In 1931, America was in the depths of the Great Depression. A businessman by the name of Conrad Hilton was staring foreclosure in the face because people weren't traveling and his hotels were struggling. Hilton was actually borrowing money from a bellhop to make ends meet. That year, 1931, Conrad Hilton came across a photograph of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. It was the most famous hotel in the world at the time. It had six kitchens, 200 chefs, 500 waiters, 2,000 rooms. It even had its own private railroad and hospital. Conrad Hilton cut that photograph out of the magazine and he wrote five words across it, "The greatest of them all". Conrad Hilton placed that photograph on top of his desk so that it would stare him in the face every single day. Every time he walked by the Waldorf Astoria, he would tip his cap in deference to that dream. Fast forward 18 years, in 1949, against all odds, Conrad Hilton acquired the Waldorf Astoria but I want to back up the bus. I want to go back to the genesis of that dream. Looking back at those tough times, Conrad Hilton would say this. "1931 was an outrageous time to dream". Now, I'm not sure that I can say it any better than Conrad Hilton. 2021 is an outrageous time to dream. Over the last two years, we've endured a global pandemic. We've witnessed protests and riots, especially here in D.C., because of the racial tension and political polarization that exists in our nation. In the last few weeks, we have watched the Taliban take control of Afghanistan, another earthquake hit Haiti, another hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. It seems like an outrageous time to start a series called "The Best is Yet to Come". But this is when and where and why we need this series right now. Lots of people are languishing, and I'll talk more about it next week, but it feels like we're fighting so many battles on so many fronts, not to mention mental health. I mean, according to the CDC, one third of Americans struggling with anxiety or depression. That seems like an emotional epidemic to go along with a global pandemic. I want to be careful right here. If you're grieving, you need to go through all of those stages of grieving, and I'll say this. Lament is a love language. It's a biblical language. It's a biblical response to other people's pain. Now, having said that, let me say this. This is what I sense in my spirit. I feel like God is saying it's time. Well, time for what? For starters, it's time to dream again. "Without a vision, the people perish". Proverbs 29:18. That word perish refers to fruit that is starting to rot. Vision is a spiritual preservative. The goal is not surviving. It's thriving. The goal is not getting back to normal. The goal is getting back to the supernatural, and I want you to hear me. I believe that we're coming into a series where we're gonna see signs and wonders, where we're gonna see a supernatural demonstration of God's love and power. Why? 'Cause we need it. It's time. It's time to dream big, pray hard, and think long. And so welcome to National Community Church. This weekend, we kick off a new series, "The Best is Yet to Come," and I can't wait to see what God does in life over these next six weeks. This is not some catchy phrase or cute saying. Yes, we own the domain, which I think is kind of fun, thebestisyettocome.com, but this is a core belief. The last time I checked the tomb is empty, and the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us. Now we just need to live like it, so ready or not, here we go. You can meet me at the Jordan River, Joshua chapter three. Let me set the scene. The Israelites had been enslaved for 400 years. Slavery is all they've ever known. It's an outrageous time to dream, but God delivers them out of Egypt with signs and wonders. He makes a side walk through the Red Sea. Remember this? He provides manna every morning for 40 years. He leads them, cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. Now, their first attempt to enter the Promised Land ends in failure, 'cause of 10 negative people, right? But finally, after 42 stations of the Exodus, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, they are a stone throw from the Promised Land, and that's where we pick up the story. I want to talk about four things this weekend. One, get up early, two, follow the ark, three, consecrate yourself, and four, step into the river. You do those four things, and the best is yet to come. Well, Pastor Mark, what do I do after I do those four things? I'll tell you what you do. You get up early, you follow the ark, you consecrate yourself, and you step into the river. Okay, I got it, I got it, but what do we do after that? You rinse and repeat, because you never arrive. There is no finish line. I kinda like this. June 13th, 2017, Draymond Green wins NBA Championship as a member of the Golden State Warriors. Anybody want to guess what he did the next day? It's kind of infamous in sports circles. He didn't go to Disneyland. He got up early, he went to the gym, and he worked out. Now, why would you do that, when the night before, you proved that you're the best in the world? 'Cause that's how you became the best, right? And so you gotta keep working the plan. Most of us want success without the sacrifice. We want the trophy without the blood, sweat, and tears, but the early bird still gets the worm, and so number one, get up early. It's right here in the text. "Early in the morning". When? All right, you're catching on. "Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over". Now, here's the big idea, okay? If you want to get out of Shittim, you gotta get up early. What are you laughing at? Last week, I said that geography and spirituality are interconnected. Do you remember this? I would add chronology. There is a chronology of spirituality, and there is a spirituality of chronology. Two observations about time management. One, time is measured in minutes, but life is measured in moments. Now, all of us are given the same amount of time every single day, 1,440 minutes. Now, when it comes to talent and treasure, we kind of have a wide spectrum, right? Some people, a lot of talent, other people, not so much. Some people, a lot of treasure, other people, not so much, but time, time is the great equalizer. No one gets more than 1,440 minutes, and no one gets less. How are you managing the minutes and the moments, the kronos and the kairos? Two, you don't find time. You make time. You have to identify the time wasters and time multipliers, and I'll give you the most obvious example. The average person spends 142 minutes on social media every day. Okay, that's a staggering statistic, is it not? I have nothing against social media, but is that really how you want to spend 15% of the waking hours of your whole life? Do you know what you could accomplish if you bought back two hours and 22 minutes every day? You could read a book or write a book. You could get a graduate degree. You could volunteer at the DC Dream Center or one of our campuses. You could train for a triathlon. You could learn a language. You could plug into one of our small groups. You can do a lot with 142 minutes, but you won't find the time. You have to make the time, and in my experience, the best time to make time is early in the morning. Now, I know that there are larks and owls, but even if you're a night person, you still need a morning routine, 'cause how you start the day sets the pace, sets the tone, sets the table, and it starts with when you set your alarm and why. And it can't just be to get up and get out the door just in the nick of time, okay? 'Cause that's not gonna get us where we need to go. And so here's the challenge. You have to set your alarm clock with consistency and intentionality. "Pastor Mark, come on. Where is that in the Bible? Give me chapter and verse". Okay. Psalm 57:8. "Awake my inner self; awake, harp and lyre. I will awake right early, I will awaken the dawn". According to rabbinic tradition, David hung his harp above his bed by an open window. Why? Because it functioned like an alarm clock. When the north wind started blowing, it would make music, and David, according to rabbinic tradition, would get up and study Torah until the break of dawn. Now, I'll go on record. I am not a morning person by nature. I'm a morning person by discipline, and that's a very different thing. When I was in college, I could sleep to noon with the best of them. Come on, anybody else? But I made a defining decision to become a morning person for a couple of reasons. One, I watched my father-in-law get up and go to early morning prayer at five a.m. every single day, and I saw the intimacy he had with God. I saw the impact that he had with his life, and I put two and two together, and so I reverse-engineered his morning routine. It was around that time that I read a biography of DL Moody, and there was a paragraph on page 129 that changed the trajectory of my life. It said that Moody felt a twinge of guilt if he heard the blacksmiths hammering before he was up praying. It said, "Every day of his life, he rose very early in the morning to study the Word of God way down to the close of his life. Mr. Moody would rise about four o'clock in the morning". And I'll just say, that is earlier than me, okay? "He would say, 'If I'm gonna get in any study, I have to get up before the other folks get up.' And he would shut himself up in a remote room in his house along with his God and his Bible". Now, I have no idea what goal you're going after, but it's not gonna happen by accident. You have to set your alarm with consistency and intentionality. You know, occasionally someone will ask me, you know, "Pastor Mark, how do you write a book"? And it really has nothing to do with writing. You have to set your alarm clock very early in the morning. How do you bike a century? 'Cause it's like a part-time job training for that thing. Gotta set your alarm clock early in the morning. How do you read the Bible cover to cover every year? You set your alarm clock early in the morning and you prioritize the disciplines that you know are the time multipliers. Now, next week we begin our fall season of Upper Zoom. We're gonna start climbing those digital stairs again, 7:14 a.m. Eastern time, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Can I just extend an invitation? I mean, it's a way for you to kinda get into a daily rhythm of prayer, and so ncc.re/upperzoom. One, you gotta get up early. Two, follow the ark. Joshua 1. I'm sorry, Joshua 3, verses two and four. "After three days, the officers went throughout the camp giving orders to the people. 'When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it.'" There it is. "Then you will know which way to go, since you never been this way before". I mean, in this fascinating? Like the Ark of the Covenant is their GPS, "But keep a distance of about 2,000 cubits between you and the ark". Now, I don't have time to do this, but it's just, it's too much fun. And so last weekend, I biked a century, a hundred miles, made it, but I'm gonna tell you something. Right around mile 93, okay? So we're about six hours in, we're keeping a 16-mile-an-hour pace, and my quads start to cramp, and we hit a hill. Well, I'm gonna tell you what I did, 'cause we were biking in a Peloton, and so the race organizer, Jeff Zog, you know, I'm six-three, you know, six-four in Jordans, but Jeff Zog, he's six-seven. He's a big boy. He's a tall drink of water, and so I'm gonna tell you exactly what I did. "Jeff, I'm hurting, I'm hurting". And so Jeff is like, "Come on, come on, you got this hill. Just draft off of me, stay right on my tire," and I drafted him all the way up that hill What are the Israelites doing here? They're drafting the presence of God, the Ark of the Covenant. Come on, we gotta stay close enough. Because here's the deal. The Ark of the Covenant symbolizes the presence of God and the power of God. And then they add this little addendum, right? It says, "Keep a distance of 2,000 cubits". Now, for what it's worth, that's the same distance that a Jewish person was allowed to walk on the Sabbath, which I just think is really fascinating. But I think the principle is a two-sided coin. Don't fall behind, don't get ahead, okay? Don't don't fall behind, but don't get ahead of God. There is a sin of procrastination, delayed obedience. Is this obedience? And there is a sin of presumption. It's taking matters into your own hands. I have tried to manufacture a time, a miracle a time or two or 10. Anybody else? Like, you just, okay, it's not happening, so I'm gonna make it happen. You know what usually happens when you try to make it happen? When you take matters in your own hands? You end up like Moses. "Oh man, I'm gonna expedite the deliverance of the Jewish people". No, you're gonna delay things 40 years by trying to take your shortcut. Question. Are you following the ark or are you following the crowd? It is really hard not to cave in to peer pressure and popular opinion. It is hard to live counter-culture, especially in a cancel culture, but we walk to the beat of a different drum. We follow the ark. In New Testament terms, we are people who are Spirit-filled and Spirit-led. I'm gonna go on record. Anything less than Spirit-filled and Spirit-led is dead religion. At the turn of the 20th century, William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, issued a warning. He said, "The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell". Okay, it was true then, and it is true now. You gotta get up early. You gotta follow the ark. You gotta consecrate yourself. Joshua 3:5. "Then Joshua said to the people, 'Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.'" We want to do amazing things for God, but that's not our job. God is the one who does amazing things for us. So what's our job? Our job is consecration, and if we do our job, God is going to do his job. Now, that Hebrew word for consecrate is qadash. It means to purify, to sanctify, to set something apart. I like to think of it as you are anointed and appointed by God. Pastor Dave said something during our disciple series. Do you remember this? He said we are most free when we are most disciplined. Now, that's a little counter-intuitive, but it's true, and in the same sense, we are most alive when we are most dead to self. Around the turn of the 20th century, there was a group of missionaries who became known as one-way missionaries because they bought one-way tickets to the mission field. They didn't pack suitcases. They packed all of their earthly belongings into coffins, because they knew they were never coming back. Well, one of those one-way missionaries was a man named AW Milne and he said sail for the New Hebrides in the South Pacific, where a tribe of head hunters had martyred every missionary who'd gone before him. Milne didn't fear for his life, because he had already died to self. For 35 years, AW Milne incarnated the Gospel. He lived among that tribe. He learned their language. He loved them like Jesus, and when he died, they buried AW Milne right in the middle of the village, and this is the epitaph that they inscribed on his headstone. "When he came there was no light, and when he left there was no darkness". Have you packed your coffin? Consecration is death to self. Consecration is dethroning yourself. Consecration is going all-in with God. Consecration is giving the Holy Spirit veto power. Consecration is seeking God first. Consecration is my utmost for his highest. "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you". Please hear me. Every miracle, every breakthrough, every move of God starts with consecration. Now, you remember DL Moody getting up at four o'clock in the morning to spend time with God. Here's what he said. "The world has yet to see what God can do through one man who is wholly consecrated to him. By God's help, I aim to be that man". Why not you? Why not now? The question of course, how? How? I think it starts with the complete surrender of your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, your time, your talent, your treasure, your past, your present, your future, and that decision has a domino effect, but let me connect the dots. 1 Timothy 4:5 says, "Everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by two things". Here it is. "By the Word of God and prayer". When we read the Bible, we don't just read it. It reads us. Hebrews 4:12. "The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joint, and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart". In other words, the Word of God has a consecrating effect. Have you experienced this? It's the quickening of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it's conviction. Sometimes it's revelation, and prayer has the same effect. Now, prayer changes things, no doubt, but I think sometimes, the circumstances that we're asking God to change are the circumstances that God is using to change us. The secondary purpose of prayer is to change circumstances. The primary purpose of prayer is to change me, to consecrate myself. I gotta move. I got giddy up. Verse eight. Four, step into the river. "Tell the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, when you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river". And this is where most of us get stuck. We're waiting for God to part the water while God is waiting for us to get our feet wet. See, I don't want to get my shoes wet, right? I want God to go first, 'cause then it doesn't require any faith, but faith is taking the first step before God reveals the second step. If you want God to part the water, you have to step into the river. So I'll close with this. It's 25 years ago this weekend, that God parted the Jordan River in such a fun way for National Community Church. At the time, I wasn't just preaching. I was leading worship, and the problem with that is this, like the only thing worse than my voice is my rhythm, my rhythm, and we didn't have a drummer, and so our predominant prayer the first year was, "Lord, send us a drummer," about a hundred times, "Lord, send us a drummer". And then one day I hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit say, "Why don't you go out and buy a drum set"? Well, just as soon as you send us a drummer, then I'll go buy a drum set. Why? 'Cause I want God to go first. Now, our income at the time was $2,000 a month. Cost $1600 to rent the D.C. Public School. That left $400 for our salary and all other expenses. But it was one of those "Field of Dream" moments. If you build it, they will come. It felt like I needed to step into the river, and so long story short, found a used drum set in Silver Spring, Maryland. Cost $400, of course, right? And I'm driving up there and I'm thinking to myself, "This is crazy! I'm buying a drum set with money we don't have for a drummer who does not exist". That was a Thursday. That Sunday, a kid named Tony walks into our service. Clean cut. I can tell he's military. Marine Corps, 8th and I Drum and Bugle Corps. God doesn't just send us a drummer, he sends us a rock star, and I learned a lesson. Whew! Sometimes you got to take the $400 step of faith. Sometimes you gotta step into the river. Now, don't get ahead of God's Ark, right? Don't manufacture the miracle. But there comes a moment where you gotta exercise your faith. Final thought, verse 15. "Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during the harvest". And I love this set up, right, because it's terrible timing. It's an outrageous time to cross the Jordan River. "Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho". Let me show you a map. The Jordan River flows about 60 miles between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Average width, about a hundred feet, but it was flood stage, so it complicated their crossing. But here's what I want you to notice. They cross across from Jericho, right? But that isn't where the miracle happens. The miracle happens 16 miles upstream at a place called Adam, and it always does. We think right here, right now. God is thinking nation and generations. The miracle always happens 16 miles, 16 years ago. This past weekend, I biked that century in Minnesota. The next day, I preached for a friend, Peter and Carolyn Haas at Substance Church in Minneapolis, and it was just a few miles from some of my earliest memories. My grandparents had a house on the Mississippi River, and so I just, I had to swing by, and it was so fun. The rock, the rock that I used to climb on, there it is. When I was a little kid, it was so big. It was so hard to get up on top of that rock. To me, it's almost like the 12 stones. You remember this? The 12 stones that they take from the Jordan River and set up as an alter in Gilgal. Do you remember that? And so I'm having all of these flashbacks, and here's the deal. My grandfather, Elmer Johnson, got a picture that my cousins gave to me, 'cause I saw 'em this weekend, and man, that's my grandfather, right in the middle. Oh! First Municipal Judge of Fridley, Minnesota. Loved God, loved his family, and so some of my earliest memories are my grandfather praying. He had a habit. He would kneel next to his bed. He would take off his hearing aid, put it on his bedside. He couldn't hear himself praying, but everybody else in the house could hear him praying, and so I remember hearing my grandfather praying for me. Now, my grandpa died when I was six, but his prayers didn't. There's no expiration date on prayer. Prayer turns parents and grandparents into prophets who shape the destiny of their children and grandchildren. And listen, there have been moments in my life where I've experienced blessings that I knew I did nothing to deserve, and the Holy Spirit has whispered to my spirit and said, "Mark, the prayers of your grandfather are being answered right now". Prayer is the way we write history before it happens. Prayer is the way we seed the clouds. Prayer is the way we consecrate the future. And guess what? When we do, amazing is on the way. I'm not naive. I'm not naive. I know how tough times are, right? I know bad things happen to good people. I know that we have heartaches and headaches and setbacks. I know that there are things we can't understand and there are things we can't control. But I also know that we drink from wells we did not dig, we harvest fields we did not plant, and we live in houses that we did not build. The miracle always happens 16 miles, 16 years upstream. You are the answer to someone else's prayer, and you can return that favor. I don't know what decision you need to make. I don't know what action you need to take, but it's time. It's time. It's time for what? I don't know. It's time to start tithing. Time to start serving. It's time to start counseling. Time to start writing. Time to start running. I don't know, but it's time. There are decades when nothing happens. If you're Israel, 40 of them, 400 years, but there are days when decades happen, and you can look back on this day 16 years from now, and say it was an outrageous time to dream, but it was a day that decades happened. The best yet to come. www.theaterchurch.com

If you've been living long enough and have gone through enough, then you've come to understand life can get tiresome. I'm sure you've asked the question, "Does life have to be this hard"? One day everything is looking sunny, the next day it's a cloudy day. And then you find out it becomes a week, then a month, and a year. Well, God is offering you something. He's offering you rest. It boils down to verse 9 where he says, "There is and remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God". To understand the context of this need for rest, you have to understand what's happening in the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is full of Christians who are tired. The author of Hebrews throughout the whole book is telling them, "Don't quit. Don't give up. Keep going. You're gonna make it". And in the midst of this, in chapter 4, as in other chapters, he tells them that God gives pit stops along the way and he calls those pit stops rest, but in this journey of life, God says there is a Sabbath rest that belongs to the people of God. Or let me put it a way: there is a rest stop that people who don't know God don't have. It is a rest stop in life for the people of God. Chapter 4, verse 4: "And God rested on the seventh day from all of his works". So, the rest is designed for you to stop working. "He rested from all of his works". So he goes back to Creation. When God created first day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, on the seventh day he rested. He didn't take a nap. He didn't go to sleep. He looked back at what he had labored, saw how good a job he did, and he wasn't that tired 'cause all he did was speak. "Let there be". But he looked at what he had done and he entered into the enjoyment of his accomplishment. He rested. He then instituted resting. It's in your Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments says: "The seventh day you shall keep holy as unto the Lord and it shall be a Sabbath for you". He not only had a Sabbath day. He instituted for Israel a Sabbatical year, a Sabbath year, every seven years. Then, every 49 years, there was another Sabbath, a Jubilee Sabbath. So he built the Sabbath in to life. Every seventh day, God's people, the Jews, were not allowed to work. They were not allowed to work. God produced manna so that they would have more than enough to eat on the sixth day to cover the seventh day. He said, "Because on the seventh day I want you to look back and remember where your source was, that the only reason you got through six days was because of my work, because any work you did had to depend on some work I did". There is nothing you do on six days that doesn't borrow from something he did on his six days. If he didn't do what he did on his six days, you couldn't rest on your seventh day because you would have no source to draw from. "So on the seventh day I want you to be reminded that I am your provider, I am your source, and I am going to take care of you on the seventh day because you remembered me and remembered me as your source". Stay with me. In the New Testament, the new covenant, all nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated. The tenth one is not. That is, one of the ten is not repeated. "Keep the Sabbath" is not repeated in the New Testament. It's only repeated in the Old Testament. Now, the reason why God didn't repeat that commandment in the New Testament is because he shifted a day. In the Old Testament, it was to finish God's work. In the New Testament, it was to start a new work when Jesus arose on Sunday morning. The Resurrection of Jesus instituted a new day. In the Old Testament, you looked back at what God did in six days. In the New Testament, you look forward to what God's gonna do in the new day because you're beginning a whole new regimen. In fact, God even created flexibility because he knew we would not be living in Israel, a theocratic nation. We would be living in all these Gentile nations, people would be made to work on Saturdays and all that, so God told 'em in Book of Colossians, he says, "And even if you can't do it on Sunday, just pick a day. But make sure that there is a day set aside that recognizes you got here because of me and you're gonna get there because of Sunday from me, that I am in the midst of your yesterday Sabbath, your beginning Sunday, until you finish your journey," and he calls the finishing of the journey the ultimate rest when we go to heaven. That's why when you go to funerals, they say people have gone to their resting place because it is the ultimate rest. Now, Deuteronomy chapter 12, verses 8 through 10, says that God's rest involves his inheritance. Let me say that again. Deuteronomy 12:8 to 10, God's rest involves his inheritance. So let's go a little deeper. God establishes rest to get you to a particular goal, and the particular goal of rest is to get you to your inheritance. Every believer has two inheritances: one, the destiny God has for you in time; two, the rewards he has prepared for you in eternity. That's why when Paul was about to die in 2 Timothy 4, he says, "I've finished my course. Now there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness". You don't get your inheritance, that is, you will not realize your destiny in time, nor will you get your rewards in eternity, unless you finish your work. Remember, God finished his work. That's when he rested. A lot of Christians get started who don't complete their Christian journey. The issue of rest is designed to give you an intermission along the route of your life's journey in order for you to receive your inheritance, that is, God's destiny for you in time and to be rewarded for what he has planned for you in eternity. Now, let me explain the journey, because he says, "Don't be like Israel who didn't get to their inheritance". He says, for example, in verse 11, "Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience". What same example? Israel's example. Okay, let me explain, and you'll see how this relates to you and me in a moment. God delivered them from Egypt and he gave them a destiny called the Promised Land. The wilderness was a critical part of the journey, why? The purpose of the wilderness, of the negative environment they had to pass through before they got to the Promised Land, was one purpose, one reason. The ups and downs in your life and my life exist for only one reason. The good and the bad, the difficult and the dastardly, the challenges and the frustrations that we experience along the journey of our Christian life only exist for one reason. The Lord sent them through the wilderness in order for them to learn to live by faith. The wilderness has one goal and that is to teach you to live by faith before you get to the Promised Land, because if you don't learn to live by faith before you get to the Promised Land, then. This is where a lot of Christians get messed up today, because they're promised the blessing of the Promised Land without being taught about the lessons of the wilderness. They come to get their blessing in the Promised Land, but then when they face snakes in the wilderness, no water in the wilderness, no provision in the wilderness, difficulty in the wilderness, they don't know how to function 'cause they were never taught that the wilderness is a necessary part of going from Egypt to the Promised Land, and in the wilderness when stuff is tough, when things are difficult, God says, "I sent you there". He says this in Deuteronomy 8. He says, "I sent you there so that you would learn to trust me, so that you would learn. I let you go without water so you'd have to look to me if you wanted to get something to drink. I let you go without food so that you'd have to look to me". You know how he fed 'em? The Bible says God fed 'em with manna. The Hebrew word for manna means "What is it"? It's a question. Why would he give 'em a question? So they could answer it. The only reason we eat in a day is 'cause heaven opened up and dropped cornflakes from above. In other words, he put them in a situation. So God will let you get sick, he will let the job go bad, he will let the relationship decline, he will let you not know which way to go. He will let you because he wants you to learn what it's like before you get all the blessings of what life looks like when he is your only option. He says, "But Israel did not learn that lesson". And in spite of all the things God did, they refused to believe God. And because they refused to believe God, that first generation never got to the Promised Land. Now, they were saved, they were on their way to heaven, but they didn't see God on earth because they refused to finish their journey. That's why he says, "Hold fast your confession. Don't abandon the faith just because things are tough". Okay, so we've set the stage. You understand rest. He comes now in verse 12. "For the Word of God is living, active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, joint and marrow, and judging the intents of the heart". If you want a rest stop, a pit stop, if you want a place to regain your ability to keep going, he says you're going to have to pull over at the Word of God. You're gonna have to pull over at the Word of God. Stop pulling over at the word of man. He says the Word of God is not just a book on a page. It's not words on paper. It is a living, he says it's alive and it works. So this book is not dead. He says the Word of God is alive. And then he tells you how alive it is. He says: "It's a two-edged sword". God says the Word of God is a two-edged sword that wants to slice right down the middle of your self life and your spirit life. Why does God wanna cut between the two of those? Because your self life gets in the way of your spirit life, keeping God from doing his work through the Word in your life. What you think, how you were raised, the feelings you have, all of those things get in the way of God taking you on the journey of you learning to trust him. We get in our own way of stopping the work of God by not allowing the Word of God to cut us. We wanna hear it, but we don't wanna be cut by it, but he says if you want the Word of God to become alive, you must allow it to cut you. Now, why does this sword have two edges? The sword has two edges because it is used for both destroying and healing. It is used to mess stuff up so he can fix stuff up. So it is used for, like, our house being remodeled, tearing stuff up, so he can put new stuff in. So in order for you to be cut, he has to disrupt something, and what God does is he brings about disruption in our lives because he's trying to separate who is you and who is God. He's trying to put you in a situation where you see your soul ain't all that and a bag of chips. Where your way of thinking, your friend's way of thinking, how you were raised, your background, is not the basis of your decision-making. Let me put it this way. The soul was never meant to inform the spirit. The spirit was always meant to inform the soul, but to get the soul out the way, God must cut something and he uses the Word, so a lot of us have stuff happening in our five senses because we've refused to be cut spiritually, because it goes so deep that it gets down to even discerning the intents of the heart. If you were to look at the Word of God not as a book on paper, but as a sword that cuts, and if you dare take the risk of inviting God to cut you, don't just wait for him to cut you, invite him to cut you, why? 'Cause while one side cuts you, the other side heals you. Now watch this, 'cause it gets gooder. He goes on to say, I'mma read this slow 'cause I want you to see what it says here in verse 13: "And there is no creature," so you're not an exception, "hidden from his sight," he got you. You on blast, "but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do". I don't know if you noticed something different. In verse 12, he says: "The Word of God is," but in verse 13, "All things are open to his eyes". Wait a minute, we done gone from the book to a person because the Word of God is not just a book. The Bible is the Word of God in the book, but the Word of God is also a living person. John 1, verses 1, 14, and 18, "In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God". Verse 14: "And the word became flesh". Verse 18: "And he unveiled God before us". So watch this now. When you go to the book and look for the person, God will guide you to the rest stop. When you go to the book, but you're looking for the person, when the living Word gets connected to the written Word, then the knife on both sides begin to cut and begin to show you a place of rest. I'll let you see that in a moment. Jesus said, "You know the scriptures, but you don't know me. You've read the Bible, but you haven't looked for me, because I am the giver of the life you're looking for". So you look to the written Word in order to connect to the living Word so that God can give you the rest to keep going on your journey. Now, watch this, 'cause this is where the rest stop really allows you to recoup. He says in verse 14: "Therefore". Somebody, say "therefore". That means in light of what's just been said about rest. "Since we have," every Christian has, "a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our confession". That means, keep on going on this journey no matter how tough it's gotten. "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who's been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore draw near". "Therefore since we," every Christian, "has a great high priest, Jesus the Son of God," watch this, "who has passed through the heavens". Let me talk about passing through the heavens. The Bible says there are three heavens. Heaven number one: atmospheric heaven, where the clouds are. Heaven number two: stellar heaven, where the stars and the galaxies are. Heaven number three: where the throne room of God is. The Bible says on Friday Jesus died. On Saturday he went to hell and preached victory. On Sunday he rose from the dead. Forty days later, he stepped on a cloud and the Bible says: "He ascended up unto the throne room of God," that is he went through the first heaven, went through the second heaven, into the third heaven, where he's currently seated on the right hand of God. What's he doing there? Hebrews 7:25, it says: "He ever lives to make intercession and to deliver those who are his children". On life's journeys, God is going to put you in situations you can't fix. And the reason he's gonna put you into situations you can't fix is because he wants to remind you, you have a great high priest, and he ain't down here with you. He ain't messed up like you. He's not limited like all your friends are. He's seated in the third heaven. He's high and lifted up, but not only is he a high priest way up there, he says he's a priest who can sympathize with your tears, sympathize with your loneliness, sympathize with your regrets. God, let me tell you what it's like to cry, let me tell you what it's like to be rejected, let me tell you what it's like to be killed, let me tell you what it's like to have your friends walk away from you, let me tell you what it's like just to be wounded for their transgressions, to be blamed for stuff you didn't do. Daddy, I can tell you all about it 'cause I've been there. I know how they feel. You have a high priest who can sympathize with your infirmity, but not only can he sympathize, he says you called on him for help in a time of weakness. God is not gonna let you go from Egypt to the Promised Land and skip the wilderness. And he will keep you in the wilderness as long as it takes to live by faith so you can keep going. So don't you quit. Don't you give up on God. Don't throw in the towel just because it's been a long time. You've been waiting a long time, praying a long time, trusting a long time, believing a long time. Don't you give up on God 'cause you got a great high priest. I'm here in the Rocky Mountains where people come over all over the world to rock climb, but also to just look at the beauty, the serenity, and feel the peace that envelops this environment. Well, God tells us to do some climbing, to use our feet and to walk and to move, but one of the ways we know that we are moving according to his plan and in his will is the peace that God gives us, the calm in our soul, that lets us know he's comfortable in us with where we are and with the movements we are making, the steps we are taking, and the direction we are going in. When there is chaos and consternation in the soul, that ought to tell us to slow down because we're not moving with the footsteps of peace, but when we are moving, and God does expect us to move, to operate, to walk by faith, when we are moving, and we're doing it in concert with his purpose and plan for our lives, then we will have the sense in our innermost being that he is at calm within us because of the calm we feel inside of us. So as you move, and as you live your life, and you have question about whether your movement is made up of the right steps that you should take, based on the calm that you feel inside, you can be assured that you are moving exactly at the pace and in the direction God wants you to go because he's given you the peace that passes understanding. If you have calm in your soul, you can have confidence in your footsteps.

A Unique Take on the Good Samaritan. Excellent illustrations!

Thy Kingdom Come - Matthew 6:10 - Skip Heitzig Welcome to Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig. We're so glad you joined us today. As people of God, we are part of a spiritual kingdom even as we live in the world. Jesus will ultimately establish his kingdom on earth. But until then, we are called to be his ambassadors here and now. In this series, Pastor Skip explores what it means to occupy till he comes. Good morning. I tell you what, you're a pretty lively group, listening to your worship, so loud, so vibrant. Are you the most fun of all the church services, would you say? [APPLAUSE AND CHEERING] Do you think you're a little biased when you say that? Yes. Maybe a little bit? OK. So you bring a Bible with you? Yes. So make your way over to Matthew, chapter 6, Sermon on the Mount, familiar territory. We're going to be looking at a very famous prayer. You know it well. It's called the Our Father. It's a prayer you grew up praying. Some of it by heart. Probably most of you know it by heart. This prayer, Matthew, chapter 6, the Our Father, is put in more cards, posted on more plaques than any other prayer in the world. In fact, I would even say, unbelievers know this prayer, and many of them could record it from memory. They know it by heart. Let me give you a few thumbnail facts about this prayer before we look at one particular verse. Number one, there are only 66 words in the prayer. So it's a very short prayer, but you discover it goes to the heart of life. It is praying for the important stuff, the stuff that matters. Number two, it's not a prayer to be recited as much as it's a prayer to be modeled. Think of it as a skeleton by which all of our prayers are formed. You'll notice in verse 9, Jesus said, "in this manner, therefore, pray." In other words, though you can recite it-- many do, and they find great value in that-- pray like this. Let this be your model that you base communication with God on. Number three, you don't find the word "me" in this prayer. There's no "I." There's no "me." There's no "my." You find pronouns like "you." Yours is the kingdom, yours is the power. And you find the word "our." It's a community prayer. Think of it as it's a kingdom prayer, a kingdom city prayer. It's not about you as much as about us. Number four, this prayer is misnamed. We call this the Lord's Prayer, even though Jesus never called it that. And it's addressed to his disciples, and Jesus told them to pray like this. So this would be more aptly called the disciples' prayer rather than the Lord's Prayer. There's not a record that he personally prayed this, but that he taught his disciples to pray like this. A fifth interesting fact to me is this prayer was recited in movie theaters in England up until 2015. If you went to an English theater, a cinema, the Anglican church ran a video ad that simply recited the Lord's Prayer until 2015. 2015, it was banned as being offensive, just praying the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. That's offensive, so no more. And then finally, the last little fact I want to bring out about this prayer is this prayer was regularly recited in the classrooms of this country, the United States of America, until 1962. In 1962, some of you will recall a gal by the name of Madalyn Murray O'Hair brought a lawsuit, and the prayer was banned, stating that it violated the First Amendment. Let's look at it and see just how offensive it is. "In this manner, therefore, pray-- our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." Now, today, we're going to look at one verse, one tiny, little snippet of this prayer, and that is in verse 10, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." And I want to answer the question, what does it mean to be a kingdom city? What do we mean by that phrase, that title? Now, you'll notice in verse 10 there are actually two petitions. The first is a prayer for the kingdom and in particular, for the kingdom to come. The second is a prayer for the King himself to exercise his rule, his authority. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, what I'd like to do, in looking at this single verse, is to develop these thoughts by noticing three elements of God's kingdom. In this series, you have heard the little tagline that we speak about. We say, this place, these people, my privilege. And you're going to hear that a lot, this place, these people, my privilege. Let's say that together. This place, these people, my privilege. What we mean by that is this. God has called us to this place. And living in this place, God has called us to love these people. And God has called us to see it as a privilege, am honor, to serve him by serving these people. And why? For one simple reason. He's the King. It's his kingdom. And it is our commission. [APPLAUSE] Thank, all five of you, for-- [LAUGHTER] --liking that. Hallelujah. Now, what I want to do is look at three basic elements of this, the character of this kingdom, the coming of this kingdom, and the commission of this kingdom. First of all, the character of this kingdom, and I'm zeroing in particular on one word, and that is the word itself, the word "kingdom," verse 10, Your kingdom come. What kind of a kingdom are we talking about? When we talk about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, what kind of kingdom are we talking about? Because I venture to say, most of us, when you hear the word "kingdom," your mind is filled with memories of your youth, from movies you've seen, from cartoons you were a part of. When you hear kingdom, you think of knights and swords and banners and castles and moats and pomp and ceremony, maybe even a princess and a frog, depending on your memory of your childhood. But you probably think of a kingdom as taking vast swaths of property by a powerful monarch, who would wage war to subjugate the people and bring them under his rule. In fact, if you were to look it up in Webster's Dictionary, it defines it as "a politically organized community or major territorial unit having a monarchical form of government headed by a king or a queen." That's the definition. In other words, it's a territory and a people over which a king reigns with total authority. That's the dictionary definition. What's the biblical definition? In the Bible, when you look at the kingdom, in particular God's kingdom, it speaks of it in two ways, outwardly, inwardly. In one sense, it's outward and physical. In another sense, it's inward and spiritual. So you know that the Jews expected a kingdom, a literal, physical kingdom. The disciples were among them. When Jesus showed up, by listening to what he was saying, they were thinking, I want this king, as he calls himself, to establish a kingdom, a literal rule dominated by God ruling through his Messiah. And the reason they thought this is because they were raised to believe this, all the Old Testament prophecies that predict a literal kingdom that would one day come on the earth, something we already looked at in a previous series, but also, because did you know that Jesus, one of his favorite subjects was the kingdom? He spoke on it so much. In fact, if you were to add them all up, 53 different times in the four Gospels, Jesus mentions a kingdom. So I just want you to look at some of this. Go back to chapter 5, chapter 5 of Matthew. This is the beginning of this sermon that the Lord's Prayer is found in, the Sermon on the Mount. And let's look at just a few verses. Verse 3 of chapter 5, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Verse 10, "blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Verse 19, "whoever, therefore, breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." Then we get into chapter 6, the Lord's Prayer, your kingdom come, yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory. And then finally, in chapter 6, verse 33-- or 31, he says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So just in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus keeps mentioning a kingdom, a kingdom, a kingdom. To add to that, he gives stories. In Matthew, chapter 13. what do we call the stories of Jesus? Anybody know? Parables. And those parables in Matthew 13 are called kingdom parables. Why? Because Jesus said, I want to show you his words, the mysteries of the kingdom. And so he said, "the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed seed in a field. And again, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Again he said, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman hid in a batch of dough." He also said, "the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field." He also said, "the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls." And finally, "the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet." So throughout Jesus' teaching ministry, it's all about the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom. Then in Matthew 24, when the disciples want to know when this is coming, Jesus tells them about the eschatological kingdom, that is coming at the end of days, that he will set up literally, physically on the earth. So they're waiting for that to happen. Then Jesus went to the cross, died on that cross, rose from the dead three days later. And when he rose from the dead, guess what he started talking to his disciples about? The kingdom. Acts, chapter 1, "he was seen by them for 40 days, and he was speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." This is why the disciples said to Jesus during that period of time, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? You keep talking about the kingdom. Would you set that up, please? They wanted that physical, literal kingdom to be established. And it will be one day, but not yet. Remember Jesus had stood before Pilate. Pilate had heard that he claimed to be a king. People said he was a king. He said, are you a king? Remember what Jesus said? He said, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would rise up and fight. But my kingdom is not of this world. However, one day his kingdom will be of this world. When he comes and sets it up, Revelation, chapter 11, the angel declares, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. And he will reign forever. So the disciples expected a kingdom, but it didn't happen yet. So to sum it up, the kingdom is both internal and external. It has a personal, individual aspect. It has a global, worldwide aspect. It is an invisible spiritual kingdom, as well as one day, a visible, actual, literal kingdom. But right now it's just the first part. Right now the kingdom is internal, personal, individual, spiritual, invisible. Or to put it another way, wherever God rules over the human heart, there the kingdom of God is established. If God is ruling over your heart, then the King and the kingdom is established with you personally, individually. That's why Jesus could say the kingdom of God is at hand, or the kingdom of God is near. He also said, the kingdom of God is within you. Boy, everybody messes that verse up. Like, well, everybody has the kingdom of God because the kingdom of God is within you. Here's a better translation. The kingdom of God is in your midst. You know why he could say that? Because he was there. The King has shown up, y'all. I'm the King. And because the King is here, the kingdom of God is in your midst. So that's the character of this kingdom. Let's look at a second aspect, and that is the coming of this kingdom. Because that's the prayer. "Your kingdom come." That's what we are to pray, Your kingdom come. To pray Your kingdom come is to, essentially, pray for God's enthronement, his authority, his rule, personally, societally, and eventually. Let me give you those three fleshed out a little bit. When we pray, Thy kingdom come, I mean that in my life personally. When I say your kingdom come, I first and foremost mean rule over me, Lord. Be in charge of my life. Have your way in my life. But second, because there are others that live around me, I'm praying for that in the lives of other people collectively, corporately. And through evangelism, by telling them about Jesus, and through my good works that validate my evangelism, the kingdom of God will spread. But when I pray, Thy kingdom come, I also mean in the future eventually. When I pray, Thy kingdom come, essentially, I'm saying come quickly Lord Jesus and take over this earth and establish your future millennial kingdom on the earth, which he will do one day. So one day, someday, his kingdom literally will come. When it does, it will not be passive. It will not be silent. It will not be in the shadows. It will not be individual, as it is now. One day, God will impose his kingdom rule on the world from the real kingdom city, the city of Jerusalem, for 1,000 years. Now, many people, and I would venture to say most of us in this room included, have made Jesus Christ the King of their lives. You've asked him to come in. You've surrendered your authority to him. You want his rule in your life. But there has never been a universal reign of the kingdom of God on the earth yet. We are still waiting for that. I want to drill down on this. When that kingdom comes, we won't do it. He will do it. It's something that he himself will do alone. The kingdom comes when the King comes. Without a king, you have no kingdom. And so we can talk about the kingdom of God internally and spiritually and individually, but the real show starts when Jesus the King shows up. Without the King, there's really no kingdom. Now, why do I press this? Because I don't want you to get the idea by the title that we've used, Kingdom City, that we are somehow bringing in God's kingdom. We are not. He'll do that alone. Do you remember in our previous series on the End Is Near? question mark. It was a pretty lengthy series. So back in February, I gave a message. I can't expect you to remember that far back. But I bet you're going to remember the content, at least. So there was a message in February in that series where I told you the difference between premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism. Raise your hand if you remember that we did that sermon, at least. OK, so good. So I mentioned that premillennialism-- that's what I am. I'm a premillennialist. I believe the world's going to get worse and worse and worse until Jesus comes back. Then there's the amillennialist, doesn't believe in a Millennium at all. It's all spiritualized. It's all allegorical, whatever. It's just whatever. Push it away. But then there is the postmillennialist. And the postmillennialist believes this. Listen. We are going to bring in the kingdom, and we're going to deliver that kingdom to Jesus and that he won't come back till after we do that. You say, well, how do we do that? Well, we're going to evangelize the world and Christianize the world. And things are going to get better and better and better, and more people are going to get saved. And the whole world is going to be Christianized. We're going to bring in the kingdom, and we're going to deliver that to Jesus Christ. All I can say about that theology is that is wildly optimistic, in fact, out of touch optimistic. Because I've never seen where the world gets better and better and better. Usually, that theology flourishes in the West, in America, during times of peace. When there's no war, when things are going good, the economy is going good, we think, hey, I think we're pulling this off. But the idea is the church will bring in the kingdom. Now, this shows up in different shades. It is sometimes called reconstruction theology, sometimes called kingdom theology. Sometimes, it's known as liberation theology. It shows up in the signs and wonders movement. It shows up in the spiritual warfare movement, where we bind the demons, we take authority, we take them captive, and we bring in the kingdom. That is not what we mean by kingdom city. God does not need our help to bring his kingdom. He's going to do it all by himself quite apart from his church. Because he is sovereign. He is the King of kings. He is the Lord of Lords. And in his own time. He will bring in his own kingdom. As Psalm 115 declares, "our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases," one of my favorite verses. God's in heaven. He does whatever he wants. It's like the little boy who said that God is greater than Superman, Batman, and the Power Rangers put together. That's an understatement. Of course he is. He's King of kings. He's Lord of Lords. So that's the character of the kingdom. That's the coming of the kingdom. The third thing I want to talk about is the commission of the kingdom. Because we have a second request in verse 10, not only "Your kingdom come, but your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Now, the very fact that Jesus told us to pray this indicates that God's will is not always being done on the earth. Would you agree with that? Would you agree that God's will is not always being done on the earth? I would. Well, I just said it. Of course, I'm going to agree with myself, right? So let me explain. The Bible says, God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Right? That's his will. Question, is everybody saved? No. Has everybody come to repentance? No. Are there people who perish? Yes. Are there people who die and go to hell? Yes. That's not what God wants. He is not willing. He does not will that. And yet. That. Happens all the time. So we are taught to pray, Your will be done because God's will is not always perfectly being done on the earth. So God is sovereign, yes. He rules over all, yes. He will bring his kingdom, yes. But that doesn't mean we just sit on our hands. It does not mean that we are fatalistic and say, well, what will be. God is sovereign, and he's going to bring his kingdom. So I'm going to just sit back and let that happen. No. This prayer implies a responsibility, a commission. And what is that commission? What is that responsibility? To represent the kingdom of God. OK, let's look at the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus lived on this earth how long? 33 years. You guys know your stuff. OK, let me ask you a second question. Do you know how long his ministry was? Three years. Three, 3 and 1/2 years was the extent of his ministry. During that time, here's Jesus living in a fallen, broken world. Question, what did he do? What did he do during that time? Some of you might say, well, he preached the gospel. Good. You got part of the answer correct. But that's not all that he did. We happen to have two verses in the Gospel of Matthew that are summary verses of his entire ministry. The first is Matthew 5:23. The second is Matthew 9:35. They're almost identical with a little bit of nuance change. "Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people." There's three activities Jesus did. He engaged in evangelism, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. He engaged in discipleship, teaching in their synagogues. And number three, he alleviated human suffering to validate the message he was preaching. He was healing all kinds of sickness, all kinds of disease among the people. So he preached the gospel. He trained disciples. And he got his hands dirty to make things better. Now, Christians throughout history have noticed this. They've noticed what I just said. And in noticing that this sums up Jesus' life, they believed they had a mandate to do something about the culture in which they lived, that Christians are not called to apathy, but to activity; that Christians are not called to indifference, but involvement. And you may or may not know that the great revivals of the past produced a number of things in terms of fruit. You could study the great revivals of history, and you'll find that there was strong gospel preaching. There was mass conversion. There was a renewed love for the scriptures, the Bible. There was prolific song writing, that would express what God was doing. And the society in which those people were saved in got better. It got better. Did you know that most social reforms in the West are related directly to the preaching of the gospel? So many examples of this-- as Christianity began to spread west, in the 4th century AD, the very first hospital we have in history came about by Christians. And the reason they developed the hospital idea or hospital system is because they believed Jesus gave us a mandate to care for the sick. Why? Because Jesus preached the gospel, trained disciples, and healed people. So they thought, we follow Christ. We have a mandate to care for the sick. Then there was John Wesley, in England, in the 1700s. He was a gospel preacher. I mean, he got on a horse and would ride from village to village and just in the open air, proclaimed the gospel and brought great revival to that country. But he not only preached the gospel of salvation, but he preached against slavery, he preached for prison reform, and for education. He got involved politically, et cetera. He inspired by his preaching a young man by the name of William Wilberforce, who was indeed a politician in the Parliament of England. And Wilberforce led an anti-slavery movement to abolish the slave trade, which he was successful at doing eventually in 1834. Three days before his death, John Wesley wrote a little letter to William Wilberforce, assuring him that God raised him up for this season, for such a time as this, and urged him not to be weary in well doing. Now, that whole mentality spilled over across the Atlantic Ocean into the United States of America, so that the Christians began preaching, especially the Quakers. They preached that slavery is the greatest sin against God. And by that preaching in the pulpit and teaching the scriptures, there developed a movement known as the American Anti-slavery Society, direct result of those churches. That culminated in Abraham Lincoln crafting and signing the Emancipation Proclamation. A little later, in the 1800s, a guy by the name of Charles Finney, I don't know if you've ever read anything by him or about him. But I suggest you do. It's incredible reading. I have been inspired by him for years. Charles Finney was an interesting cat. He was a lawyer turned evangelist. So he was a very critical thinker. He became an evangelist. He shared the gospel everywhere he went. It is estimated that between 100,000 to 500,000 people got saved under his ministry alone. It spread throughout the entire Eastern seaboard. But Charles Finney also said, "the church's neglect of social reform grieved the Holy Spirit and hindered revival." So one of Finney's converts was a guy by the name of Theodore Weld. He became Finney's assistant for a period of years, eventually left serving Finney, and devoted the rest of his life to the struggle to end slavery in America. Here's what I want you to see. Whether it's Wesley or Finney, they're both preachers of the gospel. People are in mass coming to Christ. But the gospel they preach inspired others to get involved. Why? Because the gospel transforms people. And then those people are sent out to transform the lives of other people with that gospel and by their works that validate the gospel that they preach. So a saved soul sanctifies society. How's that for a tongue twister? A saved soul sanctifies society. Hey, can you imagine if every single human being on earth were saved? Hard to imagine. But imagine just for a moment every person in the world saved. That'll happen one day. It's called the Millennium. So it's not going to happen anytime soon unless Jesus comes back. But imagine if everybody were saved. Would we have a different world? So let's work at getting more saved. Let's work at getting more saved and showing them why they should get saved because they see the transformation in the lives that God's people make. That's a kingdom city. We are salt and light. We are a city set upon a hill that cannot be hid. Now, I mentioned Finney, and I mentioned Wesley. Let me add a few names to that. There was a German Lutheran minister named Theodore Fliedner, who built homes for ex-prisoners, like halfway houses, when they got out of jail, to get them back on their feet. He decided he should build hospitals, asylums for the mentally ill. And one of his most famous students was a gal by the name of Florence Nightingale, who became the mother of modern nursing. Then in the 1800s, because of the unhealthy conditions in London, due to the Industrial Revolution, the YMCA developed, Young Men's Christian Association, and the YWCA, Young Woman's Christian Association, to bring people in who had been oppressed and abused and win them to Christ and love them for Christ's sake. Then there were missionaries, William Carey, who went to India, David Livingstone, who went to Africa, to share the gospel and help to heal the nation's wounds that they were living in. Why did they do that? Why should we do that? Because social concern is the twin sister of evangelism. Social concern is the twin sister of evangelism. We sort of have a false dichotomy in the evangelical world. We decry. We speak out against people that just do the social gospel because it has been abused. There are churches who do not preach the gospel. But let's just be kind to everybody and help people and have this campaign-- it's the social gospel. And so the false dichotomy is, well, you either preach the true gospel, or you just practice the social gospel. I have an idea. Let's do both. Let's actually preach the gospel and because it's the true gospel, get involved socially to better people. Faith without works is dead, the Bible says. The fruit of the gospel is change. Now, in Psalm 146, it's a beautiful psalm. I was finding it this week and reading through it. And so it's basically a psalm where the psalmist encourages people to put their trust in God. But then he describes the God that they are to put their trust in. And it says this, in Psalm 146, verse 7, "God executes justice for the oppressed. He gives food to the hungry. He gives freedom to the prisoners. He opens the eyes of the blind. He raises those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. He watches over the strangers." Then it goes on to say in verse 10, "the Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations." So there's a kingdom coming. Until then, God is all about helping the oppressed, the hungry, the bowed down, the prisoners, the strangers. So that's what we are to do in the meantime as we're waiting for that coming kingdom. See, if I've tasted the kingdom personally, and the kingdom is coming literally eventually, what am I to do in the world practically? This. John Stott is a book I was reading this week. John Stott asks the question, which Jesus do we believe in, and which Jesus do we preach? That's a question I want to just close with. Which Jesus do we believe in, and which Jesus do we preach? You say, why should anybody ask that question? Because Paul the apostle said, there are people in the Church of Galatia who are preaching a different Jesus. So which Jesus do we believe in, and which Jesus do we preach? Do we believe and proclaim the Jesus who only preached the gospel of the kingdom? Do we believe in and proclaim the Jesus who only taught people the truth? Or do we believe in the Jesus who preached the gospel, taught people the truth, and brought kingdom values to the culture in which he lived? And that's why we say, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." You see, I cannot say, our, if my religious experience has no place for others. I cannot say, Father, if I don't demonstrate that relationship in my life. I cannot say, who art in heaven, if all my interests are on earthly things. I cannot say, Your kingdom come, if I'm unwilling to give up my sovereignty. And I cannot say, Your will be done, if I'm not willing to let the Lord have his will done in my life. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. We must not become like the country preacher in England. They're called vicars over there. A country vicar was approached by a homeless lady who needed help for her condition. The preacher had all sorts of excuses for her. He said that he was busy. And he was. He said, he didn't quite know what to do with her and her condition. And he didn't. And so what he just said to her is, I'll pray for you and left. She wrote a letter. "I was hungry, and you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger. I was imprisoned, and you crept quietly off to your chapel and prayed for my release. I was naked, and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance. I was sick, and you knelt and thanked God for your health. I was homeless, and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God. I was lonely, and you left me alone to pray for me. You seem so holy, so close to God, but I am still very hungry and lonely and cold." So what are we to do? We are to preach. We are to teach. And we are to help heal the wounds of those around us. When we do that, we are validating what we are teaching and what we are preaching. Now, I would be remiss unless I said something else as we close, the fact that you already do that. I am speaking to a group of people-- I'm, essentially, preaching to the choir because you are one of the most generous organizations, group of believers, I have ever met. When there are needs that we bring up locally, internationally, with Operation Christmas Child, with feeding people here and kids in town, you step up to the plate over and over and over again. So I applaud you for that. And we must never get to a place where we don't do that. Because we preach a gospel that is transformative, we need to live transformed lives that demonstrate that. Father, thank You for this commission that you have given us to see your will exercised in our life personally, to spread the gospel to other people, so that your will is done in their lives socially, while we wait for the literal kingdom of God to be set up on earth eventually. [MUSIC PLAYING] All of that is at play here. We place ourselves before you as your people, living sacrifices, and pray that we would not neglect one for the other. It would not all be about preaching, but not teaching or helping. It would not all be about teaching, but not preaching or helping. It would not all be about helping, but neglect preaching and teaching.. We would do all in balance for your glory. Because there is the joy zone for us to operate in. The joy of the Lord is our strength when we give ourselves to you in these things. Help us. Encourage your people. So many of them do so much of this already. Thank you. Encourage them to go on. In Jesus' name, we pray. And God's people said, amen. Amen. Again, God's people said-- Amen.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE MATTHEW 6:13 S-1540 What tempts you? The Seven Deadly Sins Perhaps? SLIDE #1: Ice Cream Sundae? Timed--Drugs and Alcohol (gluttony) SLIDE #2: Speeding (pride) SLIDE #3: Watching tv (laziness) SLIDE #4: Offering plate (greed) SLIDE #5: Hooters and Hot guy (lust) SLIDE #6: Two people fighting (anger) SLIDE #7: New car; house (envy) Things I put on screen are pretty innocuous. Some of you have things in mind that would be rather embarrassing if I mentioned them out loud. You hate what you do—and what it does to you. Read Matthew 6:13: “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Go with me to Matthew 6. Learn to pray the Lord’s Prayer—not just recite it meaninglessly. Come to each topic and let the Holy Spirit breathe on every phrase. READ Matthew 6:9-13 Compare our text: BUILD SLIDE #8A: Matthew 6:13: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” BUILD SLIDE #8B: Matthew 4:1: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” Jesus tells is in Matthew 6 to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” In Matthew 4, He was led into temptation. He knows that it hurts. Test of Messiahship. His whole identity, future, career and integrity were on the line. SLIDE #9: The First Test: TURN STONES INTO BREAD: self reliance SLIDE #10: The Second Test: JUMP OFF THE PINNACLE OF THE TEMPLE: selfishness SLIDE #11: The Third Test: FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP SATAN: self condemnation This is our battle: We will face the same tests and temptations as Jesus. BUILD SLIDE #12A: Matthew 6:13: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” BUILD SLIDE #12B: Matthew 4:1: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” “Deliver us from the evil one” Who needs to be delivered? Someone in bondage. Speaking about non-Christians. SLIDE #14: 2 Timothy 2:24-26: “And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance SLIDE #15: leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” Speaking to Christians. SLIDE #16: 1 PETER 5:8: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Could a Christian be possessed? Look at this passage written to Christians. READ 2 Corinthians 11:3. Minds led astray. Receive a different spirit. Put up with it easily enough. Can a Xn be possessed? Bible never uses that word.  Uses Demonized—different degrees of demonization. Convinced Christians can lose control with Paul Zetoka. STORY: Spirit guides. “They’re back again, aren’t they? Called Bill Nicholson. Freed through process of discipleship and renouncing.  Can a Christian be possessed? NO.  Paul was never in danger in losing salvation. Spirit is secure, indwelt by Holy Spirit. Battle is for the mind. We can lose control of areas through sin and neglect that we have to fight in Spiritual Warfare to take back. Every area of our lives not under the control of the Holy Spirit is open to attack by a demonic spirit. Most of us think a Satanic Battle is some sort of weird, exorcistic, scary, spooky kind of thing. It is not. For most of us, battle with the Evil One is subtle—and often unrecognized. Study the battle between God and Satan in which Job was the pawn in Job 1-2. Satan access to Heaven: Job only follows you because You take such good care of him. Take all he has and he will curse you to your face. Lower the hedge and I can get him to curse you.”  Sabeans take oxen and donkeys; fire fell and burned up the sheep. Chaldeans formed raiding party and took your camels.  Sons and daughters having a party and whirlwind came and blew down house and all dead. Naked I came, praise be the name of the Lord. Skin for skin, all a man has will he give to save his life. Strike his flesh and bones and he will surely curse you to your face. All right, he is in your hands, but you can’t kill him. Sores and boils. Scrapes with potsherd. Wife: “you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die.” “No.”  Notice that it took Job 42 chapters to figure out what was going on. Read the last chapter. SLIDE #17: 2 Corinthians 2:10-11: If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven-- if there was anything to forgive-- I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. Most of us are unaware of Satan’s devices. What are Satan’s devices? SLIDE #18: 1. He manipulates, misdirects and confuses through the art of deception (Job 1-2; 1 Corinthians 11:3) ; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12; 2 Timothy 3:13; Acts 13:10; and 2 Corinthians 11:13-15). 2. He blinds unbelievers so that they cannot see the Gospel of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:3-4.) 3. He is the father of lies (John 8:32, 44). 4. He has the power of death (Hebrews 2:14). 5. He can cause sickness and suffering (Acts 10:38) 6. He snatches the Word of God from our minds (Mark 4:15) 7. He fills churches with “false” Christians (Mark 13:39). 8. He torments God’s children (Luke 22:31; 2 Corinthians 12:7). 9. He frustrates Christians in carrying out their godly desires (1 Thessalonians 2:18). 10. He tempts, agitates and incites people into sin (Genesis 3:1-6; Ephesians 2:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 3:5; 1 John 3:8-10). 11. He ensnares Christians (1 Timothy 3:7). 12. He personally enters and controls people (John 13:27). 13. He inserts wicked thoughts into the mind (John 13:2; Acts 5:3). 14. He exploits anger into sin (Ephesians 4:26-27). 15. He exploits an unforgiving spirit into sin (2 Corinthians 2:10-11). 16. He accuses Christians before the throne of God (Revelation 12:10). 17. He opens the door into the occult world (Deuteronomy 18:10-13). 18. He snares people in drug and alcohol abuse (Galatians 5:19-20). 19. He steals, kills and destroys our abundant life (John 10:10). You would imagine that with this sort of adversary we would do well to protect ourselves. We never know when a Satanic encounter may be just around the corner. FENCING DEMONSTRATION. Squirt gun, keeps coming Bow and arrow keeps coming Put on goggles and pick up rubber sword. Fence and lose: Ouch, Ouch, Ouch It is amazing how many Christians are so ill-prepared to encounter the Evil One and win.  Go out spiritually naked and defenseless. Interview Bronwyn: I never had a chance, did I? Parry moves. Fortunately, we are not defenseless.  God has given us powerful spiritual weapons to win. You think that’s a sword. That’s not a sword. This is a sword. Go, go, git, git. Here is what we do to protect ourselves. SLIDE #19: 1. Put on the whole armor of God. And learn to do it when you are young. READ Ephesians 6:10-17. The battle swarms with principalities and Powers, etc. Many of us are going around spiritually naked. Wouldn’t leave house without clothes. Why do it spiritually? Memorized this as a boy. Importance of children memorizing Scripture. SLIDE #20: The Belt of Truth Foundational garment: Leather protection for lower part of body. Satan loves to hit below the belt. Only ruthless opponents hit there. Prayer: “I will test everything today for truth and I will believe and accept into my mind only that which is true. I don’t want to be deceived into believing lies and half-truths.” Mess up the truth get beaten every time. Genesis 3:1-6 Listen to what you tell yourself. Life hard enough with truth, really tough with lies and half-truths. “I can’t do anything right.” “I always make mistakes.” “Everybody in the world should love and appreciate me. “Nobody likes me.” “I’m no good.” “I am a horrible pastor.” “That didn’t hurt me at all.” Life of integrity: Going to play golf on Monday, told Julie had a meeting with Glenn. Lied. Conscience bothered me. Told Julie, she cried. How can I ever trust you. Got some girl out there? You want the truth because you don’t want to be deceived in anything. SLIDE #21: The Breastplate of Righteousness Prayer: “Thank you, Father, for the Righteousness I have in Jesus Christ. I want everything I think and do today to be right. Need this because nobody’s perfect. We have a pardon. You’re not good enough to make up your own breastplate. Need Christ’s. SLIDE #22: The Shoes of the Gospel of Peace Every conceivable type of shoe today! Running, cross training, golf, football, tennis, dress, sandals. Need shoes to keep feet from swelling, etc. Need these in spiritual warfare or we will stumble and fall. Prayer: “I thank you, Father, that I am no longer at war with you. You and I now live in peace and harmony because of the gospel of Christ.” These three we have. The other three we have to take up and use.  Get better with practice. SLIDE #23: The Shield of Faith: Quenches fiery darts. Old tactic: tipped arrows wrapped in flammable material fired into marching troops bring confusion and death. Shield 4x2½ made of wood; wood burns—thin metal plate. Can’t keep arrows from coming, but we can keep them from hitting and burning. Satan’s strategy to get us busy fighting fires of evil thoughts, discouragement, evil forebodings, suicide, despair, blasphemous thoughts against God, worry, Prayer: “I will respond in faith to every situation and circumstance I may face to day—no matter how difficult or discouraging it might seem.” SLIDE #24: The Helmet of Salvation Not conversion or regeneration. The head is vulnerable. Soldiers aren’t only ones to wear helmets: construction workers, motorcycle riders, football players. Injury to head and rest of body begins to malfunction. Severe blow to the head can put you out of the battle. Don Burkhart. Coach young, “Hit them hard.” Fore arm shiver, lifted him off ground, landed backward on head and before my very eyes, his head split wide open—only his helmet. Two sides of Satan’s broadsword are discouragement and doubt. Prayer: “Father, please protect me from being knocked down by depression, despair, bitterness, or sense of hopelessness.” SLIDE #25: The Sword of the Spirit Logos and Rhema.  Know the Bible and use it well. Prayer: “I will use the Word of God to give right perspective and direction to every situation and difficulty I may encounter today.” SLIDE #26: 2. Build a Hedge of Protection according to Psalm 91 around your life, family, church. (See Job 1:10) 1. I make the Lord my habitation and refuge. Read Psalm 91:1, 9-10. 2. I want to love God with all my heart. Read Psalm 91:14. 3. I confess His name. Read Psalm 91:14b. As I say this I build a hedge of protection around my life, family, church. To make it real simple. If you have an area out of control – anger, temper, worry, or whatever. SLIDE #27: Many of us have areas out of control in your life, James 4:7 gives a simple pattern for freedom: “Submit to God and the Devil will flee from you. BUILD SLIDE #28A: “Submit To God” brings victory over our sin nature: BUILD SLIDE #28B: 1. Confess as sin the area that is out of control; BUILD SLIDE #28C: 2. Consider yourself dead to that sin, according to Romans 6; BUILD SLIDE #28D: 3. If the problem is solved, Praise God! If it persists, you have allowed Satan a foothold. Then— BUILD SLIDE #29A: “Resist The Evil One” brings victory over demonic spirits who have gained a foothold in our lives. BUILD SLIDE #29B: 1. Confess again that the area is out of control; BUILD SLIDE #29C: 2. Resist and renounce the Evil One who is attacking and who has grabbed a foothold in that area; BUILD SLIDE #29D: 3. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill that area with Himself and give you back control in that area. You’ll begin to find victory which you have longed for years! I don’t have an hour: If you’re not disciplined enough to spend an hour, spend as much time as you can and pick it up during the day. Between here and work, don’t listen to the radio. Until I get my news from Heaven, I don’t have any right to get my news from anywhere else. When I come home at night, I have no right to watch television if I have not got my prayer done for the day. See what I mean. I have no right to do anything else until I finish my number one priority in life… my prayer life. God will let us have our free time once we take care of our God time. When I was a boy my daddy made me mow the yard. If I didn’t mow the yard, then I couldn’t go play ball with the boys. Now, Dad wanted me to play and have fun. But if I didn’t mow the yard and he found me playing ball, he’d get after me. Some of us haven’t even found the spiritual lawn mower. Some of us have just barely started the mower and mowed three feet and we quit. And then we run out to play ball somewhere . God lets us have fun and run and relax and enjoy life. God wants us to have our toys. As a parent, we enjoy watching our children play and have fun with their toys. The reason some of us feel convicted about enjoying our toys is that we haven’t got our praying done. So the Holy Spirit comes around and says, “Hold on. You are playing with your toys and you haven’t mowed the yard yet. Mow the yard, and then you can play with your toys.” How many of you understand that? Let’s stand together… Night of Gethsemane. READ Matthew 26:39-41 Before the night was over, tragic events were to transpire in the lives of men who slept carelessly when Jesus entreated them to pray. Peter would soon cut off Malchus’ ear – deny Christ three times – run and hide at crucifixion. Knowing Satan’s plans, Jesus pleaded with Peter to pray not to enter into temptation. READ Luke 22:31-32, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail…” Peter slept instead of praying and he suffered bitterly.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”   Genesis 4:6-7 NIV Through the years, many people have regarded Bible stories as falling short of essential details needed to draw more appropriate conclusions about the authenticity of the stories, which might lead to making better decisions in believing and trusting God. Suppose one’s desire for the details had been fully appeased, would he or she still make the right decision at those appropriate and precise moments in their life? Poets do not provide all the necessary details in their poetry, but a story is still concluded and the reader tends to be satisfied with their esteem of the poems. However, what is present in the Bible stories is mankind’s transparency of self-incriminations, the results of such exposures, plus being honest enough to relay the story down through infinite generations. The primary details are there: 1. Man’s relationship with God and how man interacts or fails to interact God. 2. The results of those relations between man and God. 3. How all mankind interacts with God through the principles revealed in those stories. Today, the stories are still relevant because of the nature of man’s behavior has not changed all that much; thereby, contemporary man can learn well from the mistakes of his past ancestors so many centuries removed, while simultaneously discovering he makes the same errors in his present life; and warns those in his future about making the same mistakes he once made. Already, one easily envisions the limitless revolutions of the revolving doors to the history of mankind’s life on earth.   Because the story teller moves quickly from the exile of the Garden to the apparent adulthood of Cain and Abel, what seems to be missing in the story is the parental guidance of Cain and Abel’s childhood, just as one has no idea how much time passed in their relationship with God, before Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Naturally, one wonders, Did Adam and Eve tell Cain and Abel about their disobedient behavior towards God? One finds it easy to think, Surely, they must have told Cain and Abel something about God. It is also easy to think that Cain and Abel must have known about God in some realistic way, such as walking and talking with God as did their parents, because Cain and Abel offer a sacrifice to God. (Genesis 4:3-5) What one can take away from the Genesis story is: God created first human man and woman, who knew God personally and disobeyed him. They were exiled from the Garden of Eden into the world because of their disobedience. The children interacted with God and offered a sacrifice to God. Adam, Eve, and their children were the original human family to represent God to the world. A point vastly overlooked or simply not thoroughly grasped as much as it should be. Cain and Abel should be considered as adults, not children. Cain worked the land as did his father, Adam. Abel was a herdsman. Both men were ready for marriage, so they were, at least, at the age of accountability for their day; and in all probability had already established their own dwellings. The story comes from a preliterate time and place, meaning it was first presented orally and many years before the written story, which was very probably passed down through numerous generations, perhaps many civilizations shared this story, and before there were any actual customs set for worship and offerings to God, as well as any set requisites for story telling.   Many speculations about Adam and Eve’s parenting skills, or the lack thereof, have more than run rampant through history. Many speculations have been made about the probable causes for Cain killing his brother, Abel. Throughout history all sorts of literature has been developed about why Cain murdered Abel. Unfortunately, what is easy to derive from the story is the first human child, became the first murderer in this world, when he decided to kill his brother. Cain was apparently the first human person to answer God with a question instead of a straight and positive statement. Regardless of all the speculation, the lesson one can take from this story is a principle by which everyone lives; and that is, the obvious attitude exhibited in their relationship with God and how they offer sacrifices to God. As some people envision Cain and Abel engaged in the simplicity of human sibling rivalry, others will see the spiritual problem that exists between the two brothers. Both cases are perpetual among all humans even to this day. The question would be: Which of the two situations is more problematic, and therefore, more important to address? In God’s eyes, both may be equally important because at some point in history, God gave the commandments Not To Kill, but to love God; and to love each other as oneself; along with seven other primary commandments. (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:4-21) Each man brought to God an offering from his labors. Cain offered something he had grown in the ground. Abel brought the first of his flock. When God looked upon the two offerings, he chose the one given by Abel. As the story goes, Cain became angry and jealous. It might have been that Cain felt God should have favored his offering more than Abel’s because he is the first born male child, which might have been a custom practiced in his day. Nevertheless, anyone today could easily empathize with Cain, if he had actually thought that way. It could have been that God was reading the mind and spirit of the two men and Abel’s mind and heart was more pure than Cain’s. Was it a matter of their faith more than the type of sacrifice? The fact that God spoke to Cain about his thoughts and even told him, “if you do right, you will be accepted” strongly indicates that God spoke to Cain as only a loving father or God would be expected to teach his child. Even if the child is an adult! Apparently, this may not have been the first manifestation of Cain’s attitude and spirit towards God. Nevertheless, Cain allowed the jealousy and anger to dictate his behavior and killed his blood kin, then, lied when God inquired about Abel’s whereabouts. (Genesis 4:6-8)   Of course, God knew that Cain had killed his brother, but was curious as to what Cain would say. (Genesis 4:10) This encounter between God and Cain is reminiscent of God’s encounter with Adam and Eve, after they ate the forbidden fruit and God found them hiding from him. (Genesis 3:8-9) How often do people come before God hoping to be blessed more than others, only to walk away wondering what they did wrong? How many people want to be blessed by God, but do as Cain did? Instead of being like Abel, just giving God his best, apparently, Cain gave God according to his selfish desires, and feeling rejected by God, even set out to destroy the life of his brother.   How many people give lots of money to the church just to buy status with God and the church members, even desire recognition for their “great sacrifice” or “buy their way into the leadership”? God was teaching Cain, it is not what one brings to the altar, but who is coming to the altar. God desired that Cain offer himself completely to God, as person, who is willing to listen to God, follow his instructions and wisdom for life, fully trusting God and being obedient to him. God had a special purpose for Cain and he wanted Cain to achieve that purpose in his earthly life. God blessed Abel’s offering because it was Abel’s desire not only to give God his very best sacrifice, but Abel desired to be pleasing to God, to trust and obey him at all times. It is not about finding honor among men, but to find favor with God. Abel did that, but Cain did not give himself to God as he could have, as God was hoping he would. Apparently, Abel lived as God had intended for mankind to live, in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:26-27)   God wants everyone to have the spirit and attitude of Abel. However, God’s love for Cain was so strong that he placed a mark on Cain, when he punished Cain for killing his brother, which showed Cain mercy and the opportunity for repentance, when God stated that: No one could kill Cain, even though he was banished to live in the land of Nod, east of Eden. (Genesis 4:11-17) God has a specific purpose for everyone in this world; and only God controls how a person lives, when, and how that person dies. (Jeremiah 29:11-13; Psalm 100:2; John 5:21-23; James 4:11-12; I Timothy 6:12-14) Just as the Bible teaches, every man should live according to his inherited image and likeness of God, every one will live and die according to his attitude, spirit, and relationship with God. (Hebrews 9:26-18) Just like Cain, all too often, at one time or another, a human will walk and talk with God, but at some point in their life, they fall short of God’s expectations and purpose for them. Yet, God avails that person the opportunity to repent by faith, receive his forgiveness and salvation, and start afresh as though they had never disobeyed him. (II Chronicles 7:12-16)   Prayer: Our Holy and Heavenly Father: We thank you for this lesson about Cain in the Bible. May we apply it in our life so that we will live with an attitude and spirit of total obedience to you; and enjoy the blessings of being your presence daily. May all we say and do be pleasing and bring honor and glory to you. In the Name of Christ, we pray. Amen!   Suggested Readings :   Carlson, Randy. The Cain and Abel Syndrome: Getting Along With Your Adult Siblings. New York: Thomas Nelson Publishers. 2009. Moltmann, Jurgen . Theology and Joy. London: SCM Press. 2013.   Moore, Jonathan. Cain and Abel: Sin’s Story. Akron, Ohio: E-Book Time, LLC. 2008.   Morrice, William G. Joy In the New Testament. The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia: The Attic Press. 1983.   Woofenden, Lee and Annette. “Curses or Consequences: Did God Really Curse Adam and Eve?” February 12, 2013. Spiritual Insights For Everyday Life. Leewoof.org. February 12, 2013 . February 25, 2015.   Woofenden, Lee and Annette. “The Cain and Abel Story: Does God Play Favorites?” September 29, 2013. Spiritual Insights For Everyday Life. Leewoof.org. September 29, 2013. February 27, 2015.   Sasso, Sandy Eisenberg. Cain and Abel: Finding the Fruits of Peace. Illustrator: Joani Keller Rottenberg. Shelton, CT: Longhill Partners. 2013.   Yardley, Ilexa. Cain and Abel: The Metaphor Called Nature . Seattle, WA: Create Space Publishing. 2014.

Genesis chapter 4 is a story of two worshippers who happen to be brothers, Cain and Abel. And one's sacrifice, or offering, was accepted by God. But the other one crashed and burned. And that is Cain. Now Cain and Abel were similar, we discover. There were certain things that were identical in their lives. They both had the same parents. They both had the same opportunities. They both had the same access to God. They both came to worship God. But that's where their similarity ends and the differences begin. I'm calling this message A Murder After Church. A Murder After Church. Because think about this. The first murderer was a worshipper. The first murderer in history was a religious person. Cain killed his brother Abel after a worship service. Last week in New York City, on a Friday night, two men went into a church, a Methodist Church in New York, for a service of some kind. While they were in that service together, a fight broke out between them. A fist fight. One of them left. The other one stayed. When the service was done, the man who had left was waiting outside. And he attacked the man, the other man, with a machete in the streets of New York after church. When I read that news article, I thought about Jesse James. I've told you about him before. Jesse James was a baptized member of the Kearney County Baptist Church in Kearney, Missouri. Jesse James, the notorious outlaw, loved to sing in the choir. Loved to sing the old hymns. Loved to teach the hymns to younger members of the choir. He taught him singing. And he talked about how much he loved to go to church. The problem is, Sundays were a conflict to him. Because Sundays were his days to kill people and rob trains, so he couldn't always make church. We have a similar story here in the book of Genesis, chapter 4. As we begin the chapter, we see now the effects of what happened in the previous chapter, the choice that Adam make. In chapter 3, then, is the root of sin. Chapter 4 is the fruit of sin. It grows now. And I want to remind you of how Paul summed up this episode in history. In his book, Romans chapter 5, he said, through one man, sin entered the world. And death through sin, so that death spread to all men. For sin and death reigned from Adam to Moses. We're seeing that here. We're seeing now death reigning and death spreading as we get into the fourth chapter. And one other thing we discover. We discover many things, but there's a lot of firsts in Genesis chapter 4. The first pregnancy ever. The first birth ever. The first family. The first dysfunctional family. The first crime ever committed. The first death. So Cain is the first baby ever born on the Earth. Now, just indulge me for a second. I read something that I thought was fascinating. Inside every cell is what's called DNA. And DNA is the coded information that instructs, The set of instructions that tells every cell how to act, from birth to death. 95% of DNA is found in the nucleus of the cell. But on the outside of the nucleus are little energy producing components known as mitochondria. Bear with me. In the mitochondria, there are circular strands of that DNA material, genetic material, call mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondrial DNA is all maternal. That is, it is derived from the mother only. We know that you have 23 sets of chromosomes. Half from mom, half from dad. But all of the ones in the mitochondria come back from the mother. And I'm bringing that up because in 1987, University of California Berkeley did a research test of 147 people in the world. 147 people from five different geographical locations on the Earth. And they made the discovery that all 147 all had the same female ancestor. Whom they called, get this, mitochondrial Eve. And they have referred to her as that, whoever this one ancestor is. We don't know, they say. And some believe that she came from Africa. Others believe she came from Asia. Others believe she came from Europe. Why is that fascinating? Because after Adam came a flood. When Noah settled, his three daughters-in-law raised their children around Mount Ararat, which happens to be the area that is the borderland for Asia and Africa and Europe. So here is Cain, the first baby ever born. Who becomes the first murderer. And we have five titles that I want to give you for Cain. Five designations that map out his life choices, his journey. The first is worker. He was a worker. Genesis 4, verse 1. Now Adam knew Eve his wife. And she conceived and bore Cain. And said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Then she bore again. And this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. That defines their work. So the chapter opens with joy. It opens with optimism. There has been a fall. There has been banishment from the garden. But now, a woman is pregnant. Eve is pregnant. And I'm sure that Adam got all excited as that tummy began to grow. And he would feel the movement of that baby. And he probably even said something like, Eve, you're putting on a little weight and she wouldn't have cared about that, because there were no other women to compare to. Right? So she was, yeah, this is awesome. I want pickles and ice cream. I don't know what she's craving, but I can just imagine the familiar experience. So a baby is born. And she names the baby Cain, which is a word that means to get or to acquire. Now, I'm guessing that what they meant by this Cain or acqiore, I've gotten somebody from the Lord, is they saw this baby as the fulfillment of a promise made in the previous chapter. Where God promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. And they probably thought, this is it. I have gotten, I have acquired. This promised seed, this deliverer. So while they thought they were holding the deliverer, they were actually holding a murderer. One who would grow up to not be what they thought. We're not given a lot of detail about the family life. We're not given a lot of detail about Cain and Abel's upbringing. There is just Adam and Eve out there raising Cain. That's all we know. A little girl went to her mother and said, Mommy, where did the human race come from? And the mother said, sweetheart, there was a man named Adam and a woman named Eve. They had a child named Cain and then Abel. And the whole human race came from them. Well, a couple days later, she decided to ask her father the same question. He said, many years ago, there were monkeys. And we evolved from monkeys. So she's confused. Went back to her mother and said, Mom, I just don't get it. You said God created us. Dad said, we evolved from monkeys. Which is it? And the mother smiled and said, it's simple really, sweetheart. I told you about my side of the family. Your father was telling you about his side of the family. You can take and use that anywhere you'd like. So they grew up. And Cain follows in his father's footsteps. He becomes a farmer. His brother becomes a rancher. Cain is a tiller of the ground, we are told. Now, both occupations were honorable occupations. Both were necessary occupations. Most people in those days lived off of a combination of tilling the ground for farm and raising animals as well. So one chose one and one the other. This was their work. This was their occupation. Now, I'm highlighting this for this reason. Some people say, well, part of the curse that God put on mankind is to have us work. Work is part of the curse. Those are just people who don't like to do their work. So they say it's a curse from God. It's not a curse from God. It's a blessing from God. What was a curse was the painful toil that was the result of the curse put upon the Earth. But work itself was seen as a blessing. God put Adam in the Garden, the Bible says, to work the land. To work the land. So it was part of what God originally designed for people to do upon the Earth. And Cain's work is tied to Cain's worship, we will see. That is his occupation, is the basis for his adoration. He brings to God what he grows from the ground. So he is a worker. Second, he is a worshipper. Verse 3. And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering. But he did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. Now, it tells us that in the process of time, this happened. If your Bible has a marginal note like mine does, it will give you the literal translation of that. Which is, at the end of days. At the end of days. In other words, it's a precise period of time at the end of something. Perhaps the end of the agricultural year, when a sacrifice by God was in view. And this isn't necessarily the first time it happened. This could be something they regularly did. And it would seem as though God had some means of showing his approval or disapproval. Of receiving or not receiving. Accepting or not accepting the sacrifice. For example, when Elijah is on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings chapter 18, fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice. It could be something like that. Now here's a question. Everybody asks it. Why does God say yes to one offering, accepting Abel's sacrifice, and no to the other offering? Not accepting Cain's sacrifice. Now, the easy answer, and it's not really the accurate answer, I don't think, is that well, one was an animal. The other was a plant. God accepted the animal and wanted the blood sacrifice. He didn't want the plant. I think that's a little too simplistic. In fact, it's not really a biblical answer. So the biblical answer is this. There is two reasons God did not accept Cain's worship. And first of all, it's the quality of the offering. The quality of the offering. Notice in verse 4, there is a special note that Abel brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. So there is a little note there that says, here's a guy who with intentionality wanted to bring the very best to God. The highest quality. All the rabbinical commentators say this shows that he is picking the very best. The first, and thus the very best, to the Lord. He is very careful about it. Cain was indifferent. There is no mention at all about the quality of his sacrifice. Probably because he didn't care about it. So it's the quality. The second reason is the character of the offeror. One is the quality of the offering, second is the character of the offeror. Now, notice down in verse 7, I'm skipping ahead just a bit. God says to Cain, if you do well, or if you live right, will you not be accepted? In other words, if you lived right, your offering would be acceptable to me. Why would God say that? Here's the principle. God does not see worship apart from the worshipper. To God it's not like, oh, that's such a wonderful sacrifice. He's looking over the person who gives the sacrifice. So if you're corrupt, so is your gift. Now, why was Cain corrupt? Here's the answer. He lacked faith. He lacked faith. That life-transforming faith, saving faith that would motivate him to righteous living. I want you to listen to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4. It's a commentary on this section. By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Notice it's by faith. Through which he, Abel, was commended as being righteous. God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. That was Abel. So with Cain, there was no real faith to produce righteous living. In other words, he was just going through the motions. What this means is if you think you can live any way you want to live Monday through Saturday, You can live as though God didn't exist. You can live just like the rest of the world, dominated by all of the stuff that goes on in the world. And think that I can take one hour on Sunday and plop my sacrifice down and God will say, that's awesome. It's not true. God never looks at the worship apart from the worshipper. They're one and the same. Stephen Charnock, a Puritan author, said, without the heart, it is not worship. It is a stage play. It is acting a part without being that person, really. It is a hypocrite. We may truly be said to worship God, though we lack perfection. But we cannot be said to worship him if we lack sincerity. Worship is not about going through the motions. Raising the hand, reading a text, singing loudly, going to church. It's not about the motions. It's about the locomotion. It's about being moved forward in obedience to him. So he's a worker, he's a worshipper. There's a third title for him. He's a waverer. Notice at the end of verse 5, Cain was very angry. And his countenance fell. That is, he frowned. He had the pouty face. He wore his heart on his sleeve. You knew he was bummed out, because he just pouted. Got really bummed out. And so, the Lord, verse 6, said to Cain, why art thou bummed out? Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, And he's given the reason why. It's because sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you. But you should rule over it. Now, the real giveaway that Cain wasn't right with God was his response to God. He's mad. He's angry. He's angry at God. That's his response to God. He was mad when he should have been meek. He was angry when he should have been lowly. You know what the right response would have been if God didn't accept it? He should have just said, oh, Lord. I'm stopping in my tracks right now. I repent. I want to do it right. I humble myself before you. It would have been good. But he got mad. He was mad at God. I meet people, as do you, who are mad at God. And the reason I know they're mad at God is because they discover, oh, you're a pastor. And they want to vent their anger at God at God's representative. I get it all the time. People are mad at God. And people are mad at God because God doesn't see things their way. They're mad that God doesn't accept people based on just sincerity or based on good behavior. They're mad about that. They're mad that God doesn't accept all religions as being equal, all religions being the same. They're mad that God would be so narrow and so restrictive as to say, its only through my son Jesus that anyone can get to heaven. They're mad at that. And he was mad at God. But Cain was also mad at his brother, who brought an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. So his true colors are starting to show. And the seed of murder is growing in his heart. You know what the seed of murder is, right? It's anger. Anger is what produces murder. Jesus said, you have heard that it was said by those of old you shall not murder. But I say unto you, if you are angry at your brother without a cause, you're in line for the judgment. That's where it begins. Cain was a murderer in his heart long before he was a murderer with his hands. And God knows this. God knows that Cain is struggling inside. He's wavering back and forth. He is torn between doing right or letting the anger that he has toward God and toward his brother be fully vented by a murderous act. So God, knowing this, engages him. God doesn't walk away from him. God doesn't say, I'm done with you if you're angry with me. God talks to him. He reasons with him. I love this about God. Isaiah, chapter 1. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, I'll make them white as snow. And did you notice what God said in verse 7? Did you notice that God personifies sin like a beast crouching at his door, ready to pounce on him? If you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you. But you should master or rule over it. Boy, if you know your Bible, a verse comes to mind about now. 1 Peter chapter 5, where Peter says, the devil is like a roaring lion prowling around, seeking whom he may devour. That's what sin is like. Satan is like that and sin is like that. There was a book put out a few years back, called Death in The Long Grass. A movie was made based on this book. And Death in the Long Grass was written by a hunter, a big game hunter. And he was writing about lions who hunted men, who hunted human beings. That is, these lions get the taste of human blood and they sneak into a camp late at night in the Bush. They'll pounce on their prey and drag that person out, far away into the night, and devour him. And there was one lion, before it was caught and killed, that devoured 100 men. And he called these lions charging lions. Because they'll go around the periphery and they'll prowl. And then late into the night, they'll charge into the camp at a high speed, covering 100 yards in three seconds. Satan is like that and sin is like that. And what Satan uses to destroy us, You know what he uses? He uses us. He uses our fallen nature. The fallen nature, the flesh that is in us, to devour us. To master us. And what the Lord is saying to Cain is, if you don't become a victor over your sin, you're going to become a victim of your sin. You need to master it. If you don't master the beast, the beast will steal the best of your life. It's like what Martin Luther used to say. He said, you can't stop birds from flying over your head, but you can certainly stop them from building a nest in your hair. And if you don't have any hair, you can still stop them from building a nest. So there's that wavering that goes on. That struggle between the flash and the spirit. He went from worker to worshipper to waverer. Fourth title for Cain is he was a wrongdoer. That takes us to the deed itself, verse 8. Now, Cain talked with Abel, his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and killed him. And the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? He said, I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? Hear how sarcastic that is? And he said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. So the beast won. Sin has mastered Cain. Cain crashed and burned. This is not involuntary manslaughter, this is murder one. He killed him. We don't know how he killed him. Maybe he got a stone. Maybe he took Abel's own sacrificial knife and killed him. Maybe he cut and bled him like an animal. Like he, in offering his animal to God, did. Maybe he used his own bare hands. We don't know. But I know this, it felt good. For a brief moment, he felt vindicated. He felt justified. He felt good. Revenge always feels good at first. It's, like, yeah. They deserved that. But it didn't last. Because now we move to the fifth designation of this man, a wanderer. God meets up with him. In verse 11, God tells him, so now you are cursed from the Earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the Earth. And Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. I don't know. I don't feel sorry for him right now. Do you? Surely you have driven me out this day from the face of the ground. I shall be hidden from your face. I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the Earth. And it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me. And the Lord said to him, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold. And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. So he confronts Cain. God confronts him and consigns him to this. Now, he said, am I my brother's keeper? And God causes him now to wander from his family and from his homeland. Since you're not going to be your brother's keeper, no one's going to be your keeper. He becomes a fugitive. Notice in verse 11 He says, so you are now cursed from the Earth. Do you know this is the very first time where a human is cursed in the scripture by God? Up to this point, the only one cursed is who? The serpent. The serpent was cursed in Genesis 3. But now, Cain joins this wretched distinction of a man cursed by God. And he's wandering. In this isn't just like a Bedouin wandering for grass for his sheep. Now all relationships are broken with his family. He's in lifelong exile. And he says to God in verse 13, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Oh, really? Because what did he deserve? He deserved to die. Genesis 9 will tell us, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. So God now preserves him and protects him from death. This is an act of grace. I want you to think about this. This is grace upon grace upon grace. First of all, when Cain got angry, God didn't abandon him but engaged him in conversation to dialogue and talk this through. That was grace. Second, when Cain struggled within himself of what to do, good or evil, God encouraged him to withstand temptation. That's grace. And having succumbed to it and murdering his brother, God doesn't kill him. God protects him with a mark. That's grace. Now, people ask me, what is the mark of Cain? My answer, so we can get it out there, I don't know. You know why I don't know? We're not told. That's why. You can guess. Some people think it was a tattoo. Other people mention it's some weird hairdo or something. The rabbinical commentators used to say it was a dog. That God gave him a dog to assure him of protection and to keep strangers away. We're not told. I think it's ridiculous. So let me take you back to something else ridiculous. How many of you remember, And I want a show of hands, because I want to see your age. How many of you remember that television show The Incredible Hulk? Honest show of hands. OK. Very good. Others of you have honesty issues to deal with. So The Incredible Hulk was a television show that used to be a comic. Turned into a television show. Turned into a movie years later. And the premise is there's a doctor. Dr. David Banner is the character. And David Banner was a very kind and sweet research scientist doctor. Except when he got angry. And when he got angry, because he had been exposed to gamma radiation, excessive amounts, his eyes turned green and he grew in size. And he became this horrible monster who could throw people around like they were a rag doll. And so, the whole premise of the show after show after show was Doctor Banner's desire to find a cure so this won't happen anymore. So the moral of that television show was that if you don't learn to deal with your temper, it'll turn you into a monster. Now what can we do? What can we learn? What takeaway can we have from this so that we don't crash and burn like Cain? Let me give you a few quick takeaway things. Number one, the basic problem we have, our basic problem, is a worship problem. Our basic problem is a worship problem. Most people are worshippers of themself. It's about them. They are consumers only. What does this do for me? Our basic problem is a worship problem. Cain didn't give his best. And sometimes people go, yeah, there's a beat up old thing. I don't use it anymore. Let's give it away to the church. Give God your best. Give God your best self, your best energy, your best time. The second takeaway is that don't let the root produce its fruit. Don't let the root, the root of sin, produce its fruit. The root from the fall is what he was struggling with within himself in this chapter. And he let the root produce the fruit, which was sinful anger turned into murder. All of us have a wrestling match inside of us. All of us know what it's like to have the flesh warring against the spirit. And what God says to him and he says to us is, you must master it. And we have the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to do that. Don't let the root produce its fruit. The third take away is sin always brings separation. It separated him from God, separated him from his family, separated him from fellowship. Sin always brings separation. And it creates lonely people, isolated people, who because there's a barrier erected of sin, or unforgiveness or undealt with anger, pushes people away. And it's the worst way to live. So the key is always back to worship. Letting the Lord take the first place in our lives. www.sermons.love

1096s Jesus and the Tortilla A few years ago the Chicago Tribune reported the story of a New Mexico woman who was frying TORTILLAS when she noticed that the skillet burns on one of her tortillas resembled the face of Jesus.  Excited, she showed it to her husband and neighbors, and they all agreed that there was a face etched on the tortilla and that it truly bore a resemblance to Jesus. So the woman went to her priest to have the tortilla blessed. She testified that the tortilla had changed her life, and her husband agreed that she has been more peaceful, happy, submissive wife since the tortilla had arrived.  The priest, not accustomed to blessing tortillas was somewhat reluctant but agreed to do it. The woman took the tortilla home, put it in a glass case with piles of cotton to make it look like it was floating on clouds, built a special altar for it, and opened the little shrine to visitors.  Within a few months, more than eight thousand people came to the shrine of the Jesus of the Tortilla, and all of them agreed that the face in the burn marks on the tortilla was the face of Jesus.  (except for one reporter who said he thought it looked like former heavy weight boxing champion Leon Spinks). It seems incredible that so many people would worship a tortilla, but such a distorted concept of worship is not unusual in contemporary society. Tragically, although the Bible is clear about how and whom and when we are to worship, little genuine worship takes place today. THE CHURCH HAS SUFFERED THE THEFT OF ONE OF HER GREATEST TREASURES - WORSHIP.   At some time in the not so distant past the church was victimized.  The result is that worship is no longer central in its program. Out of the past comes a parable of this theft. Read I Kings l0:l4-l7.       The 200 large shields of gold contained 7 1/2 pounds of gold at $50,000 per shield.       The 300 small shields of gold contained 3 l/2 pounds of gold at $30,000 per shield. The shields were symbols of splendor and blessing. You know the story of how Solomon's heart began to turn away from God in his later years.  Married foreign women and began to adopt their gods as his own. His heart became spiritually dull. Later the kingdom was split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. The kingdom was weakened. Let's see what happened to those shields, the symbol of God's blessing and praise. Read I Kings l4:25-26. What is Rehoboam's response?  He has them craft brass shields to replace the golden ones. Read I Kings l4:27-28. In our weakness the enemy stole Biblical worship.  We have substituted brass for gold. Gold and Worship are a lot alike.  In almost any society gold is a standard of value and has been through the centuries.  Gold is a gauge of values and a sign of blessing.  The Bible tells us that gold is plentiful in Heaven.  The same is true of worship. Alas, we have substituted the brass of monotonous form for the gold of true worship. In JOHN 4 , John relates an interesting encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. The woman had a longing inside her which she did not know how to satisfy. She had sought contentment through relationships with men (having been married five times and then living in adultery with a sixth man), but she was not satisfied - she needed God! Within every person there is a longing for God, a desire to know Him. Most people misinterpret this yearning and attempt to fill the void with fleshly activities. Some turn to a hobby, others to a relationship, others to alcohol or narcotics. When God designed man, He built in a need for God that nothing else will satisfy. Read John 4:l9-24. The divine pursuit mentioned in John chapter four has always intrigued me: the Father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is expedient for us to seek the Lord and we are encouraged to do so many times in Scripture, but it seems unusual that He would seek us. I find it amazing that God would seek our worship. WHAT IS WORSHIP? Read I Chronicles l6:28-29. "O people of all nations of the earth, Ascribe great strength and glory to his name! 29  Yes, ascribe to the Lord The glory due his name! Bring an offering and come before him; Worship the Lord when clothed with holiness!" Some definitions may help to further our understanding. The Hebrew word for worship is "Shaha." It means to "bow low" or to "prostrate" oneself.  Worship involves our bowing low before the Lord, not only physically, but in our hearts. The Greek word is "proskyneo." This means "to kiss the hand of one who is revered."       Dog licking hand:  Becky: "That is her hand." Simple definition:  Homage paid to a supreme being. THE MINISTRY OF PRAISE AND THE EXPERIENCE OF WORSHIP ARE NOT THE SAME. Praise is unidirectional - we praise God; He does not praise us. Praise is our acknowledgement of His power, authority, wisdom and worthiness. Praise does not require a response from the one who is being praised; it is one-way communication. Worship, however, is relational; it is not only our confession to God, but His response to us. Illustrate praise that is not worship. Many years ago, watching playoff game between Steelers and Raiders. Raiders had won game. Final seconds ticking off! Terry Bradshaw passes far down field and Raider breaks up pass, ball leading toward ground like shot and along comes Franco Harris and scoops ball off shoelaces and runs to end zone for touchdown! Called immaculate reception! Wow. I shouted for mom and dad!  "You've got to see this!" It took my breath away! I couldn’t believe it! Might praise them, but I would never get on my knees and pay homage to them. WORSHIP IS COMMUNING WITH GOD. Praise usually precedes worship.  The Psalmist has written, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise" (Psalm l00:4 NAS).                                           We come into His presence with worship. Perhaps the most beautiful and illustrative verse on worship in the entire Bible is Revelation 3:20. READ REVELATION 3:20. For years we have missed the meaning of this verse because we have misinterpreted to whom the Lord is speaking. I have shared the gospel message with scores of people and used this verse as part of my closing.  In essence, I say to the lost man, "if you will simply open your heart and invite Jesus to come in, He will save you." I am sure this approach meets with God's approval, because the basic concept is reinforced throughout the Scriptures. However, we know that Revelation was written for the church - not for the unsaved.  Revelation 3:20 offers us a beautiful invitation from the Father to come and worship Him. And notice the reciprocal approach which is advocated:  we will dine with Him, and He will dine with us!  This is the dynamic of worship:  we give ourselves to Him, but He also give himself to us! When Brie was small, she came in where I was reading, "Want to play? Eat?..."  "No, I just came to be with you." Moments like that don't last long; must grab them while we can. Worship is communing with God. The very act of worship draws us near to the heart of God.  In the Act of Worship we get to know God. WORSHIP IS NOT RELATED TO CIRCUMSTANCES. Seen in two contrasting incidents in Scripture. 2 Chronicles 20.Jehoshaphat and Israel about to be attacked.  Read verses l-4.  Jehoshaphat prays.  Read verses l2-l7.  God intervened and next day the enemy destroyed itself.  Look at their response.  Read verse l8. Job, promising life all shattered and fell apart.  Read Job l:l3-l9.  Job's response.  Read Job l:20. Both fell to ground and worshipped!  Whatever worship is it is just as natural and automatic when God fulfills your dreams as when He destroys them! Worship is more than thanking or praising God in good circumstances!  The worship of God is to transcend our circumstances. Many of us only want to worship when God does something nice for us. If worship is not happening among God's people today it's because we have shaped our own concepts of God to fit our own understanding. Now that we've brought God down to our level we have little reason to fall on our faces to the ground before God who takes our breath away. So we only worship when we decide that God has lived up to our expectations! Oh, that God would free us from seeing Him as a spiritual Santa Claus. He longs to give to us Himself, which is worth more than any gift.  Blessed is the man who desires God more than what God can give. It is worship that we best draw near to God in order to commune with Him. Two men standing before Grand Canyon :       One said, "This is the hand of God. I'm amazed."       Man next to him looked over edge and spit: "That's the first time that I ever spit a mile."       Can you believe that? Standing in front of the Grand Canyon and one guy says, "It's the hand of God," and another man just spits. Do you know why? Because one has deep insight and the other is insensitive to the working of God. The Grand Canyon is the Grand Canyon whether I recognize its greatness or not.  God is God whether things are going well in my life or not. Maybe Jehoshaphat is sitting beside you at this moment. He's thinking, "Wow, God is so great...loving...gracious. Job may be on the other side of you, crushed with grief, no hope, no more figuring or planning or dreaming.  Only closed doors, windows, and ceilings.  Falls on his face before the sovereign mystery of an all powerful God and still says, "God, I love you." Maybe the person next to you has no picture of God at all. THE ACTIVITIES OF WORSHIP WILL BRING US INTO THE PRESENCE OF GOD. A. Falling Down Psalm 95:6 - "Come, let us bow down and worship..." Matthew 4:8-9 - Satan to Jesus, "Fall down and worship me..." No worship takes place without a bowing down in submission and humility before one of greater honor. B. Casting Down Cast down crowns before the throne. Read Revelation 4:l0. What is a crown? A crown is anything that exalts the wearer. If it draws attention to you, then it's a crown. No man who worships Jesus ever wants to be exalted. The more that I'm taken up with Him, the less that I demand that my crowns go untouched. A man can't worship God and be controlled by pride. Paul's greatest chapter on humility (Philippians 2) is followed by his greatest chapter on worship (Philippians 3). One leads to the other!  Must be a falling down before there can be worship! Perfect example of this in John l2. Read John l2:l-3. Probably a year's wages for just that amount. She took it and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. I Corinthians chapter 2 says the glory of a woman is her hair.  So, she uses her glory for the lowliest task imaginable. Anybody in that part of the world who washed people's feet would have been thought of as the most menial slave. She uses that which is her glory to wash the dusty, dirty feet of Jesus.  She doesn't just use water but pours out the costly fragrance. Now, that's the essence of worship. Worship is self-humiliating, and worship is profuse in its giving. C. Acknowledging God’s worth . Telling God his worth-ship. Doesn't He already know?  Yes, but it's in the act of worship that God reveals Himself to us and we become what we worship. Revelation 4:ll - "Worthy art Thou!" Get alone with God and tell Him what He's worth to you. Write a letter to the Lord; sing psalms and hymns,. Praise pages in diary. List God's worth and attributes. Soon the communion can begin. WORSHIP FLOWS BOTH WAYS. GOD WANTS TO BE WITH ME. I WANT TO BE WITH GOD. Luke l0 shows God's desire to be near us. READ LUKE l0:38-39 . Note Mary's position, on knees in attitude of worship. READ LUKE l0:40. Martha commands Jesus Christ to do something! The audacity! She was playing the role of anyone of us who gets distracted by doing things for God and thus loses the priority of worship. Look at Christ's response. Luke l0:4l-42. See His countdown:  Many things...few things... one thing. The Christian life is full of many duties.  A few are important...  One thing, however, is mandatory, the worship of God. All else will fade away . Exodus 33 is a preeminent Biblical passage on worship!  See here Moses's desire to see God. READ EXODUS 33:13-17. Note that Moses was not satisfied with God's presence.  He wanted to see His glory. READ EXODUS 33:18-23. Then God's Glory came by. READ EXODUS 34:5-8. The key to endurance and follow through in the Christian life is worship!  Time with God, knowing Him, enables us to live for Christ in this world! Today we saints can't endure much.  We constantly talk about our hurts... problems... feelings... rejections... Little worship = little endurance among the children of God. If we ever were to catch a glimpse of God's glory we would quit all of that nonsense.  Moses wanted more than presence.  He wanted to see glory.  God shared it with him.  We will never see God's glory outside of true worship. What a worship experience!  Did Moses see God's glory!  Yes. READ HEBREWS 11:27:   "He persevered because he saw Him who is invisible." That will change your life and help you through the tough times.  I still go to pew where God called me to Christ. Called to preach at 7...God called me to stay at Casas. George Gallup: "33% of Americans have had a supernatural experience with God but they are afraid to tell about it." Prayed to see God's Glory Story.       I was running one morning and prayed. “God, show me your glory!” Thought no more about it.        One Sunday months later and I saw a blinding light in the congregation. It was coming from a teenager near the back of the church. I told him to turn off the Flashlight. I couldn’t see my notes. A second time the bright light appeared. I told the young man to please turn off the flashlight. Finally, at the end of the service, everyone was leaving. I rushed to the young man and asked him why he was doing that. He denied it. Then I inquired, “Do you mind if I frisk you.” His parents were appalled. Mike wasn’t even a Christian. Three weeks later I received a call from his dad. Mike, the son had called him. He was weeping. He said, “I had asked God on that Sunday that if the pastor would say three things to me in the sermon, I would believe.” I tried to think of three things in the sermon that applied to me, but I couldn’t think of them. Then I realized that God had spoken to me three times during the sermon. Roger pointed to me twice and told me to turn off the flashlight. Then he came to see me after the service to find out where the flashlight was. It dawned on me, those three times were God answering my prayer. So I gave my life to Jesus.” God answered two prayers that Sunday. I prayed to see God’s glory and Mike prayed to see God speak directly to him.          Mike Blevins called dad. Asked God to have Roger speak to me three times.       Only I saw the light. I didn't recognize it. This worship center is a special place to me. INVITATION. When have you last worshipped God?  Do you have any special experiences to look back upon to give you strength in the midst of your trials?

Modern Family “Setting the Tone” Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 For every one of us here, we want to help those we love flourish in life, not hinder them. We want our key relationships, such as people we are dating, or our marriage, or our kids to be accompanied with joy, not tension. Today in this series on Modern Family we are talking about a distinctive of a home or relationship where such positive things happen. Today we are talking about the tone of our home and the tone of our key relationships. We all know that tone is important, certainly in communication. I can say the same words but communicate the opposite meaning just by changing the tone. I can say, “You’re a genius.” Or I can say, “You’re a genius.” Or, “You are so bad. You are so bad.” Or “come here,” versus, “come here.” One makes you want to run and the other makes you want to come over, just by varying the tone. I’ve recruited a volunteer to illustrate this another way, so let’s welcome ________ to the stage. I’m going to ask him/her to shoot some baskets, and if he makes at least __ baskets in 30 seconds, he’ll get this chocolate. He actually gets two tries at it. But you have a role to play in this. You as the crowd are going to set the tone, and I want Epoch and Fairview to play along, too. For the first round, I want you as a crowd to boo like crazy, make fun of him, just be jerks. For the second round, we’ll do the opposite. So, let’s do this. When I count to two, the 30 seconds will start, and I’ll need you guys to be really loud and obnoxious. (DO ROUND ONE). Now, we get to be nicer. He gets another shot at this, but this time you cheer him on and encourage him like crazy. (DO ROUND TWO and debrief). Tone matters. A huge theme of this series is that what make Christ-following homes and relationships distinctive is that we are to relate to those closest to us the same way God our Father relates to us, which is a radically different way to relate. The tone of our relationships is one of those places of radical differences, not a tone of strife and negativity but one that allows that other person to flourish. We can say all the right things and do all the right things, but if we have the wrong tone we can crush the heart of a child or choke the life out of our spouse. Today we are going to examine and apply one of the most recognizable and beautiful passages in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, as well as a passage in Romans to help reset the tone of our relationships. I’m going to read the passage first, and then we’ll talk about it and apply it, so turn with me in your Bibles or the ones under the seat in front of you to 1 Corinthians 13, and we’ll start with v. 4: Slide: ____________________) 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails... Imagine a home where love as just described set the tone of the home, and that’s what we are going to talk about and then work on this week. How do we make this the tone of our home and what would that even look like? You can follow along with me in your outline that you were given when you came in. Slide: ________________) 1) Change the Rules (Defy Gravity) There is so much in these verses, and all of us would want to relate this way and set a tone of love that was patient and kind, not easily angered and not holding grudges, and that is easy to do when the other person is doing the same thing, or when they are doing what we want them to do. It’s easy to be kind to a kind person. It’s easy to be patient with our kids when they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. That’s why even though most marriages don’t end up making it, almost all marriages make it through the honeymoon. You are in love, in an ideal environment, no pressure, no expectations of each other. You are just on the beach and in love. At some point though the honeymoon is over, and reality kicks in, and you realize that your ideal man or woman isn’t so ideal after all. Same with kids. When you first see your child, they are this completely innocent little baby and you look at them and you think, “Wow, he or she is just perfect. I can’t ever imagine this little baby causing any problems.” And then they turn two, and then they become teenagers, and doing the whole 1 Corinthians 13 thing isn’t so easy. We can talk about having a good tone when the other person is doing what we want, but why do that? Instead, I want to talk about choosing a tone of love when the other person is doing the opposite of what we think, because that’s when we typically give ourselves permission to temporarily throw this passage out of our Bibles. We are going to talk about changing the rules, defying relational gravity. By relational gravity, I’m talking about the negative spiral that naturally and immediately starts when you hurt me or wrong me or frustrate me, and then I respond in kind, and then you respond in kind, and then I do so again, and so on, and we spiral down to some pretty low places. That’s the natural thing to do. It’s relational gravity, just like when I drop this ball; it’s pretty predictable what’s going to happen. It’s not going up, it’s going down. In relationships, relational gravity is just as predictable. You hurt me, I’m going to hurt you back. You wrong me, I’m going to get even. Even if it takes awhile, I am now holding a grudge, and I’m going to make you pay. You frustrate me, and I’m going to put you back in your place. It feels like justice to do so. So, our spouse treats us badly or blows an expectation we have for them, and we react. The spiral starts going downhill. Our kid does something wrong or is disrespectful or irresponsible, and boom, there goes gravity. Once gravity starts, we feel very justified in throwing 1 Corinthians 13 out the window, and we justify being rude and impatient and unkind and being angry quickly and holding on to that anger in the form of a grudge. Yet, as Christ-followers we are called to respond in a very different way that breaks the cycle and sets a whole different tone in that home or that relationship. We choose to love at all times. Romans 12:21 tells us how to respond when someone wrongs or frustrates us: Slide: ___________________) Romans 12:21 (NIV) Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. You choose to break the laws of relational gravity and overcome evil with good, you respond to wrong with right, you choose love always. So, if someone acts immature or foolish or hurtful, you don’t respond in kind. You don’t sink to that level. You don’t let that set the tone. Instead, you break the spiral and respond with love. That’s not easy to do though. It’s amazing what a spouse or a child can do to you, how easily you can sink to the level of a two year old or a 16 year old. Someone told me this week that as they were driving home from church, this mom and her teenage daughter pulled up next to them at a light, and they were arguing in the car, and the mom was just going off on her kid, who I’m sure frustrated the heck out of her. Soon, the mom threw something at her daughter, which I’m sure felt good at the moment. I’ve been there. They then drove away, and guess what was on the back of their car? A Chase Oaks sticker. One of us! Because we’ve all been there. It could have been me, but I’m not a mom and I don’t have a daughter. Hey, if you have toddlers or teenagers, you’ve done the gravity thing too. It’s natural. Proverbs 29:22 says, Slide: ____________________) Proverbs 29:22 (NIV) An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins. Anger is maybe the biggest reason we choose sin over love, and allow relational gravity to do its evil work. In an angry moment, I can justify a toxic tone and violating love feels right. And our lives are so stressful that it makes all this even easier to get it wrong. In the moment, it feels so right but in the aftermath we realize our oops after the damage is done. You can probably all remember something someone you love said to you in anger that hurt you. It may have been 30 years ago, but you still remember it. You can probably remember things you’ve done or said in anger that wounded too. So easy to jettison 1 Corinthians 13 when we get frustrated or angry, but we have to learn the opposite response, and choose to overcome evil with good. We may have to call a time out and go to separate corners before responding to each other when we are mad. That’s fine. But so much damage happens when we are frustrated, and the gravity spiral leads to soul damage and relational damage 100% of the time. Instead, choose to break the laws of relational gravity that allows you to respond to evil with good. You can still speak the truth about how you feel and correct a wrong attitude or action. You just speak the truth in love, as Ephesians says. Rather than being rude and angry and spiteful, you choose to be patient and kind and respectful. As a Christ-follower, you’ve got to be the one to break the downward spiral so that the tone of the home isn’t ruined, so that hearts don’t get crushed, so that regrets don’t build, and so that you don’t shut down the willingness of your kid or teenager to communicate with you or open up to you in the future. In that tense moment, you choose to overcome evil with good. Slide: ___________________) 2) Believe the Best (Defy Logic) What I’m about to say does defy logic. It isn’t necessarily rational, but it is a choice that love makes that changes the whole tone of a home or a marriage. These next couple of verses in 1 Corinthians 13 are just crazy verses, and when people describe love as making you crazy, this is a great illustration of that. Let’s look at 13:7, and this is one crazy passage: Slide: ___________________) 1 Corinthians 13:7 (NIV) [Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Notice the repetition of “always” here. This is what love does. It always protects, believes, hopes, and perseveres. The New American Standard translation reads: bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Another way to say this is that love is incredibly generous toward the other person, always. Love chooses to believe all things and hope all things. Love chooses to believe the best, to see the other person through the lens of incredible generosity and just assume that if you don’t know the motives of the other person, that they are probably really great. Love sets this crazy, generous tone that says, “I believe you. I trust you. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m always holding out hope for you.” That is a very different tone than most marriages and in most parent-child relationships. Rather than a negative, mistrusting, I’ve got to watch you all the time because you are so messed up tone, it is just this positive, trusting, “I am for you and I believe in you” tone that sometimes defies logic. Let’s talk about how this generous tone craziness affects marriage. A few years ago I read a book by Marcus Buckingham, who wrote Now Discover Your Strengths and other best-selling books. This one was called, The One Thing You Need to Know. Although the book is not about marriage, he illustrates the one thing you need to know at the beginning of the book with an illustration that comes out of one of the largest marriage studies ever done. This marriage study was a study done on hundreds of marriages of ten years plus that by various standards were good marriages, to find what these good marriages had in common. They found one primary common denominator, and the finding blew all their expectations out of the water. None of them expected that to be the one thing they all had in common. They assumed that these marriages would be couples who had a very accurate and realistic view of each other, and had realistic expectations of that other person based on those. That love is not blind for these couples, but highly informed. What they found was the opposite. What they found was that for these couples, love is blind. They irrationally see the other person as being much better than they are, and they treat them accordingly. They choose to believe the best. Here’s the way Buckingham worded it: Slide: ____________________) The one thing: Find the most generous explanation for each other’s behavior and believe it. The one thing was an overly generous view of their partner that caused them to interpret everything through that positive lens. They just refused to go negative. When they described their partner, they were irrationally generous and worded their weaknesses as strengths. So her husband was not impatient, he was intense. His wife was not lazy but laid-back and fun-loving. He was not insensitive, but highly-focused. They focused on the positive and chose always to believe the best. They chose a positive tone for the marriage that allowed trust and love to then flourish. They were for each other. The same is true in parenting. Massive amounts of research have demonstrated the reality of self-fulfilling prophecies in child- raising, how we create in our kids what we believe our kids are and are becoming. Our kids become what they feel we think they are. If that means we think they are a pain in the rear, that’s what they will become. Or, on the positive side, if they feel our belief in them, they tend to rise to that level of belief. In the biblical era, one way that this was communicated was through names. When people named their children, they did so carefully and the names meant something. Names like “faithful,” and “God is my focus.” Not, klutz or moron. An interesting Bible study is to look at names of Bible characters, and you see how these people actually grow into their names, so much so that sometimes you think the Bible had to cheat...that they had to be named after they grew up, not before. Just think about how God fathers us, how he views us. He does so with a generous, positive tone. The Bible says that God delights in us multiple times. One of the more dramatic verses is in a song we sometimes sing about God dancing and singing over his children with delight, from Zephaniah. God is patient with us, as Psalm 103 so eloquently says: Slide: ____________________) Psalm 103:13-14 (NIV) As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. He believes in us, and focuses on our strengths, not our weaknesses. The Bible emphasizes our gifts, not our deficiencies, which means we should do the same with our own kids. Our kids should feel the same. They should never feel like an object of our disgust, but of our delight, not our shame but our pride, not our pain but our pleasure. That’s true even in discipline, which we will talk about next week. This sets the tone of our discipline, so that rather than words or a tone that communicates, “You are such a screw up. You always do the wrong thing and you never choose what’s right,” you change the tone. It’s more, “I love your strong will, but this time you chose to cross a line that I can’t let you cross without consequences.” The point here is to have an overly generous view of our kids that sets a positive tone of belief, and that is rare. Of all the things I am thankful for in my life, near the very top is how my parents did this for me. I have said this before, but I cannot remember one second in my life where I doubted the fact that my parents love me and believe in me and are cheering me on in life. That foundation is one that I do not take for granted, and one that I certainly want to give my own kids as their dad. We take Collin to college this week, and when he is going to bed in his dorm room (same with Caleb), I want him to go to sleep with the reality that his mom and dad treasure him and believe in him and are cheering him on in life to do what God has put him on this planet to do. We can say those words to our kids, but if the tone in which we relate with them doesn’t match, it renders the words hollow. A negative, suspicious, condescending tone robs our kids and teenagers of dignity, and they will struggle with a low self- esteem or they will get as far away from us as quickly as they can to get out of the toxic environment our negative tone creates. So, how would you describe the tone you set as a husband or wife in your marriage? What would your spouse say? How about the tone you set with your kids? What would your kids say? For some of you, we actually asked your kids last week in Kidzone and made a video of their responses. We got some pretty shocking responses, so I hope you won’t be too embarrassed, but go ahead and show the video. I’m kidding. Wouldn’t do that to you, and we all have our less than perfect moments on this tone thing. Yet, this is one we need to get right. You and I, as parents, are the ones who are responsible for the tone in our home, not our kids. For kids to flourish, that tone must be one of unwavering belief in them. Slide: ___________________) 3) Keep on Loving (Defy entropy) The last little statement in 1 Corinthians 13 is a good statement for us to go home with: Love never fails. Love doesn’t quit, even when it gets hard. It just keeps on going. Love always holds out hope, grace, and forgiveness. One of the most biblically important concepts about God as our father is an Old Testament, Hebrew word, pronounced hesed , and often translated “lovingkindness” or “unending love” in some translations. It is God choosing to love us with a never ending love. His love never exhausts. He just keeps loving, regardless of our performance. For you and me as parents, we must love the same way, but that isn’t easy. Marriage and parenting can be really exhausting, and therefore maintaining a 1 Corinthians 13 tone in our home can be easy for a little while to maintain, but hard over a long period of time. For this to happen, it means we must stay close to God and we must manage our own lives well. Staying close to God, in his Word, in prayer, keeps us in touch with his delight in us, how he loves us, which then helps us treat others the same way. He also empowers us to keep us going. Managing our own lives well is also so important, because stress is not a friend to a healthy tone in the home. We need to manage our stress and those things that stress us out so that we can be loving. The other night I came in from a day where I had meetings from 8 in the morning to ten at night, and after 14 hours of meetings, I was spent and stressed and I was one grumpy guy by the time I got home. And that was my fault for not managing my day better than I did. I could have managed it better, to insert a little bit of rest or recreation into it so that I could be more effective in those meetings and more loving at home, but I didn’t. So, I was kind of a jerk. Every once in a while, that’s going to happen, but I sure don’t want it to be my pattern. I don’t want it to be the way my kids describe me one day to their kids. We need to stay close to God and manage our lives well if we are going to be spouses and parents who foster a good tone in the home; otherwise, it won’t happen. Where is your stress level right now? How could you manage your life better, in a way that makes you far more effective at setting the kind of tone that helps a family flourish and not falter? This week we realized that our main air-conditioning unit is going out, which is not good in 110 degree weather. Nor is it good for our pocketbook. Between car expenses and this, so far life is not making our Go Boldly commitment easy, but that’s okay; God will provide what we need to be faithful to that. But on the house, what I want is to be able to come in and set the thermometer to a healthy temperature, one where we can flourish as a family. So, on this tone element, picture yourself looking at the thermostat now, and what is the temperature of your home? What is the tone you are setting? To get more specific, let’s review the message: First, defying relational gravity. How are you doing there? This week, make a choice to stop the negative spiral and choose to overcome evil with good. Choose to respond with kindness, and patience, and respect. Don’t sink below the level of what love would do. How about defying logic with how we view our kids? Are you irrationally generous in the way you see your kids in a way that comes across in your parenting of them? Do they believe you believe in them completely, trust them, choose to believe the best when you don’t know what’s going on? And last, are you defying entropy by leaning on God to love well and lead your home with a healthy tone? Great questions as we go to God in prayer. This week, let’s ask for God’s help in changing the tone of our home. www.chaseoakschurch.org

MESSAGE SUMMARY One of the most used (if not  over used) terms of our culture is the term  dysfunctional . It has become the chic descriptor of flawed and broken people and especially families. Too often this expression is used as an excuse to justify bad behaviors in other people. But this story of Jacob and Laban yields much insight into human behavior as well as divine intervention. Here we discover three levels of relational interaction and family dynamics. STUDY GUIDE Connect Recap Notes: June 3, 2018 Speaker: Skip Heitzig Teaching: "Families Are Dysfunctional... but God" Text: Genesis 31 PATH One of the most used (if not overused) terms of our culture is the word dysfunctional. It has become the chic descriptor of flawed and broken people and especially families. Too often this expression is used as an excuse to justify bad behaviors in other people. But this story of Jacob and Laban yields much insight into human behavior as well as divine intervention. Here we discover three levels of relational interaction and family dynamics. I. Every Family Is Dysfunctional (vv. 1-2) II. God Can Function in Dysfunction (v. 3)  III. Growth Is Seeing God Instead of Dysfunction (vv. 4-11) Points Every Family is Dysfunctional (vv. 1-2) Families are like fudge: they're mostly sweet but sprinkled with a few nuts. You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family --- but you can choose to adjust to your family. In Genesis 31, we find two dysfunctional families --- Jacob's and Laban's. Consider the family of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham: His parents played favorites. Esau and Jacob were twins: Esau was born first, but Jacob had grabbed Esau's heel at birth, a symbol of reversed birth order and blessing. God said Esau would serve Jacob, but their father, Isaac, preferred Esau and fought against God's prediction. Jacob connived and deceived and ultimately tricked Esau out of his birthright for a mere bowl of stew. When Isaac was old, Jacob and his mother, Rebekah, conspired to deceive Isaac into blessing Jacob. As a result, Jacob had to flee Esau's wrath and was sent away to his uncle Laban's house. Consider Laban's dysfunction: Laban was a master deceiver. He had promised Jacob his daughter, Rachel, in marriage, but on their wedding night, Laban switched Rachel for his older daughter, Leah. Jacob had two wives, two surrogate (concubine) wives, lots of kids, and many problems. Every person --- and every family --- has issues. We are all dysfunctional. The culprit is sin which affects every person and every family. Jesus described humans as poor, brokenhearted, captives, blind and oppressed (see Luke 4:18). Probe: If you're comfortable sharing, describe some of the dysfunctional aspects of the family you grew up in. How did you cope with the dysfunction? God Can Function in Dysfunction (v. 3) A dysfunctional family never stopped God from blessing a family and working through them. Our perfect God uses imperfect people; our holy God works through unholy people. There is no other kind of people for Him to use.. Amid dysfunction, God spoke to Jacob and Laban. God did not withhold truth until Jacob got it together or got past his dysfunction. God spoke and led despite imperfect relationships and circumstances. Taking failure as the final word is to fail. To grow, we must learn from failure. Don't let your failure define you; make your failure serve you. God reserves the right to use people who disagree with us and don't like us. God uses as He chooses. Probe: Share a time when God worked through a dysfunctional situation in your life. What were the circumstances? How did God work despite them? Growth Is Seeing God Instead of Dysfunction (vv. 4-11) Jacob grew. He included God in his situation and acted. He gathered his family together to discuss the problems. He was honest and candid. He revealed a new way of seeing, of processing evil and pain. Jacob wore a new set of glasses with lenses that focused on God, not garbage: but God bifocals. Jacob knew that bad things happen, but he set his gaze on God. Jacob's actions revealed: God's presence (v. 5): When life gets weird, it's easy to feel like God has abandoned you, but He doesn't. He is right there with you. God's protection (v. 7): "…but God did not allow him to hurt me." God's partnership (v. 9): God gave Jacob a new life. Jacob looked at God, who functioned despite dysfunction. Other biblical heroes also wore but God bifocals: Joseph: "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good…" (Genesis 50:20). David: "David stayed in…the wilderness…. Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hand" (1 Samuel 23:14). Ezra: "They refused to obey…. But You are God…" (Nehemiah 9:17). Paul: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God…" (Romans 8:28). The right glasses let you see the divine hand; they pull back the curtain of God's providence. No matter how bad things have been, don't let dysfunction define you; God is able to function in your dysfunction. Probe: What steps can you take to put on a new set of glasses—but God bifocals—and step away from dysfunction? Focus on the Family counselor Tim Sanford recommends these steps: become aware, take ownership, purposefully observe, educate ourselves about dysfunction, evaluate relationships, read Proverbs, practice healthy living, and be patient.1 What else can you think of? Practice Connect Up: The Christian life has three stages: justification (salvation), sanctification (being conformed into the image of Christ), and glorification (going home to the Lord upon death)—all part of His desire for us to overcome our dysfunction. How can we better partner with God in the sanctification process, turning dysfunction into function, and clothing ourselves with the character of Christ? Read Colossians 3:12-17 for insight. Connect In: Though we wish it wasn't, the church is full of dysfunctional people, at times mimicking a biological family. How are we to handle one another when dysfunction arises within the church? Read and discuss these verses: Matthew 18:15-20; Philippians 2:1-4; James 4:7-12. Connect Out: How would you explain to an unbeliever the fact that saved people are still sinners (see 1 John 1:10), at times acting dysfunctional? How would you share the process of going from spiritual dysfunction to function via the gospel? Tim Sanford, "Eight Steps to Break Up a Cycle of Family Dysfunction," May 19, 2014, http://www.boundless.org/adulthood/2014/8-steps-to-break-a-cycle-of-family-dysfunction , accessed 06/03/18. DETAILED NOTES I. Introduction A. You can't choose your family, but you can choose to adjust to and add positivity to your family B. The term dysfunctional family has been used since the 1960s to describe families that have problems that follow children into the next generation C. Dysfunctional is overused, but dysfunction is pervasive II. Every Family Is Dysfunctional (vv. 1-2) A. Genesis 27-33 chronicles one messed up family: Jacob, his wives Rachel and Leah, and his father-in-law, Laban B. Jacob both came from and married into a dysfunctional family 1. Dysfunctional people tend to attract dysfunctional people 2. Jacob and Laban were two peas in a dysfunctional pod C. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are biblical heroes, but lying and deception was practiced and passed on for generations 1. Jacob's parents played favorites: Isaac preferred Esau; Rebekah preferred Jacob (see Genesis 25:28) 2. God predicted Esau, the oldest, would serve Jacob, the youngest (see Genesis 25:23); Isaac fought against God's prediction 3. Jacob connived, deceived, and tricked Esau out of his birthright in exchange for a bowl of stew (see Genesis 25:29-33) 4. When Isaac was old, Jacob and Rebekah conspired to deceive Isaac into giving Jacob his blessing (see Genesis 27) D. Jacob fell in love with Rachel, whose father, Laban, was a master deceiver (see Genesis 29:18-28) 1. Laban forced Jacob to work for him for seven years in order to marry Rachel 2. On their wedding night, Laban switched Rachel for his older daughter, Leah 3. Jacob worked seven more years for Laban to finally marry Rachel E. Jacob had two wives, two concubine wives, lots of kids, and many problems F. Every human has their issues that affect their family and the family they marry into 1. We don't function the way God intended 2. Dysfunction is the result of sin (see I Corinthians 15:21) 3. Even the church is dysfunctional 4. Jesus described humans as poor, brokenhearted, captives, blind, and oppressed (see Luke 4:18) III. God Can Function in Dysfunction (v. 3) A. A dysfunctional family never stopped God from functioning, blessing, or working through that family 1. God spoke to Jacob (see v. 3) 2. God spoke to Laban (see v. 24) B. Perfect God works through and uses imperfect people; Holy God speaks to and works through unholy people 1. There is no other kind of people for Him to use (see I Corinthians 1:27) 2. Peter failed; Moses failed; David failed; Abraham failed; Isaac and Jacob failed 3. Taking failure as the final word is to fail; learning from failure is to grow 4. Don't let your failure define you --- make your failure serve you C. God reserves the right to use people who disagree with you, who don't like you IV. Growth Is Seeing God Instead of Dysfunction (vv. 4-11) A. Jacob demonstrated real spiritual growth (see vv. 4-8) 1. He included God in his situation 2. He gathered his family together to discuss the problems; he was honest and candid 3. candid He revealed a new way of seeing, of processing evil and pain; the lens through which he now viewed his life and events was but God bifocals 4. He acknowledged God's presence (see v. 5), God's protection (see v. 7), and God's partnership (see v. 9) B. Jacob saw the functioning God rather than the dysfunction around him C. Other biblical heroes also wore but God bifocals 1. Joseph (see Genesis 50:20) 2. David (see I Samuel 23:14) 3. Ezra (see Nehemiah 9:17) 4. Paul (see Romans 8:28) V. Closing A. But God bifocals let you see the divine hand; they pull back the curtain of providence B. Let's interpret life through the lens of but God bifocals C. God is never intimidated by our flaws of failures; He can match all our dysfunction with His faithfulness D. The gospel --- the cross --- is the greatest example of how God functions in our dysfunction Figures referenced: James Montgomery Boice, George Burns, Richard Carl Hoefler, J.I. Packer, George Bernard Shaw Cross references: Genesis 25:23, 28, 29-33; 27; 29:18-28; 31; 50:20; 1 Samuel 23:14; Nehemiah 9:17; Luke 4:18; Romans 8:28; 1 Corinthians 1:27; 15:21 Topic: Family Keywords: birthright, blessing, deceive, dysfunctional, failure, family, providence

Following Jesus as an act of resistance to our cultural push toward hurry, hustle, distraction and shallowness. Most of our greatest mistakes tend to come when we’re in a hurry. Maybe the life Jesus invites us to is to move more at the pace of grace. We are not anti-work, we are anti-hurry. As followers of Jesus, we're called to walk in the way of love and one simply can not love in a hurry. Join us as we seek to slow down. We’ll lean into some practices and rhythms that help us live unhurried, so we can actually build up our life with God and others. As followers of Christ, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives." –Dallas Willard To live more unhurried...to move more at the pace of grace. To continue to put roots down into the practical nature of what it means to align ourselves with Jesus, his teachings and his rhythms/practices — SO THAT we grow to be more and more like him... The practices of slowing, of simplicity, of solitude and silence — the more you lean into them will craft your soul and cultivate your heart to reflect more of Jesus - that’s part of that great invitation of Jesus... Practicing the life rhythms of my Savior, with HELP from my Savior, will actually enable me to live more like my Savior. Matthew 11:28-30 NIV 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Quote: “It’s because it kills love that hurry is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life. Hurry lies behind much of the anger and frustration of modern life. –John Ortberg Hurriedness leads us into reactionary living & selfish living, but living unhurried – frees us to respond intentionally and lovingly. Q) Do you know the most described emotion of Jesus we see in the Scriptures? Exodus 34:5-8 5 The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed his name, “the Lord.” 6 The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, 7 maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished...8 Moses immediately knelt low on the ground and worshiped. Psalm 103:8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. Matthew 9:35-36 35 Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. if this is the most described emotion of Jesus — the real question must become: is this the most described emotion of his followers? Of you? WE see in the life of Jesus dazzling displays of empathy and compassion... Empathy is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another. Empathy is the ability to feel what someone else feels, to exit our own feelings and enter the experiences of others. Thus, empathy is the ability to see the world through others' pain. Compassion is the outworking of empathy. In a culture that cultivates empathy and compassion, people will not be made to feel invisible - they will be seen and heard. WE must become people and a church - a place where people are seen and heard. Where love notices and responds and that people feel it. We must develop an “empathy radar” with an instinctive bias toward acts of grace, peace, mercy, and goodness for everyone. Empathy notices Compassion responds 4 practices to grow in compassion: Remembering the compassion we received. Mark 5:18-20 NKJV 18 And when He got into the boat, he who had been demon-possessed begged Him that he might be with Him. 19 However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.” 20 And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled. 4 practices to grow in compassion: Remembering the compassion we received. Listening “Ask 1 more question” principle — listening might be the superpower the world needs more of... Rejoicing and Mourning (see Romans 12:15) Serving Acts 20:35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” We must become more like Jesus - deliberately cultivating Compassion Don’t grow old and grow grumpy -- grow in compassion like Christ. Truth: The greatest apologetic for our theology is the way we treat people. Unless, of course, we act like a jerk. Then, the greatest threat to our theology is the way we treat people. Quote: "As followers of Christ, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives." –Dallas Willard

Luke 15:11-32; Genesis 2-3 •SLIDE #1: (Slide of Prodigal son as soon as offering special concludes and I walk to the pulpit.) •BUILD SLIDE #2A: Most people love Christmas time. People love the hype—joy—families—gifts •BUILD SLIDE #2B: But not everyone will enjoy this Christmas. Some will experience it alone. We received several emails this week from lonely singles. One newly divorced: “I dread enduring this holiday, alone.” Aloneness reaches deep into the inner recesses of the human heart. No one likes to be alone. •SLIDE #3: I was flying recently to Orlando: girl on airplane: Celestine Prophecy: spiritual search. Why? Stillborn baby: I am going to tell you what she said, it is integral to the story. Comfort Catholics. What I am about to share happens at times in every church. RCC priest refused to baptize child. “I am so sorry.” Comforted her. She broke from anger to hurt to sorrow. “Four miscarriages.” What do you think I am thinking? (Don’t try any more.) No. I’m thinking, “I bet she endured all four miscarriages alone. We husbands can be so clueless. So, I said to her, “I bet he had no idea what you were going through. You carried that baby. You were already getting close to that child. Your husband just kind of blew it off. He had no idea what you were going through.” She got real quiet. “I am so sorry.” Comforted her. What was I doing? “I was ministering to her aloneness. She endured some of life’s toughest events—alone. Ministering to people’s aloneness reaches to the deepest recesses of the human heart. •BUILD SLIDE #4A: Genesis 3, Adam fell and God dealt with fallenness: “I will send a savior to die in your place in payment for your sins.” •BUILD SLIDE #4B: Before God ever ministered to Man’s fallenness, He first ministered to Man’s aloneness in Genesis 2. •SLIDE #5: Adam was alone and “it is not good to be alone.” The struggle with aloneness is a big deal. We fight it throughout our entire lifetimes. •SLIDE #6: STORY of kid in airport in Orlando. Mom with 5-year-old and two year old toddler. Put them in play area with tv. Hear them playing and singing along with tv children’s video. Suddenly, this piercing voice, “Mommy? Mommy!?? Mommy!!!!!” Came running from the play area. He realized he was alone and he didn’t like it. •SLIDE #7: See him grow up to teenage years. He still won’t like to be alone. Why do teenagers congregate in cliques? They don’t want to be alone. They will even see another teenager hurting and alone and they will even join with their clique in ostracizing and teasing mercilessly another if that is what the group does, just to stay part of the group—so deep is the need not to be alone. •SLIDE #8: I imagined him 80 years from now, old and frail, and his children sit down with him and say, “Dad, it is time to put you in a nursing home.” Sorrow, he is going to be alone. It is not good to be alone. •SLIDE #9: Let me tell you the natural, human response to loneliness. Self Reliance: “I am alone, well, I can make it on my own. I don’t have any needs and if I do I will take care of them myself, thank you.” Self condemnation: “I am not good enough to have any friends. No wonder no one likes me.” Selfishness: “I have needs and to meet those needs I am going to take from you.” •SLIDE #10: Let me show you something else. This is also what fallenness looks like. It looks just like our natural response to our aloneness: Self Reliance; Self condemnation; and Selfishness. •SLIDE #11: The human response to loneliness of Genesis 2 looks just like the manifestation of our Fallen sin nature in Genesis 3. This stuff is all over the Bible. •SLIDE #12: This is why the fallenness of sin is so terrible. It isolates us from God and from others. It makes us alone. The story of the Prodigal Son, the Elder Brother and their Dad is a story of self-reliance, self- condemnation and selfishness which brought loneliness and isolation among people who longed to enjoy closeness, support and companionship. READ Luke 15:11-12: Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. •SLIDE #13: What symptom of fallenness do we see here in the younger son? “Give me” is selfishness. This reminds me of the man at Casas who won a trip for two to Hawaii and was so selfish that he went twice. What does this selfishness produce? (pause) Aloneness. How do you think the father felt? Father’s feelings: “Dad, I wish you were dead.” Talk about separation. Now the boy is alone and the dad is very much alone. STORY of selfish man at MacDonald’s at breakfast. Noticed couple coming in. Shabby dress. Looked for coins in telephone, and newspaper box. Man enters. Couple looking at menu and I hear him say, “Well, get out of the way. If you don’t know how to get in line, I do. I have to go to work and you don’t look like you are going anywhere. I don’t have all day.” “Well, I guess, I don’t have anything much to do today.” Silence in the room. Total separation. Sensed that the man was very much alone. “You look like you’ve had a hard morning. May, I buy your breakfast?” I was ministering to his aloneness. Was the selfish man alone? Yes. I was too angry at the moment to minister to his aloneness. He was hurting, too. Selfishness is a terrible thing. READ Luke 15: 13-15: "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. •SLIDE #14: What is this? Self-reliance. Neediness presented itself so Prodigal handled it with self-reliance. Lost it all, “I will get a job and take care of this.” Taken to its ultimate end, self-reliance produces extreme aloneness. Self reliant people won’t let you minister to their needs and they become very insensitive and intolerant of other people’s neediness. They end up very alone. Julie and I were in Albany NY several months ago leading a conference for pastor’s and wives on how to heal the hurts of ministry. One pastor’s wife was hurting and very alone. Handled her hurt and loneliness by self-reliance. She had recently written a poem about her feelings toward life. Based on Beatitudes. •SLIDE #15: Blessed are the poor in spirit. No, Blessed are the strong, who are always in control and never show weakness. •SLIDE #16: Blessed are those who mourn, No, Blessed are those who deny their pain and deaden their hearts—they need no comfort. •SLIDE #17: Blessed are the meek. No, Blessed are the survivors who need no one and depend only on themselves. •SLIDE #18: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, No, Blessed are those who have killed their longings, who no longer have any expectations---nothing will disappoint them. •SLIDE #19: Blessed are the merciful, No, Blessed are those who have minimized the damage in their soul so that there is no need for mercy or forgiveness for “nothing bad really happened.” •SLIDE #20: Blessed are the peacemakers, No, Blessed are those who keep the peace at any cost (even to the peril of their own soul) so that conflict, self-revelation and the possibility of rejection is avoided at all costs. What do you say to a woman like that? Fortunately, I know what to say. We will talk about that on January 2 as we enter the new millennium. READ Luke 15:16-19: He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' •SLIDE #21: What is this? Self-condemnation. Slopping pigs: “My father’s hired hands do better than this. But I am not worthy...” is self condemnation. •SLIDE #26: READ Luke 15:20a: So he got up and went to his father. Picture the Prodigal: Selfishness failed. Self-reliance was a disaster. “I am not worthy.” Utterly defeated. Completely humiliated. Utterly alone. It doesn’t get any lower than this. Close eyes and allow the Lord to identify you with the Prodigal in your self-reliance, selfishness, and self- condemnation. He imagines in his mind his father’s response. Accusations: Where have you been? What have you done? What happened to the Money? Endless questions. Comparisons between him and his elder brother. Scolding and shaming him for all his sins Now, look up here: What sets us free, folks, is the prodigal’s next experience: So much dysfunctional views of God that we don’t have the right view of the Father. •SLIDE #27: Look at the dad with outstretched arms. READ Luke 15:20: "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Picture the Father as he comes running off the front porch, arms outstretched, wounded side, nail prints. Runs to embrace. This is the picture Jesus gives us of the dad when we have allowed self-reliance, selfishness, and self- condemnation to make us prodigal. READ Luke 15:21-24: “The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. Father hardly heard the words. Best robe, probably had it made up for him. Symbolic reminder. Never thought he’d use it. Sandals: he had no shoes. Ring for finger Feast: hungry. This is how God accepts us back. If we see this picture with awe and wonder we can be free from self- reliance, selfishness, and self-condemnation. •SLIDE #28: Meanwhile, all is not well at home. READ Luke 15: 25-28: "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. READ Luke 15:29-30: But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' •SLIDE #29: Father’s response: “But you had me.” READ Luke 15:31-32: "My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." He wanted a relationship with his dad and never saw it. If you look closely you will see again the problem of aloneness and fallenness with the elder brother: He was blinded by self-reliance, self-condemnation and selfishness. Glenn will deal with the elder brother next week. Let me go just a little deeper here. Reflect on the hurting heart of God. •SLIDE #30: Here is a picture of Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal. Now, his younger son has come home; it is time for rejoicing —and the elder brother stands by in anger and isolation—and the Father has to rejoice (what?) alone. It is time to minister to his long-lost, son—and He has to minister (what?) alone. This is why he pleaded with the elder brother to come to the party. He did not want to minister alone. I want to read a poem written by my youngest child when she was in middle school. We found it on the floor one day after she had gone to school. It absolutely broke our hearts. It expresses the loneliness, isolation, self-condemnatory rejection felt by millions of Americans: •SLIDE #22: People come and people go, But never get attached “Cause usu’lly by the time you do They drop you down the hatch. •SLIDE #23: People only care about what you wear As stupid people do, But they never look inside of you To see the real, true you. •SLIDE #24: Older sisters let you know How awful that they feel But sometimes it is in a way That shoots straight for the kill. •SLIDE #25: I know that life is full of twists and turns And the occasional little loop, But I feel I have to tell you That I really feel like poop.” We were so busy that we had not seen this? Well, we knew she was hurting. Middle school is a tough time for a girl. God said, “Roger, I really want to minister to Bronwyn. Do you believe that?” “Yes, God.” “Well, Roger, too often I feel like I have to minister to her alone. I need you to help me.” Changed my whole view of parenting. My biggest job as a parent is to minister to her aloneness. When she called, we answered. Spent hundreds of hours with her. Now doing well in Germany. “I miss you, you and mom are my best friends.” Imagine God is wanting to minister to your wife, child, co-worker and there we stand by in criticism and judgment and isolation. God says, “You know what is breaking my heart? I want to minister to your wife, husband, children, friends, but, I am having to do this alone. I am pleading with you to help me. •SLIDE #31: You know God wanted to minister to that alone child in the airport in Orlando. He did not want to do it alone. He needed a mommy. •SLIDE #32: You know God wanted to minister to the aloneness of the spiritually searching girl on the airplane—but He was having a hard time doing it alone. “Roger, why don’t you minister to her aloneness and then introduce her to Me again.” When I ministered to the aloneness of the girl on the airplane, I had an open door to address her isolation from the father. I came down with the resurrection. Reached right into her heart. •SLIDE #33: There will be many lonely people this Christmas: Don’t let them spend Christmas alone. •SLIDE #27: When we see the Father’s heart, we can be fully and forever free of our self-reliance, selfishness, and self-condemnation.