me to remind you of the same things again. Once you become a Christian, and it’s really exciting and you’re learning all this stuff and, oh, I didn’t know all these names and all these terms and all these things in my Bible. Then you got to a few hundred or thousand sermons and the rest of your life is a lot of reminders. You know why we need reminders? Because we’re forgetful. We’re mentally forgetful, we’re spiritually forgetful. So God has to continually confirm things to us. So look at verse 9: God appeared to Jacob again. There’s a number of things going on here, and a number of parallels with other parts of Genesis. So note the basic pattern, what happens here, starting at verse 9. So we have the Lord appearing to Jacob, then in verse 10 He changes his name, He appears to him as God Almighty, He says that in verse 11, and then He tells Jacob to be fruitful and to multiply. He says nations will come from you. He says that kings shall come from you. He promises to him the land. There’s a basic pattern. The Lord appears to him, God Almighty, I change your name, be fruitful, kings will come from you, peoples will come from you, you’ll get a land. Keep that basic pattern in mind. Go back to Genesis 17. This is the confirmation of the covenant with Abraham, and it’s the exact same pattern. Genesis 17, verse 1: The Lord appeared to Abram. Well, what did we see in Genesis 35:9? God appeared to Jacob. And the God who appeared to Jacob announces that He is Lord Almighty. Chapter 17: He says I am God Almighty. What does He do here in chapter 17? Well, this is where He says you’re no longer Abram, but you’ll be called Abraham. You see that in verse 4. And then He says that I will make you exceedingly fruitful, verse 6, I will make you into nations, kings shall come from you, I’ll establish my covenant with you. Then at the end of chapter 8, all the land of Canaan shall be an everlasting possession. It’s the same covenant confirmation pattern. The Lord appears, I’m the Lord Almighty, I change your name, be fruitful, multiply, I’ll give you the land, you’ll be a great nation. All of that to Abram in chapter 17 and now to Jacob in chapter 35. No longer Jacob, you’re Israel. So one level of confirmation is this is the same promise that I gave to your grandpa. He says, “I’m the same God who was there with Abram. In fact, I’m doing the same thing that I did with Abram, Abraham, I’m doing with you Jacob, who will be Israel.” Notice also there’s parallels back with the first Bethel story in chapter 28. So go to chapter 28. God’s promise to Jacob in 28:13, “I’m the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, the God of Isaac, the land in which you lie I will give to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth. You shall spread abroad, every direction. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land.” That was God’s promise. So He reminds Jacob: Remember, I promised I would bring you back to Bethel. Now you stopped a little too soon, but I bring you back to Bethel. Not only that, but you’re having here, in chapter 35, not only the confirmation that I gave to Abram, but you’re also inheriting the blessings that you got from Isaac. So look at chapter 28, verse 3. This is what Isaac says to him as he leaves: “God Almighty bless you, make you fruitful and multiply you so that you may be a company of people. May He give you the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring,” verse 5, “thus Isaac sent Jacob away.” That was the last word we heard from Isaac before we see Isaac die at the end of chapter 35. Isaac had said, “The promises of Abram now I give to you, to be fruitful and multiply.” And where did we hear that? Well, that was back in Genesis 1, of course. That was a part of the creation mandate, being made in God’s image, be fruitful and multiply. I want to make a great people for Myself. Well, now this great people is coming from, at this point in redemptive history, this one family. There’s one other parallel with chapter 28. If you still have your finger there, look at chapter 28, verse 18: “Early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up for a pillar, poured oil on it, called the name of the place Bethel.” Well, what happens here in chapter 35? Verse 14: Jacob set up a pillar, he poured out a drink offering, he poured oil on it, and he names the place Bethel. God is reminding him of the very same promises. Jacob is repeating the very same act of worship, down to the stone, the pillar, the pouring out of oil. Okay, we’ve got a span of years in between here where you went, and I blessed you there with Laban, you got married, one more time than you thought, you had a bunch of kids, and now you’re back. Sometimes you look back on your life and you think, “I had no idea why we ended up over there. Why did God move us over there? Why did we have to go through that trouble? Why did that happen?” And some of you are in the middle of that. You’re in the middle of the 20 Laban years that don’t make a lot of sense but they’re a lot of hard work. Well, maybe at some point, whether in this life or in the next life, for sure, God shows you what He’s been doing. Okay, Jacob is coming full circle. Even those Laban years, when you were far from the Promised Land, and it may have seemed like I had forgotten you, I hadn’t. So now here you are, Jacob. I was true to every single one of My promises. So Jacob, having this covenant confirmed once again, confirms it again. We can read through Genesis and these various doublets seem confusing or repetitive, like, “Jacob, didn’t your name already get changed to Israel? Didn’t we already have a Bethel? And now you’re naming it Bethel again?” This is where higher critical scholars sometimes develop all these elaborate theories – Well, this was a different tradition and they pasted this on over here and this on over here and obviously they’re from different authors. No, when you read Genesis in entirety, you see what a master stroke God is doing, very deliberately, to repeat these stories, not just saying, “Here’s the story again,” but “Here’s the story in a new episode, in a new part in Jacob’s life, because he needs to learn the same lesion again.” They tell us something very important, they tell us Jacob is back on track and just as importantly, they remind us God never left His track. God never got off track. So don’t think when your life’s off track, God had to turn and deal with Ukraine for a while and He couldn’t figure out what was going on in your life. He’s God. He can do all of it. God never gets off track. God is not confused. God doesn’t need plan B. God knows what He’s doing. Even when Jacob was off track, God was not. Notice how Jacob has matured. At Shechem he worshiped according to his agenda, and he was not blessed nor a blessing. Now he worships at God’s command, at God’s place, and God reiterates to him, “You are blessed and you will be a blessing to the nations.” Do things God’s way. Correction, confirmation. Here’s the final theme – Completion. Notice in this chapter we’re in a time of transition from one generation to the next. What we find in the following paragraphs is that Jacob has to endure a series of sadnesses in his life. They all pile up one after another. Did you notice them? We just read in verse 8 his nurse, Rebekah’s nurse, Rebekah’s sort of maidservant Deborah, dies. So first Deborah dies, then Jacob’s wife dies, then Jacob’s firstborn son violates his concubine, and then Jacob’s father dies. Just think about each of those sadnesses, those griefs. So first think about Deborah, and actually, before you think about Deborah, think about who’s not mentioned – Rebekah, his mom. Remember how close they were? Esau was really Isaac’s favorite, Jacob was Rebekah’s favorite. Rebekah was one the one who said, “You’ve to go up to my brother. You’ve got to get away from here.” And his beloved mom, there’s no record of ever seeing his mom again. Apparently she had already died by the time Jacob returned from Paddan-Aram back to Canaan. There’s no record of a joyful reunion. There’s no memorializing her death, although we’ll read in chapter 49 she does get buried in the special cave of Machpelah, which Abraham bought for Sarah. But in the place actually where you would expect to hear about Rebekah dying, you hear about her nurse Deborah. We don’t know what happened to Rebekah. From Rebekah’s non-mention to Deborah’s death, to then Rachel. There is an irony here. Remember it was Rachel who said, “Jacob, if you do not give me a child, I will die,” and now it’s by the gift of a child that she dies. Her second son. She wants to name him Ben-oni, son of my sorrow. Jacob calls him Benjamin, son of my right hand, that is the place of strength, preeminence, good fortune. But it tells something important. Remember, the original hearers in Moses’ day would have known, “Ah ha, with Benjamin now we have the 12 tribes. The family, the people of Israel, complete with the birth of the 12th son.” So you have the non-mention of Rebekah, you have the death of Deborah, you have the death of Rachel, and then in verse 22 you have the sin with Reuben. Don’t let this pass by too quickly. This is a significant episode. We can easily see the sin was sexual. Reuben should not have laid with his father’s concubine. But the sin was also familial. It’s probably no coincidence that this happens, and is recorded in this way, immediately after Rachel dies. There may have been some jockeying for position. Okay, we all knew that Rachel was the favorite wife. Well, who’s going to be wife preeminent now that Dad’s favorite wife is gone? So it may be quite deliberate that Reuben sleeps with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, because now she’s in a place of defilement as well, and who is going to naturally rise but Leah, of course, who is not coincidentally Reuben’s mother. It’s also probably Reuben asserting his claim as the firstborn, which backfires and leads to the rejection of blessing, we’ll find out later. So the sin was not only sexual, it was familial, and it was also political. He was almost certainly trying to usurp his father’s authority. We see this several times during the united monarchy. Ishbosheth was disturbed when Abner slept with Saul’s concubine Rizpah because he saw that Abner’s act was a move for the throne, 2 Samuel 3. Achitophel urged Absalom to take David’s concubines because that would make clear he was moving in to take over his father’s throne. Solomon interpreted at Adonijah’s request for Abishag, the concubine, in the same way. In other words, we see several times in the life of Saul, David, and Solomon that for a rival to take one of the concubines is not just a sin of sexual adultery and likely sexual aggression, but it was a political move. It was to say, “Ha ha, who is the chief now? Who has the real authority? What kind of man would take his father’s concubine? Well, the man that you want as king.” That’s how fallen sinful men think. But of course it doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work out well for Reuben as the blessing and the benefit of being the firstborn, all of that is going to pass on to his brothers, to Judah in one sense and to Joseph. Not to Reuben, who is trying to usurp his aging father’s authority. So you have Rebekah, Deborah, Reuben, and finally at the end of chapter 35, you have the death of Isaac. Last we left Isaac he was about 100 years old, the last we heard of him. Frail, weak eyesight, over 100 and now he’s lived on a long life. So we’re now many years back into the Promised Land, he’s now 180, a good old man, old, full of days. He’s given an honorable burial. He plays an important role in the unfolding of salvation history. It does appear some reconciliation, you see this in verse 29. Isn’t it the case that sometimes even the most difficult family estrangements can be brought together with a funeral. His sons, Esau and Jacob, buried him. We saw some measure of reconciliation in chapter 33:32. Well, here years later, they both come together for his father’s death. Isaac, given an honorable burial, plays an important role, but remember he also favored Esau. He, like his son would do, often exercised weak leadership. He had a penchant for being ruled by his stomach. So it’s not unlike many of the epithets that will later be given for the kings of Israel and Judah that so-and-so walked in the ways of his father David, yet he did not remove the high places. God looks favorably upon Isaac and he’s honored in his death, and yet he missed some very important things. It’s possible for us, too, it’s possible to live a basically faithful life and yet the Lord to say, “But you missed some things.” Is the glass half full? The glass half empty? Well, all you can do is with the years you have remaining, and that’s why Jacob gives us such an important lesson here, as we think about the closing of Jacob in the center of the story. Jacob’s a lot like us, isn’t he? What have we seen about Jacob? He’s sometimes strong, sometimes stupid; sometimes a very wise leader, sometimes floundering; sometimes walking with God, sometimes off doing his own thing. This is what the patriarchs and the matriarchs in Genesis are like. But here’s the one thing that Jacob gets right, at least by the end he gets right and it’s the most important thing you can get right. He believed. He had faith. He wrestled with the angel for God to bless him. He believed God’s Word and repented and served Him and got rid of the foreign gods, and now he settles in Canaan because he has faith enough to come back to Canaan, and because of that faith, the story continues. I don’t know if this is encouraging or discouraging, but it’s true. Sometimes the chief work we’re going to do in life is just to keep the story of God’s faithfulness continuing to the next generation. Jacob had a lot of problems. He made a lot of mistakes. He sinned in some really big ways, but when it counts most, he comes back to Canaan. Now I said at the outset that we’d at least mention at the end chapter 36. I didn’t read it. It’s a familiar kind of chapter, genealogy, lists of all the kings and all the people that came from Esau. Typical genealogy. These are the generations of Esau. So here’s the toledoth of Esau. He had these kids, this line. So on the one hand very ordinary. And yet, on the other hand, there’s something more going on. Why chapter 36 is between chapter 35 and chapter 37. Esau, you remember, is not the chosen line. That’s Jacob. It doesn’t memorialize his death. Two big sins in Esau’s life. One, he sold his birthright for oatmeal, bad move, and he married foreign wives. Now here it’s not just an ethnic thing, it’s all a spiritual thing, bound up at this point with an ethnic thing. We see it again, verse 2, chapter 36: Isaac [sic] took his wives from the Canaanites. If you were here throughout the Genesis series, you know that at various points for his mother and father, Isaac and Rebekah, it was driving them crazy that he had married the women of the land. He had married Canaanite or Hittite women. These were not, that’s why Rebekah sent Jacob away, not only to run away from Esau’s murderous revenge, but because I want you to get a wife from our family, not from these Canaanite women. So his two sins, where in a moment of greedy desperation selling off his birthright for what could satisfy him now, and then the marrying of these foreign wives. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say his two chief sins were sex and money. Now the porridge, you don’t think of money, but it’s I want something right now and I’ll sell whatever I can get for it. Not unlike our day, the two chief sins are often the very same thing. Sex, money. Esau, notice, though he isn’t the chosen line, he has become a great nation. Look at verse 6 of 36: Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, all the members of his household, his livestock, his beasts, his property, all that he had acquired. He went into a land away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great. Isn’t that like Abraham and Lot when they have to split? We have too many things. Esau goes away. The land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestocks. Esau has prospered. Esau is rich, wealthy. In fact, he has become his own great nation. If we had time to read this, you would notice how many times the author wants to tell us that the person Esau becomes the nation Edom. You see it in verse 1? There is parentheses: That is, Edom. Look at verse 8, end of verse 8: Esau is Edom. Go to verse 19: These are the sons of Esau (that is, Edom). Go to the end to verse 43: These are the chiefs of Edom (that is, Esau, the father of Edom). Obviously, we’re meant to see Esau becomes Edom. This would have been familiar, this is like saying, I can’t use a country, I can’t say Canada, I can’t say, you know, another country, because then we’re Jacob, so but it’s like another country that everyone would have heard of, Edom, ah, that’s where Edom came from. Esau becomes Edom. Esau is a nation. He settles in Seir. Now why is that so significant? Because look at the very end of chapter 36. In fact, chapter 37. Remember the toledoths? The sections? Well, the final toledoth begins in chapter 37, verse 2: “These are the generations of Jacob.” So chapter 37, verse 1 actually goes up with the end of chapter 36. Do you see what 37:1 says? “Jacob lived in the land of his father’s sojourning.” And you have to see the juxtaposition with the end of chapter 36. Esau and the chiefs of Edom, according to their dwelling places, in the land of their possession, possession. It’s actually the same word for possessing or grasping that’s used at the very beginning of the Jacob/Esau stories where Jacob grasps, or possesses, the heel of his brother. End of chapter 36, Esau, great nation, possesses the land in which he lives. Jacob still living in the land of sojourns. Now they have something, but it’s just a handbreadth. And we are meant to see this juxtaposition. Jacob is still a sojourner. Esau has an expanding empire. But lest you think, well, God must be Esau more than with Jacob. No, because Jacob is in the right place. Worldly greatness springs up more quickly than spiritual greatness. It’s easier to build an earthly empire, it’s easier to become great the Esau way, than the Jacob way. Esau’s fruitful, he’s strong, he’s seemingly secure, and the end of the Esau line is meant to raise the question, well, if that’s the non-chosen line, what about the chosen line? And that’s why we’re going to get the story of Joseph and God’s providence over the family of Jacob. Here’s the bottom line. One generation is dying off. It’s very deliberately with chapter 35. Rebekah gone, Deborah gone, Rachel gone, Isaac gone. One generation is moving off. Jacob’s turn at the center of the story is over, but the promise continues. How? Because God’s plan of redemption moves forward. The chosen people are in the chosen land. At the end of our lives, the most important thing that might be said of us, “He lived in the land of Canaan.” Of course, for us it’s not a physical location, but spiritually, “He lived the life of faith.” The most important thing you may ever do is some small act of believing faithfulness that continues the story of God. Just like now for this moment for Jacob, “I brought you here to do this, I’m fulfilling My promises. Now it’s time to move on. I’m going to focus on your family, but Jacob, you dwelt in the land of Canaan. You believed.” We’re coming up to graduation season. Many of you will go to graduations. You’ll hear a commencement address. Lots of focus on the next generation and all the great things you’re going to do and most of the messages our world is interested in is pitched toward the young, the next generation. Sometimes the Church can do that as well and forget what about as our time comes to an end. That may be where some of you are. Well, this is one of those passages for all of us, but in particular for you. If you feel like, “I’ve been to a lot of funerals,” you may think. “I’ve buried a lot of my family and friends and it does seem as if my time at the center of the story is moving on and it’s going to be the generation of my children and grandchildren.” What does God have for you? What does God have left for you to do? Well, He does have work for you left to do. And it is chiefly the work of faith. Do our part, live by faith, pass on a legacy of faith to the next generation. If you leave this earth and your kids and your grandkids know that you loved the Lord Jesus Christ and you prayed for them in Jesus’ name, and you passed on with all your failings, because we all have failings, you passed on to your kids and their kids something of your faith in Jesus, and they saw in you what this generation could see from Jacob, namely that he made mistakes and he repented, and he dealt with it before he died and said, in a manner of speaking, “I’m sorry. I didn’t get to the right place but we’re going to make this right before my time is done.” That may be what God has for you, as the story moves from your generation to the next generation. God is not done with you, and you are not done playing a part in God’s story. For all that Jacob got wrong, he got this right – he believed, and he brought his family to the land of Canaan. If we can do that, we will pass on to the next generation what is truly of first importance. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank You for loving us, and loving our families. We thank You, Jesus, lover of our souls, who despite our many failures and failings, yet when we repent You forgive, and though we are often off track, You never are, and You continue to lead and to love. So we look to You, whether we have many more years and decades in life, or whether our times will be coming to an end. We pray for Your grace and for believing hearts. In Jesus’ name. Amen. When you read Genesis in entirety, you see what a master stroke God is doing, very deliberately, to repeat these stories. They tell us something very important, they tell us Jacob is back on track and just as importantly, they remind us God never left His track. God never got off track. God doesn’t need plan B. God knows what He’s doing. Even when Jacob was off track, God was not. kevindeyoung.com .

NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH October 13, 2019 Original Blessing Dr. Mark Batterson Well, welcome to all seven of our campuses, shout out to our extended family online. This weekend we kick off a new series based on a book. Looks a little something like this and excited book releases next Tuesday, but we got our hands on some black market copies. And so you can grab one at all of our campuses on the way out. It's a gift from Lora and I and I might mention just what a privilege we count it to serve this church to serve you. And I might mention that the book is dedicated to you and so I'm going to put this on the screen; “To those who have generously invested their time, talent, and treasure in National Community Church. Once a shareholder, always a shareholder.” So here's to you, which you give it up for yourselves. [clapping] And here we go if you have a Bible, you can turn all the way back to the book of Genesis and we'll meet there in a minute. In Greek mythology, there is a legend about a labyrinth that was inescapable. Those who entered never exited for within that maze meandered a minotaur, a fearsome creature that was half man, half bull. Every nine years, the evil King of Crete demanded that the Athenian send seven boys and seven girls to be sacrificed to the minotaur. As you might imagine, the Athenians did not take to this tradition well. On the occasion of the third minotaur games. Theseus the Prince of Athens volunteered himself as tribute. When Theseus landed on Crete, the daughter of the Cretin King, Princess Ariadne fell head over ancient heels in love with Theseus. She knew, however, that no one who had ever ventured into the labyrinth had ever found their way out. So she devised a rather ingenious plan. Ariadne gave Theseus a sword with which to slay the minotaur and more importantly a ball of thread. Theseus tied one end to the entrance then he unwound that ball of thread as he meander through that maze. After slaying the minotaur with the sword, Theseus moon walked his way out of that labyrinth. Hold that thought. Life is a labyrinth. It's full of relational twists and occupational turns that we did not see coming. We zig through big decisions. We zag through bad decisions. There are situations we get ourselves into that we do not know how to get ourselves out of and we all encounter some minotaurs along the way. Some of you may work for one; half man, half bull, right? I think weaving our way through difficult seasons of life, it can feel like we are lost in a labyrinth and I think addiction feels this way. I think depression feels this way. I think grief feels this way. But I want you to know this weekend there's a way out. There is a ball of thread but we've got to go all the way back to the beginning to find our way forward. What I want to do this weekend is a little bit of reverse engineering. Genesis chapter one verse 26, I'll put it on the screen. "Then God said, let us make man in our likeness, in our image." Now I want you to notice the plural pronoun; Let us make man in our image. This is collaboration between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them." There is a double emphasis on the image of God because this is double trouble. If we don't understand whose image we are created 1 in. We have a core value at National Community Church that you are invaluable and irreplaceable. It traces all the way back to this ancient truth, to this fundamental fact that you are the image of Almighty God. Now, I know that there are people that you do not like, or is that just me? How do you love people you don't like? And it's usually the people who don't look like us, who don't think like us. We live in a divisive culture. We live in a divisive city. How do we bridge that gap? How do we love people who aren't like us? I think it starts right here. It's recognizing we may not like them, but they are made in the likeness of God himself. This goes so far beyond political affiliation or racial identity or socioeconomic status. You are the image of God. In 'The Weight of Glory" CS Lewis said this, there are no ordinary people. He said, you have never talked to a mere mortal. He said, the dullest, most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which if you saw it now you would be strongly tempted to worship. And I love this comparison point because we'll celebrate communion at all of our campuses this weekend. He said next to the blessing sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. All right, verse 28; we're only 28 verses into act one, we're still at the hospital, in fact, we're in the delivery room. The umbilical court hasn't even been cut. And what does God do? What is the very first thing that God does? I'll put it on the screen. "Then God blessed them..." and I'm going to stop mid sentence and talk about it. I want you to hear what I'm about to say. Before original sin, there was original blessing. That sequence is so significant because if we get the sequence wrong, the entire algorithm is off. Why? Because it changes who we see when we look in the mirror because it alters the way that we relate to God. If we doubt original blessing, we second guessed the goodness of God and we relate to God for all the wrong reasons. Let me interrupt this sermon and talk a little bit about writing. When I write a book, I kinda liken it to hiking into a huge forest, vast, dense, and I call it the writing forest. And so you start writing a chapter and you have a general idea of where you want to go and what you want to say. But you get into the writing forest and you get lost and you don't know how to find your way back out. And so that's why in recent books I started writing shorter chapters. Kid you not, easier to get in and get out, but it's also a little Jedi mind trick. I've learned that the shorter the chapter, the better people think they are as readers. When I wandered into the Double Blessing forest I thought this was a book about the art and science of gratitude and generosity, and it is. I thought it was about flipping the blessing as a way of life, and it is. But let's not miss the forest for the trees. This is a book; this is a series about rediscovering God's heart for you. Blessing is God's most ancient instinct. Blessing is God's first and foremost reflex. Blessing is God's default setting. Now, God won't bless disobedience. God's not gonna bless pride or greed or laziness; he loves us too much to do that. We've got to position ourselves for blessing and we'll talk about some habits of highly blessed people, but here's the big idea. God wants to bless you beyond your ability to ask or imagine. God wants to bless you in categories you can't even conceive of. That's what I'm believing for you. I'm believing this begins a new season of blessings. So let me get theological, then we'll get practical and I think those are the same thing. Okay, spirituality is practicality. 2 In the second century, A D a church father by the name of Irenaeus was a key player in resisting heresy in defining orthodoxy. Irenaeus was the Bishop of Lyons, but he was originally from Smyrna, one of the seven churches that is written to in the book of Revelation. Now, the Bishop of Smyrna was a man by the name of Polycarp and I've talked about him in some books and in some sermons. Polycarp was known as the 12th martyr. When Polycarp was dragged into the Roman Coliseum and told to recant his faith, he said this, 86 years have I served him and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my savior? Then Polycarp according to ear witnesses heard of voice from heaven that said, 'be strong, Polycarp play the man.' Here's the rest of the story. According to church tradition, Polycarp was discipled by the Apostle John himself, and just as John discipled Polycarp, Irenaeus is believed to have been discipled by his pastor, Polycarp. So, Irenaeus was discipled by someone who was discipled by someone who was discipled by Jesus. He is a third generation follower of Christ. I don't think you need to know that historical context, but I think it adds some weight. It was Irenaeus who was the first to allude to this idea of original sin. Now, Augustine in the fourth century expounded on this idea, but he made it much less optimistic and far more deterministic. And then the Protestant reformers, Martin Luther, John Calvin among them, picked up this idea of original sin, took it to the nth degree, and I think that's when original sin overshadowed original blessing. But please hear me, I don't doubt original sin, I have children. But listen to me, children need to know that their blessings first and sinner second, and so do you. If we see ourselves as sinners first and blessing second, I think it creates all kinds of identity issues. I don't doubt the sin nature, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but sin is secondary, blessing is primary. Now why am I making such a big deal about original blessing? Well, in Aristotelian philosophy, there's something called a first principle. It's a basic assumption. It's a foundational truth. Aristotle said, a first principle is the first basis from which a thing is known. So I want you to know first and foremost that you are blessed by God and I'll take it one step further, you are blessed to bless. Let me double back to the beginning. You've got to tie one end of Ariadne's thread to original blessing. Blessing is God's most ancient instinct and that means that blessing is our earliest memory as a human race. This week I spoke at the American Association of Christian Counselors in Nashville. It made me think of one of the best in the business, a man by the name of Alfred Adler. His signature move with new clients was a quintessential question, and you've heard me share this before. He would ask his new clients, what is your earliest memory? Now, no matter how the patient replied, Adler would say, 'and so life is.' Adler believed that our earliest memories leave a profound imprint on the soul and I think he's right. Now, imagine Adler asking Adam that question; lots of unforgettable moments and memories from roaming the garden to naming the animals to rib surgery, but none of those represent his earliest memory. Adam says to Adler, my first memory is being blessed by God. Blessing sets the tone. Blessing sets the table. Blessing establishes the emotional baseline and spiritual trend line of Adam's entire existence. Yes, sin enters the equation. Dysfunction, pain, imperfection come into play, but none of that changes the fact that we are the image of all mighty God and that we are blessed by God himself. 3 Okay, stick with me. Blessing is our earliest memory and that's why I believe blessing is our deepest longing. There is a longing within each one of us to be blessed, to be celebrated for who we are, to be accepted for who we're not, to be loved with no agenda, no strings attached, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You are loved as is. Did you hear me? This is not based on anything you've done or not done, you are loved because of who you are, but more important because of whose you are, you are the image of God. You are God's workmanship. You are the apple of God's eye. I've met people who have accomplished so much. They've done more, made more, experienced more than I could probably imagine in several lifetimes, people who are so gifted, so successful, and yet some of them so insecure and so lonely. In fact, I think that they would trade everything they've accomplished for their mother's love or their father's pride. They never got a blessing and it leaves a gap, and this instinct is as old as Esau, Jacob steals the birthright, steals the blessing. It's one of the saddest scenes in scripture. You have to almost read it with a quivering voice because Esau says, have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, even also. Oh my father and Esau could not control his voice and wept aloud. What happens when you don't live from a place of original blessing? I think verse 41 happens. Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. So many of our emotional issues, our greed, our lust, our anger, our pride, our jealousy they come from this place of woundedness, this place of emptiness and it's something that only God's blessing can heal, that only God's blessing can make whole. Your family of origin may have felt like more of a curse than a blessing. Sometimes that makes it really hard to believe that blessing is God's most ancient instinct. Let me make it personal. I can't not love my kids. It doesn't depend on the day of the week. It doesn't depend on how they're doing. It's not contingent upon their accomplishments. It's not compromised by the mistakes they make. There is nothing that can change my default setting as an earthly father. I can't not love my kids. When our kids were very young, single digits we were vacationing in Deep Creek, Maryland, and we're staying at this house in the woods and it was a little scary at night. Okay, a lot scary at night, pitch black. So one night we're in the hot tub on the back porch and I'm having one of those moments that sometimes as parents you have where you are just so overwhelmed with how much you love your children. And I turned to my kids and I said, kids, if a bear came out of these woods, I would die for you. Things not to say to young children. Our kids jumped out of the hot tub, ran into the house screaming where Lora comforted them, thankfully. I can't not love my kids. In his letter to the Romans, Paul said it this way. "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." In his letter to the Corinthians, he said, "these three remain, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest, these is love". Love is the first principle. Love is the default setting. Love is our fallback position. Let me take a minute, talk about what blessing is, what blessing is not then we'll land this plane. If you're taking notes; Number one, blessing is not good luck. It is not winning the lottery. In the 4 words of the notorious BIG, "mo, money, (congregation responded 'mo problems). Thank you. God doesn't bless us to raise our standard of living; God blesses us to raise our standard of giving. If all we do is raise our standard of living, the blessing backfires and becomes a curse. Your greatest asset becomes your greatest liability if you don't use it for God's glory. That's the lesson of the rich young ruler. Two, blessing is not health, wealth and prosperity. Now those things can be a byproduct of God's blessing, but we devalue the blessing of God when we think of it in material terms. It's not an exotic vacation with hashtag blessed beneath the picture. It is not a hashtag blessed bumper sticker on an expensive car. The blessing of God is things you can't put a price tag on. It's joy unspeakable. It's peace that passes understanding. It's knowing that your past mistakes do not define you because your sin is forgiven and forgotten. It's not knowing what the future holds. It's knowing who holds the future and the fact that he is preparing good works in advance for us. So let me jump the gun and tell you what the blessing is. The blessing is right relationship with the One in whose image we are created. It is God with us. It is God for us. It is God in us. I'll add one more to the mix. Number three, blessing is not zero gravity. In other words, blessing is not no problems, that's impossible. Jesus said in this world, you will have trouble. Now gratefully it doesn't end there, right? Take heart, I have overcome the world. But everyone walks through the valley of the shadow of death. You will grieve. You will get hurt. In fact, the more you love, the more it hurts. Life is not fair, but God is good and his grace is sufficient. Carl Young made a striking observation about how people are and are not healed. I want you to dial in right here. He said, all the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble. Well, that's depressing, but he doesn't stop there. Carl Young says this about our problems. He says they can never be solved, they can only be outgrown. That is so true and it's so hard and so true. The circumstances, you want God to change maybe the very circumstances that God is using to change you. And what you perceived to be a curse, I don't think we know enough to make that evaluation up front ‘cause sometimes it's a blessing in disguise. Sometimes it's the catalyst for spiritual and emotional and relational growth. I mean what makes us think that we can become like Jesus without being betrayed by Judas or denied by Peter or tempted by the enemy himself. This is not an immunity card. Sometimes you have to hit bottom in order to bounce. I'll make one last observation. The blessings of God will complicate your life. Now listen, sin will complicate your life in a way that it should not be complicated, but the blessings of God it will complicate your life in a way that it should be complicated. The reward in the parable of the talents is not an early retirement or extra vacation time. The reward for good work is mo' work, right? Let me complicate. Well done, good and faithful servant, let me complicate your life. When Lora and I got married, it complicated her life. Listen, praise God for 27 years of complications. We have three complications, we named them Parker, Summer and Josiah, I can't imagine my life without those complications. When we made the decision to go multisite as a church, it complicated our org chart. When I started writing books, it complicated my calendar. But I dare say that those complications have been the catalyst for growth in my life. You know why? You need to build relationship with someone who is not like you because it will complicate 5 your life and that's how you grow. You know why you need to go on a mission trip? Because it will complicate your calendar, it will complicate your budget, but that's how we grow. Why do you need to plug into a small group or plug in it will complicate your Sunday morning and your Wednesday night? Why do we need to do this? Because these things are the catalyst for growth and the byproduct of God's blessing. Let me close with this. At the end of his earthly life, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. It was a celebration of course, of Israel's exodus out of Egypt. It was a sacred celebration, but there is a plot twist in the Gospels. Jesus redefines what it means. It says he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it. Then he said something that made no sense until about 24 hours later. He said, this is my body, and then after supper he took the cup and said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. That same night, Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples for 30 pieces of silver. Don't know this for sure, but probably sanctuary shekels because he was paid off by the high priest. It's not an easy calculation, but in today's currency, the shekels would be worth about 72 cents apiece. Judas betrayed Jesus for a 20 spot. Let me flip that ancient coin. Jesus might've been worth $21 and 60 cents to Judas. Judas was worth the cross, the Christ. It's where self-worth comes from. It's where wholly confidence comes from. It's about what Christ was willing to do so that we could experience his blessing. This weekend we celebrate communion at all of our campuses. In fact, we will every week during this series, and I'm going to tell you why. I think communion is a pilgrimage back to the foot of the cross. Now maybe you're dealing with the curse of criticism or the curse of mistakes you've made or maybe the curse of trauma inflicted on your life. Listen, the cross is the place where the curse is broken. The cross is the place where sin is forgiven. The cross is the place where chains are broken, where the blessing is bestow. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians called the communion cup, are you ready for this, the cup of blessing. If one end of Ariadne's thread is tied to original blessing, I think the other end is tied to the communion table; it is tied to the cup of blessing. So I want to invite our ushers to comment all of our campuses. We're going to distribute the bread and the cup in just a minute, but I want to do two things. First, maybe you're here this weekend and you have never celebrated communion before. This is an open invitation. Now, I think it's important to understand what the bread and the cup represent, but I can't think of a better way to take the first step or next step in your personal journey than to celebrate communion. You might even want to keep that little cup as a little memento of a pretty big step. Now the second thing I want to encourage us to do is to examine ourselves. The apostle Paul, First Corinthians 12:28 says, "everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat the bread and drink the cup". Now, the amplified version says thoroughly examine. A couple of weeks ago, our team took our planning retreat, annual planning retreat, and we did some SWAT analysis. Now if you're in business, very familiar with this, right? In fact, I'm going to put it up on the screen and this is identifying internal strengths and weaknesses and then external opportunities and threats. 6 I think this might be a helpful way for us to approach communion this weekend. What if we did a little SWAT analysis of ourselves? I'm less concerned about some of those external things. Well, what have we made sure that in those first couple of quadrants that we're doing a little bit of self examination? We tend to think of confession in negative terms and I get that. Certainly need to confess what's wrong. First, John 1:8 & 9, "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". So confession is the way that we reset spiritually, but it's not just resetting what's wrong, I think it's celebrating what's right. Romans 10:9 & 10, "if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved". That is a confession of faith. I want us to do both of those things as we prepare to celebrate communion. Not long ago, our worship team wrote a song titled 'Confession'. It'll be on the album that we record next year. I love this song, I can't stop listening to it, and so our teams are going to come and lead us in that song. After we do a little bit of examination, a little bit of confession, you can hang on to the bread and the cup our campus pastors are to come at all of our campuses and they will lead us in communion. But I want us to prepare our hearts to drink the cup of blessing. Lord, right now, would you meet us right here, right now and God, would you speak to each one of us? Lord, thank you that your blessings are as unique as our fingerprint and so is your mercy and so is your grace. God, I pray that you would reveal your heart towards us in these moments just like you did on the cross so long ago. And so right now we make a beeline to the cross. We kneel at the foot of that cross and we drink the cup of blessing because of what you accomplish for us. In Jesus name. Amen. God wants to bless you beyond your ability to ask or imagine! The very first thing God does, after creating us in His image, is to bless us. Blessing is God’s most ancient instinct. Of course, God doesn’t bless us to raise our standard of living. God blesses us to raise our standard of giving. Simply put, we are blessed to bless! In fact, the way we get the blessing is by giving it away. That’s what Double Blessing is all about, and it’s the heartbeat of this church. www.theaterchurch.com.

Right in My Own Eyes: Gideon Judges 6 G: Story of the power of feeling God with me. J: Right in My Own Eyes series. Deborah, Barak, and Jael: could see that God was with them. Every judge from here on out: the flaws get worse. We meet Gideon today: he has significant flaws, but at the core is not having the eyes to see that God is with him. When we know God is with us, our lives change. G: Jdgs 6:1-6: The devastating consequences of rejecting God. Israelites: hiding like animals in caves. Midianites and Amalekites: like animals as well, would come like locusts and devour with wave after wave of pillage and destruction. Plant and not eat! Serious curse. They cry out for God: the key! God, be with us! J: God sends a prophet to remind his people who he is and what he has done and calls them to repent of rejecting him. Covid. Can you still see God? Jdgs 6:11-12: A threshing floor: a large hard area made out of stones that is in the open air. Separate grain from chaff (lighter) with wind. Winepress: small, narrow trough-like structure built into the ground. Worthless for threshing. No wind. Small of grain being threshed. Nearly inedible grain b/c mixed with chaff. Pathetic and hilarious: Gideon, fearful, soaked in sweat, covered in chaff, the angel of the Lord checking him out from under the oak. Personal story: belief of weakness. “I’m weak.” Lifting in Jr. High. G: Jdgs 6:13: The Lord has forsaken you?? Where do we misattribute God’s discipline for him failing us? Prosperity gospel: God is with me when things are good. Jdgs 6:14: Go! I am sending you! I am with you! J: Jdgs 6:15-16: Like Moses. But I will be with you! He asks for a sign… The Lord consumes the offering. We think we need a sign when we need God’s Word. We want God to write in the sky for us and he has already written to us. Gideon gets this right! G: Jdgs 6:22-24: God is with him. God brings peace in turmoil. Huge for Gideon: he gets it! God is with me and God is peace! A mustard seed of trust. Personal story. J: Jdgs 6:25-27: God being with us means that we have to cut out every other crutch. Still walking in fear. Gideon means “cutter” or “hacker.” Gideon’s name is played off of several times in the text. Baal: a bull god. Bulls used to tear it down. Then sacrificed on top of the altar. Mockery. What bulls does God want to tear down and then sacrifice in your own life? Gideon gets this right! Idols exist so we can rationalize our sin. The world: don’t worry about it. Leave them up. How are you leaving up altars? Personal story: halfway measures. G: Jdgs 6:28-29: They weren’t angry when Gideon built an altar to the Lord. They were angry when Gideon tore down their altars. Okay, fine, God is with me… as long as I can keep my other gods. No, God is with us alone. The idols of our hearts are okay with us worshiping Jesus, so long as it doesn’t threaten their existence (political, sexual, financial, comfort, etc). J: Application 1. Know that God promises he is with you. Matt 28:20 “I am with you always…” Hear it. Read it. Believe it. Remind yourself of it. Feel it. Where are you threshing wheat in a winepress and God is saying, “I am with you.” John Wesley’s death bed: losing voice and energy. “The best of all is, God is with us!” 1/23/21 Right in My Own Eyes: Gideon Judges 6 G: God is with you. Jesus. The Spirit. 2. God demands that we eradicate other gods in our lives. Where are there strongholds? What is in your life that is helping you rationalize away your sin? What the areas you are most sensitive to criticism? What do you fight to hold onto? Greed, addiction, comfort, respect, lust, power? J: Communion: bread. Reflect and repent. G: Communion: cup. 1/23/21 Judges is a book concluding with the words, Judges 21:25 : “In those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” Gideon was an unlikely hero that God chose to use to conquer Israel’s enemies. Sermon begins at 35:00 minutes. www.newlifetucson.com .

I write about politics very little, so this is rare for me. I read everything from Drudge Report on the right to Huffington Post on the left daily and almost too obsessively. So it isn’t that I’m uninformed. I just don’t think, at the end of the day, that any politician will save America. At least not in the ways we really need saving. I’ve never endorsed a candidate, and I’m not starting now. This isn’t a post about a single candidate. Rather, I wanted to address our general lack of thinking biblically or Christian-ly when it comes to political races. As a Pastor, I believe I represent a community wide open to people from every political persuasion. Jesus included both the zealots who hated Rome and the tax-collectors who worked for Rome among his disciples. In my church are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and members of the Independent Citizens Movement. They’re all my friends. I can get along with liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and even vegetarians. In addition to being a Pastor, I’m also a private citizen of this great nation. And I’m a pretty patriotic one. My grandfather was a World War II veteran. I was raised in the Reagan generation and thankful for it. As a matter of disclosure, I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I am registered Independent. I typically think conservatively about fiscal and trade issues as well as social and cultural issues, but I’m also easily annoyed by the vitriolic rhetoric heard on the airwaves leveled at people on the other side. At the end of the day, fear and anger lead to hate, which always leads to the dark side. I’ve had an itch to weigh in on so much that is happening right now, but I can’t seem to pull the trigger. Maybe it’s fear that people will respond negatively or hatefully. Maybe it’s an attempt to try to remain distant from the battle lines. And maybe it’s that I’ve grown weary of people saying things in Facebook comments without civility that they would never say to me as a friend over coffee. But here I go. As a pastor, a follower of Jesus, and as a proud American, here are some rapid-fire thoughts on being Christian in an election year… 1. God is in charge. He is God and Creator. Because God is loving, he allows us to act like idiots and tyrants. Because He is holy, he’s in a class apart from every world power. Because He is just, justice will prevail eternally even if it seems lacking now. Because He is loving, God will redeem anyone who clings to Jesus, regardless of political persuasion. Because God is in charge, willing to redeem us, and determined to balance the scales of justice for eternity, we have nothing to worry about. 2. Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world. Human depravity manifests itself most in how we abuse sex, money, and power. The Kingdom of Christ is one in which our use of sex, money, and power is submitted to his authority and governed by his holy and loving character. I don’t see much reflection of his Kingdom in any political race. Thankfully, God’s Kingdom comes in subversive ways throughout our culture rather than on top of people. 3. Government has its place. Without it, we’d live in a rather violent anarchy with no protection at all for our rights or our property. With too much of it, we’d live under tyranny with rights or property. The very best governments are of the people, by the people, and for the people so as to protect the God-given, unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Good government should have good, fair laws, protect its citizenry, punish crime appropriately, and fund its operation with some system of taxes. And believers should submit to, pray for, and pay taxes to the governing authorities for the good and peacefulness of the community as a whole. 4. The church has its role. History has proven that marriages between the church and the state simply don’t last. And in the inevitable divorce between the two, the church always comes out the loser while the state walks away with the bank. I appreciate the contributions of such Anabaptist thinkers as Balthasar Hubmaier who warned us about the danger of a church-state marriage. And I also appreciate the terminology of Adrian Rogers who said that the church should be the conscience of the state. As an American who believes in the First Amendment, I think pastors and churches should be free to speak to every area of cultural life including politics and candidates. As a Pastor, however, I think churches would be foolish to hitch their wagons to any politician. It’s the nature of the political beast. 5. Character matters. Politics is and should be a tough subject for Jesus followers to consider. Being a successful politician essentially requires making enough people happy to get elected, and it’s a realm in which virtue is essentially flipped. The fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – take a back seat to other election-winning traits such as hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, and division. Galatians 5 makes it clear that the first list can only be produced by the indwelling Holy Spirit while the second is the product of our humanity, devoid of God’s presence and influence. Personal character matters. Virtue matters. What makes great leaders great in our communities, schools, and churches should be sought in those who lead our national government as well. Here’s a gut-honest thought… Electing a President with character, integrity, and compassion matters more than electing a President who just seems powerful, or just seems as though he’ll make us all richer or more comfortable. There are things that matter more than the economy. 6. People matter. The hurting, the poor, the disadvantaged and disenfranchised matter. We could argue all day about which creates more upward mobility – government-sponsored welfare or free enterprise. But what I crave is a voice of compassion and decency. I long to see government stand for the rights of the most disadvantaged among us, the poorest, the smallest, the oldest and youngest, including the right of unborn persons to life. It’s not enough to win. It’s not enough to be great in comparison to other nations. We should expect more. We aren’t a perfect nation. We don’t have a perfect constitution. Capitalism isn’t a perfect system. But I still believe that we live in a great nation, with a great constitution that must be honored and protected. And as Churchill said (while quoting an original, unnamed source)… Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.… I’m praying for our leaders, the candidates, and our nation as a whole. But more than any of that, I’m asking God to keep on saving and redeeming sinners into his family for his eternal good pleasure and glory! And I’m hoping that, even if you disagree with most of what I’ve just said, I can still be a friend, and serve you any way I can. www.brandoncox.com. Used by permission of the author.

The Grass is Greener: Trials James 1:1-4 Are you very happy? that question was asked to American and 31% said they’re very happy. That same question was asked to Americans this June and fewer than half said they’re very happy. Only 14% of Americans said they’re “very happy.”i Americans are less optimistic about their future than they were in 2018 and lonelier. We all want to be very happy, don’t we? How can we get there? It’s by finding greener grass. Our resolution to happiness is almost getting rid of difficulties in our lives. We look at our trials and we want them gone. We consider what would make our lives better and we say, “if only I had…” Where do you look over the fence and see greener grass? Marriage? Job? Health? Kids back at school full time? The President you’re hoping for get elected? Joy is fleeting. COVID-19 has felt like a joy-robber this year. We feel like trials threaten our happiness. What would it take for you to be joy-filled and to have gratitude? We answer: if I got that job. If that person fell in love with me. If my kids were okay. When 2020 is over. Paul in Philippians 4: 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. What is that secret??? Today we begin a series entitled The Grass is Greener and we will walk through James 1 and hear how James interacts with our struggle for contentment. James has a word for us. He says, “Count it all joy, my brothers,[b] when you meet trials of various kinds.” How can he say that? He counts trials themselves as a joy. Let’s dive in. 1 James, a servant[a] of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is writing this? James, the half-brother of Jesus and leader of the church at Jerusalem. He could have dropped that authority, but instead, he inserts Jesus as the authority. How does he refer to himself. A servant. He knows whose he is. A testament to Jesus that his brother would follow him! His brother is Lord and Messiah. To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Recalling Israel’s dispersion. James takes this and speaks now of the church’s dispersion. He is likely writing those who used to be in his church, but were dispersed by persecution. He has a connection with his listeners. Testing of Your Faith 2 Count it all joy, my brothers,[b] when you meet trials of various kinds, What in the world! What kind of advice is this? We don’t know exactly what kind of trials his audience was experiencing, but we know that at least in their history they had experienced persecution. It’s interesting: trials is the same word as temptations. Didn’t we just pray last week, “lead us not into temptation?” Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5:11-12 11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Trials: 1) persecution; 2) hardships; 3) temptations (!) 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. James says that the result of our trials is that, when we walk through them with Christ, we grow in steadfastness. This feels like a let down. The whole purpose of my trials is steadfastness? James has the audacity to say that the character trait of steadfastness is more important than the trials we are in. Do we actually believe that? Do we believe our character is more important than our circumstances. We believe it about others, don’t we? We even know it about ourselves in retrospect. But do we believe it about ourselves today? Think about how your character has been formed. How did you become tenacious? How did you become gritty? By facing obstacles. Grit by Angela Duckworth. The most important trait for success is grit. “Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” "To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight." It's not surprising that both Paul and the author of Hebrews talk about the Christian life as a race. In Hebrews 12:1, it says, “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Not, let us run with speed, but endurance! Eliud Kipchoge: fastest maraonther. Under two hours! 115 pounds. 100 meter record holder (also 200 meter). 9.58 seconds. Usain Bolt: 207 pounds. Pacing as a long-distance swimmer. Jumping from 50 yards to 500. The worst: pacers: time keeps getting shaved off. How to swim hard for a long time. Lungs have to develop. Muscles have to develop. Researchers know that we learn “ten times more in a crisis than during normal times.” Geoff Colvin. We grow as we do hard things. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. What is the full effect of steadfastness? That we lack nothing. When we are discontent, we think that we lack something. “If only I had…” James tells us that when we are shaped through trials we come to understand that we lack nothing! 1 Peter 1:6-7 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 2020 is a test. Just like every day is a test. Do we have the ability to put our eyes up to Christ and to look at what he is doing in our hearts? Gold: impurities rise to the surface and can be strained off. 24 karat gold is pure gold. It’s also the most malleable. The more you refine gold, the more malleable it becomes. Love Tucson: let’s let steadfastness have its full effect on us. Thanksgiving: retailers jump straight from Halloween to Christmas because Thanksgiving cuts the legs out from the fuel of the economy: discontentment. Tortoises on turf. Romans 5:2b-5 2 …we[c] rejoice[d] in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ihttps:// www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/americans-are-unhappiest-they-ve-been-50-years-poll-finds-n1231153 James tells us that we can find joy in suffering because it causes us to be conformed to the image of Jesus. www.newlifebiblefellowship.org