But if you have a copy of the scriptures, we're going to be in James chapter 5 this week, the last chapter of the Book of James. And he brings up the subject of prayer. He kind of ends as he began. He began by talking about prayer, and he ends the same way. And we're going to look at some verses that powerfully help us have a picture in mind as we use this gift that God's given to us called prayer. He says in chapter 5, verse 13, and I'm calling this message, "Honest to God", "Honest to God". He says, "Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops". This past week, we were trying to solve a mystery. And it's always, the journey of being a parent to figure the mystery of who broke what, who damaged what, where's that smell coming from? I'm just talking about stuff that's gone on in our house in the past few days. But we have this plant. My wife calls plants, happy plants. She feels happier when there's plants around. I think, there's probably good reasons for that. You know, being around green things that are growing oxygen. They're giving out, you're giving them your exhaled air. So it's kind of a nice symbiotic relationship. But this happy plant, we noticed was not so happy because a big branch of it had been broken off and that all the fragments were lying there. The evidence was not even hid. It was just like someone had walked by and like with vengeance just snapped off a leaf and just torn it in half and then it was just lying there. And we're like who did that? And of course, no one wants to admit to such a senseless crime. And we knew it's fresh because, you know, if it was a couple of days, those things would wither down. But no, it was like just moments ago this was happy and living and vibrant. And now it's just there. It's not flourishing anymore, y'all. And so you know the most likely perpetrator of said heist is of course our three-year old, who does not want to wear a mask on an airplane or ever. And so we said, I said Lennox, did you, did you tear the leaf off mommy's happy plant? And he looked at me, and was real cautious, real thoughtful, And he said, Dad, the thing is... And I'm like, the the thing, like if your sentence starts with the thing is... you are guilty, right? And I'm like how does this three-year-old know how to say, the thing is. And then I realized he was just saying that so he could stall while he could think about what to do next. I could actually see the wheels spinning in his little mind of like, I don't know what to say. I'm guilty as charged. I don't want to admit it. I don't want to fess up. I just need I need time to come up with an alibi. So he goes, Dad, the thing is, and then he was just silent. We're like, yes, did you fall asleep? Did you power down. He goes, Clover did it. So I said, let's get Clover down here. And we assumed, like I just figured the moment I get Clover down, I'm going to go over, did you tear mom's plant, Clover? And she's going to go, no Dad, I did not do that. And then we're going to be able to just talk to Lennox about lying and have that conversation with a wooden spoon. And so we get Clover. Clover, get down here. And she's like, am I in trouble? No, you're not in trouble. Did you break that plant? Like I just assumed she'd immediately go, no, I didn't do that. And she goes, I don't remember. I'm like, don't remember. You would remember if you were there or not there. And then, now I'm just like I don't know which reaction I think is more amusing. We can't discipline anybody. We never did get to the bottom of it. It's a mystery to this day. But honesty with the parent comes up in the home. And here in James, we're told not just as parents to think about the honesty that we're hopefully getting from our kids, but to think of ourselves as kids and be the ones giving honesty to our parent. That's what he's saying. And I think that's a better image to have in mind when we think about prayer, because I think we can overthink prayer. And we can over pressure prayer. And when we simplify it down to just the common denominator, we're kids who want to talk to our Father. We have a Father who wants to hear from us. And that's what Jesus said. You see, in His day, prayer was so messed up and so official and so formal and so funky that people had built all this on it, all these systems, tradition, repetition. And prayer became something it was never meant to be. And so when his disciples who watched Jesus pray, now it should tell you something that the only thing the disciples of Jesus ever asked him to teach them to do was how to pray. He preached them epic sermons. But you never hear them go, teach us to preach a sermon. He did some amazing miracles. But we don't ever hear about them going like, teach us how you did that miracle. You see the thing that stood out to them as being the most noteworthy, the most different, the most shocking, the most disruptive was the way they watched Him pray. He would get away early. He would get away often. And so one day they said, could you teach us to do that, because what you do is not how we have prayer in our heads? And He said, oh, it's chillier than you think it is. Don't pray using a ton of words thinking you're going impress God with your vocabulary. Don't pray, you know, babbling on. He said, when you pray just say, dad, in heaven, you're awesome. Your name is wonderful. I want your will to be done. I want your reign to be done in me on Earth as it is in heaven. Dad, I need stuff today like food and other things, could you provide it for me? And Father, I don't want to do wrong things, but I often do so. Could you please lead me in a way that doesn't steer me into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one who I'm scared of and afraid of? And at the end of the day, Father, what I want more than anything is that you would be made famous, you would receive glory, and that your rule would be established forever. So could that be what happens? And the disciples were dumbfounded by how normal prayer was, by how accessible that was, by how simple, by how they had complicated something that was meant to be beautiful, something that was meant to be natural. Every child knows how to raise up his hands and say, Dad, how to say Mom. It is intuitive in the essence of a child to cry out for the provision and protection and comfort of the parent. And Jesus said, that's what prayer is meant to be for us. And James today in these verses helps us to see the importance and the power and the raw energy that flows through God's followers, the followers of Jesus when we don't neglect or abuse, but we rather pay attention to this powerful tool that we've been given that's called prayer. And there's really two things that run through these verses that are sort of a common denominator. And the two themes that run through it concurrently are health, vitality, being healthy, and having a healthy prayer life. And what I want to show you is that these two things are actually one. They can't be disconnected, that you actually do become healthier as you pray. That's what James is talking about. You see it come up again, like this person could be well. If they're sick, they could be well. If someone's got this, you pray for him. He's presenting prayer as the means by which we walk in wellness. Now it's interesting because the Bible is not the only place you could turn to to discover this. I have a friend named Ben Stewart. And he turned me on... So shout out Ben and Donna and all those at Passion City DC, leading the charge in our nation's capital, building a vibrant, dynamic church on the part of the Passion City House. But Ben turned me on to an article that ran a few years back in the Huffington Post. And the title of this article, the headline of this article was, and I quote, "Why People Who Pray Are Healthier Than Those Who Don't". I could have taken that as the title of my message. And I'm going to just read to you an excerpt from this article, it says, quote, "There is a connection between body and soul and heart and health. The relationship between prayer and health has been the subject of scores of double-blind studies over the past four decades". And then it presented a number of them. For instance, a study done at Dartmouth Medical School found that patients with strong religious beliefs who underwent elective heart surgeries were three times more likely to recover than those who were less religious. The National Institutes of Health funded a study that was done that found that individuals who prayed daily were 40% less likely to have high blood pressure than those who did not pray at all. A study done at Harvard discovered that there is something triggered inside the human body called the relaxation response, which occurs during periods of prayer and meditation. The body’s metabolism decreases. The heart rate slows down. Blood pressure goes down. And your breath even becomes calmer and more regular. Now you could hear that and a little bit skeptically think, oh, that it's a placebo. That all makes sense. We long have known if you've slow down your breathing and come to a more calm state like you would while you're praying that you're going to, of course, find positive benefits to it. But you would say the same can be done doing yoga or any other sort of meditation. Well, the next study they pointed to was one conducted at Bowling Green State University, where they had a group of people self identify as suffering from migraines. And they took one group of the people and they didn't know what they were a part of and they were asked to spend 20 minutes every single day repeating a spiritual affirmation like God is good or God is my peace or God is love, kind of the thing you would say during prayer. And those people were in that group. The other group was a non-spiritual group and they were told to just mutter something like grass is green and sand is soft while they were trying to calm themselves down. They were both spending 20 minutes sort of meditating. But one was doing so giving themselves over to what we would call prayer and the other group was just sort of just chanting a mindless mantra. And what they found, this is so amazing, the spiritual meditators at the end of it reported fewer headaches and more tolerance of pain than those who were just simply given a benign neutral phrase. So James says, hey, you want to be well, don't forget to pray. You need to use this gift of prayer. And so what we're going to discover as we go through these verses with the minutes that remain is that there are sort of seven keys to a powerful prayer life. And I hope you'll jot these down. We need to understand, to utilize prayer in the right way. Now in saying all of that, that's not to suggest that you then have to put pressure on prayer. You need to do it the right way. But what I am saying is that there are keys that can unlock prayer and can make it more powerful in our lives. And that's what James says. And you know, I would even just say, why should we listen to James on this subject? Don't forget if you were with us week 1, "Call of the Wild" kick off, we said James had a couple of nicknames. And one of those nicknames was old camel knees. He had like built in knee pads because he spent so much time praying. So he well knew how powerful prayer could become. And no doubt it was a journey in his life. And so it can be for you and for me. So seven keys, we need the keys. We're looking for the keys. We've got to find the keys. Let's discover the keys. So let's go back. What are we looking for? The keys to prayer. Everything comes with keys. To open doors, you've got to have keys. And James is going to give us some keys to open up ourselves to a powerful prayer life. Why? Because we're going to discover where our prayer life is healthy, we will be healthy in every other way as well, all right. Key number one authenticity. Jot that down. You're going to collect all seven keys. Authenticity. I'm talking about transparency or being vulnerable. This is as opposed to facade. This is as opposed to pretending you have everything together. This is where you're being honest and authentic in prayer. And that's why he starts out right away. Are you in trouble? Man, have you thought about praying about it? And when you pray in trouble, what should you talk to God about? The thing that's troubling you. You should cast your care on him. Cast your burden on him. Bring your anxiety to him. You dealing with lust today? Tell God about it. Tell God, I'm tempted. I shouldn't be looking at these images. I shouldn't be watching these movies. God, I'm tempted. I'm having this problem. This is a difficulty, even just speaking those words gives you power. The enemy wants to always smother you in secrecy, keep you silent in the dark so we can snuff you out making you feel just completely alone. But when you're honest to God, it casts light, it brings light on things and nothing sanitizes like sunlight. I'm telling you. Nothing healthy grows in the dark. And when you just tell God honestly about it, there's a power in that. So tell God about your troubles. Here's the great thing about walking with Jesus. We have an anchor for every storm. And I'm convinced that when we tell God what we're afraid of about, when we tell God what's going on, it's sort of like throwing that anchor into the water. The anchor is not going to do you any good in the boat. But when you throw it overboard, when you let it go down to the bottom of the sea, it's able to pull you taut in the midst of that storm. So right there in the mist of it, I'm afraid. I'm feeling hopeless. Are you in trouble? Be authentic as you pray. Tell God. Don't put a nice face on an ugly thing. Tell God, I'm losing my mind here. I feel like I'm on my last nerve here. I feel like I'm being torn in 1,000 pieces here. Some of my most vulnerable moments of prayer were walks where I just literally told God, I don't think I can do this. This is more than I can bear. But in doing that, I was acknowledging I was coming to the end of myself. And then I found out I hadn't even come to the beginning of God's resources, and it tapped me into his strength and gave me a new breath and gave me enough to go another round. So if you're in trouble, be authentic. Tell God all about it. He already knows. But he wants to hear you say it. Then he says, is anybody having a great day? Is anybody celebrating? Is anybody just crushing it in life? Is anybody like feeling awesome? Praise God for it. So here's the thing. Your prayer should match the situation. If you're doing good and if everything's rosy, don't forget to pray. I think we would often remember. I think the statistic is something like 83% of Americans say that when there's some sort of sickness in their life, they pray about it in some way or another. But I think we oftentimes forget to offer the same kind of prayer on good days. But praise or worship is just a prayer set to music. So what should we be doing? We should sing songs that are cheerful, sing songs of triumph, give God glory for the fact that things are going well. It's easy to let the gas off spiritually in times of blessing. But in those moments, we should return that praise to God, and sort of like be laying up praise for the next trial or difficulty that's going to come. The point is be authentic. There's this little city in Montana where we're broadcasting this from and it's called Big Fork. And the nickname of the city is that it is a city for all seasons, for all seasons. Now a funny thing about that is that there is no city near us that has such wicked shoulder seasons like this city. It seems like it really comes to life in summer. And then it's a pretty sleepy place the rest of the season. So it's funny to me that out of out of all the seasons, out of all the seasons, it's the city for all seasons, even though it's pretty well a one season city. Don't send me hate mail from Big Fork, all right, I don't want it, or Ferndale or any of the other little outlying places in Big Fork. these people are crazy, all right. But the cool thing about prayer is that prayer really is something for all seasons. Are you in summer? Are you in winter? In fall? Are you in spring? There is a way to express all of that in prayer. So be authentic. James points to Elijah as a sort of the... and we'll kind of come back to him a few times. Elijah is sort of the demonstration of what prayer looks like. I love that when we look to Elijah, we don't see perfectly put together prayer. There is some raw prayers up in a Elijah's life. James is like, man, that guy prayed in the didn't rain, prayed and it didn't rain. It's like, ah, that's intimidating. You know what I'm saying, like to hold myself up to prayer like that. But the cool thing is James goes, don't worry, Elijah was human like you are, human like I am. He was human. He was frail. He was broken. He just did a really good job of giving God that brokenness, of giving God his humanity. I brought two examples. This is a really funny one to me. 1 Kings 19, verse 4. This is after one of the best ministry days of his life. "He himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And then he prayed that he might die, and said, 'it is enough, Lord, just take my life for I am no better than my fathers'" I can relate to this so much. Someone asked me how it feels like if I have an off weekend, if I didn't feel like I preached good, like is that hard to get over? And I'm like actually, no, it's awesome because there's nowhere to go but up. You know, what I'm saying? Like, that's not... The hardest Mondays for me are the time I feel like it was an amazing weekend. It just flowed and God showed up. It was powerful. Sometimes those are the most challenging Sunday nights, the most difficult Mondays where I just feel like, how we're going to do that again. And it's just kind of like sometimes in the moments of blessing, there's just difficulty. And Elijah sort of had that a high high, but then it was like bang, low low. And he wasn't prepared for that. He wasn't he wasn't ready for it. And he just got to this low place. And so what did he do? He went to God. God, I feel like I can't do this anymore. I feel like I've peaked. I feel like how do I top that? I feel like I can't go on. I'm no better than my fathers. And he authentically, this is the person held up as the image of what powerful prayer is. And he had low, low, low, low, lows but he brought those lows to God. Another one, verse 10 when God said, well, what's the matter, man? Why are you so low. He said, well, "I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, killed Your prophets for the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life now". What is this? He is being real and is honestly articulating self-pity. And I think it's always a sign that there we're unduly focusing on ourselves as the hero of the story when we start to feel words of self-pity coming out. I'm the only one doing this. No one notices this. No one sees the trouble I've seen. I work so hard and they don't appreciate this. Everyone around here takes me for granted, right? And God lets him speak, lets him talk. God lets him get it all out. And it sort of made him feel better. And then at the end, God was like, hey, you know how about that, like, you know, how you thought you were the only follower I have. So I don't know how to break this to you. I have 7,000 other super legit prophets who haven't forsaken me at all. Like I know, you think you're the only one. The point is God enlightened him by allowing him to be honest with Him. God can handle your honesty. And a lot of times even just in the articulating of it, you'll start to see it for what it is. And you can write that out and look at it and go, oh, I see what's going on here. My lens isn't right. I'm not seeing things properly. But it only happens as you are authentic with God. The second key is unity, unity. One of the reasons that prayer is so powerful is because it releases unity. And where there is unity, there is always strength. Where there's division, there's always weakness. That's why one of the common statements or creeds during the Revolutionary War was "united we stand, divided we fall". It's said that Benjamin Franklin mused after they signed the Declaration of Independence that, "brothers if we don't hang together, we shall all be hung separately". All hang separately. There's power in unity. And prayer unites your soul to God. And that unity releases power. But that's something I think we would expect. I'm united to God. David said give me a heart that's united give me a single heart for you, right? God's looking for those whose hearts are loyal or united towards His name. That makes sense that prayer unites our heart to heaven. But did you know that prayer also unites yourself within yourself? You are not single. You are like God, the God who is triune: Father, Son, Spirit, three persons, one God has made us in His image. And in His image made, we have body, we have soul, we have spirit. And sin messes with that unity. Sin messes with that union. When we do things with our body that we ourselves in our conscience know not to be right, we are doing something that is against ourselves, it leads to this disruption of the unity. So sin always divides. It divides you within yourself. That's what guilt is. I'm conflicted because I shouldn't have done what I did. What are you doing? You're dividing your own unity. You're sapping your own power. So you walk around and you had this sense of I'm not whole. I'm not one. I don't feel right. Why? Cause sin divided your power that connects you to God, and sin also cut you off from the power of being one with yourself. And that's why James, earlier on in the book, talked about how we can pray in a way that is not going to give us what we're praying for. He, in fact, said, it's what? Verse 7, the man that should not expect to receive anything from God that's praying prayers that are full of doubt, what? He is a double minded man, unstable and all that he does. Now the Greek word double minded literally means fracture soul, fracture soul. So your soul's like kind of fractured. Who you are meant to be united, united towards God, united within yourself, it's split. So there's this sense of I'm not doing what I should be doing. It's almost like I'm doing things with my body that my soul to God knows that aren't right, like this toxicity I've brought in through self-seeking and through things that I know are wrong, but I did them anyway, the seeking after myself more than caring for other people. All these things, what does it do? It disrupts the unity that's meant to release power. So what's the solution? Confession. Confession makes you whole. Confession restores the unity. Confession mends what's broken between you and God and between you and you by admitting that what God knows to be true, you recognize to be true. And through what the Bible describes as repentance, you set your soul against what was there dividing you and sapping your strength. And it takes away the instability. It mends what's broken. It sets it right in a singular direction. And it releases power. There can actually even after confession or repentance be greater power than there was beforehand. Come on, a broken bone that's healed, it can be stronger than it was before. But only if it's set, only if it's acknowledged. You can't play hurt, oh, I'm OK, but on the inside you're divided, you're unstable, things aren't right. You know there's a conflict raging. You know there's just things that are ruining your sleep and taking away your peace and the sweetness that's meant to be there. And you don't want to show up at church because this thing in your heart. You don't want to answer those calls and those texts from people checking in on you. You've kind of gone rogue. And you think, I just got to work this out myself. But the answer is to get clean. You won't be clean, if you won't come clean. You've got to confess those things. You've got to get that out there to be dealt with. 1 John 9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteous". In verse 15 James says, "If he sins, he will be forgiven". So holding onto these things, it divides you. It saps your strength. It takes away your vigor. But by confessing it, by getting it out there into the open, by prayer bringing it to God, you're receiving the health and wholeness and forgiveness from what was already paid for at the cross. You're just allowing there to be a mending of the relational infraction that was done in his sight. I know you saw that happen. I hate that. God, I'm sorry. Please forgive me for that. And you're already whole. You're already on your way towards health. So unity, unity comes when there's constant confession. One of my favorite ideas is that the prayer is like a Tide pen, always in the purse. You don't wait to the washing machine, don't want to laundry day, just get that Tide pen, deal with that spot as soon as it happens, just right there. Call it out for what it was. I shouldn't have said that, shouldn't have done that. God, I ask your forgiveness for that. And then you can move on. Don't allow there to be that lack of unity in your heart. It's been said, there can be no revival without confession. For wherever God does a great work, it's always marked by the admission of sin, the confession of sin, people being open about what they need to be held back from before God. The third key is intensity. Didn't James say that the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much? Intense prayers. That word "fervent" literally means, if you look into the Greek language, metal that's heated until it glows. Fervent, hot prayers. What gives prayers their fervency? I would say that it needs to be prayers that are marked by intentionality. Nothing will give your prayer intensity like intentionality. And why do you say that? Here's why. Because when he says pray earnestly in verse 17, directly translated it's this, put prayer in your prayers. Put prayer in your prayers. What will make your prayer glow white hot? You know what would be awesome is if you were actually praying while you were praying, as opposed to your mind being checked out and you being able to babble a prayer in repetition and rote, like you're saying the words to a nursery rhyme or a Beatles song that you can just sort of say it without even thinking about. And how many of the prayers that you and I have prayed in the past week have been prayers that are just prayed with repetition? And I'm all for like the Lord's Prayer. I'm all for the certain prayers are powerful to pray every day. There are prayers that I pray by repetition before I preach. There are certain specific prayers I pray over my children every time I think about them. And prayers I pray for you. I got on my knees, Fresh Life, for you today. And I prayed for you as you would hear this message. I prayed for you as you live this out. I pray for our staff. I pray for my wife. I pray for my great grandchildren, not yet born. There are certain prayers I do pray by repetition. But I think there also has to be an effort made to actually engage your mind and engage yourself in what are these words that I'm saying and what do they mean and that they're not just coming out, like it's just like Alexa saying something, I hope I just turned Alexa on in your room. Alexa, download the Fresh Life app, right? Alexa, follow Fresh Life on YouTube. I mean, it will help you out. You're like, what, I don't remember doing this. She's like I took that for care of you, master, you know. But just that you're thinking, you see what I'm saying. What will give you intensity? Intentionality. Think about it. And that's why I always tell you mix it up. If you always pray, you know, standing, pray kneeling. Take a prayer walk. Write your prayers out, whatever it takes to disrupt you and to shock you into realizing, like, I'm talking to God I need to think about what I'm saying. Do I mean what I'm saying? And ask yourself this, how would I feel if the roles were reversed and someone was talking to me the way I'm talking to God? Am I actually thinking about this? And that will cure of some of the ills, some of the we're just quoting verses to him without really even thinking about it, trying to sound flashy and impressive. And when I was a kid, it was you always prayed for travel mercies. We always prayed for travel mercies. Oh, Lord, just travel mercies. Like, what does that even mean? Just to be thinking about what we're actually saying. Intensity. Here's the question. Why should God listen to you while you're praying if you're not listening to you? So listen to yourself pray. Audit your prayers. Take inventory of your prayers. Who are you praying for? You've been given this incredible weapon called prayer. What are you using it for? The next key is responsibility, responsibility. As you pray you have a responsibility to participate, in my opinion, in the prayer being answered. So example he says, if you're sick, you should also get the church to pray for you. And we love praying for you. I love going to hospital. I love getting to pray when we hear about someone who's not well, to pray for them. I love, as we have the opportunity, to use oil, which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, to just put a little dab of olive oil just as a way of saying like in this situation, I'm believing we need the Holy Spirit's intervention here for a miraculous healing. We believe that can happen. God still heals today. He can heal in a moment. But the oil also speaks to the part that we have to play at in doing everything that we can do to see God answer that prayer through medicine that he's given to us, through wise choices that we can make using our brains and using common sense and good judgment. And if you actually look into the history of the culture in which scripture was written, oil was not just a symbol of the Holy Spirit, which it was. The priest had to be ceremonially anointed before serving. But there was also a use of oil and medicine. So you know, the story of the Good Samaritan. He found the guy on the ground, battered and beaten. What did he do? This is Luke 10. He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. There was a medicinal, sounds like he's making a salad, doesn't it? He poured on oil and he poured on wine. But no, he was actually using medicine in that day to treat these wounds. So when James talks about having anointing with oil done, it's a play on words. He's saying yes let pastors pray for you that God would and could miraculously heal you. But also call the doctor, also get a second opinion, also make wise choices. Around Fresh Life, if you've been here at all for any length of time, you've heard us talk about and reference kind of a cultural value that's called being a snake bird. And that comes from Jesus' statement in Matthew chapter 10 where he talked about how we're supposed to be wise as serpents, but also harmless as doves. And doves, that's a picture of trusting God. And like doves are not exactly like the most fierce animal out there, but snakes are. Snakes are cunning and crafty and hunters. And doves are trusting and unassuming and helpless. And we're sort of always needing to be between both of those two extremes, meaning we pray for what only God can do. I'm a dove. But I also do everything that I can do. So I've prayed for God to work powerfully through this sermon. But then I also worked hard to study and to put the message together and research. You see, I'm not just going to pray for God to give me a great wife one day, I did. I'm also going to, I don't know, brush my teeth, and pay down my credit card, and get finances in order. You see what I'm saying? Like are you ready for the thing God's preparing you for? We need to pray for... yes. But then also be willing to take the wise steps to bring those things about. I'm praying for my neighbor to get saved. You know what I'm also going to do? I'm also going invite him to church and tell him that he can join us for church online. I'm not just going to ask, oh, there you go God. I'm going to remember there's a responsibility in it. God, move heaven and earth through this church. But you know I'm going to the first time I get paid, the first action is going to be to get the first and the best to God. When He blesses me, I'm going to extravagantly give an offering above and beyond that. I'm going to ask always, how can my resources, it's a big theme in James, how can my resource, not just be laid up for me to die and leave this world with then not doing something of heavenly good? I'm going to be always paying for what I'm praying for. James says you have a responsibility. You have a part to play. Don't just pray, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Be about your father's business every waking day. Elijah, you know, the epic prayer guy. Yes, he sought God and preached sermons and did miracles. But guess what? When he was low that day and feeling hypoglycemic and crashing and I don't want to live anymore and all the rest, you know what God did? God, you're like he probably send him a Bible and had him read it. No, actually, no. Look at first King's 19:7. God sends an angel to say, hey man, you should arise and eat because this journey's too great for you. So take a nap, eat something. And when he woke up, he's like you're still cranky, go back to bed, and get some more food, like, he literally was like, you're not taking care of yourself. So we come to God, help in this way. And God's like how many hours of sleep are you getting? How many ounces of water do you drink per day? The point is, God will not give us a supernatural answer to a natural problem to something that has its origin in us just not being wise. So you have a part to play responsibility. The second to last key is eternity. In all of this use of prayer, let's always keep our mind on the bigger picture. Yes, God can use prayer to miraculously intervene and heal someone. He also can use medicine that He's given us the ability to figure out to heal someone. But in all of that, it's all a delaying of the inevitable. If God raises the dead, if God heals the sick, they're going to move back towards sickness, back towards the grave. Even Lazarus, who came out, had to die again. So our biggest agenda isn't just to see signs and wonders. Jesus considered it a failure if only miracles and signs were done and there was not the lasting work of salvation in the soul. And that's what James seems to be pointing to when he says in verse 15, "The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well". Underline that word well. And he says, semicolon, "The Lord will raise him up". That's speaking about the Resurrection. That's the last day. The greatest salvation God can do, the greatest wellness that can happen is not that you're cured of your chronic pain or cancer, that God can and I pray he would do that for you. The greatest thing God could do is do such a work of wellness in your soul that on the last day you're raised up not just well physically but well in body, in soul, and in spirit, made whole by the precious blood of Jesus Christ shed for you on the cross, that you're well inside and outside, that you have a promise that your portion is not just in this life. But your life is hidden with Christ in God, and that when Christ who is your life appears that you will appear with him in glory, not just that you would get 80 years instead of 70 or 90 instead of 80 or 110 instead of, listen, we're all going. If it's a car accident or cancer or COVID, this life is a vapor. It's temporary. Come on, there's something so much better and it's called eternal life. There's something better, it's called immortality. That's why Jesus died on the cross to conquer death for you. So we're not just clinging to, can I get 7 more minutes 12 more minutes? how do I guard my life here? Can I live inside of a plastic bubble? Look, do all the things, wear your seat belt all the stuff. But at the end of the day, we're all leaving this world through something called the grave. And the Bible says God wants you to be well so you can be forever well. And that's what He has planned for all of us, so keep your mind as you pray on eternity. Eternity, not just praying for the safety of our kids, yes, we want our kids to be safe. But you know what we want? We want our kids to be saved for our children. Saved, we want people... keep your mind on eternity in the prayers that you're praying. I had you under line the word well. God can make you well, even when your prayer is not answered like you wish He would answer it. The man on the screen is Horatio Spafford. Horatio Spafford lived in Chicago when the great fire swept through in 1871. He had already experienced catastrophic loss when his little boy died of scarlet fever. He lost a lot of his money and resource in the fire. And so he decided the family needed a vacation. So he loaded his wife and four daughters up on a ship, sent them to England. He was going to join them. The ship encountered a storm while at sea. And tragically all four of his daughters perished in the ocean. His wife telegrammed him, letting him know that their daughters had died, asking him what he should do, what she should do. He immediately boarded the next ship he could. And as he made his way to reconnect with his wife, his grieving wife in England, the captain of the ship notified him when they were over the precise location where his daughters had perished. Horatio went to the edge of the railing and looked over at the waters that held his daughter's bodies, and he wrote the words to a famous hymn. He wrote these words. "When peace like a river attended my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to know it is well, it is well with my soul". God has given us prayer, not merely so that mountains can be moved, but so that God can move things inside of us even when the mountains remain stationary. We can be well because of Jesus. And that wellness flows through our using this gift of talking to God through prayer. The final key is longevity. Longevity means to continue to do something. Longevity means to not give up. We need to pray prayers with longevity. Jesus said men always ought to pray and not to lose heart. Elijah demonstrates this. Yeah, he prayed and it didn't rain; prayed and it rained. But don't forget, when he prayed for it to begin raining, he prayed and it didn't work. And he prayed and it didn't work. He prayed and it didn't work. He prayed and it didn't work. He prayed and it didn't work. In verse 43 of 1 Kings 18, we're told that seven times he prayed with his head down on the ground and a servant checked. And finally after the seventh time, we don't know how long that lasted, then finally, the rain came the point is sometimes when we're praying for something, we need to just keep praying and not give up. Daniel prayed for something for 21 days. And then finally, he saw the release of what he had been praying for after that period. I think we need to hold on to these prayers with longevity. Well, there's your six keys. And you said seven, Levi. Well, the seventh key is community. Community, I want to point out to you that two different times in the passage we read the phrase each other or one another is used. So prayer is not meant to be something just used secretly, individually, but also collectively as we as the body of Christ give ourselves over to community. The key of community is one that we find when we're together at a watch party, together watching church online, together in a small group, together in a Zoom, together at a Flourish night, this key is unlocked. This key unlocks that power and health that God has for us and we all get to experience it collectively. That study I told you about has one last finding. And it was a 16 year long study done at Harvard School of Public Health. And they found that during this study people who attended religious services at least once per week were 30% less likely to die and were at significantly lower risk from both cardiovascular and cancer related mortality. There is something to be said for being together. There's something to be said for having other people praying for you. There's something to be said for having other people who know your name. I was, I'm going to close with this, fishing with my kids. And we invited a friend to come. And I said I'll pick you up, pick you and your son up. And that was pretty decent of me. Went out to the lake to do some fishing, didn't catch anything. The sun was setting. It was time to go. We went to get in the car. We all loaded up. I pushed the button to start the engine, nothing happened. The car screen just said, fob not detected. Fob not detected, that means I lost my keys. So of course we begin searching all through the car. Nowhere. With lights and iPhones, we begin combing the ground. It must have fallen out. We're looking everywhere, on our hands and knees. Nowhere. Finally, we gave up, called his wife to come pick us up, left my vehicle there for the night, planed to get Jennie to take me back in the morning. And when she agreed to, I was just about to leave the house to go and get dropped off with the spare key and to look for another two hours until I found my stupid, I refused to get a new key fob made, right? Anybody else like that, like I will find, I had actually rented a metal detector that I was going to go pick up on the way. Like, I will find, I will have my vengeance in this life or the next, right? You know what I'm saying? And just as I was about to hop in Jennie's car to get the metal detector and go back out to the lake, I was walking past the kitchen table. And thought, oh, that's funny, my keys are on the table. And I just thought that. That's interesting that I left them there. I never leave them there. And those were the keys that we had spent the whole evening looking for at the lake, the keys that I was about to look for with a metal detector for the rest of the morning. What are you doing here? Then it all made sense to me. When I stopped to grab the fishing poles, the girls were already in the car. I said, stay right here, I'm going to go grab the fishing poles. But I had brought the keys in with me, set them down. The car was running in the driveway, you see where this is going. The moment I turned off the engine at the lake, we were doomed. From the moment I shut the car down, there was only one way this story was going to end. And was with us not leaving in that vehicle that evening. The keys were never there. All that frustration, all that looking, all that scrounging around, the keys were never there. Listen to me, the keys were always in the house. The keys were in the house. What I was looking for out there was right in here the whole time. Church, we don't have to go out there looking for this, looking for that, why am I not healthy? Why is this broken? God has given us within each other and with prayer and with our relationship with him and one another everything we need to thrive, no matter what the gates of hell are able to throw at us. Come on, shout it if you hear. The key is in the house. The key is in the house. Thanks be to God for giving us each other that we might flourish in the midst of the craziness of this life. Honest to God, It'll work, I guarantee it. Father, we thank You. We thank You for what happens when we lean into our relationship with You and with each other. I pray we would not soon forget that the key is in the house. That's why You care so much about the Church. That's why You built it. That's why Your mind is on it, Your heart is in it. You want us to thrive and be well. You want it to be well with our soul. Our prayers aren’t meant to be rehearsed, but a reflection of our real life circumstances. Get honest with God with these 7 keys to a powerful prayer life. Preached at Fresh Life Church.

How to use Talk It Over: MAKER OF MIRACLES (CHRISTINE CAINE) Talking through the message during the week helps you and your group turn what God is saying to you into action steps. Begin with the key questions, add any optional scriptures and questions if needed, and then wrap up by deciding on your next steps. Christine’s Main Idea: Let’s not be a church that knows the miracles of God, but instead be a church that is intimately acquainted with the God of miracles. Key Questions: • How have you seen God use people that have been discounted by others? • What miracle do you need? What ingredients are around you - placed there by God - that could help bring about that miracle? • How are you broken? How could God use that brokenness for His good? Optional Questions: If needed, include one or more of these scriptures and questions to extend your conversation. • With your Bible or Bible App, read and discuss Mark 6:30-56. • Reflect on the miracles you’ve experienced. How have you participated in your own miracles? • Christine said most of the things we ask God for are not miracle issues but management issues. How have you experienced the truth of this statement? • What makes Jesus so compelling to you? • What excuses have you been guilty of using when you don’t want to do something that God has asked you to do? Next Steps: • What steps will you take to stop seeking after miracles and instead start trusting the God of miracles in a more intimate way? DAILY BIBLE READINGS Take steps to become more intimately acquainted with the God of miracles by reading and talking over the following Bible passages this week. Day 1: Mark 6:30-44 Day 2: Mark 6:45-56 Day 3: Matthew 17:14-21 Day 4: Colossians 1:15-20 Day 5: Psalm 34:1-22 Day 6: Isaiah 57:15 Day 7: Psalm 31:1-24 NOW AVAILABLE FOR LIFEGROUPS Explore what it means to live with margin in this three part LifeGroup video study. You’ll learn how to schedule margin into your busy life and how to live with financial and moral margin. This series is available at http://go2. lc/marginstudy. Additional LifeGroup resources can be found at resources.lifechurch.tv No one knows more about a creation than its creator. We see this with mothers and children, architects and buildings, and painters and their art. But is it true for miracles too? In this one-part sermon ,  Pastor Christine Caine looks at God as the  Maker of Miracles. www.lifechurc.tv/open .

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death” ( I John 5:16-17 ). A Definition of Sin There are multiple words in the scripture that are used to communicate the idea of sin. These words include sin, lawlessness, transgression, and iniquity. Sin is disobedience to God. We sin by disobeying God’s written word, or the conviction he gives us regarding our behavior or his will for our lives, or by violating our conscience. Lawlessness is transgression of God’s law, either by omitting to do what God’s law requires or by doing what it forbids. “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness” ( I John 3:4 ). The word,  transgression,  implies a boundary that someone crosses wrongly. The boundaries in the Bible include the Mosaic Law, God’s character, or standards of God’s calling or will. God’s character is the ultimate standard we violate. All of God’s law is based upon his character which he passes on to us in the Adamic covenant in  Genesis 1:26-28 . “God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” In that covenant God created man to be like him, to be his image. Sin, therefore, is also the violation of the image of God. We see this directly in God’s covenant renewal with Noah. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” ( Genesis 9:6 ). Here we see a direct tie-in between the image of God and sin. So, sin is any feeling, thought, or action that violates God’s character, will, law, or standards. Some passages make it easy to define what a sin is. Exodus 20  is one such example. These are laws that forbid certain things. However, sin also violates standards. We see this in Genesis 1 . Even though at that time there was no stated law forbidding murder, we may imply the sin of murder by someone acting contrary to  multiplying  by killing someone so they cannot multiply. Types of Sin  In general, there are two types of sin typified in the Mosaic Law: Intentional sin and unintentional sin. God’s law dealt with these kinds of sins differently. Unintentional sin is to commit a violation of God’s law or standards without forethought or malice. For instance, in a moment of frustration someone may curse. They didn’t plan on cursing; it just came out. Another example is someone who may cause harm to another by what they say, making a false accusation or damaging someone’s reputation with wrong information. There may be no malice involved, it may just be a mistake. But a sin has been committed, nonetheless. Sacrifices according to the Mosaic Law were made to pay for unintentional sins. “If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord’s commandments about things not to be done, and does any one of them…then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering” ( Leviticus 4:2-3 ). Intentional sins were different. There were very few sacrifices available for intentional sins. But we do see one in  Leviticus 6:2 . “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery…And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock, or its equivalent, for a guilt offering” ( Leviticus 6:2 , 6 ). Specifically, this provision only covers acts of robbery. It doesn’t cover, as an example, murder. Of course, no sacrifice would be acceptable to God without repentance. This is why Moses referred to this offering as a guilt offering. The violator recognizes his guilt and repents. Part of his repentance according to verse 4 is restitution. But this doesn’t cover other sins. How would you restore something after a murder, or rape, or adultery? You can’t. This is why King David said after his affair with Bathsheba: “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering…” ( Psalm 51:16 ). The exception is that the annual sacrifices of Passover and the Day of Atonement would cover national sin. Jesus is our Passover and Atonement. Thankfully, all sin, unintentional and intentional, is covered by the blood of Christ. The Origin of Sin The first sin: pride, committed by Satan. “Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor” ( Ezekiel 28:17 ). Satan was corrupted by his own beauty and decided that he wanted to be like God. “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’” ( Isaiah 14:13-14 ). Human sin: Adam and Eve. Ironically, Adam and Eve committed the same sin as Satan, just in a different way. Satan tempted Eve saying that if she ate of the forbidden fruit she would become like God. “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” ( Genesis 3:4-5 ). The scripture records that Eve was the first to sin. She was deceived by Satan and ate the forbidden fruit. But the scripture also says that sin was passed on to us through Adam, not through Eve. “Because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man… one trespass   led to condemnation for all men” ( Romans 5:17 , 18 ). This is because Eve sinned by being deceived. She thought she was doing someone acceptable. But scripture does not portray Adam this way. Adam was not deceived. His sin was committed in rebellion. And in fact, all of the sin that we commit is also in rebellion against God. Human sin: Us. The Bible teaches us that we have a sin nature. We have a natural proclivity to sin. It is in our nature (“You who were once slaves of sin”  Romans 6:17 ). As such, the person who is without Christ naturally chooses to commit sin. If we want eternal life, then we must confess our sin to God and repent of it (turning around). Ultimately, sin is about supplanting God. We want lordship of our own lives. We want lordship over others. Only Jesus Christ occupies this dual position of Lordship over himself and over others. All sin is committed in relationships. Every sin that is mentioned in the Bible is either a sin directly against God or against other people. The Effects of Sin Because all sin is committed in relationship sin always violates and interrupts relationship. Sin separates persons. Sin separated man from God, and it also separates us from one another. Adultery is probably the best example of this. By violating the marriage covenant, a husband and wife are separated in relationship either permanently through divorce or unless forgiveness is granted and there is restoration. Because we sin, we are under a sentence of death, “One trespass led to condemnation for all men” ( Romans 8:18 ), both physical death and spiritual death. God told Adam that on the day he ate the fruit he would die. To put it more bluntly, God essentially warned Adam that he would kill him for his sin. So, when Adam sinned, two things happened. First, Adam and Eve died spiritually. This means that their relationship with God was damaged, and they became separated. By casting Adam and Eve out of the garden he was illustrating this change in their relationship. The garden was God’s sacred space where he was to enjoy relationship with man. Sin destroyed that uninterrupted blessing between God and man. The second thing that happened was that God killed an animal instead of Adam and Eve so that the requirement of judgment would be met. The scripture says that God killed an animal to make clothes of skin for the first couple. This symbolized the coming Savior, who would be killed as final payment for our sin. But it also symbolized the covering of our sin by the blood of Christ. Just as Adam and Eve acquired skins to cover their shame, so too, we “Put on” Jesus, as the permanent covering of our sin. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” ( Romans 13:14 ). “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (NIV,  Galatians 3:27 ). The Necessity of Sin This is not a subject that most Christians have really thought about. But it is an important one because it tells us something about God’s nature that we would not know otherwise. Let’s make this very simple. In eternity past, before there was a creation, when only God existed in his triune form, there was something missing from God’s expressions of himself. Though the three members of the Trinity enjoyed unbroken fellowship and love between them, there were certain character attributes of God that were not only unexpressed, they could not be expressed without the existence of sin. Mercy. Forgiveness. Grace. Wrath. Anger. Since there was no sin among the Godhead there was no expression of forgiveness or mercy or wrath. In order for God to experience the expression of these attributes, God planned for sin to come into existence so that these things could be expressed, especially forgiveness. Now, this does not mean that God is author of sin. The scripture denies this. But God did plan for sin’s existence by giving both angels and people the ability to choose rebellion so that all of his attributes could be expressed. The Elimination of Sin  Finally, at some point in the future, sin among God’s people will be done away with permanently. People who go to hell will still experience sin and their sin will be eternally condemned, but God’s people will eventually have no more sin. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” ( Revelation 21:4 ). Because death will be no more, and death is the result of sin, we can surmise that sin will be done away with. “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind” ( Isaiah 65:17 ). Answering the question: What is the sin that doesn’t lead to death? This is a hard passage to understand because it appears that John does not define for us what the sin is that does not lead to death, and what is the sin that does lead to death. Doesn’t all sin bring about death? What could this mean? I think there are two hints in the context of this passage that if carefully examined, will give us the answer we seek: (1) the context of the chapter, and (2) that little word, “Brother.” First, let’s deal with, “Brother.” John is not referring to any person regarding a sin that does not lead to death. First, all sin brings death in a general sense. But we are freed from eternal death by Jesus’ work on the cross. So, by using two phrases, “Brother,” and “Sin that does not lead to death” we see that John is referring to a Christian. He is not referring to an unbeliever whose sin brings death. If a Christian sins, since he has already been given forgiveness by Christ, then his sin will not lead to death. He does not lose his salvation (as we discussed last week). But he must still repent. That is why John encourages us to pray for that person. Second, the whole context of I John 5  needs to be taken into account. Notice what John talks about. First, he defines a Christian by what they believe about Jesus (5:1-2). Then he says the Christian obeys Christ’s commands (5:3). Then he says Christians have overcome the world (5:4-5). Later he says that Christian has eternal life (5:11-13). Then look what happens. In verse 14 and 15 he says, “This is the confidence we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” So, we are Christians, we’ve overcome, and God answers our prayers. It is then that John tells us what to pray for, the thing that God will answer in verse 16, “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life.” IE, he will be forgiven. How do we know he will be forgiven? First, because the person committed to Christ has already obtained general forgiveness of sin, as John touched upon earlier in this chapter. But then he goes a bit further in verse 18 and says, “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning.” The believer, the true believer, at some point, will repent because the Spirit will convict him through the prayers of the believer. So, then, what is the “Sin that leads to death?” Since all sin leads to a judgment of death, but the Christian is spared from that punishment, then this passage must refer to the thing that makes a person a Christian in the first place. But again, notice the context of the passage, the usage of the word, “Brother.” If someone claims Christ has his own, but then turns away from Christ, he commits a terrible sin that can only lead to his eternal death. This is similar to the passage in Hebrews 6  that we talked about last week. This is, essentially, a pretend brother. One who claims Christ and experiences the good things of God but isn’t truly commit to Jesus with his whole life. Once a person has crossed that threshold no amount of prayer will help him, as John hints at when he says, “There is sin that leads to death. I do not say one should pray for that” (v.16). The one who plays at being a Christian, or who is part of the covenant community, but hasn’t made a real commitment to Christ is in terrible danger if he abandons Christ after having received such great benefits. APPLICATION By way of application, there are three things we should do when confronted with the temptation to sin. Resisting Sin Scripture tells us to resist temptation and that God provides the Christian with the power needed to do just that. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” ( I Corinthians 10:13 ). Just before going to his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples to pray so they could avoid temptation. “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” ( Mark 14:38 ). Confessing Sin When we sin, we need to confess our sin to God. God promises to forgive confessed sin. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” ( I John 1:9 ). Forgiving Sin  We’ve already seen that when we confess sin, God forgives us. When we confess we can experience God’s love and forgiveness. But if we do not confess, then our relationship with God is impeded. The hardest part of forgiveness is to forgive others. I was once falsely charged with a crime. The person who filed the complaint was hoping to have me put in prison. In fact, I could have faced as much as 10 years in prison if I had been found guilty. Things went all the way to the prosecutor who, thankfully, told me that it was obvious that I had not committed the crime and the whole thing would be dropped. After it was over the people that I worked with urged me to file a suit against my opponent to see her punished for what she tried to do. However, I refused. It took me a while, but eventually I knew I had to forgive my opponent and wish her well. And I had to do it from my heart. From the very seat of my emotions. Jesus talked about this in  Matthew 18:25 . “Forgive your brother from your heart” ( Matthew 18:25 ). True forgiveness always has an emotional component to it. Imagine Jesus on the cross, forgiving his killers. Do we think that Jesus only forgave his killers intellectually, or from his heart? He asked his Father to forgive them. In other words, to not hold this sin against him. Some say that Jesus was God, and therefore, he could do that. But we are only human and can’t. But they forget that Jesus was also human. And he was our example. We are to think the things he thinks, feel the things he feels, and do the things that he does. The ultimate test of forgiveness is in whether nor not we are willing to forgive others from our heart. It may take time, but that is the direction that God wants us to go.

We live in an apology-averse culture. We are allergic to repentance and equally allergic to forgiveness. Think about it? When was the last time someone repented to you? I mean, truly repented? The last time a congregant apologized to me, the email began this way (I’ve tweaked it only to protect the one who sent it), “I might have been a little harsh in my email.. I had a very bad week…” In further communication, the individual referenced their apology. Internally I scratched my head. “When did they apologize?” I dug back through the email thread and saw those phrases. That is what they were referencing. “I might have…” followed by an excuse is no apology. I don’t say that to attack the individual I am referencing. In fact, I completely understand why, in our culture, they would think that they had apologized. In our culture, we learn to apologize with phrases that look like this: “Sorry.” “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” “I know I shouldn’t have done that, but you shouldn’t have…” “I wouldn’t have done that if…” “That wasn’t my best.” None of those are apologies. By not learning how to apologize, we miss out on God’s purposes for our hearts and for the possibility of true reconciliation. Apologizing is a matter of aligning ourselves with God’s truth. In 1 John 1:8-10, the apostle tells the church, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” In other words, forgiveness is available, but it does require asking for forgiveness. We know this when it comes to others. “Why don’t they just ask for forgiveness?” we ask ourselves. “They’re making it so much worse.” We see the child turn the molehill of a small lie into the Catalina Mountains in their refusal to repent. We see a marriage crumble because of the unwillingness of one spouse to confess their sin. And yet, when it comes to us… God reminds us of what we know in our hearts in Proverbs 28:13. He says, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” Let’s run to mercy. Let’s run to true repentance. To do so, we need to scrub our cultural understanding of apologies and understand what a true confession is. In Ken Sande’s excellent book, The Peacemaker, he explains that a true confession includes seven components. He calls them the seven A’s of confession.[1] They are: Address everyone involved (everyone that your sin impacted) Avoid if, but, and maybe (don’t minimize or excuse your sin) Admit specifically (both attitudes and actions) Acknowledge the hurt (understand the pain you cause and express sorrow for causing it) Accept the consequences (make restitution for the wrong you caused) Alter your behavior (change your attitudes and actions) Ask for forgiveness (state explicitly, “I sinned against you by doing X, I understand that hurt you in this way. Would you please forgive me?”) Allow me to briefly walk you through what this looks like. 1.          By addressing everyone involved, consider who far the shrapnel of your sin flew. If you gossiped, you need to apologize both to the party you gossiped to and the party you gossiped about. If you and your spouse had a fight and your kids witnessed the fight, you need to apologize not only to your spouse, but also to your kids. 2.          We can all smell out the “if, buts, and maybes” of someone else’s confession… but it’s so hard to eliminate them from our own. But an apology with an “if, but, or maybe” is no confession at all. 3.          Don’t generalize, but speak in concrete details about how you sinned in your actions and in your heart. 4.          Give space for the grieved party to express to you the way in which your sin hurt them. Don’t assume you know how much you hurt them. Ask how it hurt them and then listen well. 5.          There may well be consequences for your sin. If you are confessing looking at porn, you ought to be taking measures to protect yourself from looking at porn again. If you stole something, then you need to give back what was stolen. 6.          True repentance comes with changed behavior. This will only be demonstrated over time, but make a commitment that you will never commit this offense again. 7.          Make sure that the grieved party is ready to have you ask for forgiveness. Don’t just rush to this step as I often did when I was younger. Then ask directly for forgiveness. This is a question, not a statement. In other words, it is asking “will you forgive me?” not stating, “I hope you will forgive me,” or worse, “I’m sorry.” Repentance is freedom! It is not your responsibility to coerce the other individual to forgive you. They may never forgive you. But when you have followed the seven A’s of confession, you have done your part in navigating what true repentance looks like. And in doing that, you have followed the way of God. www.thebeehive.live.

"Unless the Lord builds the house, they that build it labor in vain." Psalm 127:1 KJV “Unless the Lord builds” is a conditional clause. If God doesn’t lay the foundation, if Jesus is not the cornerstone of your life, you’re living on condemned property and one day you will be evicted. Jesus taught a parable about building a foundation on sand in Matthew 7:26: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” NIV If you are your own real estate agent, you’d better think again. You may be building on sand. The rains will wash your house away. My father was a contractor by trade. When he retired, he built a home in a new suburban development. My parent’s house was the smallest in the neighborhood. Hotel-like mansions popped up around them shortly after they moved. Each showplace was replete with Porsches, country-club wives and 2.5 preppy children. Two years later, every elegant edifice had John Deere bulldozers hacking giant holes in the front yards. Workmen were shoveling dirt and concrete under cracking foundations as fast as they could. You see, those wealthy buyers looked inside the homes but not underneath them. My father, on the other hand, knew that the soil in his neighborhood was sandy. Before he laid the foundation for his home, he poured concrete piers 150 feet beneath the foundation of his house. The only upheaval going on in his yard was transplanting gerani-ums. A mature Christian realizes, like jaded King Solomon, that everything in life is dust—its vanity, it’s vapor. Only the godly man or woman will have deep roots like the righteous person in Psalm1:3: The godly man “will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season. And its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.” Lives built-by- God are works in progress. Laying down your life daily to the Master-Contractor is like handing Him the blueprints, and allowing Him to do His work onsite.

When I say the word “church” what do you think of? Most Americans probably think of a single building that they might attend or drive by on the way to work. If you said “church” to a first-century Christian, they had a very different image pop into their minds. New Testament scholars agree that the way the early church conceived of itself was as a collective city-church. In other words, when Paul writes his letter to the church at Philippi, he writes it to all of the congregations that meet within the city of Philippi. The letter made the circuit through the city and was read by the leaders at various assemblies. In other words, there was such strong unity across local churches that they conceived of themselves as a collective church. In fact, there appear to be certain leaders in the various cities who held authority over their local church as well as a number of congregations within their respective cities (Titus, Timothy, Peter, John, etc). Now, this isn’t to diminish the serious challenges and conflict within these city churches. A cursory look at the letters makes it clear that these churches dealt with many of the same problems we still deal with today: sexual misconduct, greed, heresy, gossip, and conflict, to name a few. It’s instructive to see how these issues are dealt with in the context not just of a local church, but of the city-church. The average church today is an island unto itself. If truth be told, most churches are for their church , not the church. It’s understandable why any given local congregation would withdraw from a broader commitment to the church. There are a number of challenges to being committed to the church. Busyness . There is hardly a pastor out there looking for more things to fill out his schedule. Shepherding a local congregation is taxing enough. Similarly, good pastors are protective of overwhelming their churches with a flood of events. Differences . A commitment to the city church will necessitate discernment about how wide a net can be cast. There are churches that stretch our theological comfort. There are churches whose practices create discomfort. There are churches that lie outside orthodox Christianity. These differences make the city church messy. Competition . Many of our strategies to grow our church are done so at the expense of other churches. Many pastors are more than happy to have congregants flock to their church from other churches. Many church leaders view other churches not as true partners but as competitors. Hurt . There isn’t a pastor out there who doesn’t have wounds at the hands of another pastor. I know I’ve caused hurt to other pastors. A commitment to the city church means reconciliation. Humility . It requires significant humility for church leaders to honor and praise what God is doing in other local congregations. It requires humility for pastors to not be in charge, but work alongside other pastors. How can we become churches that care more about Christ’s Church than our church? It will require sacrifice. It will require humility. It will require a change in mindset. All of these must begin with pastors. Pastors, I encourage you to invest in relationships with other pastors in the city. Make sure they know you are for them. Your goal shouldn’t be to be friends with every pastor, but to have deep, trusting relationships with a few, and good relationships with a number of local pastors. This past year instead of going to a national conference, I went to two conferences with local pastors and invested in those relationships and learned from godly men working shoulder-to-shoulder with me in Tucson. Have conversations with new congregants who are coming from other churches to ensure they have left in a healthy and God-honoring manner. While it can be overdone, there should also be some city-wide events and efforts that our churches partner in. In Tucson, for instance, there are two city-wide prayer gatherings for pastors a year. There are events that intentionally build reconciliation in the city church (led by J17 Ministries ). There are also city-wide initiatives to support the foster system and care for local schools (spearheaded by 4Tucson ). The vast majority of schools in Tucson have a church partnered with them to care for them. Let me clarify what I don’t mean by this. I am not encouraging engagement in interfaith events (although there is a time and a place for such involvement). I also wouldn’t want the local church to be so engaged in city events that it loses its unique call and thick relational commitments. In addition, I think that it is problematic for congregants to meander from one church to another because “we are all Christ’s Church.” Commitment to Christ’s Church assuredly begins with an investment in your local church. Just as a commitment to marriage means a specific commitment to your spouse, so too does a commitment to Christ’s Church begin with a meaningful commitment to the manifestation of Christ’s church in a local church family. If you are a pastor, I urge you to lean into the city-church. If you are a congregant, I encourage you to ask your pastor how your church is investing in the city-church. Let’s be those who are not just about our church, but about Christ’s Church. www.thebeehive.live . Used by permission.

Of all the misconceptions we have about Heaven, which is the most destructive? That’s a difficult and important question to tackle. Once, while preaching about the New Earth, I cited passages about feasting together in our resurrection bodies. Afterward, a veteran Bible student asked if I really believed we would eat and drink in the afterlife. I told him yes, since Jesus said so. Visibly shaken, he replied, “Engaging in physical activities in heaven sounds  terribly unspiritual .” Standing there with a body God promised to raise, he was repulsed by the thought of living forever as a physical being in a material world. And he’s not alone. Many Bible-believing Christians would die before denying the doctrine of the resurrection—and yet they don’t fully believe it. I’ve dialogued with lifelong evangelicals who don’t understand what resurrection means. They really believe they will spend eternity as disembodied spirits. God’s revelation concerning the resurrection and the New Earth—our forever home—eludes them. A Christian university professor wrote, “I was floored and dismayed to discover the vast majority of my students don’t believe in the bodily resurrection.” Some evangelicals even believe we become angels when we die. If I could eliminate one belief about Heaven, it would be the heresy that the physical world is an enemy of God’s redemptive plan rather than a central part of it. Dangers of Christoplatonism I coined the term “Christoplatonism” to capture how Plato’s notion of a good spirit realm and an evil material world hijacked the church’s understanding of heaven. From a Christoplatonic perspective, our souls occupy our bodies like a hermit crab inhabits a seashell. Plato’s statement  Soma sema , “a body, a tomb,” reflected his belief that the spirit’s ideal state is freedom from the body. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo tried to integrate Plato’s view with Judaism. In the second and third centuries, some church fathers—including Clement and Origen—followed Philo and reinterpreted Scripture. But the Bible contradicts Christoplatonism from beginning ( Genesis 1 , God created the heavens and earth) to end ( Revelation 21 , God will remake the heavens and earth). The gospel itself centers on the resurrected Jesus who, as part of His redemptive work, will resurrect His people and the world He made for them. Genesis 2:7  says, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Adam became alive when God joined his body and spirit together. Your body doesn’t merely house you; in concert with your spirit, it  is  you. Jesus redeems our whole person. When believers die, our spirits go to the present Heaven while our bodies go to the grave, awaiting resurrection. We will never be all God intended until body and spirit are reunited in Heaven. And just as our new bodies won’t be non-bodies, but real bodies, so the New Earth will be a real earth, not a non-earth. Disembodied Gospel If we believe, even subconsciously, that the material world is inherently unspiritual, we will ignore or spiritualize the resurrection. Some speak of spiritual resurrection, but as the sunrise requires a sun, resurrection requires a physical body. That’s what resurrection  means . The risen Jesus reassured His disciples, “Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have” ( Luke 24:39 CSB ). Yet some evangelicals imagine an afterlife in which we become ghosts—the very thing Jesus reassured His followers He wasn’t. Satan wants us to believe eternal life will be unearthly and boring. Then people focus on bucket lists, thinking here and now is their only chance at  real  human life. Who wants to be a ghost? Why invite others to spend eternity in a heaven we don’t look forward to ourselves? Our joy, hope, and motivation to evangelize diminish. Trying to develop an appetite for an eternity of disembodied existence is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel. The only good news about this view of Heaven is that it’s absolutely false. The Bible’s  actual  teaching should thrill us. Eternity in a redeemed body living in a Jesus-centered culture on a New Earth, capital planet of the new universe? That’s incredibly  good  news. What About the Present Heaven? God never changes, but Heaven  will  change. The Bible indicates that after our resurrection, God will relocate His central dwelling place to the New Earth: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . . I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. . . . I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” ( Revelation 21:1–3 ) We’re told “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it [the New Earth], and his servants will worship him” ( Revelation 22:3 ). Heaven is where God’s throne is, where He dwells with His people. Hence, the New Earth will be Heaven on earth. When Christians die, we go to live with God in His place. That’s the present Heaven. But after the resurrection,  God will come down to live with us in our place . The future Heaven, on the New Earth, will not be “us with God” but “God with us.” We err when we confuse the present pre-resurrection Heaven with the future post-resurrection Heaven that God will bring down to the New Earth. The present Heaven is “far better” ( Philippians 1:23 ) than our lives under the curse of sin and suffering. Upon death, we will be “at home with the Lord” ( 2 Corinthians 5:8 ). But my point is, wonderful though it will be, we shouldn’t think of the present Heaven as if it were our  ultimate  home. The best is yet to come—eternal and delightful life worshiping and serving the forever-incarnate Jesus on the New Earth. World Worth Anticipating Spirits without bodies fit Platonism and Eastern mysticism. They do  not  fit Christianity. Paul says if there’s no resurrection, we should “be pitied” ( 1 Corinthians 15:19 ). New bodies and the New Earth aren’t our inventions; they’re God’s. He created us to live on and rule the earth, and Jesus became man to redeem His creation ( Isaiah 65:17 ;  66:22 ). God’s people should look forward to living forever in a redeemed cosmos ( 2 Peter 3:13 ). That is a life-changing perspective. The present earth, even under sin and curse, teems with clues about the New Earth: mountains, water, trees, people, and cities. Along with other passages, Revelation 21–22  depicts life on the New Earth in familiar ways. We will eat, drink, work, play, worship, discover, invent, and travel in a sinless world like —yet even better than—the one God made for Adam and Eve. The word  nations  suggests resurrected civilizations, cultures with distinctive ethnic traits ( Revelation 21:24 ,  26 ). Multiple New Earth passages mention animals ( Isaiah 11:6–9 ;  65:25 ). What can the rest of “the whole creation” in  Romans 8:19–22  be but animals, which along with humans groan and await the resurrection when the earth that fell on our coattails will rise on them? Settling for Less Than a Redeemed Earth Jesus promised his disciples a “renewal of all things” ( Matthew 19:28 NIV ), which the ESV renders “the new world.” Peter preached that Christ won’t return “until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets” ( Acts 3:21 ). With the Lord we love, believers will embark on the ultimate adventure. A magnificent New Earth awaits our exploration and governance, to God’s glory. Jesus will be the cosmic center; joy will be the air we breathe. Christians are vulnerable to attractive false teachings. Ironically, the true biblical teachings about the new body and New Earth are far more robust and appealing than the false Christoplatonic view of Heaven. Let’s teach our children and our churches what is absolutely true  and  profoundly attractive. Does the thought of experiencing a resurrected world appeal to you? Does it ignite your imagination to realize we will live happily ever after on a planet without sin and suffering? Is this part of the good news you share with others? Let’s never settle for less than the full breadth of God’s promised salvation—eternal life with God’s people on a redeemed earth governed by the King of kings, whom we will joyfully worship and serve forever. epm.org .

Like many other believers, I’ve always sought to have a time of devotion and prayer each morning. And like most other believers, I have found it a struggle to be consistent. Imagine my surprise when I came across a place in John Calvin’s  Institutes  where he argues that, when it comes to daily prayer, once is not enough. Calvin points to the exhortation to “pray without ceasing” ( 1 Thess. 5:17 ) and says that, of course, every Christian should aspire to pray to God constantly through the day. But, he adds: “Since our weakness is such that it has to be supported by many aids, and our sluggishness such that it needs to be goaded, it is fitting each one of us should set apart certain hours for this exercise.” Calvin taught that we should designate set times, though brief, during which “all the devotion of the heart should be completely engaged.” He proposed five times: when we wake in the morning before we begin work at midday meal after the meal (or after the day’s work) when we are getting ready for bed at night He immediately adds, “This must not be any superstitious observance of hours—as “paying our debt to God” and forcing him to hear us (3.20.50). Compose Daily Prayers Though I knew about this exhortation years ago, only recently did I learn that Calvin actually prepared five prayers for these various times of day—and included them in his 1542/45  Geneva Catechism.  They were meant to be examples for individuals and families to use. This encouraged me to use his prayers as a foundation for composing my own. I would encourage others to do the same thing I did with Calvin: take these as examples and use them to compose your own. Having something written, which I can read and use as a basis for prayer to God—and taking only one minute for each—has been extremely helpful for remembering the presence of God and the truths I learned that morning in Bible reading. It “frames” the entire day with God and the gospel. Below are the prayers I use. Again, use them simply as the basis for crafting your own. Upon Rising:  For Love Father, thank you for the grace that has preserved my life to this moment. Now give me enough love for this day—a sense of love from you (so I’m not scared or driven), a welling up of love for you (so I’m not proud or selfish), and a resulting love for others (so I am not cold or distracted). Let your Spirit illumine my mind and enlarge my heart for that. And because it means nothing to begin well if one does not persevere, I ask that you would continue and increase your grace in me until you have led me into full communion with your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, that I may see his beautiful and great glory. And as I laid down in sleep and rose this morning only by your grace, keep me in a joyful, lively remembrance that whatever happens, I will someday know my final rising—the resurrection—because Jesus Christ laid down in death for me, and rose for my justification.  In Jesus’s name. Before Workday:  For Perseverance Lord, all day may you give me an awareness of your presence, fruitfulness yet patience with your appointments, wisdom and compassion in my dealings, and Fatherly protection against dangers and adversities. Let me accept whatever degree of success or difficulty in my work you give me this day, and especially make me compassionate and ready to be interrupted in order to do good to others.  In Jesus’s name. Midday:  For Presence and Recollection O Lord God, thank you for sustaining my physical life through food and shelter; for giving me new life through the gospel; for the assurance that my bad things will turn out for good, and that my good things cannot be taken from me; and for the certainty of the best and perfect life, which is yet to come. Now give me a joyful sense of your presence, and freedom from my characteristic sins of perfectionistic works-righteousness, fear of criticism, and self-comfort. Don’t allow my affections to be tangled in inordinate desires for the things of this world, but let me set my heart on things above, where Christ, my life, is seated at your right hand.  In Jesus’s name.  (Recollect morning Bible insights.) End of Workday:  For People I’ve Met or Dealt with Today Lord, send down your blessings, temporal and spiritual, on my family, friends, and neighbors. Bless those who have done us good today, and pardon all those who have done or wished us ill, and give them repentance and better minds. Be merciful to those who are in any trouble or suffering, and minister to them according to their needs. Do this for the sake of the One who went about doing good, the Man of Sorrows, your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ.  In his name. Upon Sleep:  For Rest O Lord, defend us from all dangers and also from the fear of them tonight. Grant us grace, not only to rest our bodies, but to have spiritual repose, in soul and conscience, in your grace and love, so we might be comforted and eased in all ways. And since no day passes that I do not sin in so many ways, please bury all my offenses in your mercy, that I might not lose your presence. Forgive me for Jesus’s sake. Finally, grant us grace always to live in such a state that we may never be afraid to die; so that, living and dying, we may be yours, through the merits and satisfaction of your Son Christ Jesus, in whose name we offer up these our imperfect prayers.  Amen. Re-printed from www.thegospelcoalition.org .

Can Christmas Lead You To Christ? Transcription Well, it's that season of the year and this morning I like you to turn in your bibles to three different places. Get ready for the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 2. Turn there, that's where we'll begin, Matthew 2. Then put a marker in the Old Testament, prophet Jeremiah Chapter 10. So Matthew 2, Jeremiah Chapter 10 and then the Gospel of John. We're familiar with that book, Chapter 10, Matthew 2, Jeremiah 10 and John Chapter 10. Let's pray. Our Father we have entered into a month that we have come to celebrate. So many of us Lord looks forward to the Christmas season, the songs that sung. The memories that it brings but some of us have painful memories of past Christmases. We pray that You would heal those. We Pray Father that as a body, we would understand who we are in Christ, but the freedom that we have and the responsibility that we have to make Christ known even among legends and myths. We pray Lord that You would help us to be creatively using the gifts, the talents that we have individually, to do that. Give us ears to hear what Your spirit might want to say to us on this day in Jesus' name, amen. And today's study is going to be a little bit different. If you don't mind I'm going to wax a little historical, not hysterical, historical on you and then give you a little bit of background of some things that you seen that you know about but you may not know where they came from and what is our response to them. I've had you open with the Gospel of Matthew, that's where we're going to begin. But the title of this message is "Can Christmas lead you to Christ?" Which might sound like a dumb question to ask because we're thinking, "Wait a minute, Skip, His name is in the word." Of course it can, Chris, Christ, mas. It's sort of like asking, "Does Lincoln's birthday have anything at all to do with Abraham Lincoln?" However, let me ask it in another way. Can this lead you to Christ? What about this wrapping paper, could that lead a person to Christ? I know we have big trees on the stage. There's a little one for a prop Christmas tree. Do you think that could do it? Will that lead a person to Christ? What about the stuff we put on the Christmas tree like the lights that are here? Do you think that could lead a person to Christ? Now, most people started saying, "No, no, no and then fewer and fewer and fewer." and perhaps that's because you're thinking about it a little bit differently because I submit to you that perhaps, even these things can be used to draw a person's attention to Jesus Christ. Now, the first thing we have to do is get rid of a lot of the fiction that comes with this time of the year and you know there is a lot that is surrounding the Christmas story and Christmas story have been added to an embellish over the year. So I want to begin by reading to you something that someone passed along to me, some facts about Santa Claus. Number one, no known species of reindeer can fly, you knew that. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified and while most of them are insects and germs, that doesn't completely rule out flying reindeer. Fact number two, there are two billion children in the world. Those persons who are under 18 years of age, but since Santa doesn't appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist children, that reduces the work load by 85%, leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average census rate, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there's at least one good child per house. Number three, Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. Thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming that he travels from east to west which seems logical. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. That's to say that for each Christmas household with good children, Santa has one thousandth of second to park, hop out of the slay, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back onto the slay and move to the next house. Assuming that each one of this 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth which of course we know to be false but for purposes of our calculations, we will accept. We are not talking about 0.78 miles per household. A total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus eating et cetera. That means that Santa's slay is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. Now, for purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth the Ullysses space probe moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second. A conventional reindeer can run at tops between 25 and 30 miles per hour. Number four, the payload on the slay adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium size Lego set which is two pounds, the slay is now carrying 321,300 tons. Not counting Santa who is invariably described as over weight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds, even granting that flying reindeer could pull 10 times the normal amount. We can't do the job with eight or even nine. We now need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload, not even counting the weight of the slay to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison that is four times the weight of the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Number five, 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as space crafts reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will then absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously exposing the reindeer behind them and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile will be subject to centrifugal forces of 17,500.06 times greater than gravity, which means that 250 pounds Santa will be pinned to the back of the slay by a 400,315,015 pound force. In conclusion, if Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's now dead, lots of fiction at Christmas so much so that a person might make this leap all of that is fiction. How do we know then that that baby in the manger isn't also fiction? There's been a campaign in the last few years by the American Atheistic Association of small but growing and very vocal group of people that are trying to relegate everything in Christmas to a myth. Get this, here's an ad that was put up in Ohio recently and you'll notice on the sign there's a picture of Neptune and Jesus and Santa Claus and Satan. And the sign reads "1.6 million Ohioans know myths when they see them. What do you see?" One of the reasons in an article that I read that the American atheist feel the need to bring this stuff up every Christmas. According to the article is Christmas is a time when atheists feel lonely. They feel like everybody's celebrating something but not us. So they're feeling a little isolated. Now, I have the solution for them, probably one that they don't want to hear. That's another sermon. But it brings up this point. This is what we want to deal with. Christmas has become so commercialized over the past 100 or 200 so years. Is it even okay for Christians to engage in it at any point, in any regard? Should we have anything at all to do with Christmas? I'll bring that up because every year we get letters or e-mails or phone calls or pastoral stab deals with this, this time of the year, every year. Why do you guys have a tree in the foyer? How come you're celebrating a pagan holiday? Now, that was bad enough. Look at our platform, we got like -- well this is our effort to make Albuquerque green. We'll just have trees up on the platform. Now, if we look back in our history we understand that this issue we're dealing with has been a long standing issue. The puritans for example in early American history did not celebrate Christmas. They thought it was so filled with paganism. It was to be shunned. That was a worldly holiday. They never celebrated Christmas. First of all because the word "Christmas, Christ-mas" has mas in it and because they felt that the mas undermines the finished work of Christ on the cross with the need to have it done all the time, it shouldn't be celebrated. Number two because it distracted Christians from keeping the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. That's what people should be keeping, they didn't celebrate it. Did you know that because of the puritans, Christmas was actually outlawed for a period of time in the east coast? For 22 years, it was illegal in Boston, Massachusetts to commemorate Christmas. If you're a business owner and you had a store, you're forbidden by law to close your store on Christmas and go home and celebrate it with your family. If you defy that and you went home, you could be prosecuted by law. That was repealed in 1681 incidentally, but it was even illegal to bake plum pudding on Christmas and the puritans instead of saying, "Happy Yuletide!" which was a common greeting. They mock people and said, "Happy Fooltide!" Because they have said it was so foolish. Now, Puritanism inculcated the culture in the east to the extent that it wasn't until 1847 that colleges and universities back east even allowed the student body or the teachers to have Christmas day off. And it wasn't until 1855 that Federal workers in America had Christmas off. So that culture has persisted. Now, let's look in a different direction. The Jehovah Witnesses is a group that will say, "You shouldn't celebrate Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving or birthdays, they're forbidden." And if you were a Jehovah Witnesses, you would be forbidden to celebrate them and some of you know that because you have relatives who are into that. Now, the reason that Jehovah Witnesses will say that will say that is, first of all because we don't know when Jesus was born and the bible never celebrates the birth of Christ. It only commemorates the death of Christ. And so, since the bible never celebrates the birth of Christ, neither should you. Of course, I think they would have a hard time convincing the angels outside of Bethlehem in Luke Chapter 2 about that. Can you imagine the angels saying, "We're so happy Jesus is born"? But you should never do this. More disturbing is an article in the Watchtower magazine put up by the Jehovah Witnesses that says, "Celebrating Christmas can cause you to lose your good standing before God." In other words, you could lose your salvation keeping Christmas because they say it encourages idolatry. They define idolatry as the worship of Jesus Christ as God. U.S.A today even had an article a few years back that said, "There's still a significant amount of people in the English speaking world that regard Christmas as pagan blasphemy." So, what are we to do? Are we to just make our mantra bah, humbug or should we take a different act? Now, this morning I'd like to do a few things with you. I would like you to look back with me, look in the past. We're going to look back at some traditions that have come our way. Number two, we want to look to the present how to answer those aged, old traditions. What do we do now? What is the solution? How do we address them? And then third, we want to look to the future and I want to challenge you to come up with your own innovations. What and how could you make this time of the year something that speaks of Christ for His glory? We turn to Matthew Chapter 2. This is actually taking place after the birth of Jesus Christ. It's the story of the wise man. Now, I've had you turn here because talk about a story that is fraught with tradition and this is it. Okay, without the biblical record how many wise man are there, quick? You said three and then say there are three. We say there are three because a song written in 1857 called "We Three Kings of Orient Are" has been sung a long time and since then people have been making Christmas cards and how many wise man did they put on there? Three and they're all riding what? Camels. Probably really what it was, it was a whole entourage of men riding Arabian steeds because they make a big splash in Jerusalem, Herod the king gets really upset that they're there. I don't think he'd get upset of three guys on camel show up, but it upsets all of Jerusalem. Well, let's look at the story. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. Wise man is the Greek word Magos, we get the term Magi. This was probably a priestly cast of Mede. They were from Medo-Persia, a 500 mile journey following an astronomical wonder saying, "Where is He who has been born King the Jews? For we have seen a star in the East and have come to worship Him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. Better word, agitated, worked up and all Jerusalem with him. When he gathered all the chief priests and the scribes and the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet; 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler who will worship my people Israel." So this is a story of the wise men who came after the birth of Jesus to celebrate and to bring gifts. One person that I have it here suggested it would be considerably different if they were wise women instead of wise men and this person says -- first of all, they would have asked directions. They would have arrived on time. They would have helped deliver the baby. They would have cleaned the stable, made a casserole and brought practical gifts from Babies "R" Us like diapers, wipes, bibs and formula. Okay, whatever. This is the story. And they came after Jesus was born and they came to Bethlehem after He had already been born. When did they come after He was born? When was He born? Silence, it's because nobody knows when Jesus was born and you gave the right answer. There is no answer. When was Jesus born? Nobody knows. Most people believe He wasn't born December 25th simply because shepherds according to most sources don't keep their flocks at night in Judea after the fall of the year. Mid October to early November, that's when they stop and they bring all the flocks inside. So we don't know when Jesus was born. You can say December 25th, nobody knows. The earliest date we have in history. The very earliest guess as to when Jesus was born was from the late 2nd century AD by Clement of Alexandria who affixed the birth date of Christ as May the 20th. And that sort of ruins it for you, right? You don't think about putting up a tree and giving gifts May 20th. Other early dates besides May 20th, April 18th, April 19th and another one March the 28th. All those are the earliest dates we have on record as people guessing the birth of Christ. We don't get December 25th in history until about the 3rd century AD when a man named Hippolytus of Rome said, "Jesus was born on December 25th." Now get this, he said He was born December 25th because he said he knew the exact day when Mary was conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was conceived in the womb by the Holy Spirit and he said that was March the 25th. So he counted exactly nine months later from March 25th and came up to December 25th. As if babies are like exactly nine months, but that's another story. So Jesus, it was sad. His birth was to be celebrated December 25th. Now, there was a convenient pagan holiday going on in Rome at that time. That has a very interesting background that I want to tell you about. I told you I was going to get a little historical with you. The Babylonians years before the Romans, but it got passed down culturally to the Romans, the Babylonian culture began with the guy named Nimrod. Now you know his name. He's from Genesis Chapter 10. Raise your hand if you know who Nimrod or if you've ever heard the name. Okay. The rest of you need to read your bibles. Nimrod was the guy who founded the town of Babel which became Babylon. Nimrod it says was a mighty hunter in the earth. Nimrod according to Babylonian legend marries a woman named Semiramis whom they called the queen of heaven. Nimrod marries the queen of heaven, Semiramis. Nimrod dies according to the legend and over time Semiramis turns up pregnant quite a bit after the time of her husband's death. She says she got pregnant by a miraculous flash of light that came from heaven, a lightning bolt. The son that was born, she named Tammuz. Tammuz was born December 25th, after the winter solstice. Semiramis' story is that Tammuz is the reincarnation of her husband Nimrod. He is the sun god and ziggurats were built around Babylon, these inspiring huge places of worship for the sun god. Two festivals that celebrated this whole event, two festivals in Babylon, one was in the spring and one was in the winter. The one in the spring was called Ishtar and Ishtar celebrated Semiramis getting pregnant with that bolt of lightning. The way it was celebrated was by giving little bunnies to one another which symbolizes fertility and little eggs called Ishtar eggs. You can see the connection, right? Tammuz was celebrated December 25th after the winter solstice. The days are getting longer. He is the reincarnated sun god and incidentally, his birth was celebrated by taking a log called Yule log. That's a Babylonian term for the infant log. The log symbolized the dead stock of Nimrod. It was placed in the fire. It was consumed and the next day that was consumed on mother night, December 24 and in its place the next day was this beautiful tree which symbolizes the reincarnation of the sun god in the person of Tammuz. Now, turn back to the Old Testament, Jeremiah Chapter 10. Some of you know where I'm going with this and are you familiar with this text? Jeremiah 10, Jeremiah is denouncing the pagans around Israel including the Babylonians. "Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel.  Thus says the Lord: Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; do not be dismayed of the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them for the customs of the people are futile; one cuts a tree from the forest; The work of the hands of the workman with an axe cuts a tree from the forest. They decorate it with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammer so that it will not topple." Now, some of you right now are going, "Uh-oh" and you're looking up at this platform that all the trees are going, "Uh-oh." Now, some people see this as the origin of the Christmas tree. Actually, it could be tied into that Babylonian festival but the tree was then cut down and crafted into an image and they put gold and silver chains. It was a little idol that they would carry around and the rest of the context makes that clear. Okay, this festival of the sun worshipped from Babylon gets passed down from culture to culture to culture. So remember I said that in Rome, there were a couple of festivals and Hippolytus said, "December 25th, Jesus was born. Let's celebrate his birthday." But there was a convenient pagan festival going on. Let me tell you about the pagan festival in Rome. During this season of the year, two festivals in ancient Rome were celebrated. One called Brumalia, one called Saturnalia. Saturnalia was first, it was December 17th through December 24th. It was the festival of the unconquered sun and on December 25th was Brumalia, the festival of the invincible sun because now the days are getting longer and the solstice has passed and they're celebrating that whole coming of light and the worship of the sun. So these two festivals coincided with the celebration by Hippolytus of Christmas. Then there's Santa Claus, he comes up every time this year. A big fat man in a red suit who lives at the North Pole and travels at the speed of -- well, almost the speed of light. It's so much more than speed of sound. He can do this thing miraculously and there's enough historical ammunition to make any of us as Christian say, "Well then bah, humbug." But again, I caution you, don't get so part in the term Santa Claustrophobic over this. Hold on just a little bit longer. We can be reactive or we can be redemptive. Okay, we've looked at the past. I want to move this into the present now. Let's look at the present. Let's ask ourselves, "What are the solutions to some of these past traditions"? Because--this is an important question, if you're the kind of a person and I would even salute you and applaud you for the heart that you have behind this. It says, "Oh, I'm not going to have anything at all to do it, any even pagan inclination or pagan naming at all." That's cool, but you're going to have a problem because if you say, "I worship on Sundays." Somebody could say, "Well, Sunday is the day the sun god was worshipped." You can't say that term anymore. Well then, I'll worship Saturday but Saturday was Saturn's day. You certainly are not going to worship on a day when Saturn was worshipped and you can't worship Monday. That's the day of the moon, moon day was worshipped. Tuesday, Tyr the north god for Mars, the god of war was worshipped. You get my point. You can't use January anymore because that's the Roman god Janus. You can't use March, that's Mars. You can't say June because that's Juno, the wife of Jupiter. July was the month when the commemoration of the deification of Julius Caesar. I could go on and on and on. So what do you do, what do you do? You have not only days and months. You have all of these traditions. I suggest to you that we do what the little bracelet that some Christians wear says we do, WWJD "What would Jesus do?" We do what Jesus would do. Now I have you turn to John Chapter 10. I want you to see what Jesus did with a popular holiday, not biblical holiday but a popular holiday that was going on at the time He was around, John 10:22. Notice how the Verse begins. "Now, it was the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem: and it was winter." It was like around this time of the year. "And Jesus walked in the temple in solemn, in Solomon's porch and the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, How long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do on my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." Okay, what feast was it? It was the Feast of Dedication. Feast of Dedication is known as Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights. Now, the Feast of Dedication is not a biblical feast. Hanukkah is not a biblical feast. It's not like pass over. It's not like Pentecost. It's not like the three mandatory feasts. The Old Testament made every Jews to celebrate in Jerusalem. But there was a celebration in Jerusalem and Jesus was at it, it was Hanukkah. Let me give you a quick little background of Hanukkah. This feast happened between the Old and the New Testament. That's when it started. There was a group up north of Syrians and there was a Syrian oppressor named Antiochus Epiphanes who hated the Jews went in, destroyed their temple in part by sacrificing a pig on the altars of the unclean Jews' gut all over the temple. Forbid the worship of Yahweh. Stop circumcision. Stop all the Jewish festivals and commanded the people to worship Zeus on that temple. That oppression continued until a group of priest called Hasmonean priest, one in particular Judas Maccabeus overturned the Syrians and rededicated the temple to the worship of God. That's where the Feast of Dedication comes from, when they did that dedication of the temple, according to -- listen carefully, legend. There was only one slag of oil. One crucible oil that could be put into the Menorah, the seven-branched candlestick in the holy place, an oil enough for one day only, but according to legend miraculously it lasted for eight days. So, today if you see in Jewish homes during this time of the year. A candlestick, it has nine branches on it called Hanukkah that symbolizes the eight days plus one candle is the lead candle to light all the rest. It's celebrating the Feast of Dedication. Here's a question. Did that really happen? Did the lengthening of the oil really happen? We don't know. It's a legend. It's a good story, but it was a tradition that was passed down. It may have happened. It may not have happened. A lot of people just think it was a tradition and never really happened. It's not a biblical feast and yet, Jesus didn't stay away from Jerusalem. It's winter time, it's Hanukkah. He's in Jerusalem and He's using this time of the year the Festival of Lights to point to himself as the light of the world. It's very significant and important. I suggest you and I do what Jesus would do with the holiday that is similar in sorts. Think of it this way, people right now in shopping centers and malls are singing the same songs you just sang moments ago in worship. It's the only time of the year they do that. They're humming, Hark the Herald Angel sing, Joy to the World. It's a really cool opportunity for you to bump up. Next time you go, "Hey, that's a great song." Let me tell you about the words. It could be used as a tool. So we do what Jesus did or what about the Christmas tree where did that come from? And why is it in church? That's a question I get. Why would you do that? Let me tell you why. The Christmas tree's origin that is far as we can tell comes from Latvia and in Germany. In the middle ages, the Latvians and the Germans will take a tree and they called it -- not a Christmas tree but a paradise tree. The only decorations that were on it were apples because it was the festival of Adam and Eve they were celebrating and the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, they would take from it and they would eat it to commemorate that. But also on the tree were little wafers of communion that symbolized the redemption of Christ to end the curse that Adam brought on the earth, that's the paradise tree. It's pretty cool huh? You know where they first put them up? Churches, the redemption that finished work of Christ taking away the curse of Adam eventually, they started being brought inside of a home. Okay, in ancient Latvian and German homes besides the paradise tree were little triangular wooden configurations with shelves on them and it was ornaments. They would take and decorate it with evergreen. They would put little figurines of the Christmas story like an activity set and a star on top. It is believed that Martin Luther was the guy who said, "Let's just combine them. Let's celebrate Christ with this tree." We are already doing it in the paradise tree and it is thought that Martin Luther was the first one to put candles on the tree, the light. Put candles on the tree bring children around it and say, "Just as these candles eradicate the darkness in this room." So Jesus Christ came to take away the darkness in our lives. He used it to preach the Gospel. I think it's a really great idea. Now, understand something. Go back to Hippolytus in Rome, 3rd century when he said, "We're going to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ as December 25th." Okay, you can stop there and get all hang up ago, but we don't know when he was born. I have a deep theological response.  Who cares? I mean, don't you want to celebrate that He came to the earth to pay for our sins? And this is good of a time as any, I mean it's already happening. Why not take part in it and use it for the right way? Give me an example. Every year we celebrate the birthday of Lincoln. Did you know historically, we don't exactly know when Abraham Lincoln was born? So do we stop doing it? I don't think so. Here's a better example. Let's say you go overseas and adopt a child from a poor country and they don't have good birth records in a lot of those countries. So they're going to say, "Mister and Missis so and so, we're glad you adopted this child. They're going to take him home to America but you have to know. We don't exactly when this baby was born. So or forever, you're going to take this child home. We'll never celebrate your birthday." No, you're going to take a date and celebrate the birth of that child. Now, I had you turned only three portions of scripture. I'm going to read you a fourth portion. You don't have to turn there. If you want to mark this down, you can. This is Romans Chapter 14. Here is Paul slamming down an argument about days of worship and commemoration. This is Romans 14:4, "Who are to judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. One person's esteems one day above another, another esteems everyday alike." Here it is, "Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it." So, I simply encourage all of us to do what Jesus did with a popular non biblical holiday and capitalize on it. Also, I would say do what Santa did. I'm glad I got a couple of your attentions like, "Wait a minute where does that fit in?" We may do what Santa did. There is no Santa Claus skip. Okay, there's no fat man in a red suit who lives at the North Pole and hangs out with little guys wearing tights with pointed ears, that I grant you. However, though there may not be this kind of Santa Claus, there was a guy in the 4th century and this guy comes from that guy. His name was Nicholas, Saint Nick. Nicholas, Nicholas in the 4th century AD in the town of Myra. He was a clergy man. The bishop of Myra in the province of Lycia in the country of Anatolia, that's modern day Turkey. And Nicholas by the way was at the Counsel of Nicaea in 325 AD. He's one of the good guys who stood up for the doctrine of the Trinity against all the heretics. Nicholas had intention for compassion and every year he would load up his wagon and put toys in it, put fuel in it for the poor, put food on it for the poor and distribute it. When he died, people were so impressed with his example that on the Feast of Saint Nicholas they said, "Let's give gifts to one another." That's where it came from. Okay, so the red and the white hat. It is believed that the bishop's miter, headdress and cape which were red and white in ancient days. That's where it came from and it was added by artists later on. And also later on, it was added. Saint Nicholas in Dutchman and German, Saint Nicholas and the contraction to sinter Claus comes from Saint Nicholas, sinter Claus, hence the anglicized Santa Claus. There was actually a man named Santa Claus. So, can these things lead you to Christ? Probably in and out of themselves but boy you could sure tell a kid about Nicholas who gave gifts to the poor and loved people on the name of Christ and a tree with lights that Martin Luther once said, "Points to Jesus as the Light of the World." And the wrapping paper, you can talk about the simple wrapping of God in a human form given as a gift to this world. What a wonderful set of opportunities we have. So now I end with the third. We've looked to the past, the present real briefly. As we look the future, let me challenge you to be innovative. Come up with some ideas to bring Christ into your home and into the community at this season. Let me throw out a few ideas. Number one, you could put ornament on your tree that marks spiritual milestones. Some of you have told me recently after an altrical. "My nephew went forward today or my father went forward or my daughter went forward." Why don't you make an ornament that has his or her picture with the date they were saved, commemorate that. Put that on your tree or a baby dedication or some spiritual milestone. Here's a second thing you could do and some of you are already doing it, adopt a needy person. Nicholas did. You do that with OCC, Operation Christmas Child. Some of you do with Caring Tree, visiting the detention centers. A third thing you could do, this is a tradition from my family now. It was my wife's idea. I cannot take part for any of this. On Christmas Eve, we usually want to teach Nathan how Jesus changes us and we took a little brown paper bag. The narrower the bag, the better because it represents the old year, the old life and you write on the outside of the bag something you want God to change in your life. Some sin you're confessing. You write that on the bag and you put it out. The next morning my wife had three bags, new one set out in place of the old brown ones with goodies inside and sweets inside to show that God changes us and it's so sweet when he does. And the first thing they did Christmas morning was not go to the tree but find the bag. Fourth thing you could do. You could find a neighborhood and drive through it slowly praying for each house on that block, maybe your neighborhood, maybe a poor neighborhood, maybe a richer neighborhood. I just warn you, when you go through neighborhoods really slow be careful. Keep going because it looks like you're casing a joint, right? Drive by praying, a pray for the houses in the neighborhood. I want to show you what one group did in Enid Oklahoma to take what goes on during this time of the year in the form of Christmas trees and use it to share the Gospels. It's very creative and innovative. I draw your attention to this screen. (Video Playing 00:41:01 - 00:41:57) Male: Today, you guys have took that step out of the queue and you guys are out now and this is a chance for you guys to really go out and show these people the love of Christ. That's why we're out here, the tree is the way to get us in into the houses but the real thing that they need to see is the thing that's living inside of you and that's what they really need. You're going to see a lot of brokenness. You're going to see a lot of houses that are really shattered, a lot of clutter. It's going to be hard to probably even get in some houses, but the people are really excited to meet you. They were just blown away knowing that someone was going to come out give them a Christmas tree for Christmas. And all these people that you're going to, they will not have a tree this Christmas if it wasn't for you all. Pastor Skip Heitzig:  Let's all stand. Here is the bottom line. Do you want to be known for what you are against or do you want to be known for what you are for? There's a lot of people who are known for what they're, "I'm against that. I'm against that." Nobody wants to hang-out with anybody like that. When you're known for what you are for, I'm for Jesus and I want to make Jesus known to you and tell you the rest of the story. It could be a very compelling thing. So that's our challenge this month. To see what ways the Lord would inspire us to reach out in His name, with His love for His glory. Lots of people make a lot of fuss about Christmas. Some love this time of year (myself included). Others hate it or are opposed to its celebration. Some couch their disdain in “spiritual” reasons, saying some of us have capitulated to the world’s celebration of a pagan holiday. Oh, really? Is it true? And if so, can Christmas lead you to Christ? www.connectwithskip.com .

A while back, I received this desperate text from a hurting friend. She had discovered that some ministry leaders she greatly admired and who had played a significant role in her spiritual growth had been leading a double life—teaching one thing while covering a blatantly ungodly lifestyle. "Sleepless night. I am angry; I am hurt; I am scared; I am in unbelief and a host of other things. Been thinking all night how everything I believed was a lie and how I am a fool and realizing how the last fourteen years of my life has been built around two people who today I don't even know. I hate it all." My friend was experiencing the piercing bitterness of betrayal. If you have ever been through something similar, you know it's natural to feel hurt, sick to your stomach, like your world has been rocked. But while those feelings are natural, they're not a healthy place to live for an extended period. I trust my response to my friend will bring you comfort, hope, and some practical ideas for how to move on and find healing. ----------- He will hold you when you cannot hold yourself. This will not be an easy journey. But He will walk through it with you. He will hold you when you cannot hold yourself. I haven't been quite where you are. But I have been through intense disillusionment where my faith was deeply shaken. I can tell you that He is faithful and true. Here are a few thoughts and suggestions as you walk through this painful process: Be honest with God about what you are feeling. He can handle it. Get some sleep. You have been incredibly depleted by this whole situation. When we are physically depleted, we are more vulnerable to believing things about God that just aren't true. Listen to music that speaks strong biblical truth to your heart. Listen to  "Hidden in My Heart" lullaby CDs ! Keep them playing; listen over and over and over. Park in the Psalms for a while. Read slowly. See how the psalmists cried out to the Lord in their pain and how in time He lifted their heads. Keep reading, even when you don't believe it or feel it. Find a few verses that speak to where you are right now; memorize them and keep reciting them over and over again. I have been doing that recently with  Psalm 18:1–3 . Take walks. Listen to sermons or music as you do. Being sedentary fuels depression and unreliable emotions. Don't draw conclusions based on what you think or feel during the night hours. The enemy seems to create greater fear, doubt, and unbelief during the darkness. Meditate on  Jeremiah 17:5–10  and  Psalm 118:8–9 . How does the Lord want to transfer your trust from "men" to Christ? These feelings you are experiencing will take time to deal with. That's okay. It took me eighteen months to walk through my "darkest night of the soul." The night will not last forever. Guard against bitterness. I believe my journey would not have had to be as long as it was if I had not given in to bitterness. Be careful about becoming isolated. When you are struggling, reach out to Him and to others. You can't fight this battle alone. If you try, it will be easier for the enemy to take you under. "Don't doubt in the darkness what you have seen in the light." "Don't doubt in the darkness what you have seen in the light." You will come through this, but not because you are strong—"We are weak . . . but  He  is strong." In time, you will come to know and believe and love Him in even deeper ways than you ever imagined possible. Be still before the Lord. Wait patiently for Him. He will not forsake you. He will deliver you. And He will make you an even stronger instrument in His hand.

What plan do you have for your spiritual life? Where do you want to go spiritually? And how are you going to get there? My hunch is that most of us don’t have a plan for our spiritual life. Most of us live hoping that we’ll drift into a better spiritual life. But that is a faulty assumption. Have you drifted into losing weight? Or becoming a better father? Or into your Master’s degree? For some reason, we think that even though we make plans for improvement and we set goals in other areas, it’s not necessary or spiritual for us to set out these kinds of plans for our spiritual walk. Jesus himself lived an incredibly purposeful life. If you pick up the gospel of John, you see that Jesus is very sensitive to discerning and following God’s purpose for his life. His purpose was not about self-fulfillment but self-giving at the cross. In John 17:1 , Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” How do we live a spiritual life with such purpose and awareness? Just as we need a plan to study for a business exam, or to lock in our workouts to lose weight, so we need a plan for our spiritual life. So, what’s your plan? What do you want? How are you going to grow in your understanding of God’s Word? Or how are you going to grow in your prayer life? What current habits do you have? Do they need to be changed to grow? Do you need a shock to your system? Or maybe you need to expand what you’re doing? We need both the habits and the goal. On the one hand, there is a power in developing purposeful habits that we consistently practice over decades. On the other hand, many of our spiritual habits are without purpose or have lost their purpose. We need habits directed toward a finish line. Paul says this to the Corinthian church: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control… [i] That is pretty abrasive language. Are we disciplining our spiritual life so as to run the race God has called us to run with the same purpose as a marathon runner? How are you disciplining your life purposefully? The thoughtful pastor and author, Eugene Peterson, in his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction , encourages us to look not for quick fixes or spiritual jolts, but rather for patterns of discipleship that will stand the test of time. What in your spiritual life will stand the test of time? The first question for us then is what is the finish line? Paul says that he doesn’t run aimlessly. He had a specific aim in his spiritual life. We see in his letters that his aim was the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles, all the way to Rome and then Spain. Paul knew exactly where he was running. Do you? What is your destination? What is the lasting impact you hope to have? The spiritual legacy you hope to leave your children, your friends, your church? Start by fixing the destination. For me, that has led me to write and revise a personal mission statement that reminds me of my identity of Christ and then sets my calling as a husband, father, and pastor in front of me. [ii] I don’t want to run aimlessly. The next question is: how are we training to get to the finish line Christ has set before us? Our tendency is to do what we’ve always done, but just as the guy with the lopsided body in the gym who only bench presses and curls and never does cardio or lower body has a body that displays that workout routine, with biceps the size of cantaloupes, a generous gut, and legs that don’t look like they should be able to support the structure, so too do many of us have spiritual routines that have created top-heavy spiritual health. If our spiritual disciplines have created imbalances, we need a change. Do you read the Bible every day but your prayer life is constrained to inch-deep requests to God? Do you journal daily but are disconnected from meaningful community? Do you study scripture deeply, but don’t serve the body of Christ meaningfully? When was the last time you fasted? Meditated? Memorized scripture? Is my spiritual life aimless? Is it a lot of effort without actually moving me toward my destination? May we dream, plan, and go after what God has for us: for his glory and our good. Next we will dig deeper into the question of what the destination is that God is calling you to. www.thebeehive.live . [i] 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

When I was a young Christian and didn’t yet understand much about my faith in Christ, I asked a friend who was in prison ministry, “Can a Christian lose his salvation?” He responded rather wisely with another question. He asked, “What do you want to get away with?” I have found that when someone asks this question it’s often because they are holding onto something sinful that they don’t want to part with, or they are looking to do something they know is wrong. To answer this question properly, it’s important that we understand what salvation is, how we acquire it, and how we keep it. What is salvation? The Hebrew term for salvation ( yeshuʿah ) literally means, “Rescue.” The question is, rescue from what? Israel’s early understanding of salvation was based on their Exodus experience. “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again” ( Exodus 14:13 ). Beyond this, the Israelites had several experiences with oppressive foreign government and ultimately, the exiles into foreign lands as God punished them for their sins. So, through their history, Israel’s understanding of salvation, or rescue, was a political one, and in some instances, a racial one. Isaiah the prophet spoke of a future salvation that was broader than being saved from Egypt or exile. “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” ( Isaiah 49:6 ). If salvation goes to the ends of the earth, then its more than political or national deliverance. Since it encompasses the earth, there must be something common to everyone on earth that requires rescue. That something is sin. We all need rescue from sin and from the punishment of sin. In the Old Testament, especially in Judges, the people could do nothing to save themselves from their enemies. They had to rely on God’s rescue plan for their deliverance. This prefigures our salvation today. We contribute nothing to our salvation. Jesus did all of the work. Our only role is to receive it. Salvation, as we have come to understand, is primarily being saved from our sin, then being saved from the punishment of our sin. Because we are saved from sin, we no longer need to obey its temptations. “You too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” ( Romans 6:11 ). We need to be saved from our sin because sin keeps us from knowing and experiencing God. “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” ( Psalm 66:18 ). How we acquire salvation. We receive Christ by grace through faith. Grace is receiving what we do not deserve. Mercy is not receiving what we deserve. We deserve death, mercy spares us. We deserve punishment. Grace gives us eternal life. Faith is to trust God for our salvation. We have faith that he exists and loves us and desires to save us from our sin. Yet, notice the language used. Not only is grace a gift from God, but the very faith we exercise is also a gift. We don’t come upon it on our own. Look at  Ephesians 2:8-9 . “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” ( Ephesians 2:8-9 ). Both grace and faith are gifts. Salvation is a simple offer. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved” ( Romans 10:9-10 ). In a nutshell, there are four things we need for salvation: belief, repentance, confession, and receive. Belief , we must believe that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. We must  repent  of our sin. There is no salvation without repentance. We must  confess  that Jesus Christ is Lord. Receive  Christ. We must also  obey  Jesus’ commands. Obedience doesn’t bring salvation, but it is one evidence that our faith in Jesus is genuine. God works our obedience through the Holy Spirit. Notice has Paul puts this in Philippians. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” ( Philippians 2:12-13 ). Notice that in the process we think we are working it out on our own, but in fact, “It is God who works in you.” So, grace and faith are God’s gifts. We don’t produce them, God does. The evidence of our salvation. So, what is the evidence of our salvation? In two words, Spiritual fruit. Notice the contract scripture makes between what is called the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.But the fruit  of the Spirit  is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law” ( Galatians 5:19-23 ). A truly saved person lives the fruit of the Spirit. Ultimately, the natural behavior of a saved person is love. Jesus said, “By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” ( John 13:35 ). There are other traits of a person who is saved, who is growing in love for the Lord. We talk about the Lord.   Deuteronomy 6:7 . “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Surround myself with things of the Lord.  “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” ( Deuteronomy 6:8-9 ). Love the scripture.  “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word…whoever does not love me does not keep my words” ( John 14:23-24 ). Bring my thoughts under the control of the Holy Spirit.  “Take every thought captive to obey Christ” ( II Corinthians 10:5 ). We want others to love the Lord.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” ( Matthew 28:19-20 ). The changing of our character is God’s work. And we must remember that the fruit of the Spirit is the fruit “of the Spirit.” IE, it comes from the Spirit, not from you. God’s role in giving salvation. God initiates the salvific relationship by drawing the sinner to himself. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” ( John 6:44 ). The scripture seems to state that no one initiates a salvific relationship with God, but that God must draw us first. “…both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” ( Romans 3:9-11 ). \So, anytime you see a person who is searching for God, or who expresses an interest in spiritual things, you can assume the Holy Spirit is trying to draw that person to Christ. When he draws us, the scripture says he convicts us of, “Sin, righteousness, and judgment to come” ( John 16:8 ). By recognizing these things in our lives, we become convicted of our sin and the need for rescue. Upon confession of Christ, the new Christian is sealed with the Holy Spirit. “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” ( Ephesians 1:13-14 ). My role in receiving salvation. Your role in salvation is simple: believe, repent, confess, receive. Because there is nothing you can do to be saved, our role is limited. We do not work for salvation. No matter how good we think we are, we cannot earn it. So horrendous is sin in God’s sight that even if we were to die for another person that would not be enough to earn salvation. Salvation is a free gift given upon belief, repentance, confession, and receiving. What is being saved? Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have been saved from our sin and from the eternal punishment for our sin. However, it’s important to know what is being saved and what does it look like to be in the process of salvation. Salvation is not simply an event.  Salvation is a process . Many people have prayed what is called, “The sinner’s prayer.” I once taught a men’s Bible study on spiritual growth. Suddenly, one of the men interrupted me and said, “Why do I have to learn this stuff? I prayed the prayer, I’m in!” You don’t pray a prayer and then you’re in. On the contrary, there are three parts of each person involved in the process of salvation. Our spirit is saved, “…sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ…” ( I Peter 1:2 ). Our mind is being saved, and “We have the mind of Christ” ( I Corinthians 2:16 ). We are also commanded to renew our minds ( Romans 12:1 ). Our bodies will be saved. Our spirit is where the Holy Spirit resides. He seals us for salvation. Our spirits will not endure punishment for sin. Our mind is in the process of being saved. Sometimes we think of sin, or dwell on sinful thoughts. Sometimes we succumb to them. Paul said that we must, “Bring every thought captive to obedience of Christ” ( II Corinthians 10:5 ). He also said we must renew our minds ( Romans 12:1 ). Our bodies will be saved. Our current bodies are not prepared to enter Heaven. At the resurrection we will receive our bodies back, but they will be changed to look like Jesus’ resurrection body. “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” ( I Corinthians 15:42-44 ). The guarantee of my salvation. I don’t guarantee my salvation, God does. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” ( John 10:27-29 ). Since salvation is a work of God, and since we do not add anything to make salvation possible, it is then guaranteed by God. What we’ve learned so far is that we did nothing to receive salvation, therefore we can do nothing to lose it. Even if we sin again, and we will, God still forgives because we have given ourselves to Jesus Christ. But this brings up other issues. We all know people who used to claim Christ as theirs, but they seem to have walked away from the faith. What do we say about them? When someone abandons salvation. My dear friend Rick, disillusioned with church and some Christians, after 15 years abandoned his faith, and became a Buddhist. Rick mistook his disappointment with some Christians as if the entire church of Christ had failed in its mission. Thus, he blames the church for his disbelief and disobedience. His situation reminded me of  Hebrews 6:4-6 . “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have  once been enlightened , who have  tasted the heavenly gift , and have  shared in the Holy Spirit , and have  tasted the goodness of the word of God  and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” ( Hebrews 6:4-6 ). There is a person in scripture of whom Hebrews 6  describes: Judas. He was enlightened by his time with Jesus. He tasted of the good things that Jesus offered. He traveled with the other disciples and cast out demons (a work of the Spirit). And he experienced the goodness of the word by listening to the teaching of Jesus. Paul’s companion, Demas, is another such example ( II Timothy 4:10 ). He experienced all these things with Paul, but eventually left him because, scripture says, he loved this present world. IE, Demas wanted to keep his sin. If someone goes so far in their profession of faith and turns away, then there is little hope left for them. There’s a similar though very different description of people who turn away after hearing the Gospel, but it is very different. “For if we go on  sinning deliberately  after  receiving the knowledge of the truth , there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?” ( Hebrews 10:26-29 ). This passage is about someone who rejects Christ after receiving the news about him. It’s not about a person who was saved and then turned away. It’s about someone who heard and rejected Christ rather than receiving him. Notice the phrase, “Receiving the knowledge of the truth.” IE, hearing about Jesus, but not having received him personally. Such a person can only await judgment. This passage is true of every person who hears the Gospel but decided not to follow Christ. Looking saved but not really being saved. The previously mentioned passage from Hebrews 6  would seem to describe someone who turns away from Christ after having received him. However, the Apostle John tells us that such a person may not have been saved in the first place. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” ( I John 2:19 ). This is where we need an understanding of what theologians call the  visible church  and the  invisible church . The visible church are those people in the Christian community who appear to follow Christ and are involved with church and Christian things. However, not all who are in the visible church are really saved. There are plenty of pretenders or people visiting church that don’t know the Lord, but they are involved in the church. They are in the visible church. The invisible church is everyone in Heaven and on Earth who have truly surrendered their lives to Christ whether they are alive with us now or are in Heaven. We can’t always tell if someone is part of the invisible church, so we always give people the benefit of the doubt. But there are many who have the appearance of being saved but may not be saved at all. Ensuring you are really saved. Since salvation comes by grace through faith, we should make every effort to ensure that we have surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ. It is not enough to just pray a simple prayer and then go on with life as if nothing has changed. A truly saved person will be transformed to lead a truly saved life, just like the characteristics we discussed earlier. If a person doesn’t exhibit the traits of a true believer, then it is likely that that person does not have Christ. The one who doesn’t have Christ doesn’t have the Father and if you don’t have the Father then you don’t have eternal life or forgiveness of your sin. To clarify one thing, however, spiritual maturity takes time. You may meet someone who claims to be a Christian, but they may be holding on to some things from their old life. We must give them the benefit of the doubt and be patient. Sometimes it takes time to develop the spiritual maturity that a person needs. guywithabible.com