It’s that time of year, when transitions happen: seasons close and new seasons begin. Maybe you’re a student who just headed off to college. Maybe you got a new job. Maybe your employer transitioned you. Those are some of the many natural reasons that you might have just left or might be leaving your church in the coming weeks. Maybe you’ve left or are planning on leaving your church for entirely different reasons, though. Maybe your pastor is in a rut. Maybe the worship grates on you. Maybe you feel like you just don’t know anyone there any longer. Maybe you were injured by someone at the church and you tense up at the awkwardness of returning. Maybe you feel like you’re not getting spiritually fed there any longer. Maybe you are frustrated with how your church has handled Covid-19. In this five-part series we will explore appropriate reasons for leaving a church, how to leave a church, how to choose a church, and how to join a church. Let’s explore some of the most common reasons[i] people leave the church and reflect whether they are appropriate or not. 1) I feel disconnected “The church doesn’t feel like home any longer. My friends have left and I feel like I’m at someone else’s church when I arrive.” It’s not appropriate to leave: losing friends is hard, but we shouldn’t leave a church because our friends have left. Part of the joy of the church is that God brings together strangers into community. Do the hard work of starting a new small group or serving in a new ministry and God will surely bring about new relationships. 2) They got rid of an important program “I poured my heart and soul into AWANA and the pastor just canceled it.” “Our Sunday School class was family, and after ten years they said we can’t have our Sunday School class any longer.” “I’ve served with the Gideons for fifteen years, and our church has always supported it. But this past year they stopped providing financial support.” It’s not appropriate to leave: what a beautiful thing to pour yourself out in service! And how appropriate that we become so connected to the vision of those programs that we serve! But while the mission of God (“go therefore and make disciples of all nations” Mt 28:19) remains the same, the methods of accomplishing that mission change. And so our grip on any particular program ought to be loose. 3) The church just started a building campaign “Our church is gearing up for relocation. I’ve gone through a relocation before, and I don’t want to hear the constant drumbeat of financial and service demands that are going to come because of a relocation.” It’s not appropriate to leave: the gospel isn’t an easy thing. Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow him (Matthew 16:24). He calls some to sell everything and follow him (Matthew 19:21). He calls all to use their gifts for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7). Church ought to make us uncomfortable, and God can use relocation for the sanctification of his people. 4) I disagree with the pastor’s politics “I can’t believe the church doesn’t require masks.” “I am so frustrated the pastor hasn’t denounced vaccination mandates from the pulpit.” “I am so angry that our pastor said what he said about President Biden’s handling of Afghanistan.” “I’m angry our pastor didn’t support President Trump during this past election.” “I’m sick and tired of our pastor assuming that you have to be a Republican to be a Christian. He never comes out and says it, but he makes dozens of little comments that disparage Democrats.” It’s probably not appropriate to leave: the idea that politics and religion should be separated is a secular, not a Christian idea. If Christianity is God’s truth, Christianity has plenty to say about politics. But Christianity is not a sub-category of either political party and ought to speak truth to both parties. If your pastor appears to place his nationality or political affiliation above the gospel or to reduce the gospel’s reach to politics, then it may be time to leave. But Christians ought to be able to have civil and respectful disagreement about the political implications of the gospel. 5) They changed a good thing “This used to be my church. But they have lost their way.” “The new pastor doesn’t preach like our former pastor. He’s dry and I can’t follow his sermons.” “We used to sing hymns and choruses, but we only sing choruses now, and the drummer is too loud.” “We used to be a family, but we’re so big now, it’s like a mob.” It’s probably not appropriate to leave: change is hard. Change stretches and challenges us. And the changes your church is making may not even be wise. Maybe the change in worship style will empty out the sanctuary. Maybe they hired a pastor who isn’t as dynamic as your former pastor. But whether you preferred the music before or your former pastor or singing from a hymnal, usually these changes reflect our preferences. Unless the changes reflect a fundamental abandonment of the gospel or foundational theological doctrines, you should probably stay. 6) No one there is authentic “Everyone here seems so fake.” “I like the pastor’s preaching, but everyone in my small group seems allergic to being really honest and transparent.” It’s probably not appropriate to leave: we all seek authenticity, but we tend to reduce what authenticity looks like to what we think it ought to look like. It is likely that those at the church think they’re being authentic. The best way to open the door to authenticity is to lead the way. It is a rare small group that will respond to your authenticity with inauthenticity. Transparency leads to trust which leads to transparency. There are rare situations where churches have structures that actually disallow authenticity; that may be an appropriate reason to leave. 7) I was hurt by someone at the church “The Children’s Ministry Director won’t confront the family who keeps bringing their kids to Sunday School sick and got my kids sick.” “I found out that my connection group leader gossiped about me.” “I’ve complained multiple times to the Senior Pastor about the temperature of the sanctuary and he never fixes it.” “They asked me to step down from the worship team because they don’t think I’m good enough.” It’s probably not appropriate to leave: the burden of peacemaking in the Bible falls on us. On me. On you. Have you been a peacemaker? Have you examined your own heart and confessed any sin to the one who hurt you? Have you confronted the one who injured you in love? If that was rebuffed, have you brought in others? Have you given the process time to work through? There are only a very few situations where leaving is appropriate before we engage in proactive biblical peacemaking.[ii] We’re called to do the hard thing and get messy. 8) The church makes me feel guilty “Every sermon is a reminder of how much I’ve failed.” “Everyone at church has it together and seeing them reminds me what a sinner I am.” “All I hear is ‘do, do, do’ from the pastor.” It may be appropriate to leave: this one really depends on whether you’re really feeling guilt or shame. If you are running from your church because you don’t want to hear about your sin and you want good news without the bad news, then you are running from the very thing that will save you. We need to be convicted and challenged and repent and turn to truth and righteousness. If, however, what you are experiencing is shame or false guilt rooted in a call to earn your salvation, then you are in a church that has twisted the good news of Jesus Christ into legalism and you not only can, but you should leave. 9) The church doesn’t teach the truth any longer “The pastor doesn’t preach from the Bible any longer, he is preaching the gospel of self-help.” “The new pastor made it clear in his candidating process that he doesn’t hold to core biblical truths.” “The pastor preached on the book of Revelation and I realized he holds a view of the end times that I strongly disagree with.” It may be appropriate to leave: if the church has truly abandoned the gospel and/or core historic theological tenants, then you can and should leave the church. However, be careful what you consider to be “core historic theological tenants.” Each of those words is important. Just because the pastor has a different interpretation of the end times, or of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or of the creation account doesn’t necessarily mean that the church has abandoned the gospel. Ask your pastor to meet with you to discuss your concerns and listen charitably about beliefs that you may be uncomfortable with. Recognize, though, that the conflicting beliefs may be well within the bounds of biblical Christianity. 10) I’m moving “I appreciate my church, but I just accepted a promotion and am moving to another town.” It’s probably appropriate to leave: even here, I’m going to suggest that it still might not be appropriate to leave your church. Don’t assume that your vocational calling trumps your calling to your church. It might, but this should be an open question for you (and your family). God might be calling you to stay in your current job. He might not be releasing you from your workplace, your church, or your neighborhood. He might have a calling for you there that is more important than your career advancement. The Hard Work of Staying My point in this post isn’t to give your church a blank check to do a poor job. Churches and leaders are called to a high level of responsibility to lead the church well and create vibrant, gospel-proclaiming communities to move outward with the life-changing hope of Jesus. They’re called to listen. They’re called to lead as peacemakers. But we become the problem when we are not engaged in being the church and participating in the transformation of the community for the glory of God. If our churches are mere gatherings of shoppers, how can we expect God to build up vibrant communities of faith like we see in Acts where there was shared worship, life, meals, and even possessions? How can we be one body with many members that Paul envisions in 1 Corinthians 12 when members are moving from body to body without much more thought than changing our dentist? You are the church. The people are the church. And transformation comes through you. Hope comes through you. Just as beautiful and meaningful seasons lie in front of the couple who is experiencing marital difficulty if they will do the hard work of reconciliation, so also fruitful times may lay in front of those in situations where they are contemplating leaving their church if they will stick it out and do the difficult work. I pray that God gives you the strength to take that risk, if that is what you ought to do. In the coming weeks we will continue walking through what a healthy process of leaving and joining a church looks like.

The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 Saying Hard Things Jeff Jones Hello and welcome as we continue The Secret Sauce, the key ingredients that compose the kind of relationships we all crave. Today we are talking about a key skill in relationships that is very hard to master. Today we are talking about how to say hard things, how to have hard conversations that actually work. Before we talk about hard things though, let’s have some fun. I’m going to give some famous movie lines with a blank and you fill in the blank by shouting out the word that goes there, right where you are. At home, you can make it a game. Whoever gets the answers quickest gets to pick what is for dinner. I am going to say some famous movie lines, and you fill in the blank. Let’s see how we do. SLIDE____________________________) You had me at ____________. SLIDE____________________________) May the _________ be with you. SLIDE____________________________) They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our ____________. SLIDE____________________________) Love is putting someone else’s needs before _________. SLIDE____________________________) I’m going to make him an offer he can’t ___________. 1 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 SLIDE____________________________) You can’t handle the __________. Let’s key in on that last one. The truth? You can’t handle the truth! Such a great line, because I think we all have kind of a love/hate relationship with the truth about ourselves. We want to know and don’t want to know hard truths about us all at the same time. But in the end, we know that we really do need to know the truth, especially about ourselves. We never want to be the last person to know some truth about us that we need to deal with. Everybody else knows it, but we don’t, like the proverbial booger on the nose. A couple of weeks ago, I spoke in this series about the Unity Table. Does anybody remember that? This weekend is Unity Table weekend, so let’s be praying about all those conversations. Here is a video of me doing that message. *** Video from Unity Table Sermon What I did not know when I was speaking but discovered after I spoke is that my zipper was down for that entire sermon. That’s always been a big fear of mine, and this is as far as I know the first time it has ever happened. So, after the message, I watched the video, focusing on my pants, to make sure my shirt did its job of covering up my zipper area. Thankfully, it did, at least I think it did. It’s terrible not to know though. Fortunately, I knew some that there were some people watching that taping who would tell me the truth. Jan, one of our pastors who leads production of all of our services, I’ve known for a long time. She’s like my big sister, and I know she would tell me. So, that made me feel better. Because I know some others would feel too uncomfortable to tell me. They would just leave me open-zippered, because it can be hard to tell someone things like that. 2 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 That’s why people who love us enough to tell us the truth are MVP’s in our lives. We all have blind spots, problems in our lives that are obvious to others but not so much to us. We get used to our own stink, whereas other people can smell our stink. So, people who will lovingly say, “You stink,” are really valuable. I’m not talking about critics or haters. I’m talking about people who are with you and for you in life, and who will take that uncomfortable step to have hard conversations. We are all flawed, sinful people, and that condition is worse than we think. We need others to love us enough to speak truth into our lives, and of course we need to love others that much too. The best relationships we can have are ones that have total acceptance with total truth. That’s the way Jesus loves. John, one of his closest disciples and friends, summarized the way Jesus related this way: SLIDE_______________________) John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus came full of grace and full of truth. Grace says, “I love you as you are.” Truth says, “I love you too much to let you stay that way.” Grace without truth is not loving, because you just leave people with their zippers down. Truth without grace is also not loving. It’s just mean. This past week was my annual review, which of course happens every year. A couple of our board members get feedback from people on my team, as well as a peer who knows me well, make their own observations and do my review. That always gets to my love / hate relationship with the truth. I love happy truths, how great I’m doing. But I’m not so in love with the less happy truths, where I need to do better. But, of course, I really do want to get better. And what makes that work is that they are coming with both grace and truth. If all they did was say positive things, all grace, it would feel nice at first but after a while I wouldn’t trust that. I would assume that they weren’t telling me the hard things I need to hear to get better. But if all they did was truth, how I need to get better, with no grace, no encouragement, I would get discouraged and want to find another job, maybe join the NBA and play in the bubble. Everybody needs a backup plan. What makes it work 3 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 is the presence of both grace and truth. They go together and should in our key relationships. Paul says it this way in Ephesians 4:15, SLIDE_______________________) Ephesians 4:15 “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” The way we grow to maturity is by being in a community of people who will speak the truth in love. Such a cool phrase, “speak the truth in love,” and that is what we are talking about today in how to have hard conversations. How do we speak the truth, and do it in love? That’s really the key to what we are talking about today, how to have hard conversations that have a good chance of working. For our relationships to go deeper, this is a key ingredient, this ability to have hard conversations. Most of us have a lingering issue in a relationship or a lingering concern about someone close to us, and we are just leaving them with zipper down or leaving an undealt with issue in a relationship, and those things don’t get better over time. So, how do we effectively have a hard conversation? Let’s dive deeper into Paul’s phrase. SLIDE_________________________) Speak the truth in love. SLIDE_________________________) Speak the truth in love. * Be direct. * Be balanced. * Be face to face. You do have to speak. Don’t leave the unsaid thing unsaid and don’t just drop hints or assume they know. Speak. That’s true of positive things, like encouragement, as well as concerns. We leave so much unsaid. It’s like a husband in marriage counseling whose wife said, “You never tell me you love me anymore.” He replied, “I told you I loved you forty years ago, and if 4 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 that ever changes, I’ll let you know.” That’s no good. We need a steady diet of encouragement and affirmation, and in relationships that forms the security that allows us to say hard things. People need to know that we are for them, that we accept them, that we are a fan, before they can hear the hard things. So, start with that. Don’t assume people know the good things you think about them. And when it does come time to say a hard thing, say it. Be direct. I have family who live in New Jersey, and they seem to have no problem being direct. I grew up however in the south, and we seem to have a harder time doing that. I will tend to beat around the bush so long that my message gets lost. I say encouraging things for a long time, and then soften my corrective message so much that people don’t even hear it as a hard thing. Like one person told me once, “You can tell me to go to the bad place in a way that I want to go there.” I have had to learn to be direct and to be concise. I find it’s best to start with a question, such as, “Can I ask you something hard?” Or, “You know I’m a big fan, right? So, is it okay if we talk about something that is really concerning to me?” And when we speak, let’s do it face to face. Like Jesus said in Matthew 18, SLIDE______________________) Matthew 18:15 “’If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.’” He says go to him and speak. Jesus didn’t say, “If you have a concern or offense, text your brother, or message your brother, email your brother, or put it out on Instagram.” You go to the person, face to face, or if that person is too far away for that, at least call. SLIDE_________________________) Speak the truth in love. 5 SLIDE_________________________) The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 Speak the truth in love. * Be humble. * Focus on the facts and your feelings. * Be specific. We are talking about speaking the truth, when we have an issue in a relationship or a concern about someone we care about. So, that means we need to make sure that what we are speaking is actually true. A friend of mine when he talks to me about something that doesn’t smell right in my life often says, “I could be 90% wrong, but here is something I think you need to hear.” I always love that, 90% wrong, because he probably isn’t 100% wrong. Let’s think about this when a person has offended you in some way, and you need to talk about it. Focus on the facts, what you know to be true, not your judgments about their motives. You don’t know people’s motives. But what you do know are two things: SLIDE________________________) Facts and Feelings Focus on facts and feelings. You know facts: what they did or what they repeatedly do that is a concern to you. And you know how that makes you feel. When you share the hard thing, personalizing by sharing how it makes you feel is really helpful. So, let’s say your spouse or your roommate don’t help around the house much and are really messy, and it bothers you. You can judge motives. “You don’t care about anybody but yourself, and just want me to do everything.” You don’t know that. But you do know how you feel. So, you can say, “I am feeling overwhelmed with keeping the house clean. Can we talk about how we can approach this issue together?” You may be concerned how your spouse is handling finances. He or she may be spending more money than you think they should. If you were judging motives, you might say, “You are selfish and just spend money on whatever you want even though you want me to be careful.” Or, “You don’t know how to handle money.” That is not 6 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 going to help you focus on the real issue. What you might say is, “I feel frustrated about our finances. Would you be willing to discuss some ways that we can stay more in line with a budget?” Or, if there was a direct offense, to say, “I feel hurt that you spent money on that convertible when we agreed that we would talk to each other about big purchases. Can we talk about this?” That can make all the difference in the world. This little formula: SLIDE______________________) When you do________________, I feel __________________. When you do _______, I feel ________ is a winning formula in hard conversations. Don’t say statements like, “You always” or “you never,” because those aren’t even true. I bet I could think of one time I actually did do what you are upset that I don’t do. So, get specific. Rather than saying to your mom who has a tendency to make your wife feel diminished, get specific: “Mom, I’ve noticed you are often critical of Lori’s cooking and parenting. You may not remember, but the other night at our family dinner, you put her down a few times in front of everybody. I don’t know what’s going on with that, but it isn’t good. It makes her feel deeply discouraged, because she really cares what you think and is trying really hard. It makes me feel angry with you and protective of my wife, because I really think she is a great mom and wife, and she is my wife. And it makes our kids feel really confused as to why you would be mean to their mom. Can we talk about what is going on here and figure out how to relate in a way that avoids all that?” Notice, that focuses on facts of what happened and how it made other people feel. It was also very specific because the more specific we can be the better. Part of speaking truthfully too is to be humble in the conversation, open to the fact that you may be the one who is getting it wrong. Maybe it is just a misunderstanding. Maybe you are actually being way oversensitive. Maybe you are getting the facts wrong. Make it as truthful as possible, but also be open to learning more that will help you become more clear about what is actually happening. 7 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 SLIDE_________________________) Speak the truth in love. SLIDE_________________________) Speak the truth in love. * Remember the goal. * Be completely humble and gentle. Let’s talk about love, shall we? How do we make sure that our hard conversation is soaked in love? First, love is focused on the benefit of the other. That’s what love is. It is putting the other person ahead of me. So, this isn’t about me getting even or lashing out to hurt the person who is hurting me or cutting the other person down to size. It is about building the other person up. Later in Ephesians 4, Paul says, SLIDE_______________________) Ephesians 4:29 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” That’s the goal of a hard conversation, is building the other person up, not tearing her or him down. So be careful with your words, especially if you are speaking out of hurt. Proverbs 12:18 says, SLIDE_______________________) Proverbs 12:18 “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” We all know how reckless words can wound. So, plan ahead before you have a hard conversation. Before I preach a sermon, I practice what I’m going to say. I speak through it five times before I ever get on stage and speak it. We probably need to be even more careful when we are having a 8 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 hard conversation with someone. Consider what you are going to say, so that you give the person the best chance possible to respond well. Also consider the best time and place to have the conversation. What is the best context for them to be able to listen in a way they are most likely to be open? SLIDE_____________________) Ephesians 4:2 “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” An essential component of love is humility. Galatians 6 says, SLIDE______________________) Galatians 6:1-2 “Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.” Be gentle and humble, speaking not on a judgmental or condescending way but as one imperfect struggler to another imperfect struggler. Be gentle, not harsh, and be humble, not condescending. You can even say, “Hey, you know how imperfect I am, and I could be getting this all wrong, but can we talk about something that I think you might need to hear that is hard for me to talk about?” Here’s a great example of a hard conversation. A couple of weeks ago I overbooked one of my days and was on an important zoom call where people really were counting on me to be present. But I wasn’t. I was doing other things while the call was going on, hoping it wasn’t obvious. This is an important initiative that I am helping lead, so the other person leading was really counting on me to be in the moment. I wasn’t. So, after the zoom call he reached out and said, “Hey, you know I love you and am honored to be leading with you, but do you realize how obvious it was that you weren’t fully present in the meeting? It left me hanging out there and left the impression with the group that you don’t really care that much about what we are talking about. I know that’s not true, but it’s how you made us all 9 The Secret Sauce Week 4 August 28/30, 2020 feel. I know you have a lot going on, and I do too. I know what it’s like to be pressured and therefore not fully present. I’ve made that mistake myself so many times I can see it when someone else is doing it. I love you too much to let it go. I just wanted you to know how it left us feeling.” That was speaking the truth in love, and I needed to hear it. It rescued me from bad leadership and helped the initiative go way better as I reengaged differently. He could have just let it go, but he loved me too much to do that and cared too much about what we were leading to do that. That’s a good friend. So, my guess is that you have a hard conversation you need to schedule. Say it. Be direct, be in person. Focus on what you know to be true, remember facts and feelings. Like my friend emphasized: the fact was I wasn’t fully present on the call. He didn’t judge my motives, but in fact assumed the best. And then he shared how it made him feel on the other side. He did it with love and humility, giving me the best chance to receive it. That’s a good model for the conversation you need to have. Great relationships are ones that have both grace and truth, that say I love you as you are, but too much to keep you that way. Great relationships accept us 100% and are also 100% truthful. They won’t just leave you with your zipper down. They will say the hard thing in love. I want us to pray for the conversation you are going to have, but before I do let me say this to all of us too. If someone initiates a hard conversation with you, unless they are just a jerk and a critic who doesn’t have your best interest at heart, take it for what it is. Think about how hard it is for you to initiate a hard conversation with someone else, so that if someone is doing that with you it means they love you a lot. So, listen to what they have to say. It doesn’t mean that they are 100% right, but they probably aren’t 100% wrong, and they care enough for you to share their concern. Wise people listen and consider it without being defensive, even if the other person doesn’t do the conversation perfectly. We become our own best friend when we are open to correction and feedback, because we don’t know the truth about ourselves without people who will love us enough to fill us in. With all this in mind, let’s take it to God in prayer.

[Starts at 3:24] - I wanna to take you guys on to a very special place in Nevada. It's a desert area called Death Valley. Now Death Valley is one of the most barren areas on the face of the planet. It's way too hot and it's way too dry. Nothing can live there and nothing can grow there. But in March, 2005, due to very specific weather conditions, big rain clouds came in. Normally never seen in this area. And for a few hours, rain pour down on the sand on the dry desert land. And as a result, this happened, the whole desert was turned into an amazing, beautiful, colorful garden. Death Valley went all I say are on us. You know, the waste land will be turned into a beautiful garden, Amen? And people from all over the world came to study this amazing miracle. How, what seemed to be the most barren area in the world, turned into this amazing colorful garden. How could this happen? Well, the key, my friend, is because there were seeds in the ground. There were seeds in the ground since years past but they hadn't shown their true potential because the conditions were not yet, right. There were seeds in the ground waiting for the right time and the right conditions to start to grow and unleash their potential. And why do I share this with you? You guys know where I'm going with this. God has placed seeds in your heart my friend. God has placed seeds in your heart and some of those seeds has got 2021 written all over them. Some of those seeds, and maybe the devil tried to give you a hard time and maybe he tried to create Death Valley areas in your life. And you might look at that area of your life. You may look at that area of your marriage or your job, your career, your family, your church, if you're a pastor or a leader and say, there is nothing there, there's no hope. Nothing can grow and nothing can live. But I just speak out over your life for 2021. There's a rain coming your way. There's a rain coming your way and whatever Death Valley you might've stared at for many, many years, I do believe together with you that that Death Valley is gonna be turned into a beautiful garden. Can we give some praise to God, in church. And you know, we always find God in the business of turning Death Valleys into beautiful gardens. We see that all throughout scripture, and I wanna bring you to Genesis 17. And the story of when God comes to a man named Abram. And Abram has a Death Valley in his life, he's got no children. And God speaks some very specific and strange words into Abraham's life. He says, "As for me," Genesis 17:4-5, "this is my covenant with you. You will be the father." Everybody say you will be a father. - [Crowd] You will be a father. - "Of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram. Your name will be Abraham for I have made you a father of many nations." Everybody says I have made you. - [Crowd] I have made you. - So you will be a father for I have made you a father. My friend you can be everything that God has already made you. And what is he made me? We see Ephesians 1 and 4 says that, he planned you, he called you, even before the foundation of the worlds, imagine that. Your life was planned out by God even before he said, let there be light. The whole root of your life, the whole, every single dream, every single seed was already planned out. And then he needed you together in your mother's womb according to Psalms 139. And as he did that, he placed seeds inside your heart, seeds that would come up and come alive in the due time, in the right time, as the rain of the Holy spirit will say, now this is the right time. This is the season. So in God's eyes, because he plans you before the foundation of the world. And he place seeds inside of you from the very beginning, you are already a father Abraham. And because you already are a father you can also become a father. You can always become everything 1 GodsDreamsinYourHeart_1_Transcript that God has already made you. I'm not saying that you can become him anything. Some people think they can become anything, and you can't. You could just have to check out some clips on America's Got Talent? And they've all voice. And there's this guy who really thinks he can sing, and then he opens his mouth and we go, oh, your mother should have told you, before you went on national TV, maybe this is not your thing. Maybe there's something else that you might be really good at. You cannot become anything, my friend but you can become everything that God has already made you. Everything that God has already made you. Everything, he called you to be before the foundation of the world. Anything that connects with the seeds already planted in your heart. He has called you to be Holy so you can live a Holy life. He's called you to be more than a conqueror, so you can become more than a conqueror. Not because of your own strength and personality, but because there are seeds planted in the ground. And even at that ground temporarily might look like a Death Valley, the rain of the Holy spirit can change all that, can we say amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - You see that also in the life of Gideon in Judges 6 remember, Gideon is a young teenager, scared to death, and with the lowest possible self-esteem. And God comes to him and say, "You are a mighty warrior." Is God lying? No, God called Gideon to be a mighty warrior before the foundation of the world. He placed seeds to become a mighty warrior in the heart of Gideon. And that's because that's why Gideon can now be everything that God has already made him. You can be a father for I've made you a father. You can be a mighty warrior for I have made you a mighty warrior, Amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - So if God called you, before the foundation of the world, and if God has already placed seeds in the ground, though they might be in a Death Valley right now. And if God is also the God sending the rain then what is our part in the equation? What are we supposed to do? I'm gonna tell you, we need to make sure that our heart is good ground. Our heart is good ground. My friend, the word heart, the Hebrew and Greek words for the human heart is the second most used word in the Bible. Second only to the name of the Lord. That tells us something. It tells us how important it is that we guard our hearts, that we purify our hearts, that we keep our hearts clean, Amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - Not only because God just wants us to but because our heart is the breeding ground for the seeds of God's plans for our future. And if we keep our hearts pure, if we keep our hearts clean, then there's no Death Valley in the world that can keep God's seeds from growing up in its due time, Amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - Now I wanna share with you today two attitudes of the heart that is needed in order for God's seeds to grow, Amen? So the first attitude that the Bible speaks repeatedly about, it is absolutely vital and important and necessary for God's seeds to grow, is a humble heart. God's seeds will only grow in a humble heart. And every time there is a list in the Bible of stuff that God hates pride will be right there at the top. Why, because pride aborts the seeds in your heart. Pride will take away the power of growth so that 2 GodsDreamsinYourHeart_1_Transcript the plans and the purposes and the dreams for your life and future will not come to pass. That's why God hates pride. James 4:6 says, "God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble." And that's also why God has got so many methods to keep us humble. You know, number one, his word. You have an hope, you ever open the YouVersion app, thank you by the way. If you open the YouVersion app, I don't have so many times and I'm expecting to find a beautiful, soothing, calming, inspiring, comforting word. And out from the app comes God's hand that flaps me in the face. Pointing out something that is a weakness in my life or character or leadership. And I thought, okay, here we go again. You know, when God uses his word to keep you humble, it simply so that your heart can be good ground for the seeds that are about to come up in your heart, Amen? So God uses this word. Of course also God uses his spirit to humble us. Every time we say something that we shouldn't say or do something that we shouldn't do. And we feel that nudging of the spirit, calling us to repent, calling us to ask God for forgiveness. And also asking those we might've hurt for forgiveness. That's God humbling us by his spirit, but the worst thing in the world, the method we hate the most, is when God uses other people to humble us. That's that's really, really tough. And I just want to share a story with you about when that happened to me a couple of years ago. Okay, so back home at Word of Life in Sweden, we have a project that we call the Europe Tour. Every other year, our young people, our teenagers, they work for about six months to put together an evangelistic outreach concert production. As a mixture of music and dance and spoken word and drama and multimedia. And they work really hard for that. And then we take that on out in Europe. About 150 to 200 teenagers go on tour in and together with churches in European capitals, we put on big outdoor concert events to reach out with the gospel. And so far we've been in 18 European nations. - [Crowd] Wow. - Collaborating with churches all over the place. And we seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people being saved and accepting Christ in their heart as a result. So a couple of years back, I was sitting in my office. I have the schedule for the Europe Tour. It was pretty much planned out for the upcoming summer. All of a sudden, there's a knock on my door and in comes a 14 year old girl from our youth ministry. She is fired up and she says, "Pastor Joachim," I'm too old to even do the gestures anymore. She says, "Pastor Joachim, I got this great idea. As we go on the Europe tour this summer, let's make a big fat Jesus concert at Disneyland Paris." And I smiled at her, this kind of smile. And I thought, said to her what, interesting idea. I thought in my mind, craziest idea ever. She's 14, she doesn't know what she's talking about. Of course, Disneyland will never allow, you know, sold out evangelistic Jesus event anywhere in the Amusement Park. So I say, okay, thanks, interesting, now leave. And so, was like okay, thanks for listening pastor. And she left and honest to God when she shut the door, her ID was already halfway down my mental wastepaper basket. And the Holy spirit spoke to me. And he said, "Joachim, when did you become so proud to not even consider if an ID is from me simply because the messenger is 14 years old?" And I repented and I got that idea up and I looked at it and said, what in the world do I do with this one? I said the only thing I can do really is to call Disneyland Paris and I so did not want to call Disneyland Paris because I didn't wanna lose faith. I didn't wanna act like a complete idiot but you see that's the definition of pride. When you're so concerned about your own self image, that you elevate that concern above your obedience, to whatever the spirit of God, is telling you to do right now. So I called Disneyland Paris and I hated every second of the call. Hello, I'm the pastor from Sweden. Could we please come to 3 GodsDreamsinYourHeart_1_Transcript your Amusement Park and make a big evangelistic outreach, because we love Jesus and we want the world to hear the gospel. How about that? And they said, we never had that question asked before, happy to be the first. We talked for a while, she really wanted to end the conversation. And then she said, finally, we'll call you back. And it was one of those, yeah, we're totally gonna call you back, not a chance. So at least I knew I've done anything I could do. So a week went by and the called us back. And they said, we checked out your video clips that you sent, this is good stuff. So even though we never done anything like this, we're willing to give you a chance. We're gonna give you a 15 minute slot on the smallest stage of Disneyland, the Winnie the Pooh stage Are you okay with that? I said we are so okay with the Winnie the Pooh. We love Winnie the Pooh from the bottom of our hearts. Winnie the Pooh is best. So that summer we came and as the first Christian act ever performing a Disneyland, we did a 15 minute Jesus concert on Winnie the Pooh stage. After that concert was done, the team, the Disneyland team said that we loved it. Next time you're welcome back and we'll give you 30 minutes at the Bus Light your stage. Come on church. And that's like a middle stage at Disneyland. So we came back two years later, we did a 30 minute slot Jesus concert at the Bus Light your stage. They loved it again. And then they said, you know, we're gonna give you next time you come, 45 minutes at the biggest stage in Disneyland. So we came back and we did a full concert at main stage Disneyland Paris. And as this thing happened and asked so young people got crazy for Jesus on the stage. And I looked at the thousands of people listening. I thought to myself, thank God for a 14 year old girl who heard something that I did not hear and who God used to make me a little bit more humble. Can we make some noise for Jesus? Oh Lord, when God humbles you my friend through his word, his spirit or through other people is because he's about to release a brand new dream that you couldn't even dream up. He's about to start the growth process of a seed that is up until now have been hiding inside your heart, Amen? So a humble heart is the first heart attitude that is needed in order for the seeds of God to grow up in your life and come into fulfillment. Now, the second and last thing I wanna share with you is the importance also to have an open heart. An open heart, because some of the dreams that are coming your way are way too big for the present state of your hearts, Amen? Maybe even some of the 2021 dreams needs either to be shrunk down to your presence size of heart or for your heart to expand to fathom even greater dreams than you ever seen before, Amen? And says in, Isaiah 55:8 9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Now, church, this is not a proclamation of how far above you God is. How high he is and how low you are, this is an invitation for you to leave behind your low ways and your low thoughts and come up to his level. Because the verse right before these two, verse seven says, "Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord." God is gonna call you this upcoming year to expand your hearts, to open your heart, because there are big dreams coming your way. And you need to be ready, you need to be ready for the dreams on the individual basis. For your marriage dreams, for your family dreams, for your church dreams. Life.Church I do believe the best is yet to come. You've done amazing. You'll change the world, but there're new dreams, bigger dreams. And you just need to expand your heart and prepare yourself to give into those dreams. To serve in in seeing those dreams fulfilled. Because you see the limit is not in the potential of the seed. The limit is in the size of the flower pot. You can take a seed with a potential to grow a big oak and you can put it in the small flower pot and he will come up to a certain level and it might be a great plant and it might be beautiful to behold but it's nowhere near the full potential of that seed. We need a bigger flower pot to grow 4 GodsDreamsinYourHeart_1_Transcript bigger dreams. You need a bigger heart to fathom bigger dreams that are coming your way. And I just also wanna close with one more story where God really challenged me in regards to expanding my heart. Okay, so a few years ago, I took my core staff on a cruise in the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia, okay. American people going on a cruise in the Baltic Sea of Scandinavia is not anywhere near like going on a cruise in The Bahamas. Okay, we're at completely different place, okay? People who would go on cruises in the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia, go for one or two reasons. Either to buy endless amounts of alcohol and get drunk or to use the very good conference facilities. Please note, we went for number two, okay? So we got onboard and we had great time with the staff. We did planning, strategizing, praying, great fellowship. And I remember that in between two sessions, I got up and I can just see this before before me, it was so clear. I had a coffee cup in my hand and I was moving toward the coffee machine because I'm a Swede and we can live without coffee. When there's too much blood in our coffee system, we have to do something about that. And I remember walking up to the coffee machine, I had a new thoughts. Could we rent this entire cruise ship? Could we bring on 2000 on fire Jesus loving teenagers? And do a youth conference at sea. Immediately in my other ear there was another whisper saying, it's impossible. It will cost millions. You can't afford it. It's never been done before. But then in my other ear, again, a little voice said, remember Disneyland. And I remembered Disneyland. And I shared this with my team and we started praying and we prayed, Lord, expand our hearts. If this is from you, even though the dream is crazy big and seem completely unreachable and is something that no one has ever done before, give us the faith to believe for the impossible. Cause God has not called us to build a natural church but as supernatural church. And we can't do that by our own faith. We need his faith in our hearts say Amen. So I called a cruise ship company. I'm getting quite used to these calls now. Is humbling calls. I said hello, I'm a pastor from Sweden. I'd like to know if we could rent your biggest ship and do a big fat youth conference at sea. And he said, we never had that question asked before. So its happy to be the first. And we told him, I said, it's not gonna be really positive. It's gonna be incredibly expensive. And I said, oh, by the way this is a Christian youth conference. So no alcohol can be served at all on board and said you are crazy. Taking for alcohol is $1 million per day. Imagine the amount of money we would lose. Was it safe? Sorry, that's the condition. He said, we will call you back. And we hung up a week. We started praying and believing God for greater things. What we did not know was that the CEO of the big cruise ship company at that time since a few months back had had a real problem with his conscience. Because he realized that I made by fortune from pouring alcohol into people and destroying so many people's lives and so many marriages. All of a sudden he heard that there's this Christian group who wants to rent the boat to do a non-alcoholic youth conference in the name of Jesus. He called the board together and he said, we need to do this for the sake of our own hearts. He was not a Christian or anything. But the Holy spirit was upon this whole process. So what they did was they took the full cost for us to rent this cruise ship. They cut it down by 80%, and all of a sudden it came within reach. So we rented the biggest cruise ship in Scandinavia. And we brought on board 2000 on fire, Jesus loving teenagers. And we had youth meetings and we had concerts and we have prayer nights and we had seminars and we had salvation and no one who was on board this ship will ever never ever forget it. We turned this place into a church for Jesus Christ. National media in Sweden wrote all about it, saying obviously God is not dead after all. And I just loved the fact that God challenged us to dream big. And as a result came a national statement of God's power and the next generation following Jesus Christ. I just wanna share one last anecdote of this whole story. You see, when they build these cruise ships, they build them in a way to distribute the way that the passengers evenly. There will be like one 5 GodsDreamsinYourHeart_1_Transcript restaurant in the front, the one in the back and everything made out so that passing, the weight of the passengers will be evenly spread. Nobody told us about that. So what we did which is found the biggest theater room board which was right at the back and we jam-packed all 2000 kids in that theater and no one on the rest of the ship. And when we got them in the back of the ship, what did we do? We cramped up the praise and worship and everybody started jumping up and down. The captain freaked out for the first time in his life. He felt the whole ferry doing that. And I thought to myself, I would have given anything to sit on an Island in the Swedish Archipelago and see the biggest cruise ship in Scandinavia, pass by, going Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, come on, let's give it out. I'm just praying now that God will be able to break this message down to the exact place where you are. As an individual, as a marriage, as a family, your church, if you're a pastor or a leader, God has got seeds in the ground and the rain is coming your way. Let us walk into 2021 with humble hearts but also open hearts and full of expectancy for every single miracle we're about to see and every single mighty work of God that we are about to experience. Let me just pray God's blessing over you. Father I thank you in Jesus name for every single one in all the physical locations, everyone watching online Father and I thank you that you have great plans. You have called every single one from before the foundation of the world. You have placed seeds in their hearts, needing them together in their mother's womb and now they can be everything you've already made. So father, I pray in Jesus name as we now enter 2021 that we will enter with a humble hearts, that our pride will not stand in the way of your work of the spirit in and through our lives. And we pray Father that our hearts will be able to expand to fathom all the great and beautiful and wonderful dreams that you have in store for this upcoming year. I speak blessing over every single one within the reach of my voice. I pray blessing over Life.Church Father as they go into this new year. I thank you for expansion and breakthroughs and miracles. This we pray, in Jesus mighty name, Amen. 6 GodsDreamsinYourHeart_1_Transcript God has big plans for you.  He plants dreams in your heart—and they can bloom when the soil is fertile. Set your sights on   what’s ahead and prepare your soul to chase new hopes and goals as we enter this year together. Guest speaker: Pastor Joakim Lundqvist is Senior Pastor of Word of Life Church in Uppsala, Sweden, with 3200 members and an international network including over 700 churches. Word of Life has an extensive international missions program and has produced millions of books and audio and video material containing faith inspiring teaching in several languages. www.lifechurch.tv/open

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

Self-awareness is one of the keys to emotional intelligence. It’s also a key to growth. With that in mind, some recent research by the Barna Group through their  Barna Cities  initiative shows the church, in addition to the many well documented challenges it’s facing, might have an emerging self-awareness issue. The self-awareness gap, as you’ll see below, is a gap between how non-Christian people see the church versus how people who attend church see it. It’s also a generational gap. Essentially, the gap is this: the younger you are and the more unchurched you are, the less favorably you see the church. The older and more churched you are, the more favorably you see the church. As the  data over the years  accumulates, the verdict is in. We know what unchurched people think of the church. It’s not great. When the people you’re trying to reach struggle with you, it’s harder to reach them. Which is where self-awareness comes in. It’s hard to improve on a problem you don’t know you have. Once you see it, you can address it. I say this not to pile on as yet-another critic (I’ve invested much of my life in the local church), but as a way of helping us find a better way into the future. With that in mind, here is some fresh data showing the extent of the self-awareness gap. As the data over the years accumulates, the verdict is in. We know what non-Christian people think of the church. It’s not great.Click to Tweet 1. Only 21% Of Non-Christian People Have A Positive Perception Of The Local Church One of the sharpest differences in this round of research is that 80% of practicing Christians have a positive view of the church. Only 21% of non-Christians think of the church in a positive way. That’s a startling gap. 80% of practicing Christians have a positive view of the church. Only 21% of non-Christians think of the church in a positive way. That’s a startling gap.Click to Tweet On the positive front, as the data on the left and in the centre of the chart above shows, generally speaking those who attend church regularly really appreciate what the church does both for them and others. And I would be among those who deeply appreciate the work the church does when we get it right. The challenge is, though, that only one of five non-Christians see it that way. That creates an enormous barrier when you’re trying to connect with unchurched people. When you’re connecting with an unchurched person, it’s easy to think, on a scale of 1-10,  you’re starting at a three or a zero. But the research shows that perhaps you’re starting from minus five or minus eight. You can still bridge that gap. Nothing is impossible. But when you realize first that there is a perception gap, and second, that it’s a big one, you’ll be better positioned to bridge it. I have a few ideas at the end of this post to help you think through how to do that. When you’re connecting with an unchurched person, it’s easy to think, on a scale of 1-10, you’re starting at a three or a zero. But the research shows that perhaps you’re starting from minus five or minus eight.Click to Tweet 2. Half-Of Non-Christian Americans Don’t Trust Local Pastors The right hand column shows another gap between how deeply Christians trust pastors in their community and how non-Christians do. 85% of Christians trust the Christian pastors in their community. Less than half of non-Christians feel the same way. 85% of Christians trust the Christian pastors in their community. Less than half of non-Christians feel the same way.Click to Tweet In a similar vein, there’s a 30 point gap between how Christians and non-Christians see local pastors providing strong leadership on racial justice and COVID. Being able to trust church leaders in general and on issues like crisis leadership and racial justice matters because trust, at its heart, is about confidence. Without trust, everything breaks down. People generally don’t follow leaders they don’t like or trust. People generally don’t follow leaders they don’t like or trust.Click to Tweet 3. Millennials Think The Local Church Is Detached From The Real Issues People Are Facing Another trend that surfaced in the research is that, in several areas, church going Millennials had a more negative view of the church than their older church-attending counterparts. While Millennials were slightly more likely to think of church leaders as hypocritical and judgmental, they are twice as likely as Boomers to think that their church was detached from the real issues facing their community. In a similar vein, Millennials were more likely to say that Christian pastors are out of touch with the needs of their community, and that pastors seem more focused on growing their church and not on community transformation. That’s evidence of a growing generational gap about social issues and the expectation of younger generations to see their church addressing the broader social issues of the day. The challenge here for church leaders is that it’s difficult to reach a community that the next generation doesn’t believe you care about. Naturally, if you do care about your community (as many church leaders do), it’s probably important to have some evidence that that’s the case beyond virtue signaling or token gestures. A deep investment in the health and wellbeing of the people who live in the community you’re trying to reach is not only the right thing, it’s a step into ushering them into the hope and love of the Gospel. Millennials are twice as likely as Boomers to think that their church was detached from the real issues facing their community.Click to Tweet About South Florida…It’s A Great Microcosm Again, while some of the data is particular to South Florida, this has far less to do with Florida than it does with national trends that have been surfacing for years. If you’re worried that it’s too South Florida, just know that especially in the last year South Florida  has become a haven  for tech entrepreneurs, founders and venture capitalists. It’s hardly just a retirement haven any more.  It’s just one drill down on a much wider generational and societal phenomenon. An increasingly mainstream, younger and progressive demographic. So What Does This Mean?  The truth is a great place to start. It would be easy, looking at the data, to see that the church has an image problem. I don’t think that’s the case. While it’s certainly not the whole story, and while Christians have a positive view of the church, the truth is that the church has been harsh, judgmental, exclusionary and too often, abusive. These aren’t qualities people should expect from Christians, but too often, that’s exactly what Christians have shown them. The church has been harsh, judgmental, exclusionary and too often, abusive. These aren’t qualities people should expect from Christians, but too often, that’s exactly what Christians have shown them.Click to Tweet So what do you do? The right response isn’t better “PR”, it’s life-change.  The right response isn’t getting mad at non-Christians who don’t see the better side of the church or the potential of the church. Instead, repentance, humility, reconciliation, and a new reality moving forward are good places to start. . When overcoming perception gaps as large as this data reveals, one of the most important things church leaders and individual Christians can do is to be the  opposite  of what non-Christian people would expect you to be. Fortunately for Christians, the opposite of what most people expect is pretty much what Jesus embodied. The cure for the problem is to embrace more of what we are supposed to authentically be. Be loving. Compassionate. Kind. Gracious. Curious. Embracing. Genuine. Living out an ethic of love is a great place to start. The mystery of why people are walking away from the church is less of a mystery all the time. If Christians become more like the authentic church, the more people will want to be part of it. The less we do, the more they don’t. www.careynieuwhof.com .

Prayer – It is a gift to us from our loving heavenly Father, a gift that wields mighty power. We know these things. Yet, I have to stop and ask, “Do we really KNOW them?” I ask because there are so many (including myself) who struggle with the work of prayer. For instance, we let it get crowded out of our day by other things. We lose focus. And sometimes we even allow our prayers to become vague or mechanical. If this is you, if you find yourself in a season of struggle with prayer, let these Bible passages encourage you. 7 Scripture Passages for Encouragement in Prayer 1 Timothy 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, In his first letter to Timothy, Paul addresses exactly what true gospel living is to look like. And it shouldn’t surprise us that one of the first things he mentions is prayer (1 Timothy 2:1-15). As I read this passage, there are a couple of things I notice. First, Paul uses the word, urge. In other words, this is not a simple suggestion or request. The verb used here indicates that prayer is of utmost importance. Secondly, I catch the various words used in Paul’s list: supplications, intercessions, and thanksgivings. And I understand that my prayers are not all to be of one kind running the risk of becoming rote and mechanical. No, Paul is calling for many types of prayer taking many types of form. And these prayers are to be made for everyone. This includes the adult child who refuses to let us share our faith and their children whom we fear will never come to know Christ. And it includes the grandchild who has embraced an alternative lifestyle and their broken-hearted parents. As well, it includes prayer for the salvation of a grandchild, the baptism of a child, or the surrender to a holy call. All types of prayer for all people. Lamentations 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children… Wow! Is this not a call that speaks volumes to grandparents and parents alike? Not only are we called to repentant prayer but to prayer that is prompt, constant, and unconstrained. We are to “arise” from whatever we feel buried beneath and “cry out.” Day or night, even when others sleep, we are to “pour out [our] heart.” And we are to pour it out “like water before the Lord” with our hands lifted high – for our children! There is freedom in prayer. When we go to God in prayer, we have the freedom to be sincere and honest, to open our hearts and minds and emotions, and to lay the burdens that weigh so heavily upon us before Him. In prayer we find the freedom that comes from giving to our loving Father what we ourselves cannot control. Ephesians 6:17–18 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, We must understand that we are in a battle against spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:10-18). “[Our] adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). “Someone” includes our children and our grandchildren. Rather than sitting idly back, we must take up our weapons, all of which according to Ephesians 6:18 are rooted in prayer. This most powerful weapon is to be one “at all times,” “with all perseverance,” and “for all the saints.” In essence, prayer is to permeate our lives. Hebrews 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The phrase “draw near” appears several times in the book of Hebrews and is used consistently to picture a person approaching God. For believers in Christ, this encouragement implies that we have the privilege of a personal relationship with the God of the universe. But there’s even more than that great news! Not only are we encouraged to draw near, but we are told to do so with “confidence.” In the Greek, this word means with boldness or courage especially with reference to speaking before someone of great rank or power. Christian grandparent, Christian parent, isn’t it comforting to know you may come before God (with proper reverence, of course) and speak your heart plainly and honestly, without fear? And you can be sure that when you do you will “receive mercy” and “find grace to help” whatever the need. Philippians 4:6–7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. “Do not be anxious.” Right there it is in black and white. Why is it so difficult for us to live this? Especially when it comes to our children and grandchildren! Here, Paul echoes the teaching of Jesus’ from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25-34). In both passages, we see that believers in Christ are not to be overcome with anxiety but are instead to trust their heavenly Father, whose peace will guard them. Just picture it! The peace of God Almighty “guards” us. The Lord Our God is sovereign over all. He is in control, and we can trust Him with all our worries and hurts. 1 John 5:14–15 And this is the confidence that 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. “He hears us.” There is so much in this passage, but that one little nugget is enough to encourage even the weariest of souls. Don’t we all want to be heard, especially when we hurt or are carrying a heavy burden? Well, we are heard and not just by anyone. And of that we can be sure! James 5:16b The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (KJV) I love the wording of this verse in the King James Version. It is so powerful and offers such encouragement for prayer. Let’s notice three words in particular. “Effectual” – The root word (effect) means to make something happen. This implies “work.” And in fact, this word “effectual” comes from the Greek word meaning “work.” Personally, I don’t know any grandparents or parents who don’t want their prayers to work! “Fervent” – Some Bible translations use the word “earnest.” Either way, we’re talking about diligence. We are to be intentional, constant, and persistent in our prayers. “Availeth” – Do you hear the echo in this verse? Effectual? Availeth? Again, we have the idea of bringing something about or producing results. Is this not encouragement for the work of prayer? We (grandparents, parents) can absolutely have prayers that are powerful in action, that work, and produce results. www.deborahhaddix.com .

SERMON DISCUSSION GUIDE HEAVEN ON EARTH Heaven on Earth: ​Live Not By Lies November 7th & 8th Speaker:​ Dr. Mark Batterson Scripture: ​Ephesians 5:15-20 Series Overview Our identity,ourauthority isanchoredinadimensionof realitycalledheaven. It isthe domainofGod’sdominion—perfectharmony,trueidentity, fullauthority.Everyblessing isours intheheavenlyrealm(Ephesians1:3).Heavenisinvadingearthrighthere, right now.How ?WithasupernaturaldemonstrationofGod’sloveandpowerandwisdom.As citizensof heaven,werepresent theheavenly realm. Thegoal?Onearth, as it is in heaven. Series Discussion Questions How did you witness heaven invading earth this week? Message Overview It takesmoral couragetoSTANDAGAINSTwhat isWRONGandSTANDFORwhat is RIGHT. It takesmoral couragetoSPEAKTRUTHTOPOWER, toSPEAKTHETRUTHIN LOVE.Livingnotbyliesisrefusingtobowtocultural idolsorideologiesiftheydon’tpass the TRUTH TEST. It’s living according to your biblical convictions even if it’s COUNTERCULTURE. It’sRISKINGYOURREPUTATIONforwhatyouknowisGOODand RIGHT and TRUE. It’s DISAGREEING FREELY yet LOVING REGARDLESS. It’s a conscience taken captive by the Word of God and Spirit of God. © 2020 National Community Church Page 1 SERMON DISCUSSION GUIDE HEAVEN ON EARTH Message-Specific Discussion Questions ReadEphesians5:10.Whoareyou trying toplease in thisworld?Whoareyoumost afraidof offending?Despite those things, ​howareyouaimingforwhat istheMOST ACCEPTABLE to God? It is important toexaminehowwethinkandhowwetalk. It isalsoimportant tosurvey thewayweactuponsituations.Thereisafamoussaying: “Actionsspeak louder than words.” ​Howareyouallowingyouractions tobe louder thanyour thoughtsand voice? ReadIThessalonians5:15-17: “Bejoyful always,praycontinually, andgivethanks inall circumstancesfor thisisGod’swill foryouinChristJesus.” ​Haveyoueverquestioned thewillofGodduringaseasonofyour life?Howcouldpracticingthese3principles help you understand God’s will? ReadEphesians5:18. Paul urges followersof Jesus tobe“filledwiththeHolySpirit.” What does it look like to make room for more of the Holy Spirit within your life? Weweredestinedtobehereandnowduringthishistoricalseason. Howcanyoustand in the gap as a peacemaker this week? Practical Application □PastorMarktalksaboutknowingour tendencies, andknowingourweaknesses. Take some time this week to take a free Enneagram assessment. https://www.truity.com/test/enneagram-personality-test □PastorMarkpresentsaMulticulturalVisionforNationalCommunityChurch.Spend some time reviewing the document found at NCC.re/reconcile. □FindadailyrhythmofconnectingwithGodandwithoneanotherbycommittingto NCCDaily​, anewfive-minuteaudiopodcast tohelpyouwalkverse-by-verse throughthebookofEphesians. Inviteafewotherstodosowithyou,connecting throughout theweekviaMarcoPolooragrouptext,ormeetingtogetheronlinein person to discuss and debrief what you’re learning. 
 □Climbthestairs tothe ​UpperZoomeachTuesday,Wednesday,andThursdayat 7:14am. Joinusaswestartourdays inHispresencetogether, listeningintently, and responding in prayer. Register at ​ncc.re/UpperZoom​. © 2020 National Community Church Page 2 It takes moral courage to STAND AGAINST what is WRONG and STAND FOR what is RIGHT. It takes moral courage to SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, to SPEAK THE TRUTH IN LOVE. Living not by lies is refusing to bow to cultural idols or ideologies if they don’t pass the TRUTH TEST. It’s living according to your biblical convictions even if it’s COUNTERCULTURE. It’s RISKING YOUR REPUTATION for what you know is GOOD and RIGHT and TRUE. It’s DISAGREEING FREELY yet LOVING REGARDLESS. It’s a conscience taken captive by the Word of God and Spirit of God. www.theaterchurch.com . integrity

Paths of Wisdom: Family 4/25/2021 J: We all have a few phrases we remember our parents or grandparents saying. My grandfather’s sayings: “The finest tiger in the jungle.” “Ice cream fills in the cracks.” What did your grandparents say to you? Maybe “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” Or “If you can’t sy something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Or “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” What do you want your kids and grandkids to remember? Series: paths of wisdom. The path of family. G: God has given us his family as a place where wisdom is multiplied. Applies beyond our blood family. 1. In the family, God calls us to pass on wisdom and receive wisdom. 2. God uses family to help us establish boundaries. 3. God makes the path of family bigger. J: The book of Proverbs is given to us as sons (46x in Prov!). Sons are those who inherit. The most important inheritance is wisdom. Prov 4:1-7. You have something to share. You need to receive wisdom. Objective: of parenting is the heart. David and Solomon’s sexual failures. Our trip to Zion and Bryce and sharing about sexuality. G: Snowmobiling and peeling an apple story. Prov 30:17. J: God calls us to put boundaries on the paths of family. Discipline= conforming our heart to look like our master’s. Positive and negative in nature. Encouragement: Proverbs 22:6 G: Boundaries are good! They make a child feel safe (story of a fence). Proverbs 13:24. Original sin. Our hearts are wayward. Our hearts need correction. Children are not innocent and pure. J: Our hearts head are naturally selfish. Impermanent pain is much better than permanent pain. Ps 23:4b “your rod and your staff they comfort me….” A shepherd’s rod = painful, but safe. G: God desires our character to reflect his. Hebrews 12:5-6: those who aren’t disciplined are in trouble. They aren’t sons at all. A loving parent disciplines. A loving parent puts boundaries in their child’s life. The danger of anger. J: God makes the path of family bigger. Are you discouraged? Children who have cut ties. Parents who have neglected to offer wisdom. Pursue those. But we have more encouragement. Our family is bigger than our family. Ancient Jewish family: multi-generational. Like my parents and sister! At times, the “son” is clearly family, at other times, it appears to be more of a master/apprentice relationship. Both are at play. G: Jesus: who is my father? Paul calls himself a father to Timothy and Titus. We are invited into familial relationships with one another in Christ. Next Steps. 2 Tim 1:2a “To Timothy, my beloved child…” J: Story of Curt and Dezra 2,500 miles from home. Their care. Baptism. In the family, God calls us to pass on wisdom and receive wisdom. God uses family to help us establish boundaries. God makes the path of family bigger. Team Sermon by Greg Lavine and John Beeson. www.newlifetucson.com . Sermon begins at 22 minutes.

Before I entered full-time “paid” vocational ministry I worked in the financial industry. My job was challenging, and presented problem solving opportunities each week. Our division was situated in the fixed income department of a large NY company, and my responsibilities centered around originating loans on commercial real estate assets that we later packaged as securities with other loans to sell in the secondary market. Most of the time the work was intellectually stimulating and full of potential for both success and failure. Travel was regular and it was always first class. As in Ritz, Four Seasons, and hot chocolate chip cookies sitting in a posh reclined leather seat gently reaching a nice cruising altitude. Notwithstanding the industry’s ups and downs, most Decembers welcomed a year-end bonus. Those checks were like cold lemonade on a scorching hot summer day. I remember the first year that my bonus cleared. Life was going to be different. School loans were going to be paid off. We purchased our first house, and began setting aside for a rainy day. We were getting ahead. Many years of school, toil in studies, and labor in establishing relationships were starting to pay off. It was like oil liberally placed on the gears of grinding steel. That was my life for almost 3 years. The next three years were quite different. About half-way into year 3 the economy heaved from the shock of the subprime resi-backed securities. It was around 2009. Our industry jolted and we felt the tremors throughout the company. I’ll never forget the first round of layoffs…I can see them like they were yesterday. One box (phone) after another rang. It was the walk-of-shame to the division head’s office to receive the pink slip and a cardboard box. One-by-one those poor souls were escorted out of the office with their personal belongings in their freshly creased cardboard boxes. Heads held low. Some angry. Some sad. Some confused. Some scornful. It was my first experience with this industry, but it wouldn’t be my last. More rounds came, shuffling employees within the company then ensued, and finally the dust settled. A new routine took shape, and I settled in. Year 5 had passed, and the time for year-end salary discussions was coming up. I was called back to the division head’s office to discuss my pay structure for the upcoming year. It was a disappointment. Fortunately, I had my job, but the meeting this year was different. The money was still good, my future seemed bright within the company, but my heart had grown cold to not only my profession but the trajectory my life was taking. There was a stirring in my soul that I could no longer suppress. One thing led to another, and I took a different turn than normal at the fork in the road. I applied to seminary, began classes, and yoked myself with Denton Bible. It was Tommy Nelson’s heralding of God’s Word that moored me to this church. Now, over 9 years later working full-time at Denton Bible Church, there are many things I’ve learned. Here are a few: While money greases the wheels of life, it doesn’t give you a mission for life… Most people will never (and should never) do what I did by leaving their careers and pursuing a full-time paid church position. However, according to Barna most Christian’s (as in 72%) do not see their workplace as their mission for advancing God’s kingdom. Thus, many Christian’s don’t have purpose in their workplaces, become disgruntle, and find myriad coping mechanisms to survive the onslaught of life. The Bible has a better word,  “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord and not for people, knowing that it is from the Lord that you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” Colossians 3:23-24 The Church is full of sinners both inside and outside the camp, and I am the chief among them… There two main camps of people who look at the Church. The first group does so with rose-colored glasses. The second group does so out of their rear-view mirror. Both are wrong. Both are naive. Both are preparing Christian’s for a sad day in the future. Thus, many Christian’s leave the Church over hurt experienced within, and many Christian’s never get too close to the Church (i.e. pew sitters), and thus think the pastor, the leaders, and janitor hung the moon. The Bible has a better word,  “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is the source not your pleasures that wage war in your body’s parts? “   James 4:1 Every Christian will give an account of their life, and it’s never too late to yoke with God’s kingdom agenda… While we give a head-nod to the reality of death we often live as though it will never come. Think about the eating habits, distracted habits, and driving habits of most people. This doesn’t even take into account the fact that many Christians aren’t opening their Bible’s everyday. Thus, people pursue the world. They pursue happiness now. They neglect the more daunting faith-requiring aspects of the Christian life and end up like the child CS Lewis references in The Weight of Glory,  “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. “ The Bible has a better word,  “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil. Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…” Hebrews 5:12-6:1 God help us. “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive compensation for his deeds done through the body, in accordance with what he has done, whether good or bad.” 2 Corinthians 5:9-10

- If you wouldn't mind at all of our church locations, would you stand to your feet? As you're standing, I wanna ask you a question today and before you answer I wanna kind of explain where I'm going. I wanna ask you, how many of you are here? How many of you are here? Not just in the building or not just watching on YouTube or watching at Church Online but you're actually here, present in the moment right now? If you're here, would you just say I'm here? - [Congregation] I'm here. - Those of you watching online, just type it in the chat. Type in I'm here. In fact, wherever you're from all over the world, if you'll just tell us in the chat. I'm here watching wherever and tell us wherever you're watching. If you're here I'd just like to tell you welcome. I'm so honored and so thankful that you're here with us in this moment. And what I'd like to do is I wanna take a moment with you here just to acknowledge and thank God that we have the freedom to gather together. Both physically and online as disciples of Jesus. To feed on the bread of life, the living Word of God. Standing in the presence of the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead to worship the lamb of God who was slain for the forgiveness of our sins. I wanna welcome you here in this holy moment. I am so glad that you're here. And the reason I say that is because unfortunately some of you won't be here for long. Some of you won't be here for long. You may still be here physically but mentally or emotionally your attention will be somewhere else. You're here right now but in a moment, you're gonna get a text message and your mind is gonna go to that message. Some of you, God help you, you'll actually initiate a text message in the middle of my sermon. Some of you, you won't be able to take it anymore and you'll have to check your Instagram feed because you don't know what's going on out there for the last seven minutes and you've gotta be in touch. Some of you, you'll be thinking about all that you have to do. Or like me, you might be thinking of where you're gonna eat. You might be worried about something and your mind drifts towards your bills or the distracting person two rows in front of you or the cute girl three rows in front of you that doesn't have a ring on her praise hand when she was worshiping God and if you're here right now, I just wanna say I am so glad you're here. Because I know some of you won't be here for long. As you're standing today, I want to read to you God’s Word and we're gonna look at an unusual text to introduce this message. It was Jesus' first miracle that he performed and it was at a wedding and if you don't know the context, it was an incredibly embarrassing moment for the host who at this wedding ran out of wine. And Jesus' mom said, "Jesus, go do something about it." And so he said to the servants, "Go get these jars, these massive jars "and what I want you to do is I want you to fill them up "with water." These were not regular jars, they were maybe 20 or 30 gallon jars and Jesus said to the servants, "What I want you to do, "is I want you to draw the water out of the jars "and then go give it to the master of the banquet." And God’s Word tells us this in John 8, John 2:8. "The servants, they did so and the master of the banquet "tasted the water that had been turned into wine. "And he didn't realize where it had come from "though the servants who had drawn the water, they knew. "Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, "'Everyone brings out the choice wine first "'and then the cheaper wine after the guests get drunk.'" It's what it sa1ys in the Greek. "After they've had too much we bring the cheap stuff." Now I always thought the next line said, "But you saved the best for last." But that's not what God’s Word says. What God’s Word said is this. "But you've saved the best till now." The title of today's message is "Your Best Days Are Now". Father we ask that in the name of your Son Jesus that you would invade our hearts in this moment with your goodness and just as Jesus lived with an undivided attention in the moment, draw us 1 ABetterWay_3_Transcript into your presence and your calling in the now to do your will on earth as it is in heaven. We pray this in Jesus' name and everybody said? - Amen. - Would you look at the person next to you and say, "Your best days are now?". - Your best days are now. - Your best days are now, go ahead and be seated. You can type that in the chat. If you're still with us, your best days are now. If you're just joining us, we're in a message series called "A Better Way" and what we're doing is we're looking at the way that Jesus lived. Not just the truth that He taught but the way that He lived and one of the most striking qualities about the way that Jesus lived is that no matter who He interacted with, no matter what He was doing, He was always present in the moment. He was fully present, he lived with what I call an undivided attention in the moment. In fact what I wanna do I wanna show you two back to back stories in Scripture that illustrate His heart for the people right in front of Him being fully engaged in the moment. In fact the first one we find in Luke's Gospel and Jesus was walking into Jericho and if you can imagine there were large crowds all around. Now the photo of Jericho was actually about 1400 years prior to this event when the walls of Jericho went down. They went down, they came back up after years and years and this would just give you a mental image of Jesus walking into this magnificent walled city with all of these people gathering around Him, with crowds fighting for His attention and as He's walking in, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus cries out, "Jesus, son of David. "Have mercy on me." And the disciples were offended. Jesus doesn't have time for this guy, Jesus is going somewhere. Jesus is too important, Jesus is too busy, Jesus has an agenda. Jesus isn't gonna stop for some guy who's begging on the side of the road and the disciples rebuked the blind beggar and said go away and then Jesus rebuked the disciples and He engaged with a single hurting person, fully engaged in the moment and Jesus stopped, gave him all of His attention and said, "What would you like for me to do?" And the man cries out, "Could you heal me, could you heal me, "could you please heal me? "I haven't been able to see my whole life." And Jesus spoke a miraculous word of faith and healed the man. One miracle is Jesus healed him. The second thing to notice is that Jesus stopped for a guy that no one had time for. Fully engaged with the person in front of Him. The second and next story, the consecutive story. Here's one and the next one. We see in John 19:1. It mentions Jericho again. "As Jesus entered Jericho" and this time Luke tells us that He was actually going somewhere. He was passing through and so He was moving through, He had somewhere to be. "As Jesus entered Jericho and passing through, "a man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. "He was a chief tax collector and he was wealthy." Now if you notice, Jesus had already been interrupted one time by a poor blind beggar. Now he's interrupted by a rich, corrupt tax collector. What I love about Jesus is He's got time for the down and out and He's got time for the up and out. He's got time for anyone and a heart for anyone. It doesn't matter where you come from, how bad your baggage is, how dirty it is, how rich it is, Jesus cares about you. And Jesus stops for this guy named Zacchaeus. Now if you don't know who Zacchaeus was, I wanna tell you about Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. Who climbed up into a sycamore tree to see what he could see. If anybody was in Sunday School as a kid, you drank the Kool-Aid and you knew who Zacchaeus was. That's the way it went. Well he was a tax collector which may not mean a whole lot to you in this culture because a tax collector can be respectable although 2 ABetterWay_3_Transcript you probably don't enjoy paying taxes but during this time, this was like the most corrupt of all people. A tax collector would've been a person who would charge you what you owed and then add to it an exorbitant amount and keep the difference for himself and so this was one of the most despised, most hated people around and Jesus sees this guy and He calls him by name. Zacchaeus, and Jesus essentially invites Himself over for lunch and as He was going somewhere, after He'd already been interrupted once, He gives a no-good sinner His full attention and when He's talking to Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus has this moment of deep repentance in the presence of the Son of God and he just says something like, "I've sinned so many times, I've hurt so many people "and I am so sorry. "I'll do anything I can to make it up." And then he just blurts out, you can almost feel him making it up and he means it, like I'll give half my possessions to the poor and I'll pay back four times to anyone that I stole from and Jesus looks at this man and says, "Today. "In this moment, right now, "salvation has come to your home." Jesus had a undivided attention in the moment and He stops and gives people one of the greatest gifts He can give, His attention and His love. Jesus was always fully present in the moment and I wanna be like that but unfortunately, I'm not always like that and I've been praying for some time and asking God to help me be engaged in whatever is in front of me. I wanna be where my feet are. And I wanna not just live for the happy moments and the up moments and the powerful moments and the outwardly meaningful moments but I wanna be present in all the moments. Even the annoying moments. I wonder how many of you live in the middle of a lot of annoying moments right now? Don't point at that moment but I'm just saying, you know some seasons of life are more annoying than others. I could remember in the early years of raising six kids, amen. I have six children. People say, "You must really love kids." And I always say, "I like kids but I really love my wife Amy." And all of God's people said? - Amen. - Amen and I remember coming home, always being annoyed that there were just toys everywhere, all over the house and I thought, one day, some day, somehow I'm gonna come in to a clean, picked up house and then I blinked. And now I have one of six that hasn't graduated and almost every day I come home to a perfectly clean house and what's interesting is some of you are doing the same thing that I did. You're complaining today about moments you'll miss tomorrow. You're literally complaining about the very moments right now that you're gonna miss one day in the future. Jesus was fully engaged in the moment. You guys still here? - Yeah, yes. - Are you still, are you still here. If you're here, say I'm here. Are you here? - I'm here. - Because the statistical odds would show that I've lost some of you, they would. Harvard did a study and what they found out, their exact words is that 47% of the time people's minds are not the same place their feet are. 47% of the time that you're in a conversation with someone, your mind isn't fully engaged. 47% of the time you're sitting in church or at dinner with your family or engaged with someone at work or talking to someone in the gym or in the middle of life group, almost half of your waking life, your mind is not fully engaged where the rest of your body is. In fact one of the biggest enemies of our attention I would argue is our mobile device. Our cellphone. In fact it's 3 ABetterWay_3_Transcript shocking to think about this, how often you can be distracted from the very place that you are. In fact the average cellphone user, studies show, touches their phone 2617 times a day. That's a lot of times that you're not in the moment. Reaching over, reaching over, reaching over. Whatever's in front of you isn't as important as the being or the potential look or the news thing or the stupid cat video or the conspiracy thing your friend sent you or checking to see if you got any likes. And that's just the average. The amazing thing about some of you is you're so above average. We're not a church full of just average people, when we go all out in our dysfunction, many of us we go way, way out. The average is 2617 times, but the top 10% of cellphone users, they touch their phones more than 5400 times a day. Can I just tell you, that's gross. Like that's disgusting, wash that dang thing right now. Thousands of times a day. You aren't with whatever or whoever is in front of you. And your mind is somewhere else. If it's not on the phone, sometimes it's just playing games. My mind plays games. The top two games my mind plays. I play the when, then game. The when, then. The one day when, then I'm gonna be happy. You might do that, you know like when your a kid it's like, when I get to high school and then you're a freshman, like when I'm a sophomore and then it's like, when I get out of high school then I'll be happy and then it's like when I get out of college and then it's when I pay off that debt and when I get a real job and then when I get married and then when we have children and then when they're not in diapers and then when they're grown up and then when I'm in diapers. No you just happen to. And so many of us, we are literally going through life wishing away the current moment. Wishing away what you have right in front of you. Don't miss what you have now pursuing what you want later. Jesus was fully engaged in the moment. If it's not the when, then game, I often play the what if game. It's projecting into the future. What if this happens? You might do that, what if I don't pass this test? Then what if I don't get into a good college? Then what if I don't get a good job? And then what if I don't attract a good spouse and then what if we have dumb kids? And then what if we can't afford braces, 'cause I didn't a good job and then they're gonna be crooked teeth. I've ruined my kids all because I didn't pass this test and we tend to do this. What if this happens and what if the government and what if the economy and what if aliens attack and on and on and on and on. And Jesus said this in Matthew 6:34. Jesus said, "Therefore don't worry about tomorrow "for tomorrow has enough to, "tomorrow will worry about itself." Jesus says don't worry about what's coming, tomorrow will worry about itself. What I love about Jesus is he wasn't like anti-planning. He said I'm not telling you not to plan for the future but I'm telling you don't worry about the future. Don't worry about it. Let me just ask you again. Are you still here? - [Congregation] Yes. - Because it's really, really, really important to be present in the moment. It's really important to be present in the moment. Why is it do you think that we often aren't fully present? Sometimes it's just we're plain distracted but as I prayed about it and thought about it I think one of the reasons why we're often not fully present is because we lack faith. We lack faith. We're all freaked out about something that happened a long time ago and I gotta figure it out and undo it. Or we're all freaked out about what's gonna happen in the future and what I discovered is that all this praying is that the only way we can be present in the moment is to actually surrender the past you can't change and trust God with a future that you can't control. The only way to fully be present in the moment is to let go of a past that you can't change no matter what you do and trust that God has it. Or to surrender your future and trust that God is good, that He cares, that He's already there and because He redeems the past and because He's good in the 4 ABetterWay_3_Transcript future, you can be fully engaged with the person or that which is before you in the present. It takes faith, it takes faith in God to engage in God's calling right in front of you. In fact I love the way James phrases it, the half brother of Jesus in James 4:13 and 14. He says, "Come now." Somebody say now. - Now. - Type it in the chat, now. "Come now," he says. "You who say, 'Today or tomorrow we're gonna go "'into such and such town and spend a year there "'or trade and make a profit.'" Those of you who used to say that, COVID happened and you didn't get to go nowhere. I mean, you who say you've got it all figured out, you don't even what tomorrow will bring. And he asks this pressing question, "What is your life? "For you're a mist that appears for a little while "and then vanishes." You're a mist. Open up your mouth sometime and breathe on glass and watch the mist come and watch the mist fade away. That's our lives. The image that really gets me often is the hourglass and I like to think about this. This is, this is your life. You're here for a little while and the life that God has given you on this earth is passing away in the moment. And there's three things about this that are interesting to me. One is it freaks me out that the sand is going that fast right now but the first thing is that no one knows how much sand is on the top. You think you do but there's a lot of people who thought there was a lot more than there really is. No one knows how much is on the top. The second thing is no matter what you do, you can't stop the sand from flowing. Time is passing, time is passing. Time is passing, every day is a gift from God. Today is a gift from God and some of you are wishing it away. The third thing is once the sand is at the bottom, you can never get it back. You can never get it back. That's why at the beginning of the message I had you stand to celebrate the moment. At that moment we were together in the presence of God. The very way we are at this moment. The most important moment of your life. We could say is experiencing God right now with God's people and that's why I love what David said in Psalm 118. In verse 24 he said, "This is the day the Lord has made." You've got today, this is the day. And because this is God's day, "We're gonna be glad and rejoice in it." If you're still here and I hope you're still here because I wanna tell you, you can't be happy where you're not. And you can't serve Jesus where you're not. And you can't love people the way Jesus did where you're not. This is the day the Lord has made. The most important moment is right now, the most important person is the one right in front of you. That's the most important moment and the most important and what I recognize is this. I used to live for the big moments and the special moments and the powerful moments but the more I've been fully present, I've recognized that the most powerful moments are often the smallest moments. The most meaningful often aren't the mountaintop but the conversation I have with someone that I love. And I've kind of been wrecked over all four, now five of my children leaving home because it happens so fast. Number five was Stephen and we connected this year in ways that were so special and meaningful to me. I tried to get into his head. What do you wanna do, what's your bucket list? What's out there, you name it, I'm gonna try to do it and he said a couple things. He said, I'll show you pictures. One was I wanna fly a plane and so we've been flying planes and he said, "I wanna go on a hot air balloon." And so we went in a hot air balloon. And those were really, really meaningful but they pale in comparison to the moments I've had fully engaged in conversation. One of the most recent was right at capacity. If your kids aren't a part of Switch, you need to repent and get them a part of Switch. It's the best thing going on in this church and he was at an event and I was there and he was so overwhelmed by the presence of God that he came running up to me. Half smiling, half crying and he couldn't get the words out. And he said, "Dad." He 5 ABetterWay_3_Transcript said, "Can you believe how amazing our God is?" And I just stopped and wasn't 4000 feet up, risking our life in a plane or riding in a hot air balloon but just in the moment, embracing the moment and hugged him and held him and didn't let him go and it was so special, guess what. He didn't even get dad awkward and try to push me away either. Because we're fully engaged in the moment. Please don't miss what you have now, pursuing what you want later. This is the day the Lord has made and when you look at the way Jesus lived, not just the truth He taught but the way He lived. As He walked along, people weren't interruptions or inconveniences. They were moments and opportunities to engage and show the goodness and the love of God. This moment's all that you have, this moment. This moment matters, this moment matters. To be fair, I don't want you to feel like I'm trying to make you feel guilty. I get distracted like crazy. I mean I'm like, I got ADD, I can hardly be anywhere so I'm working on it. When you think about Jesus, if there was any time that He would've been distracted from others, if there was any time that He would've been consumed with Himself like we often are, it would've been on the cross. When you think about it, He is the sinless Son of God and people stripped Him down naked, beat Him so he didn't even look like a human being, whipped and flogged Him so His back was left open and bleeding. Probably His internal organs hanging out, hanging on a cross, having to push up His feet with nails through His ankles. Pull up with his wrists, with nails through His wrist just trying to get a breath as people cursed Him and spit on Him and right next to Him was a criminal. Who looked over at Jesus and had a conversation and the guy said something, probably more than what's reported but probably something along the lines of, "I've done a lot of bad things "and I feel really bad about them. "I'm really, really sorry." Whatever he said, we know he said this. He looked at Jesus and he said, "Remember me when you come and your kingdom." And even in the middle of His suffering, the worst, most painful moment of Jesus' life, He's fully engaged with the criminal across and looks over at him and says, "Today, today you'll be with me in paradise. "Fully engaged in the moment." You see, I don't know who this is for but you can't serve Jesus where you're not and you can't be happy and fulfilled where you're not and you can't love people where you're not. And if your mind is not where your body is 47% of the time, you're missing out on the life that God gave you. It's right in front of you, you can't be a great friend if you're not there. You can't be an engaged mom or dad if you're not there. You can't have a great marriage if you're not there until you recognize this is the day the Lord has made. Because of that, I will rejoice and be glad in it. God has saved the best days for you now. Now in this moment you could experience His grace. Now in this moment, you can experience His mercy. Now in this moment, you could experience His forgiveness. Now right now, His power is here. His freedom is here, His grace is here. All His goodness is here, He is with us, can you sense it? This holy moment, God is with us now. And God sent me to tell you that your best days are now. If you'll fully engage with the people that God bring in front of you, pouring out your heart in the moment. Knowing that tomorrow is not a promise but this is a moment you can experience God. Your best moment can be right now. Engage in the moment, be where your feet are and see what God put in front of you. I promise you, His goodness, His grace, His love is better than you could imagine. If you'll look for it in this moment. This is the day, this moment the Lord has made. We will be glad and rejoice in it. If you're still here, let's pray and go before God. Father thank you so much for your Word. Would you bring us God into your perfect will in the moment? So you can do exactly what you wanna do. As you're praying today at all of our churches are watching online, if your mind has drifted let me encourage you to come back for just a moment and those who say yes, just like Jesus, the way that Jesus lived, I wanna live and love like Jesus lived and loved. I wanna be fully engaged with an undivided attention in the moment. If God is speaking to you and 6 ABetterWay_3_Transcript you wanna see that as a reality, would you lift up your hands right now? You can type it in the chat, help me be fully engaged in the moment. God thank you for working in the lives of so many people. Here's my prayer God, I know this is not something we can change on our own. I pray God that you by your Holy Spirit would prompt us again and again and again. God, if we have to listen to this message over and over again, put it on repeat. Listen once a day, whatever it is. You drive this deep into our hearts and when our mind drifts from a conversation with a child, when our mind drifts from an intimate moment with the spouse. When our mind drifts away from what could be an opportunity to minister to someone and we're tempted to pick up a phone or worry about the past or obsess about the future. God help us to surrender a past we cannot change and trust you with a future that we cannot control and engage fully in the moment. We draw our minds to where we are so we can love people the way you love us. God convict us, empower us, change us to be more like Jesus. To live the way that Jesus lived, fully engaged in the moment, showing your love in all that we do. As you keep praying today, I've got really good news. For some of you, today, this moment is one of the most important moments of your life. For some of you it'll be the most important moment of your life. I wanna just ask you to think about this. How are you doing with God? Some of you might say, well I don't even know if I believe in God. Like wake up, look outside and ask how did all this get here, God. How you doing with God? If you feel far from God or maybe guilty about something that you've done, let me just tell you about the goodness of God in this moment. You're here, you're watching because God wants you here and He wants you watching. He knew this moment would happen and He loved you enough to bring you to a place where there's a message that might get through to your hearts. Here's what He wants you to know, He loves you right now. No matter what you've done in the past, He loves you. No matter what you're worried about in the future, He loves you. In this moment and He showed His love for you in the person of Jesus. When Jesus who was without sin died on the cross, as a replacement, as a sacrifice in your place and in my place He died for our sins and God raised Him from the dead, why? So that anyone, it doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter what you've done. Anyone who calls on His name, the name of Jesus, the Son of God. Anyone who calls on His name, your sins would be completely forgiven. Not because you're good but because He's good, He's that good. You'd be made new, your past is gone and you can trust your future to Him. In this moment, when you call on the name of Jesus, God hears your prayer and in a moment you can move from darkness to light. You can move from shame to freedom. You can move from wondering where you stand with God to a peace that goes beyond all understanding. In a moment, the old is gone and the new will come. Today, wherever you're watching those who say "I need His grace." Something's drawing you to God right now, what is it? That's the Holy Spirit, that's God. That's His goodness. You say, "I want His forgiveness, I'm ready to let go." When you call on His name, God hears your prayers, He forgives your sins, you're about to be new. Now this moment, now this moment, you know it, you can feel it, you can sense it, that's why you're here. Wherever you're watching, those who say, "Yes I need His grace. "Yes by faith I surrender my life. "Yes I give my life to Jesus." That's your prayer, lift your hands right now. All over the place, just lift them up and say yes. As we see hands going up at all of our churches, those of you online just type in the chat, I'm giving my life to Jesus just type that right now in the chat. And I would love it today if you would just pray this aloud wherever you're watching. Pray heavenly Father. - Heavenly Father. - Forgive all my sins. 7 ABetterWay_3_Transcript - Forgive all my sins. - Jesus save me. - Jesus saved me. - Make me new. - Make me new. - Fill me with your Spirit. - Fill me with your Spirit. - So I could follow you. - So I could follow you. - To show your love. - To show your love. - In all that I do. - In all that I do. - My life is not my own. - My life is not my own. - I give it to you. - I give it to you. - In Jesus' name I pray. - In Jesus' name I pray. - Today is the day of your salvation, today is the day that you're new. Would you welcome those born into the family of God today. 8 ABetterWay_3_Transcript “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” Matthew 6:34 . Why don’t we live in the moment? Lack of faith. The only way you can be present in the moment is to…surrender the past you can’t change and trust God with a future you can’t control. www.lifechurch.tv/open . Sermon begins at 4:00 minutes.

NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH July 26, 2020 Unshaken_ Daniel Chapter 7_The Long Game Dr. Mark Batterson In 1884, Edwin Abbott wrote a brilliant little book 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions', it looks like this. I read it about 20 years ago. The entire book is an extra dimensional thought experiment. Abbott calls, one dimension, line land. All you can conceive of is one dimension called length and you can only move in one direction - forward. He calls two dimensions - flatland and you can now move sideways because you add breath to length. Then Abbot introduces this mystical, magical place called 'space land'. But it's very hard for line landers and flatlanders to conceive of anything above them, because they have never looked up. Why would they? They have never conceived of this thing called height, this third-dimension. Now they sense this mysterious presence, but all they do is look around them and wonder what it could be. That's when this extra dimensional being appropriately named 'Sphere' enters the equation. Abbot calls him a fit apostle for the gospel of three dimensions. He reveals himself to the lion landers and flatlanders. He says, "You do not know what space is. You think it is of two-dimensions only, but I have come to announce to you a third dimension." Hold that thought. In physics, every dimension of space time is called a degree of freedom. In one dimensional line land you have the freedom to move forward. In two dimensional flatland you have the freedom to move forward and sideways. In three dimensional space land you have the freedom to maneuver forward, sideways and upwards. Every dimension adds a degree of freedom, allowing you to maneuver in a new way, and every degree of freedom redefines what is and what is not possible. Casey Cole says it this way, "You can leap over a four dimensional barrier in five dimensional space, you can untie an eight dimensional knot in nine dimensional space. Magical things are possible by a mere change in the dimensions of space." In Luke's Gospel, Jesus gives his inaugural address, he is in his hometown of Nazareth, he goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath. The scroll is open to the book of Isaiah and Jesus says, "I have come to set captives free." Now we tend to think of that in legal terms, this is our get out of jail free card. And listen, that is one dimension of the freedom that we find in Christ. We are justified by faith - 'just as if I had never sinned' our sin is forgiven and forgotten by virtue of what Christ accomplished on the cross. But I want us to think of this in terms of physics. Listen to me, Jesus came to add a degree of freedom to your life, to add an extra dimensional reality to your life. He enables us to escape the space time limitations and maneuver in a new way with the help of the Holy Spirit. That's what the gifts of the Spirit are all about. And when we exercise those gifts, healing and faith and prophecy, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, heaven invades Earth, eternity invades time, God moves in miraculous ways in ways that, well, they're just impossible in four dimensions of space time. - 1 - Now, let me juxtapose that with this 2 Peter 3:8, "With the Lord a day is like thousand years and a thousand years, are like a day." That makes no sense in four dimensions of space time. Newsflash, God does not exist within the space time dimensions he created. God is the eternal now. To borrow a phrase from theologian Paul Tillich; 'the challenge is this, all we've ever known is four dimensions of space time so it's very difficult for us to conceive of anything else.' We sense this mysterious presence, don't we? And then we look all around but we don't have a category and so we often explain it away, or we anthropomorphize God, we create God in our image, we put God in our four dimensional box and what we end up with in the words of A. W. Tozer is a God who can never surprise, us never astonish us, never overwhelm us, never transcend us. How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be said G. K. Chesterton, if the hammer of a higher God would smash your small cosmos. That is my prayer for you this weekend. Two big ideas up front. One, God is bigger than big. The technical term is transcendence, "As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts declares the Lord." Isaiah 55:9. Astrophysicists estimate the commoving distance of the universe from one side to the other 93 billion light years. That distance is immeasurable and that's the point. "He is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to his power that's at work within us." Your best thought on your best day falls 93 billion light years short of how great and how good God really is. God - bigger than big which is amazing but let's be honest, a little intimidating too. So here's some good news. God is also closer than close; technical term imminence. He is not just God most high He is God most nigh and you see this in Psalm 36. God's love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, his purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic yet in his largeness in his transcendence nothing gets lost, not a man, not a mouse slips through the cracks. God is great, not too because nothing is too big God is great because nothing is too small. He is God most high. He is God most nigh. Well, what does any of that have to do with the book of Daniel? I'm glad you asked. Let me connect some extra dimensional dots and we're gonna pick up right where we left off last weekend, Daniel in the lion's den. According to the Talmud along with everything God spoke into existence during these six days of creation, God made certain provisions. He commanded the Red Sea to split apart for Israel. He commanded the sun and moon to stand still for Joshua. He commanded the Baltimore Ravens to feed Elijah, the fish to spit out Jonah, the fire not to burn Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and he commanded that the lions would shut their mouths. All of this God declared made provision for during those six days of creation. Now the Talmud much of which was compiled during this Babylonian exile by the way, it's not on par with Scripture. This is rabbinic tradition for better for worse but I find this fascinating and I think it's in keeping with the way God works. If you're taking notes jot this down when God gives a vision he makes provision. We have seen this so many times and so many ways as a church, this is Ephesians 2:10, my life verse. "We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works prepared for us in advance." Now we exist - 2 - within this construct called time so we think, forwards. God exists outside of these dimensions he created, and he actually works in the opposite direction. So we think forwards but God is working backwards. What we call history is teleology. It's a Greek word often translated perfect or complete. It's Philippians 1:6, "He began a good work and you will carry it to completion", teleos in the Greek. Imagine a giant jigsaw puzzle to teleos is the final piece of that puzzle. It's every piece perfectly in place. God begins with the end in mind, not just the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And if you want to understand prophecy, I think we start right here. Now with that as a backdrop, we're gonna jump right into Daniel seven, considered by many Jewish scribes to be the greatest chapter in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first half is biographical. We've got six court tales; we've been talking about it over the last six weeks. The second half is apocalyptic. We take a hard right turn in chapter seven we transition from history to prophecy. It's almost like we go from flatland to space land. Daniel puts on his prophetic hat, pulls back the curtain a time, peers into the future and reveals what he sees. Four visions, we're going to talk about it over the next six weeks. We're going to talk some eschatology a theology of the end times, we'll talk angelology more angelic activity in the book of Daniel than any other book of the Bible. Ready or not here we go. Verse one, "In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and saw visions as he lay on his bed. He wrote down the dream, and this is what he saw." So we flashback to the first year Belshazzar this predates the lion's den, predates handwriting on the wall best guess, right around 653 BC two footnotes, right here. There are some who would argue for a second century authorship, which of course means Daniel could not have written this book and I understand those arguments. I would hold to a sixth century authorship, in large part because Jesus seems to attribute authorship to Daniel in Matthew 24:15. I also think it's noteworthy that we transition from third person history in these first six chapters to more of a first person prophecy in chapter seven. Honestly, I think some higher critics have a hard time believing that Daniel could have prophesied what would happen in subsequent centuries with such precision. I think that's where we fall back on 2 Peter 2:21 prophecy never had its origin in the will of man. But prophets, though human spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. One more footnote, first half and second half of Daniel form this fascinating chiasm. Chapter two and chapter seven both contain a vision of four kingdoms with one distinction. In Daniel two Daniel is the interpreter of dreams in Daniel seven Daniel is the dreamer of dreams. And it says he wrote down the dream. We're going to talk about that in our post message Q & A. Verse two, “In my vision that night, I, Daniel, saw a great storm churning the surface of a great sea, with strong winds blowing in every direction. - 3 - To the ancient reader the mention of the sea would have conjured up images of impending evil. A battle is brewing between right and wrong, between good and evil, political and social agitations are stirring up the nations of the world that hits pretty close to home. What do we do? What do we do when political winds blow when social wind storm what do we do as followers of Christ? To me book a Daniel is all about dual citizenship. Most of us citizens of the United States of America and I believe we have a civic duty to exercise our rights and responsibilities as Americans. That said, we are a non partisan church in other words, we don't affiliate with party or candidate; lots of people on both sides of the aisle at NCC. But non partisan doesn't mean we don't care. It doesn't mean that the political process is unimportant, so many of you have devoted your lives to public service just like Daniel. Listen, we honor you. We pray for you. And we won't always agree on absolutely everything. And that's where we flip the coin, as followers of Christ and we remind ourselves that our primary citizenship is in this thing called the kingdom of God. We don't put our hope in hash tags. We don't put our faith in political ideologies. I am in Christ, Christ is in me. That, my friends is the hope of glory and this is the prayer that we pray. “Our Father who art Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray that prayer and when we do, we are praying that an extra dimensional reality called heaven would invade Earth that an extra dimensional reality called eternity would invade time. And that is precisely what's going to happen in verse 18. We'll get there. We'll get there. Verse three, Daniel has a vision of four beasts coming up out of the sea in succession. And then in verse eight, a little horn comes out of 10 horns, toots his horn, speaks with tremendous arrogance. Verse 24, says that He will speak words against the Most High God and that he will wear out the saints. And we're gonna unpack some of that eschatology in week nine. In fact, we'll identify who that little horn is. And so come back in two weeks. Here's the bottom line. Daniel is giving a forecast of these four kingdoms that come out of the sea. And it's not a great forecast, difficult days are ahead. This is not what the prophet wants to speak. This is not what the people want to hear. It's bad and it's going to get worse. But just when it seems like all is lost, Daniel has another vision that totally flips the script. In verse nine it's almost like a set change in theater. We transition from these four beasts coming up out of the sea, to a courtroom to a throne room, and it's a change of characters. It's a change of perspective. “As I looked, “thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze." You know what this sounds like? To me this sounds like a prophet in four dimensions of space time who was having a hard time describing a God who is omni-dimensional. This is the only place in all of scripture where God is called the Ancient of Days. I want you to notice where he is. Where is the Ancient of Days in the midst of all these earthly uprisings? Where is he in the midst of all of this - 4 - rebellion against everything that is good and right and just? I will tell you where he is. God is still on his throne. And it gets better. Verse 13, "Behold, on the clouds of heaven came one, like a son of man." In Hebrew, ben-'adam, that designation used 107 times in the Old Testament, found 81 times in the gospels. Three primary titles given to Jesus in the Gospels, he is the son of David which references his royalty. He is the Son of God which delineates his divinity and he is the Son of Man, which underscores his humanity but there is so much more to it than that. When Jesus self identifies as the Son of man, and he does it 14 times in Mark's Gospel alone, he is saying, I am who Daniel saw, I am the fulfillment of this prophecy, I am the one who serves the cloud. I am the one who saves the day I am the one who writes every wrong. It's almost like Jesus raises his hand, all dominion, all glory, all authority read it in verse 14, all peoples all nations, all languages will serve me my dominion is an everlasting dominion. And so here's Daniel he finds himself living between these two alternate realities, these two visions. You've got this earthly reality of political uprisings and social unrest. I mean, it feels like the world is falling apart feels like evil has the upper hand. Houston, we have a problem. But then there is this vision of an extra dimensional reality. This heavenly vision, the Ancient of Days seated on his throne and the Son of Man surfing the clouds. Simply put, God's got this and God's got you. Now, is it just me? Or does it feel like we find ourselves with a similar tension right now? We feel this tension between our earthly reality and our heavenly theology. We are politically polarized and we're headed into an election. We are spatially distant. And honestly, this COVID curve is headed in the wrong direction. Tremendous tension around racism feels like our nation in a sense is being pulled apart at the seams, one third of Americans struggling with anxiety or depression. I want you to know if you're part of that one third, you are not alone. Listen, even prophets like Daniel, struggle with anxiety. Check this out in verse 15, "My spirit was grieved and anxious within me, the visions in my head alarmed me and agitated me." If you aren't a little alarmed if you aren't a little agitated, are you paying attention to what's happening right now? That doesn't mean that we don't have the peace of God that passes all understanding guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, we do. The question is what is God up to? Listen, I think God is waking us up. I think God is shaking us up. I think God is shaking, our false sense of security and our false sense of identity. I think God is shaking our false assumptions and false narratives. I think God is shaking our false idols and false ideologies. Guess what? That's not fun. But we find ourselves in a critical cultural moment. We find ourselves at a critical juncture as a nation. And I'll come back to that. Daniel says, My spirit was grieved within me. Even prophets grieve. In fact, they might grieve a little bit more than the rest of us. "To the prophet" said, Abraham Heschel, "even a minor injustice assumes cosmic proportion." Here's the key. And this is a word for someone this weekend; you cannot get stuck in the stages of grief. Now, please hear me grief is as unique as your fingerprint. And we've got to give allowance to one - 5 - another to process grief in a personal way. And listen, if you try to shortcut grief, you will short circuit your soul. You have to walk through the process but you can't get stuck in denial or in anger or in bargaining or in depression. Listen If you feel like you're stuck, we want to help you we want to come alongside you NCC.re/COVIDcare. And right now if you're at our online campus our prayer team ready and waiting to pray with you and for you. This week Jo Carmichael, a part of our team at NCC shared an amazing devotional on our upper zoom about moving through the stages of grief. And she mentioned a sixth stage I didn't realize that a six stage had been added by David Kessler. Stage five is acceptance but stage six is meaning. Let me share a testimony with you. Oh man. 20 years ago today July 23, 2000, I was standing right here, not here but I was preaching at movie theaters that Union Station. I got up behind that pulpit about five minutes into the message this intense abdominal pain. I literally had to walk out doubled over. Pastor Joel popped up and pinched hit for me. 12 hours later an MRI revealed ruptured intestines. Sepsis had been setting in; doctors said we got to do emergency surgery. I spent two days on a respirator. I lost 25 pounds in a week. I could have, I should have died at Washington Hospital Center 20 years ago today. Worst day of my life, hardest year of my life, surgery, another surgery. I mean my whole life revolved around trying to recuperate, a lot of scars to remind me of the pain and suffering. I would never want to go through it again. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, best day of my life. Pastor Mark what are you talking about? You take very few things for granted when you have a near death experience. And you're grateful for just about everything especially your wife, kids. I love this church too. I don't know what you're walking through and I do not want to make light of it. These stages of grief they're hard to move through but somehow someway, with God's grace, as you confront the brutal facts of maybe what was done to you that was so wrong that it makes me mad. You gotta approach it with unwavering faith and believe that there is a God, who can heal, and a God who can deliver and a God who can redeem. In Jesus name. Amen. Verse 18, "The saints have the most high God shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever." We don't believe in happily ever after we believe in happily forever after. The question is, what do we do in the meantime, what do we do with all of this uncertainty with all of this anxiety? Listen, I don't have all the answers, but I know a good place to start. You pray like it depends on God and your work like it depends on you. The purpose of eschatology, and we'll dig deeper in two weeks but the purpose of eschatology is not figuring out plot lines and timelines. The goal is preparing ourselves for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Eschatology is a great reminder - get ready for the part that God wants you to play. Do everything within your power to see his kingdom come, his will be done right here, right now. - 6 - Let me use this COVID crisis as a case study, lots of prognosticators, estimating death tolls, timing of a vaccination, giving us best case, worst case. Listen, we have no idea how long this is going to last. We're not sure what the ripple effect will be on society or economy or the church for that matter. But I want to push this envelope a little bit. I think uncertainty can be crippling if you aren't careful all you do is watch the news. We are not a people who let things happen we are a people who make things happen. We are a people who pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. And so listen, I think we take all the recommended precautions. I think we wear masks, we spatially distance, and we do it for the most vulnerable amongst us. That's how we love our neighbor. But I would take it a step further. Don't take it sitting down. Listen, I think we do everything within our power to prepare ourselves in case we get it. I started running several months ago to get my lungs into shape. I ran a marathon last week over seven days, not one day. Why? Well, I'm not training for a marathon. All the marathons are canceled. What I'm doing is trying to get my lungs as strong as they can be just in case I get COVID-19. I went on a diet this week to optimize my immune system. Listen, sleep is a huge deal - it releases proteins that help your body heal stress. If you don't manage it, it will disarm your immune system. Exercise, it boosts our immuno surveillance. All of these things are critical. I guess the question is, what does any of that have to do with eschatology? Right? Well, I think we take the same approach. Listen, I can't tell you when Jesus is going to return, I have no idea. And that isn't the issue. The issue is this. Are you ready? Are you ready? Listen, I have never felt more daily dependence upon the Holy Spirit in my life. We need to be Spirit filled and Spirit led every single day. We need to get into God's word, get God's word into us. We need to get into prayer. Pray like it depends on God and we need to love like it depends on us. Verse 28, we're going to close with this. "Here is the end of the matter." And can I just remind us don't lose faith in the end of the story. "As for me, Daniel, my [waking] thoughts troubled and alarmed me and my cheerfulness of countenance was changed within me; but I kept the matter in my heart and mind." Listen, I am concerned about our countenance as a country. We need an extra measure of grace right now. We need an extra measure of wisdom right now. We need an extra measure of courage right now. This is not a moment for us to bury our head in the sand. This is a moment to stand in the gap. The word priest means bridge builder. We are the peacemakers. We are the reconciler. We are the repairers of the breach, Isaiah 58; If you have lost your courage, lost your faith, lost your cheerfulness of countenance. How do you get it back? How do you get that back? I know the place to start. I want to pronounce a blessing on your life. I want you to listen to these words. "May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you." And here it is. "May the Lord turn his countenance towards you and give you the peace that passes, all understanding." That is our confidence. That is how we don't lose faith. That is how we prepare for his coming. That is how we live our lives every single day. - 7 - If you're at our online campus right now, and you have never surrendered your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, I want to challenge you to do it. You're in your car, you're at home, you're at the gym I want you to mark this moment because I want you to know, if you would surrender all of you to all of him it will change your life forever. If's that you would you just raise a hand right now? Would you take that step of faith? And we're going to sing a song; our band is coming right now. We're going to sing a song and it is going to be our declaration of faith. Maybe you're in one of those stages of grief; I believe that God is going to take you to the next stage. Maybe you feel like a line lander or flatlander God, where are you? Would you look up today? I believe that his healing and his deliverance want to invade the reality of your life right now. In Jesus name, Amen - 8 - We think forwards, but God is working backwards. God begins with the end in mind. Occasionally, he pulls back the curtain of time and reveals His plans and His purposes to His prophets. The goal of prophecy isn’t figuring out timelines. It’s a reminder that GOD’S GOT THIS. It’s a reminder not to lose hope, not to lose heart. It’s a reminder to GET READY for the part God wants you to play!

The Giant of Apathy Transcription The Giant of Apathy - Nehemiah 2:1-9 - Skip Heitzig [MUSIC PLAYING] We're going to have you singing that song before the series is done. Turn in your Bibles, please, to the Book of Nehemiah, chapter to. Nehemiah, in the Old Testament, chapter 2. We have been talking about Hunting Giants in the last few weeks. And today, we look at defeating The Giant of Apathy. There was once a professor who asked his college class, philosophy class, which do you think is a bigger problem in America right now, ignorance or apathy? And one young student said, I don't know, and I don't care. [LAUGHTER] So pretty much, that was going on right then and there. Albert Einstein-- who you all know his name. You know he was the father of modern physics. When he was alive, Europe was being ravaged by a couple of philosophical systems that was going from country to country, communism and fascism. And he saw what was going on, and he made a very powerful statement. Einstein said, "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on evil and do nothing." There comes a time when, as we've already seen in this series, it's time to speak up and to move out. Speaking of evil in Europe during Nazi Germany, a pastor by the name of Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor, saw what was going on with Adolf Hitler. And he made a stand against him eventually that cost his freedom. He was put in a concentration camp, himself. Martin Niemoller said this famous little statement, "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me." Did you know that as you look at the scripture through the Old and New Testament, apathy among God's people was a problem? Here's a couple of examples. One prophet by the name of Haggai was raised up to deal with the apathetic, indifferent behavior of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. They had started to rebuild the temple. They sort of got discouraged from doing it. They eventually said, it's not time to build the Lord's temple. Haggai the prophet came on the scene and said, you say it's not time to build the Lord's temple, is it time for you to dwell in your nice homes while the work of God is undone? Another prophet by the name of Amos confronted the people of the land who were indifferent to the enemy that was around them. And he said, woe to those who are at ease in Zion. In the New Testament, Jesus gave a parable. You know it as the parable of the foolish virgins or bridesmaids. They didn't tend to their lamps. They didn't trim their wicks. They didn't care much about when the bridegroom was coming. And so he spoke that parable to them. And perhaps, the classic example of spiritual apathy are there religious leaders at the birth of Christ. They knew the Messiah was going to be born in Bethlehem. In fact, when magi came from the East following that star, and they were going through Jerusalem, they said, we're looking for the one who was going to be born King of the Jews. That rattled Herod's cage. Herod went to his religious leaders and said, where is the Messiah going to be born? And they immediately said, in Bethlehem of Judea, for it is written in the prophet. And they quoted Micah chapter 5 verse 2, which predicted his birth in Bethlehem. But that's all they did. They knew what the scripture said. They could quote it verbatim, but they didn't go check it out. I mean, think of this. The magi had traveled 1,600 miles because somebody was born called the King of the Jews. These religious leaders, whose King it was, wouldn't travel five miles to Bethlehem to verify it. That's the height of apathy. In Romans 13, Paul said, it is high time to awake out of sleep. In other words, can't you hear the alarm clock? It's time to wake up. It's time to get out of the bed of complacency. It is time to make our lives count for God because the night is coming fast. Darkness is falling fast, and people are moving toward the judgment of God fast. So it's time to toss out our pillow and pick up our sword and march into battle. We need, on a constant basis, to deal with the tendency toward apathy. How do we do that? Well, I've had to turn to Nehemiah chapter 2, and we're going to look at several verses in chapter 2 as well as in chapter 1. And I want to give you five steps to counteract the giant of apathy. First is information. We need to know the facts. We need to know what's happening. So let's begin with verse 1. It cam to pass in the month of Nisan-- that is not the automobile. That is the month, the Jewish month of Nisan, which is around April. In the twentieth year of the King Artaxerxes, when the wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the King said to me, why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became dreadfully afraid, and said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire? Now, you need to know what is going on historically, very briefly. Nehemiah is in Persia. He's in Iran, modern day Iran, ancient Persia. He is there because the Babylonians took the Jews captive for 70 years. But after the Babylonians, the Medo-Persian Empire came and took over everything, including the captives, including the Jewish people. Nehemiah is one of those who remained in that captive situation. But about a hundred years before chapter 2 of Nehemiah, the Jews had gone back to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. So they've already been there for about a century. And he finds out the condition of what's going on. Now, if you go back to chapter 1, in verse 11, you'll notice that Nehemiah said he was the king's cup bearer. And you need to know his occupation because this is when the King had the wine brought before him. That was his job. Nehemiah was the cup bearer. I know that doesn't sound like a great occupation. You might think it's like a glorified busboy. I assure you it is not. A cup bearer to a Persian King was the most trusted official. Perhaps, the King trusted no one more than the cup bearer, next to his wife. And that's perhaps, maybe even more, depending on their relationship-- another story. So Nehemiah was like the personal secretary. He had to be conversant in political matters and affairs of state. He was the one who tasted the wine and then gave it to the King to make sure it wasn't poisoned. The King, by the way, is King Artaxerxes. King Artaxerxes-- this one is Artaxerxes Longimanus-- who was the stepson of somebody you are familiar with, Queen Esther. Queen Esther married Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus had a son named Artaxerxes, and that is the king that is in question here. I just want you to get the picture that you have a Jewish man named Nehemiah occupying a very important political position in a Persian court. And I just want to take the opportunity to say, we need more of that. We need people who are willing to get involved like Nehemiah in a variety of different structures in our country. We need Christians in palaces. We need Christians in politics. We need Christians who are active in secular affairs, in secular society. We need Christians in courthouses and in roundhouses and in White Houses. We need them everywhere because the Bible says Jesus said, you are the salt of the Earth. [APPLAUSE] And the purpose of salt in ancient times was to keep the meat from rotting. And I would say that we need salt more than ever before in our culture. Here we are in the saltshaker. It's a great place to be. It's where we ought to be. But at some point you've got to turn the saltshaker over and get the salt into the culture, into the society, and let it do its job. So he was there on site in a government position before King Artaxerxes. Now, I think it goes without saying, given a position like this of importance, Nehemiah had it made. He had a great job. He was in a luxurious environment, a comfortable lifestyle. But he was a Jew. And one day as a Jew, because he was a Jew, he hears reports about what is going on in his homeland. He had never been to his homeland. He had never been to Israel. He'd never been to Jerusalem. But he hears a report about what's going on in Jerusalem, and it shakes him to the core. It has been said that a Jew never forgets Jerusalem. The psalm is said in Psalm 137, if I forget you, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. That's embedded into the heart of a Jewish person. So evidently, he comes before King Artaxerxes. His face is sad. He knows that his city is still in ruins because he mentions that to the King. But let's go back, if you don't mind, to chapter 1 to find out where he gets the information. So turn back to Nehemiah chapter 1. It says in verse 1, the words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev-- that's around December-- in the twentieth year, I was in Shushan the citadel-- he's in the palace-- Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. It's just a conversation. Hey, what's going on in Jerusalem? I heard you were there. Well, give me the skinny, give me the lowdown. What's going on? Maybe he expected them to say, oh, everything's great, everybody's happy. But that wasn't the report. Verse 3, they said to me, the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. Now, Nehemiah knew the history. Nehemiah knew that the city had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. He knew all that. He grew up hearing about that. He had also known that 50,000 Jews had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. He was aware of that. But I think he must have thought that it was successful, things were going well there. So he says, so what's the report? They say, not good. The city is still in ruins. The gates are still burned with fire. But the point I want to make is that he is asking the questions to get the right information. That is always the first step in conquering the giant of apathy-- find out the situation, find out the facts. Some people won't ask questions because they don't want to know the answer, because if they get the questions they have answered and they get the information, they might have now a sense of obligation. You've got to do something about it. So it's like, don't tell me. I don't want to know. There's an old proverb that says, he who asks a question remains a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. So he asks the questions. He gets the information. In our day and age, it's important that we get information. However, I think it's safe to say, though-- we live in the information age-- it's harder to get accurate information today more than ever before because you're going to get not true journalism anymore. You're going to get an opinion journalism. You're going to get spin put on it. And that's why today it's so easy to curate your own news feed. You just, sort of, follow on Twitter those news feeds or those people that you agree with or agree with you, and you just get your stream of thought that you want reinforced. And news agencies pump out, according to algorithms, certain information. So it's difficult to get a real accurate read on a situation. It's possible, but it's, I think, much harder than ever. But that's the first step, information, get the facts. Second step, reaction. Once you hear the facts, you need to let the facts that you hear motivate you, stir you. So back in verse 2, the King said to me, why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. So the king notices that there is a reaction taking place in Nehemiah, that he's feeling a certain way. Now, again, I want you to go back to chapter 1. And look at verse 4. He has just had a conversation asking about Jerusalem. They tell him the gates are burned with fire, the city's in ruins. Verse 4 of chapter 1, so it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept. Now, just pause there for a minute. It'll be so easy for Nehemiah in hearing about a city he has never visited, he has just learned about, when he hears that Jerusalem is burned with fire it would be so easy for him to go, oh, well, that's sad, but it's lunchtime. I mean, he has a very strong reaction. The facts of the situation motivate him, move him. He said, I sat down, and I wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. I hope you're seeing that Nehemiah let the information become his motivation. He is stirred by the facts that he hears. He knows what it means. He knows that a city that's broken down, the walls are broken down, the gates are burned with fire, is vulnerable. It is not safe. It is open to attack. The security system is not optimal. Now, let's apply that. Whenever we hear a need, and there's plenty of need to hear. There's always something going on that seems so desperate in our world. Our reaction to that need is vital. Our reaction to the information that we hear is what should, at some point, stimulate us to action. Now, it doesn't always do it, but it should. So here's an easy example. Let's say, you have two roommates. They're renting a house. They're very different personalities. One is sort of a "Mr. Clean," fastidious freak, everything's in order, and everything must be just so. But the roommate is like a passive slob. It's like, as long as I got a floor to lie on, I'm good. OK, so if problems come to that house, if the roof begins to leak or there's problems in that house, which one do you think will be on at first to get it remedied? "Mr. Clean freak," not slob guy. He's not going to do it. He doesn't care. But the one who cares is the one who's going to do something about it. So unless you see the problem and are affected by the problem, you're not going to fix the problem. Nehemiah hears the problem. He wants something done about it. It broke his heart. It broke his heart because Jerusalem isn't just a city. It's God's city. It's the covenant city. It's the city of God's plan upon the Earth and so he weeps over what he hears by the way, he's not the only one to weep over Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet also wept over Jerusalem. And somebody else that we know very well wept over Jerusalem, named Jesus. He saw the same city Nehemiah had. These three men had that in common. They wept over the city, knowing it could have been so much more than it was. This begs the question, what makes you cry? What do you hear that brings you strong reaction or emotion? I mean, we hear so much bad stuff in this day and age in which we live. It's sort of easy to get compassion fatigue. But I am convinced that God at some point wants to break our hearts with the things that break His, to get moved by it. So two steps to get out of apathy-- information followed by reaction. Let the facts stir you. The third is intersession. Once you know something and then you feel something, you need to talk to somebody about that something. And that is God, first. And that's what he does. In verse 4 of chapter 2, the king said to me, after he said, look, how can I not be sad? My city's busted up, broken down. The king said, what do you want? What do you request? Notice this, so I prayed to the God of heaven. So I prayed to the God of heaven. Now, I can only guess that this was a pretty quick prayer. I don't think-- I don't imagine Nehemiah said, can you give me a half an hour, king? I got to go have a prayer meeting with my buddies. I think he shot up a quick prayer to God. When the king said, what can I do for you, how can I help, he saw this as an opportunity. But immediately he had to take it to prayer. But I think it was like, oh, God, give me wisdom now. It was quick. I hope you know that prayers don't have to be long to be effective. It says the fervent effective prayer of a righteous man avails much. He's speaking about Elijah. Elijah didn't have a really long prayer when he saw great results. I think it was just quick. Peter was walking on the Sea of Galilee. Remember the story? He saw that he could believe in Jesus and he could walk on the water, and he did temporarily until the thought must have overcome him, hey, men can't walk on water. And he started going down. And he cried out in that moment. Do you think it was a long prayer? Do you think, oh, Thou mighty God of the universe? He'd be dead. I think it was like, help! Amen. [LAUGHTER] I think it was one of these kind of prayers. So I pray to the God of heaven. But now, if you don't mind, go back again to chapter 1, for just a moment because this is how it begins. He asked about Jerusalem. They tell him how it's broken down, burned with fire. Look at verse 4 of chapter 1. So it was when I heard these words, I sat down and wept, mourned for many days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said-- now, here's this prayer-- I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God. So this is a longer prayer than the quick prayer in chapter 2 later on. I pray, Lord God of heaven, great and awesome God, You who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sin of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father's house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. Here's what I want you to know about the Book of Nehemiah really quickly. It's filled with prayer. The book opens with prayer. We just read it. The book closes with a prayer. And 12 times throughout the book, Nehemiah prays. It's part of his life. And in chapter 1, the prayer that we just read, there's some things I want you to make a note of about this prayer. First of all, when he prays in chapter 1, he prays with perspective. Notice that he says, I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God. You know the most important thing about prayer is the address? Is that you recognize who it is you are talking to because sometimes we rush into the presence of God and our problems are so large and we're overwhelmed and it's like our problems are so big and our God is so small. It's important that you gain the perspective by realizing who it is you're addressing your prayer to. You're the God of heaven. You've got the best seat in the house. You see everything going on the Earth. Nothing escapes your view. And you are a great and awesome God. That is, you have all and ultimate power to do anything. And when you start praying with perspective, your problem becomes smaller as your God becomes bigger. Otherwise, your God is very small and your problem is so big. And so often you hear it in our prayers, oh, God, this is a really big thing I'm going to ask. Big? You're talking to God. There's nothing too hard for him. Amen! So he prays with perspective. [APPLAUSE] Also, notice in this prayer that it includes a promise. That is, it's in reference to a promise God has made. Verse 5, I pray, Lord God of heaven, great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments. You know what he's referring to? Covenants, or deals, arrangements-- a covenant is something God and man make together, a covenant. So throughout the Old Testament, God made covenants. And the covenant he is referring to is the land covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that the children of Israel would occupy a piece of real estate today we know as the state of Israel, that of all the people on the face of the Earth that would be their land in perpetuity as an everlasting covenant. So that's important. He is coming to God in prayer, reminding God of a promise that he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the covenant. And I think that when we talk to God, our prayers should include the promises of God. In fact, I think it's good even in prayer to quote promises that God has made in the scripture, not because God needs to be reminded of what he said, but you need to be reminded of what he said. So it's like, Lord, it's in the contract. It's in the covenant. This is what you promised. So it's with perspective. It includes a promise. Something else about this prayer in chapter 1, do you notice that it ends with a confession? And he personalizes it. Notice in verse 6, he says we have sinned against You, both my father's house and I have sinned. Verse 7, we have acted very corruptly against You. Now, help me understand that because Nehemiah wasn't part of the original group of people that sinned against God. I mean, they have been back in the land 100 years. About 170 years before, 150 years, let's say, was when that sinful generation was judged by God and taken into Babylonian captivity. Nehemiah wasn't even born yet. Nehemiah grew up in Persia. He wasn't part of that nation that was judged by God. Yet, here he says, we have sinned. I and my father's house have sinned. He identifies himself with those people that he had never met before. You know, we are so quick to point fingers at people, especially in this divided age in which we live. It's their fault. They're the problem. And you know when you pointer finger at somebody, there's always three pointing back at you. And Nehemiah believed that he should identify himself. He saw himself as part of the problem so that he might become part of the solution. It's easy to say, our country is in such a mess today because those sinners out there and those people-- can I just say, I added to that sin. There was a time that I didn't walk with Christ. Before my conversion, I added to the filth and corruption that this country is guilty of. So I'm just as guilty. When you pray, you get clarity. You're allowing God to move and God to speak. And so, in this prayer he gets clarity, kind of sizes up the whole situation, sees himself as part of both the problem and the solution. So we have information, reaction, intersession-- three concrete steps in battling apathy. There's a couple more. The fourth one is action. There comes a point where once you hear about what's going on, and once you feel deeply about that, and once you pray to God, there comes a point where you have to now engage. You have to take a step. So back to our chapter, chapter 2 verse 5. The king just said, what can I do for you? And I said to the king-- here it is-- if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it. And the king said to me, the queen also sitting beside him, how long will your journey be? When will you return? So it pleased the king to send me, and I set a time. Furthermore I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governor of the region beyond the Jordan, that they must permit me to pass through until I come to Judah. It's hundreds of miles that he is traveling. And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gate of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy. And the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me. Now, do you notice the flow so far in the story? First of all, Nehemiah sat down and wept. Then he knelt down and prayed. Now he stands up to work. That's the final step. It's like, boy, I'm hearing all this information. Man, I just-- I'm so deeply distressed by it, and I've prayed about it. Great. What's the next concrete action step to take? So Nehemiah says, here I am, Lord, send me, basically. Here I am, king, send me. You know, that's what Isaiah the prophet said. When God said, whom shall I send, Isaiah said, here I am, send me. A lot of times you say, here I am, send them. [LAUGHTER] I mean, why should Nehemiah leave? He's got a cushy job. He's got a comfortable environment. Let others go. He had influence. He could dispatch people to go, but he said, send me. I will rebuild it. He does something. It's the Romans 12 principle. You know how Romans is written. He gives lots of doctrinal information, and then in chapter 12 is the application chapter. He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. That's what Nehemiah is doing. He's presenting himself, makes himself available to fix the problem. God is always looking for volunteers, willing volunteers. If you ever think thoughts like this, man OK, I got to serve because this church always tells me you need to serve somewhere, so, OK, I'll do something, please don't. We only want willing volunteers. We want happy volunteers. We want those who say, I want to do something because the Lord has put that in my heart, and I'll do it with joy. The Bible says the eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the entire Earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are loyal to him. God is just looking for people to use. And so Nehemiah presents himself willingly. I was at a grocery store, a while back, and I was in line having a conversation with somebody who recognized me. Hi, Skip. I go to church, and had a little conversation. There was a woman in line who was watching this exchange. And she turned to me and she goes, are you a minister? And I think she looked at me kind of odd because I think I had shorts and a t-shirt. I didn't have like a little white collar, so she had to ask. She goes, are you a minister? I said, yes, I am. And then she looked at me and she goes, why? I mean, it was like she was incredulous that I would want to do that. And I said, well, I have to assure you ma'am that I do it willingly. Nobody's twisting my arm. It's something I feel joyfully compelled to do by God. [APPLAUSE] When Saul of Tarsus had his encounter with Jesus Christ on the Damascus road, when he was knocked off midday, with the bright sun shining on him and a light from heaven, and he's on his back, he asked two questions. The first question every human being must have answered. The first question was, who are you, Lord? The second question is something every Christian should ask. The second question he asked is, what do you want me to do? You know, so many Christian believers lived their whole lives without ever getting around to saying, God, what do you want me to do? They spent a lot of time telling God what they want God to do for them but little time saying, Lord, what do you want me to do. What have you called me to do? And I assure you, the most fulfilling life you can ever live is to go on an adventure with God, where God uses your life, where you look around at the need, you're move by what you see, you pray about what you see and learn, and then you take a step and watch God use you-- nothing more adventurous and fulfilling than that. So information, reaction, intersession, and now action. He engages. He's ready to go on a trip. He goes from cup bearer to contractor. He's going to put on his hard hat and go to work in Jerusalem. There's a final element I want to add, and that is collaboration. I can't pass this one up. It takes us to verse 9. It's the last verse we look at and then we close. Then I went to the governors in the region beyond the River, and gave them the king's letters. Now watch this. Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. So he's traveling with a military accompaniment. So this is collaboration-- allow the help of others. I mean, think about it. Nehemiah gets funding from the government, supplies from King Artaxerxes, needed documentation, and a military backup. Once he gets to Jerusalem, he's going to enlist the help of others in the city that is broken down and gates burned with fire. By the time we get to chapter 3 of Nehemiah, which we won't do in the series, but if you read ahead, you'll discover 38 individuals are named as helpers of Nehemiah. Over 40 different groups with different occupations all get together and build the city in cooperation with each other. So that's the collaboration that I'm talking about. The giant of apathy is best overcome with a likeminded group, never alone. We need people. This is why Christian fellowship is so important. This is why we stress what it says in Hebrews, that we should not forsake the assembly of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but we should be getting together all the more as you see the day approaching because when you're together like this, you see God at work in His people. You see the life of Christ in a very, very dynamic way. And it's what build you up. It's what builds others up around you. You cannot build community with a computer screen. I mean, it's good, and it was good for a brief period of time during that lockdown when nobody understood what was going on. Now we understand what's going on. Those days are gone. Those days are over. It's time to get back with each other. [APPLAUSE] And, listen, the easiest thing to do is not to do that. I've had a lot of people say, you know what? I kind of like getting up in my PJs with a cup of coffee and turning into a TV show, and it's like, life is good. I don't have to do anything. You can't sustain that. Your spiritual walk-- you can't have community with a computer. You can't hug your iPhone. You could, but you'd be weird if you did that. [LAUGHTER] Isolation is fuel for apathy. We need the collaboration of others, the help of others, because when you're alone, you know what you're alone with? Your thoughts, and that ain't good on any day. Your thoughts, which aren't always wholesome and healthy and biblical, need to be counteracted with truth, not just from a pulpit, not just from a computer screen, but from the lives of dynamic Christians around you to balance out any faults that you might be carrying. And I've heard from hundreds of you in the last few weeks who said, gosh, we've been isolated for a year. We've watched online, but we didn't know what this was. But we're back now, and I just got to tell you to be able to gather together and to sing together and to hear other Christians around me, it's so transformative. Yeah. That's how we are designed. [APPLAUSE] Now, perhaps some of you have been battling spiritual apathy. Spiritual lethargy, that your heart-- you've noticed your heart growing colder over time. You know you're not alone. There is a church in the New Testament that struggled with this. It was the Church of Ephesus. And the Church of Ephesus was, well, of all the New Testament churches, it was one of the best-- had great leadership. It was pastored by Paul the apostle. Then it was pastored by Timothy. Then it was pastored by John the apostle. It was ministered to buy Aquila and Priscilla. It was preached to by Apollos. Even Jesus gave a special message to the church and revelation, too, and commended them for their discernment, for their perseverance, for their enduring hardship, for their sound doctrine. But do you remember? Jesus said, I've got something against you. You have left your first love. I have this against you. You have left your first love. Another way of putting that is, you don't love me like you loved me at first. Your love has grown cold. Interesting, here's one of the great churches of the New Testament. They didn't have a moral scandal. Nobody's running off with the church secretary. Nobody's stealing money from the church coffers. There's not one deacon lording it over another deacon. None of that. The scandal was inward. It was invisible, like a cancer that takes the life of a patient. There was apathy that was settling into the marrow and the joints and the bloodstream of that church. And Jesus said, that's what I have against you. It's an inward scandal where you don't love me like you did at first. Every woman has a fear, when she marries a man, that his love for her would grow cold and formal and not remain intimate. And every man has a fear that that could happen to his wife. That can happen spiritually. And so Jesus speaks to a church where that has happened, and he goes, I have the solution for that. You've left her first love. Therefore, he said, remember-- that's the first step. Remember from where you have fallen. Think back to how good it used to be, how close you used to be to your Lord. Remember those days. Do you miss those days? If so, then, he said, take this second step. Remember from where you have fallen, repent. That is, turnaround, change, confess your apathy to God, and then number three, renew, for He said, do your first works again. A renewed commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a giant we all face. And if you are sensing, yes, I'm dealing with that right now, you're in the right place, on the right day. All of that changes right now. Ready for that? Let's stand to our feet. Let's make a public renewed commitment to our Lord. Father, as we close this service, we, right now, present our bodies before you as living sacrifices. Like Paul said in Romans 12, we are presenting ourselves to you. First of all, we want to love you deeply and intimately. Some of us remember back to a time when our trust was really good, and we miss the assurance that we lived with, the joy that marked us, the spring in our step when we got up in the morning because a new life with Christ had begun. We remember that. And today, on this day, we decide we're going to confess our apathy and make a turn. We're going to repent of allowing life to get the better of us where we slip and slide away from that position of abiding in Christ. And we renew that commitment to You just now. We pray that you will forgive us. We pray that you will use us. We pray that you will show us what steps to take as we learn information about needs around us according to the callings and gifts you have given us. We want to be engaged in Your kingdom, Your work upon this Earth for Your glory. We hope you enjoyed this special service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how this message impacted you. Email us at mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can support this ministry with a financial gift at calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for this teaching from Calvary Church. The Oxford Dictionary defines  apathy  as “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.” It’s the state of being indifferent to something that should otherwise arouse, provoke, or motivate you. It has been noted that cooling down a fanatic is easier than warming up a corpse. When a person ceases to care, that person ceases to attempt change. Though Nehemiah had it made in terms of his earthly status, the condition in his homeland wouldn’t let him stay silent and inactive. Let’s explore the five steps he took to overcome the giant of apathy. www, connectwithskip.com .obedierevival