Acts 13:1-4; Acts 13:37; 1 Chronicles 16:24

We're on the final stretch here. I woke up this morning so relieved. I feel like I've already made it. even though we have the rest of today to go. Yesterday was a tough day for me. But being on the last day is surprisingly encouraging and energizing. If you've made it this far then you have every reason to rejoice in the Lord and we'll finish strong together today, and worship the Lord tomorrow morning together. I can't wait.

Okay, but we still have today and we don't want to just get through it. We want to sprint through the finish. And our missions partners need that from us. That's our focus today. Our local and global missionaries, and the churches and pastors we partner with around the world. This includes Tyler Hoitsma (Upper90), Matt and Stacey Anderson (YoungLife), Aaron and Kristi Wheaton (Light up Burkina), Joel and Angel Ballew (South American Mission), and Michael and Maegan Cody (Campus Outreach). These are the missionaries we support who minister around here and abroad.

Our church partners include Felix and Priscilla Kambou in Burkina Faso, Edison and Meredit Florez in Santa Marta, Colombia; Juan and Angie Hernendez in Baranquilla, Colombia; and Eduardo and Edna Fergusson in Riohacha, Colombia. You can visit the Generations App and click on the Prayer tab to see the most recent updates for everyone of these partners how we can be praying for them. I would love for us all to take the time throughout today to intercede for these dear brothers and sisters and partners in the gospel.

What a privilege it is for us all to part of GOd's work in these other places through all these ministries. Our giving, our relational support and our prayers really matter here. I would ask us all, as we pray today, to take the time to send at least one of these partners an email or text for encouragement. They surely need it. 

Then tonight, we have our last night of prayer from 7-8:30 at the church. Hopefully you can join us for a little bit of worship and prayer.    

1 Corinthians 12::12-31; Romans 12:6-13; John 13:12-15

TGIF. At this point, you're close enough to the end that you taste whatever it is that you are fasting from or that you crave. Maybe your like me and everything  you see at this point looks and smells amazing. Seems like "The Sampler" is the way to go on Sunday wherever you might eat. Eating is great. And eating what I want and like is greater. But Jesus is better.

Food is a favorite of life for me. I love to eat a good meal. Heck, I love a mediocre snack. And eating is of course necessary and good. But part of what this week is teaching me at the heart level is that our need for Jesus is much deeper. Our union with Christ is more nurturing. Abiding in Christ and enjoying fellowship with Christ is more satisfying. Here's the thing... we don't have to choose between those two things. We can, if we will, press into Jesus all the time while enjoying 3 meals a day. Fasting though, especially prolonged fasting, acquaints us with physical hunger in order to nurture in us a spiritual hunger. One of most important factors in abiding in Christ is desire. And as we often say, on our we don't even want the right things. I wonder if this week you're frustrated that you haven't felt more intensely or deeply connected to Jesus. It's possible that the Lord still is using the week to create and cultivate a desire for him, and for communion with him that wasn't there before. That's not nothing. In fact, that's huge. The Lord IS at work. Let's keep going. Two more days.

Our prayer focus today is for our worship and tech team and the leaders of our discipling environments: our classes, community groups and cohorts. I'm so grateful for those whom God has brought to and positioned to serve in these ways. We're all better for it. I'm closer to Jesus because of those who serve us in these areas. What a blessing.  

Our texts are beautiful today too. Seriously. Please read them. 1 Corinthians 12 is something everyone of us needs to read or here and internalize personally and in regard to everyone in our church family. It insists on the indispensability of every member, even especially that of those whom we might perceive, or who perceive of themselves, as unimportant. Paul insists the often overlooked are essential to the health of the body of Christ. We believe 1 Corinthians 12 thoroughly. You matter to Jesus. And you matter to this church big time.

I referred yesterday to Romans 12 where Paul tells us to outdo one another in showing honor. That passage is among our texts for today to. Yesterday I suggested we honor people that have poured into us and helped shape us, or those who have entrusted us with influence. It would be worth praying about how you can honor someone today who the Lord brings to mind, just for being faithful in non-recognized ways. Jesus honors those who take the place. We tend to ignore those people. Today, let's take Jesus seriously enough to the point that we affirm people who quiet, under-the-radar service makes a real difference and who may not be explicitly appreciated often enough. Fasting, as Caleb and I discussed on the podcast this week, is partly to make our hearts more aware of the people and needs around us so that we would move toward others. This is a small but meaningful way to do just that.

That brings me to the last passage. John 13. Jesus washing the disciples feet. And then telling us to go and do likewise. He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." (John 13:16-17) This is the King of Kings condescending to the place of the lowliest servant. And then calling us to follow him into that posture and that practice. Here's the question that I'd love with us to wrestle with today. How does Jesus want me to take the low place?

This cannot be confined to an internal posture. Foot washing is an outward, demonstrable expression. Our instinct and our world compel us to always be looking for a place of recognition, a place of stature and a place of honor. Jesus is calling us in very practical, every day ways to a lived humility through tangible acts of service which are self-denying and others-honoring. This is essential to following Jesus. We must follow him to the low place. The low place is the place of blessing.

So, at home with your roommates or family; at work with your colleagues, employees or higher-ups; with your church family; in your neighborhood; anywhere else you're involved with people; even particularly in environments where you are a measure of leadership and status; what will you do today and what practices might you need to adopt more consistently which follow Jesus to the place? I pray the Spirit gives us clear steps in this direction and that we'll have the courage to obey. 

Titus 2:1-15; Acts 20:28-30; 1 Peter 5:1-4

We're turning the corner today and over half way home. I am praying for us all, that the Lord would be found by us as we seek Him. Things start to get harder at this point. At least they do for me. I was greatly encouraged and energized personally by doing the podcast yesterday with Caleb as we talked through Isaiah 58 and some things about fasting. If you're participating in the media fast side of this week, the Weekday Worship podcast doesn't count. You are totally allowed to listen to it and I think it will be good timing at this stage to be encouraged in your pursuit of the Lord.

Today, our prayer focus is for the elders and wives, staff and OneHeart church. We're so grateful for the place God has given us to meet as a church and make into our home together. God's generosity to us has come in so many forms, and a significant source has been One Heart. Let's pray for God's blessing  on them and their fruitfulness and faithfulness as a church even as we pray for our own health and progress.

I was reading the passages for the day and was struck by the Titus 2 passage. I'm overwhelmingly thankful for the ways in which Generations has become a church where Paul's vision in v. 1-5 are especially taking shape. I spoke with someone newer to our church yesterday who had experienced the love and care and discipleship of the older generation as a new Christian in their former church. One of the things they appreciate about Generations is the presence of that dynamic in our church family. I love it too.

It blows me away to see the intergenerational relationships that form here. To see the older generation serving, investing in and pouring themselves out for the younger, while respecting them and learning from them as well is so refreshing. At the same time, to see the younger generation so honoring of, appreciative of and responsive to those who have gone before us is so beautiful. I see this genuine respect for and taking one another seriously in the best ways that is such a life giving dynamic in our church.

As you seek the Lord today, let me urge you to thank him for those people he has placed around you that are helping to form you into the image of Christ. Give him thanks for those He has placed in your path that you get to pour into and make an impact. Our contribution to the discipleship of others is actually a critical dimension to our own discipleship. Maybe God has powerfully used people outside of our church to give meaningful shape to your life with God. Consider them and thank God  for them today. And then take this step...

Reach out to those people and thank them. Romans 12 tells us to "outdo one another in showing honor." Today is a great occasion to do that for people who led and served you. Reach out to people who have entrusted you with influence. One of the things Caleb and I talked about on the podcast from Isaiah 58 yesterday, is how fasting, according to God, is to make us more aware of our relationships and the people and needs around us. Well, your brothers and sisters and your spiritual fathers and mothers need encouragement. Let's honor those people in our lives explicitly and directly today.

Lastly, maybe you haven't experienced that kind of mentoring or discipleship here. Or maybe you haven't experienced it ever. Maybe you have been discipled but never intentionally invested in the discipleship of another. Generations' exists to make disciples, so we want you to have a new experience. We want to be surrounded with some folks who help you walk with Jesus and we believe you have a valuable contribution to make in our walking faithfully with Jesus. I'll encourage you to seek the Lord today about how to pursue discipling relationships within our church. And if you don't know where to begin but want that, feel free to reach out to me or any other leaders or staff. Just ask around if you don't know who those people are.

May the Lord strengthen you today and surround you with His own presence.  

2 Timothy 1:3-14; 2 Timothy 2:1-7; Proverbs 22:6

I love the perspective which the Lord impressed upon Jim McCallie and which he emphasized to some of us on Monday night at our evening prayer time: that this week of fasting, however you are approaching it, is not about what we can’t do, but about what we get to do and are being invited into. I’m grateful for that thought. It helped me so much already. I hope it encourages you as you start day 3.

Our focus today is a big one: our families and children and the next generation. I love the reading from 2 Timothy 1 today. Paul identifies 3 generations of faithfulness in a single family tree. He is writing to a faithful young man named Timothy, whose mother, Eunice, and grandmother, Lois, were also followers of Jesus. Paul also credits the faith of his own ancestors, though we don’t know to whom he’s specifically referring. What I love about this is the real life glimpse at the gospel taking root in a family and then getting passed on to the next generation.

God loves families. Family is God’s idea. He’s a Father after all. And his covenant people are his precious children who comprise a heavenly and eternal family. So, when we talk about family we’re talking about something God cherishes. God loves our children and and he loves this next generation. His heart for them is infinitely bigger than ours, and that’s true not only for those we think of as the best of the next generation, but also for those we think of as the worst of the next generation. So, when he sees our children developing, growing, maturing, struggling, failing, succeeding, hurting, harming, rebelling or responding - whatever the case may be - he is not surprised by them, nor repelled by them, nor finished withe them.

We ride waves of emotion as parents - fatigue, anxiety, hope, confidence, joy, dread, to name a few. We read books and blogs, listen to podcasts and pastors, ask mentors and friends, searching for answers to the challenges of parenting, trying to generate some certainties. Yet certainty eludes us. We live in scary times with overwhelming difficulties and terrifying possibilities for our kids. The easiest thing in the world as a parent is be driven by fear. But this faith of ours; the faith of Lois, Eunice and Timothy; the faith of Paul too; all of it is faith. It’s all a matter of trusting God - His word, His wisdom, and His ways - over what we feel and fear.

My parents grew up with parents who did not follow Jesus. But God in his mercy adopted them into his family. I’m a second generation follower of Jesus. Heck, I’m a second generation pastor. My kids would be the third generation of Rowell’s to know and love Jesus. That’s not small at all. That matters. But here’s the thing. I worry. I worry about my flaws and shortcomings and mistakes and failures. I worry about the world around them and the influences in their lives and the appetites of their flesh. I worry that the saving work of God in our family could miss a generation. And that it might be my fault. There’s a lot working against them and us.

Reading 2 Timothy this morning gives me hope. It renews my faith for our third generation. But maybe you’re the first. What a gift to future generations it is for you to begin shaping a legacy of faith in Jesus for those who will come after you. Maybe you’re a second generation Christian. What a gift you have received from your own parents and what an opportunity worthy of your life. You get take the baton and run your leg of the race and hand it to the next runner. Your life counts. Maybe your third generation or beyond. How rich you are, that you’ve been blessed with aliveness to God as a multi-generational storyline. That’s amazing. I hope you’re grateful.

But here’s what this has stirred in my heart for today. I get anxious and unsettled and fearful regarding the current landscape of our world and the coordinated attack of the world, the flesh and the devil against my kids, and the children in our church, and this whole next generation. Fear keeps me praying small prayers like crossing my fingers and just hoping God will draw my children to faith of just the most meager sort. Don’t get me wrong, their salvation is a massive deal and a miracle and we should pray for that. But Paul's word to Timothy urge us to not stop there. Let’s not see God as so weak and busied and distracted with more important things so as to treat our kids as an afterthought. Multiple times throughout the Scriptures God articulates an inclination on his part to faithfully redeem and reconcile the offspring of those who love him to the thousandth generation.

Are you kidding me?! I struggle to pray in faith for just this one generation. But God tells us his heart is already to bless and save and sanctify to a thousand generations. What if we started taking him and his heart seriously? What if we stopped fretting over each day our kids act out or even freaking out over prolonged seasons of not seeing spiritual fruit, or over uncertain development? What if we started praying in faith that God would do for our children and their children and their children’s children exactly what he has said he would do, even to the thousandth generation.

What if we stopped trying to fix our kids and started focusing on our own faithfulness to the Lord and persistent and dependent prayer to the Lord on behalf of our children and future generations. I wonder what would happen if we all started praying… not prayed once, but started praying persistently and daily for God’s faithfulness to the next generation and beyond all the way to the tenth and hundredth and thousandth generation. What if we condition the soil of future generations with bold, steadfast and dogged prayer for them? I wonder what would happen. I don’t know… but there’s only one way to find out. Let’s dig in and get after it, starting now. 

Ephesians 5:22-33; Genesis 2:18; Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

I’ll be honest… day one was just starting to get difficult for about the time we had prayer at the church last night. We had a sweet time with about 15 people that ministered to me personally. Being in this together is a blessing. Doing this alongside brothers and sisters is strengthening. Whatever plans you have and however you’re approaching the fasting part of this week, if you feel yourself especially challenged on any given day, I would urge you to go to prayer that evening if possible. It’s like getting reinforcements on a depleted battle field.

Our focus today is toward marriage, family and relationships. I want to emphasize that relationship part. Because of course not everyone is married or has a family. But we all have relationships. And we all have relationships which most impact us, and which are most shaping to us. We all have relationships which get strained and conflicted, and which prey on or provoke our anxiety and insecurity.

Jesus said, “if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matt. 5:23-24).” Jesus is telling us that our relationships have massive spiritual significance. Our ability to walk intimately with God is powerfully impacted by the state of our relationships in general and especially by those relationships which are the most important.

For those who are married and have children, the state of those relationships is obviously of the utmost importance. But if you aren’t married and don’t have children, the state of your relationships are no less important. Our fasting and prayer is an exercise in seeking God. And Jesus tells us that in our worship and seeking of God, reconciliation with our brothers and sisters is a matter of profound urgency.

As it relates to marriage and children specifically, maybe there is a specific conflict that needs resolution and this is the moment God is convicting you to move toward the other. Maybe it’s as simple (even if really difficult) as you needing to humble yourself and apologize and seek forgiveness. But within these family relationships many of our conflicts and unreconciled relationships are more chronic. If that’s the case, a simple apology probably doesn’t fix things. But perhaps today is a day you stop ignoring some unhealthy dynamics that are longstanding and you start to seek the Lord about your responsibility in that dysfunctional cycle.

You likely can’t resolve prolonged tensions in a day, but what if today you got honest with your spouse or child or parent or sibling or someone close; someone with whom your relational brokenness is doing harm to you and them; maybe today you could just take the step of communicating directly your recognition of the state of things and your desire to seek the Lord diligently on behalf of the relationship; that you would like to work toward healing and reconciliation. Maybe today doesn’t settle everything, but what if today could start a needed movement in the right direction.

There are plenty of pained relationships outside of those immediate family one. You may be on the side of being betrayed or hurt. You might be on the side of the offender. You likely can identify with both sides at any given moment. That’s not trivial. Ask the Lord to search your heart today regarding coldness, distance, avoidance or resentments toward people. Ask him to show you if there are any who you know have things against you which are lingering unaddressed. Today is a day to close the gap. To move in the direction of peace. Maybe that starts in your heart. Maybe it includes communication with another. Whatever the case, let’s allow Jesus to move upon our hearts and mobilize us toward reconciliation, healing and rightly ordered relationships.

We will be diving deeply into these matters of marital oneness and relational wholeness in a series starting this Sunday. You can pray for this season at Generations to be one of deep reconciliation where needed and meaningful healing to form in our marriages, families and friendships for God's glory and our joy.

Psalm 51, Leviticus 22:31-33, Hebrews 9:13-14:
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Deciding to enter into this kind of focused week of seeking God is perhaps the biggest hurdle any of us have to overcome. Once we have made the decision to participate, the decision of how to participate is a second challenge. I’m hoping that if you are reading this, it means you’ve gotten past those first two barriers. It’s my experience that the first day then is actually pretty easy; even exciting.

There is something energizing and hopeful about deciding to make your relationship with Jesus the priority for a time. Something in every one of us always wants to put Jesus first, but the distractions which clamor for our attention work against us; the responsibilities which we legitimately have pull on us; the competing desires of the flesh and expectations of others apply pressure. So, Jesus often gets back-burnered. The health of our own souls and deepest true needs get subordinated to our more immediate felt needs.

We need something drastic to get out of the cycle. That’s what this week is. It’s a decision to give our souls a fighting chance; to stop treating God as a game of patty-cake that we play when we’re in a particular mood; to stop fixating on best of what the world offers us and start recognizing what the world is stealing from us. So, we’re motivated today. We’ve taken the first step. We’re ready. But where do we start? We don’t want to just skip eating or viewing for the sake of making ourselves miserable for the glory of God. Nor do we want to empty ourselves and our minds. We want to unclog the places of our hearts and lives which have obstructed the  the life of Jesus that is already located in us, from spreading abroad within us.

So, this first day is a day of taking stock and doing some inventory. It’s a day of deciding to face ourselves and bring ourselves - our real selves - directly to God. There are three passages of Scripture listed above which will be helpful to you. I encourage you to stop here and read them, and then come back to this.

Psalm 51 - We don’t start with asking God to bless us. We start by asking God for mercy. That’s what we really need. Every single one of us is utterly dependent on the mercy of God if we have any hope or future. So this psalm is a confession of my own moral guilt and failure and a plea for mercy, forgiveness, cleansing, deliverance, joy, renewed fellowship, and a fresh start. Who doesn’t need that today? Who among us won’t need that again tomorrow? So let’s allow the Psalmist to mentor us. Let’s follow suit. Let’s confess. Let’s invite the Holy Spirit to search and know us and reveal us to ourselves. That may sound terrifying.

It’s worth noting too that this Psalm assumes the goodness and kindness and responsiveness of God to such a plea. We don’t need to be terrified about getting honest with God or about God getting honest with us. He’s holy but He’s also gentle. He’s uncompromising in his standards but he’s also uncompromising in his grace to the repentant. So, we can let our guard down. We can lay down our excuses and defenses. God loves to wash us clean and lead us into newness of life. He loves to help us start fresh and create a new experience of his power to live a new life.

So, the only thing any of us has to fear today would be staying stuck right where are; or sinking further into isolation; or refusing to come to the Lord honestly. The real threat to us today is not getting honest with Jesus. The real threat is persisting in our pretense and the charade of our own put-togetherness and okay-ness. God doesn’t delight in our sin, but he absolutely delights in our realness and repentance regarding our sin. That’s our way into feasting on God this week.

These other passages in Leviticus and Hebrews are reassuring us from very different places in Scripture, of what Psalm 51 draws out in more detail. That God loves to receive repentant sinners with open arms and he does so on the basis of the finished work of His own Son. And not only are we cleansed by the blood of Jesus shed for us, but we are enlivened and quickened by the very life of Jesus expressed in us. That’s our way forward. Union with Christ through repentant faith continually fueling a life of service to God for His glory.  

One of my greatest pastoral burdens and desires is to see the people of God more engaged with the Word of God. One of the common barriers to personal Bible reading is the size and scope of the Bible. Where do I start? What  should I read? How much should I read? These questions paralyze us.

We need more than a good Bible reading plan to get engaged with the Scriptures. But the absence of a Bible reading plan is a plan not to read the Bible. I've experienced this personally and persistently in my life. That's why every November, I take time to put together a Bible reading plan for the next year.

There is nothing magical here. The entire Bible is God's word speaking directly to us. The entire Bible is helpful and profitable. So, the specifics of a Bible reading plan are less important than the existence of the Bible reading plan. Mine aim at 5 days a weeks of devotional reading. I read through whole books of the Bible or occasionally whole sections of a book (i.e. the Sermon  on the Mount or the life of Joseph). I try to read very manageable daily portions, rarely more than one chapter, and mostly 5-20 verses depending on genre and content. I like alternating between Old and New Testament and I often have supplemental things I want to study in relation to my devotional plan.

Again, there is nothing special about my approach in  general this year's plan in particular. But it is a plan. I'm posting it here and inviting you  to follow the plan with me. If you choose to do that, I would  love to talk about what we're reading along the way, so you can always text or call and we can encourage each other and share insights and think through things together at some level. I love creating community and building relationships around Bible reading. So, I this is useful to you. But if this plan doesn't work for  you, what is your plan? Do you have a plan? Will you take the time to make a plan?

I want to urge you toward that. We're 5 days into a new year, but that is not too late to think about this. This is one of the most meaningful and healthy disciplines in my life to nurture spiritual health and I would love to have you either join me, or use this template and create your own, or if you want other examples, reach out and let me know... I have several year's worth of plans I can give you. The point is, let's make 2021 a year of serious engagement with the Word of God as we faithfully pursue communion with God.

Our Sunday Gathering this last week was oriented toward corporate repentance as a church. The message from Acts 11 was focused on repentance, which led us into a time of repentance as a church family.

The best New Testament pattern that we have for corporate repentance is found in Revelation 2-3. We are introduced in those chapters to 7 churches in Asia Minor to which Jesus wrote a letter. These were 7 real churches, whose spiritual deficiencies and dysfunctions together present the church in every generation with a clear idea of what we’re up against. Two of these churches were commended for their faithfulness to and steadfastness in Jesus. But 5 of them had aspects of their church culture which Jesus had against them and for which Jesus calls them to repent. So, we followed the pattern of those 5 churches, which mirror ways in which the church in our own day and in our own land has undoubtedly conformed to the pattern of the world.

Below, we've posted those prayers as we read them together on Sunday.

Based on the Church in Ephesus - A church of loveless orthodoxy:

Leader: We have settled for a Christianity of loveless orthodoxy, instead of centering all our actions around our love for You. We have lost our love, awe, and reverence toward you. We have treated you casually, pushed you to the dusty corner, as if you’re just one competing factor to be considered alongside other factors in our lives. We have played religious games with you, fitting you into the margins of our otherwise busy lives, feeling entitled to your best while giving to you what we have left over. Like Israel before us, we have been a people who draw near to you with our mouths and honor you with our lips, while our hearts are far from you.

Congregation: Lord, Have mercy on us. Forgive us for our unholy posture in our worship of You; for the profaneness of our consumer approach to worship. As if you are a God who provides a service which we purchase or barter for. Forgive us for building churches and cultures which bear your name but are more concerned with market forces than with biblical fidelity. Restore our affections for you, that we would know again the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord, for whom we would suffer the loss of all things, counting them as rubbish that we might gain Christ.

Based on the Church in Pergamum - A church moral compromise:

Leader: Lord, we have abused and made a mockery of the freedom we have in Christ. We have used your sacrifice for our sin, and your grace toward our guilt to be called the “children of God” and obtain everlasting life with you. And even though through your blood we are not of this world, we eagerly assimilate into it and compromise your desires with the world’s desires. We use your grace as an excuse to stay in our sin. We have used your good gifts to excess- we drink and eat to excess, spend to excess, and play to excess; we entertain ourselves to excess, and much of what we’re entertained by, you despise. Forgive us for condoning that which You condemn; for using You to endorse what you hate.

Congregation: Lord, Have mercy on us. Forgive us for abusing the gift of your holiness, which defines those who are hidden in Christ, by neglecting the pursuit of holiness as followers of Christ. Forgive us, Lord, for our friendship with the world which is enmity toward God. Forgive us for our moral compromise and accommodation which makes us feel more at home in the world, and the sin-filled world feel at home in the church. Forgive us for so desiring belonging and influence in the world, that we’ve forfeited our distinctiveness as a people belonging to You. Lead us again into biblical conviction, moral seriousness and the pursuit of holiness. Forgive us for using our freedom in Christ as a cover up for sin, and teach us to steward our freedom, even to lay down our freedoms, to demonstrate the ultimate worth of Christ.

Based on the Church in Thyatira - A church of sexual permissiveness:

Leader: Father, we have conformed to the world in a culture that celebrates and supports sexual expression and sexual immorality over every kind. We have tolerated among ourselves every kind of evil sexual practice. We have normalized sexual immorality in the church, used the Bible to endorse homosexual practice, stayed silent where sexual sin is present, and been more concerned with offending people by upholding sexual integrity, then we are concerned with offending you by our sexual laxity. We have offered our bodies as living sacrifices, in what is truly a spiritual act of worship, to the god of sexual gratification. We have traded intimacy with you, and intimacy with spouse’s, for a fraudulent intimacy that defiles. We have traded purity and integrity for momentary pleasure that leaves us persistently empty. And we have traded our witness and distinctiveness to make the world and us both comfortable in our sin.

Congregation: Lord, Have mercy on us. Forgive us for legitimizing our attractions and appetites on the grounds that they are natural to us. Forgive us for setting before our eyes, as a way of life, things which provoke our lusts. Forgive us for the rampant use of pornography among us; forgive us for a culture of exploitation; forgive us for our untroubled enjoyment of entertainment that defrauds us, and which feeds our flesh. Forgive us for expanding our boundaries so far beyond those you have set, that we can’t even imagine living within your established parameters. Lord, help us urgently return to sexual integrity that honors you and shows an alternative to idolatrous worship of sex. Purify us from all of our deviant, immoral, and perverse abuses of sexuality. Heal our seared consciences and make us sensitive to your standards for us.

Based on the Church in Sardis - A church of dead good works:

Leader: Lord God, we have busied ourselves with religious and social activity; we have given ourselves to projects and causes and programs; we have become activists and advocates for all kinds of things, many of them good. But we have lost sight of you and your gospel within those efforts. We have done good works but forsaken the good news. We have extended grace toward others, but stayed silent about the grace that is only in Jesus. We have presumed to make life better for others, while neglecting the life that is truly life. Lord, we have acted in our own strength to do good for our own name.

Congregation: Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for substituting ourselves in your place; for trying to be for people what only you can be for them. Forgive us for all the frenetic activity that is of the flesh and void of the Spirit. Forgive us for undertaking your work but relying on our strategies, our efforts, our wisdom, our organization, and our agendas, rather than upon your power. Forgive our damnable good works that make much of us and which make us feel good about ourselves, but which bring people no closer to you. Lord, lead us back toward reliance upon you in everything. Help us to walk in active repentance and faith and to call others to repentance and faith. We don’t want to just improve peoples lives here on earth, we want them to know the author of life, and to enter into the fullness of life with you. Awaken our evangelistic zeal and help us live for your glory.

Based on the Church in Laodicea - A church of material prosperity:

Leader: Lord, we have loved the comfort, ease of life and material prosperity of this world. We cherish our freedoms, privilege and celebration of self advancement. We confess, Lord, that we have loved the world more than you, and we value our place in the world more than our impact on the world. We have turned your church away from a mission to the lost, and toward a monument to ourselves. We have imported the greed, covetousness, pride, radical individualism and personal comfort of our worldly surroundings into your church. We have tolerated and defended homogeneous churches as the norm, because of social cohesiveness which has no need of you and serves our egos and preferences. We have made impressiveness, production, entertainment value, and organizational prowess our barometers of success. We have happily built environments for people like us and made little consideration for the poor, the marginalized, the immigrant, and the orphan. And we have grieved you.

Congregation: Lord, have Mercy on us. Forgives us for looking down on, keeping a distance from, and insulating ourselves from those who aren't like us. Forgive us for our our defensiveness and dismissiveness toward discrepancies in justice and power in a racialized society. Forgive us for our silence and passivity toward the legal slaughter of innocent human lives. Forgive us for our stinginess and stockpiling of resources while so many suffer around us. Forgive us for seeking prosperity and affluence over equity and fruitfulness. Forgive us for our inattentiveness and unresponsiveness rooted in self-protection of our American Dream, over our obedience to your word. Help us to see our lives from your perspective. To put everything on the table in total surrender to you. Free us from bondage to our conveniences and pleasures, so that we would willingly empty ourselves for you.

Check out the ministry of Upper 90, a youth soccer program run by Generations member Tyler Hoitsma:
https://youtu.be/PGp1C90Faf8

Guest post from Generations member, Maria Blackwell:

“But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.”
Acts 6:4

Church family, It is time once again for our monthly prayer gathering. But more than that, after James’ sermon on Sunday, it feels like we NEED to gather in dependent corporate prayer! He said, “Prayer is our way forward. It is our recognized need for God. We are in need of God and what only God can do!”

So, join us for our prayer gathering on Zoom this Friday, July 31st at 8:00pm. Let’s seek God and actively wait on Him! Let’s beg Him to come down! There are many needs in our country and community, and church!

This is our moment for the church to cry out to God! He is waiting for us to wait on Him!
Zoom Link:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5918388677

This is worth our real consideration:

"It is hard to generalize about a whole nation as large and complex as our own, but it might not be far wrong to say that the characteristic flesh of America is compounded of covetousness, gluttony, egocentric libertarianism, and pride, all of which have been selectively bred into our culture because of the types of sinful people we have attracted and the behavior which our political and economic system has stressed and rewarded. It is true that all of these vices are simply distortions of virtues which are part of the American ideal (ambition, enterprise, freedom, self-respect). But our immediate tendency to defend ourselves when accused of these defects is usually a sign of that unconcious subjection to universal sin which corporate flesh involves. The Christian cultures of other nations, especially those of third-world Evangelical churches, can easily detect the fact that most American Christians have their lives organized around the kingdom of business success and not the kingdom of God.

Why has American revivalism failed to breed these patterns out of American churchmembers? Largely because the ideals of the two kingdoms have been subtly fused together in a gradual process of compromise, mutual support and enculturation which results in an uneasy symbiosis. The question is often asked why the Evangelical religion of the Bible Belt in southern America failed to eradicate racism despite its relatively pervasive influence on southern life. The implication is drawn that "being born again" in an evangelistic meeting really changes very little in the lives of converts, and sometimes it is even said that racist Christians cannot be regenerate. Of course this is nonsense, unless we are prepared to pronounce as unregenerate every Christian who is imperfectly sanctified. But many areas of sin are virtually invisible within particular cultures. As Reinhold Niebuhr has shown, we are all guilty of corporate sin in ways which are almost too numerous to chart.

Once this is recognized, however, it is the responsibility of Christians (and especially Evangelicals) to turn the spotlight of the Word of God on the corporate flesh of their region and call for repentance among Christians who should become the vangaurd of cultural transformation. The same spotlight should be directed at non-Christians in the work of evangelism; the "invisible sins" of a society should be presented as material for repentance along with those which are more obvious to the natural conscience. If this kind of assault could made by Christian leaders on the patterns of flesh which up to now have been accepted simply as normal modes of behavior, how much blocked energy could be released within Western Christianity!" (Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 253-254.)

Timely. Wise. Probing. Thought-provoking. Worth prayerful consideration and responsiveness.

Please watch this video and fill out the church-wide survey in regard to gathering again as a church and some of the many considerations we are mindful of. Thank you!

"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you."
John 15:18

The world will hate us. That's not a possibility, it is a certainty. We don't need to try and make the world hate us. Jesus isn't giving us permission to posture adversarially toward the world. He isn't giving us an excuse to be combative and offensive. He is simply stating the fact that his kingdom and his gospel are offensive to the world, and if we follow him we will incite the world against us.
Jesus is offensive. He opposes all that is native to us. Jesus didn't come to coddle us and he hasn't empowered us to go coddly the world. Jesus isn't trying to make us feel better about our lives by endorsing everything about us. Jesus is trying to help us see the emptiness and deadness of our lives so that we'll renounce everything about us and trust in him for newness of life. Jesus isn't validating our lives, he is calling us out of our lives and into his life. This is why people hated Jesus. And if we're faithful to him, it's why they will hate us too.

We don't need to be rattled or surprised when the world opposes us. In fact, we should be unsettled if they don't. We need to always be willing to humbly evaluate our hearts and lives if people are angry with us or offended by us. Being offensive doesn't mean we're faithful to Jesus. But neither is an indictment on our faithfulness to Jesus. Too many Christians wear their antagonism to the world as a badge of godliness, and too many Christians think being liked by everyone is substantiates their godliness. Jesus is telling us that how the world responds to us or treats us cannot be the indicator from which we draw our sense of success or failure.
When he locates his people who are not of this world, into the this world, we will be seen and treated as aliens to this world. We need to anticipate and expect this. We need to recognize the this-worldliness of our climate on all sides of so many social and political fights, and not let ourselves be drawn into the polarization on the terms set by the world. The world hating Christians and Christianity is not a reliable reason to assume Christians and Christianity are failing the world.

There is no room for religious fervor and moral superiority of the sort that leads to arrogance, self-righteousness or hostility. We need to consider whether the world hates us because of gospel integrity or gospel duplicity. Let's root out every earthly reason the world to hate us. But let's also be okay with any gospel reason for our rejection. Animosity from the world toward Christians is baked into the cake of Christianity. We have to account for social ostracization when we decide to follow Jesus. Let's just assume that's coming for us and not be undone by it.

In these verses, Jesus specifically tells us the world will hate us. He wants us to know ahead of time so that when we receive the ire of the world around us, we won't look for the eject button or second guess ourselves. He doesn't want us to be overrun and paralyzed by self-doubt. Faithfulness to Jesus will incur the resentment of the world and backlash from the world. Let's ensure it's for the reasons Jesus was hated, and not our own reasons.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
John 15:5

John 15 slows me down. I hate it. My mind is frenetic. My heart is busy. My inner world is urgent. But all of this is toward nothing specific. And the language of "abiding" is a broom stick in the spoke of my life as it speeds by Jesus.

To abide is to linger; to tarry. It's the idea of staying put. I don't have time for that. I have things to get done. Besides, what Jesus is calling us into in John 15 opposes all that Jesus has given us to do everywhere else, right?

Wrong. Jesus invokes this word "abide" 10 times in 10 verses. And 6 times, he directly connects it to bearing fruit. It's painstakingly repetitive. Jesus is not telling us not to care about productivity or meaningful impact on those around us. Jesus cares a lot about those things. So this is no rebuke for midguided ambition. This is a corrective to our misguided strategies.

The desire to be fruitful and have impact is indeed of God. Jesus wants our lives to count more than we do, and he's telling us as much in these verses. However, Jesus is also telling us that our instincts regarding what will make the most impact is out of step with His Spirit and in opposition to his Kingdom.

Jesus uses the imagery of a vine, a vinedresser, living branches, dying branches, fruit and fruitlessness. This is how we are to conceive of our lives in terms of our usefulness. "Apart from me, you can do nothing."

Apart from our lived union with Jesus, moment by moment, day by day, we will have no enduring impact. But if we just stay tethered to him; if we will anchor ourselves in him; if we will prayerfully, consciously, deliberately depend on him by faith and open ourselves to him by the admitted need of his Spirit; if we will make communion with Jesus our priority, then meanginful impact is inevitable.

Jesus' own ambitions for our lives are the driving force behind his command to abide, according to Jesus himself. He tells us three reasons why he is saying these things to us.

1) For the Sake of Jesus' Joy

"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you..."
Jesus actually enjoys us most when we're enjoying him. He is telling us to abide in him because his heart is most full when we are most in touch with who he is. When we are receiving from him all that he's come to give us, he is deeply satisfied. Just like we feel most alive and fulfilled when doing things we most love, Jesus is most thrilled when we're clinging to him most desperately because that is when he is most himself. Our abiding in him, depending on him, and drawing life from him, allows Jesus to be the fountainhead of life for wearied sinners and sufferers that is at the very core of Jesus.

2) For the Sake of Our Joy

"...and that your joy may be full."
Jesus is telling us what we actually need to be most happy in life, and that's to be living in union with Christ. He knows that the freedom, forgiveness, belonging, security, safety, purpose, and renewal which we receive from him, is what our souls most need and long for. He knows that all of our attempts to make ourselves happy are distorted pursuits of that which is only available in his fullness.

So, by telling us to abide in him, Jesus is telling us to do that which we most want, that which we most need and that which we were created for. Jesus longs to see us deeply satisfied, and he is also the only one who can resource that. He wants more for us than a glimpse of joy, a token measure of joy, a brush with joy, or an intermittent joy. He wants us to have joy beyond our capacity or imagination, joy with staying power. He wants more for us than we want for ourselves and he knows that abiding in him is necessary because, again, he is the fountainhead of life and joy.

3) For the Sake of our Love

"These things I command you, so that you will love one another."
And Jesus circles back to the new standard of living he established for his disciples in John 13. He commanded them there to "love one another as I have loved you." John 15 is telling us how that can be done. It's only through the divine power drawn from Jesus himself that we can love in any way resembling Jesus. The love Jesus requires of us is a love only he can empower in us.

Abiding in Jesus. Jesus abiding in us. His word abiding in us. Abiding in his love. All these ideas are co-mingled in this section of Scripture. To abide in Jesus is to abide in the love of Jesus, and it's only in the receiving that we can participate in the giving. Our natural efforts to love have limitations. Loving like Jesus requires something outside of ourselves. We need the supernaturalizing power of Jesus if we are to love in ways that make Jesus visible. Abiding in Christ continually is therefore the strategy Jesus lays out for his disciples to love each other radically.

Jesus doesn't just give us the ends to which we are called in John 13. He also gives us the means by which we reach those ends here in John 15. We can't labor effectively in our own strength to bear fruit for Jesus. Abiding in Jesus is the key to bearing fruit for Jesus.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
John 14:1

A Solution To Our Problems

Our hearts being troubled in this world is nothing new. How could it be otherwise? This world is troubling after all, if we are paying any attention. What is new, from Jesus here, is a way to deal with the trouble that surrounds us and arises within us.

Our default way through the trouble of this world is to numb, distract or indulge ourselves with various forms of entertainment, pleasure and achievement. The problem with these coping mechanisms is that they introduce new troubles or only serve to intensify the troubles they were intended to alleviate. John 14:1 is Jesus' proposed solution for troubled people like us, who live in a troubled world like ours, and in troubling times like these. But the answer is so simple and so beneath us that we will invariably find it surprising and most of us won't take it seriously.

Jesus' answer to the massive problems that ail us right now has no credibility in our halls of power. If you want to stretch Jesus' solutions to our troubles toward politics, than we could think of our answer as the democratization of belief in Jesus. Our way through these troubling time is to see and submit to Jesus as God, and to recognize and live right now as if he has come directly down to us from above. That's our only hope.

Now, trouble will still find us. But if trouble finds us while Jesus is with us, than we will simultaneously find the peace and rest that is offered in and through Jesus. Jesus is telling us that the clamor of this world is muted by the witness of Jesus himself among us, ministering to us directly.

What That Solution Suggests About Our Real Problem

If what Jesus is saying is true, and of course we believe it is, than unbelief in Jesus is the biggest threat you and I are facing today. A diminished or distorted view of Jesus is the most destabilizing development in our world. His smallness, falseness, or unnecessariness in our own minds and hearts, is the real trouble we're dealing with beneath all our presenting troubles.

If we perceived Jesus as he is in real time, and if we took him seriously as he is, we would sleep fine, breathe easy, laugh raucously, love freely and serve others fearlessly. So, what's holding us back? It's our diluted sense of Jesus. It's my thoughts and your thoughts that relegate Jesus to a somewhat competent Savior, a mediocre friend, and a pretty decent Lord. Such thoughts are not worthy of Jesus. He is a constant renewing presence in this relentlessly exhausting world. And the key to untroubling our hearts is Jesus himself... the total Savior that he is; the loyal friend that he is; the gracious Lord that he is. Jesus with me, in me, for me by faith.

So Crazy It Just Makes Sense

Everything else which Jesus talks about through John 14-17 flows out of this one thought in v. 1.

"Believe in God; believe also in me."

Any other starting place will leave us in the wrong place. Any other solution is just a new version of trouble or a new expression of trouble. And Jesus spends the next 12 verses or so tracing out this belief in God and belief also in him which he calls us to. He is articulating the oneness, togetherness, inseparableness, and total interconnectedness he has with the Father. All the way to saying that if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father.

Jesus is leading us out of our speculations and imaginations of what God is like. Jesus is perfectly revealing the Father's personality and disposition toward us, and he's fully expressing the Father's heart and intentions toward us, so that we don't have to guess or be afraid anymore. If there is no God at all, we have every reason to be troubled. If God is like what we imagine him to be, we have every reason to be troubled. Or if we know nothing of God and are just guessing we have every reason to be troubled.

Being troubled is the only sane response to this world if Jesus isn't real and the Bible isn't true. But if Jesus is revealing the Father to us, as he claims; if Jesus is pulling the curtain back on these ultimate realities as he asserts; than joyful confidence and peaceful durability is the only sane response to the troubles we encounter.

“... and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. ”
John 14:16-17

There is a sort of echo in John 14:16 of Proverbs 9:10. Solomon said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Jesus particularizes that thought as if to say, "The beholding of Christ is the beginning of truth."

The world is preaching and presenting lies, promoting lies, wrapped in more lies. Our broader culture perpetuates deception, foments confusion, and celebrates incoherent ambiguity masquerading as reality. And the problem is that the world starts with dismissiveness toward Jesus. Our proposed and imagined solutions for the real problems facing us right now are shallow because there's no Jesus.

In v. 1-14, this morning, Jesus said that life with God is accessed through him and his revelation of the Father. He said that to see him is to see the Father. In v. 15-31, Jesus is telling us that the help we all need to see Jesus and step into life with God comes from the Spirit. So, Jesus came to reveal the Father in the flesh. But the Spirit comes to us continually to keep our vision of Jesus fresh. The Spirit gives us alertness to Jesus and aliveness to Jesus in real time. When Jesus says, "I will come to you," in v. 18, he is anticipating his continual visitation among his disciples which will persist by the always present ministry of the Spirit. This includes his continual visitation among his disciples in each subsequent generation.

Then in the context of the promise of the Holy Spirit, John 14:27 reasserts John 14:1. Jesus spoke in v. 1 of the untroubling of our hearts through belief in him, and in v. 27 he speaks of the peace he gives to our troubled hearts by the presence of the Spirit. The peace Jesus offers and even promises to us is not in emotional relief, or the removal of undesired tension. The peace Jesus leaves with us is his very own presence with us through the living Spirit which energized his own life and minsitry. John 14 is unveiling for us the breathtaking mystery of the trinitarian life of God, the fullness of God revealed as Father, Son and Spirit.

And Jesus isn't just articulating these mysteries in theoretical language. Jesus is inviting us into the right now experience of the totality of God. He's not just offering a window to see into the life of God, he's opening a doorway for us to enter into the life of God. But it's not an escape hatch from this world, it is the stabilizing we need to endure this crippling world.

The trouble and pain and darkness of this world is obvious. We don't need help seeing that or being impacted by that. What we do need help seeing is that which is true beyond these unpleasant realities. We need the Spirit of God, to see the Son of God as having come to bring the Kingdom of God into this world that has rejected God. That's necessary if we are to have confidence in the Sovereignty of God and a vision for how to advance the purposes of God as we place our own hope in God.

For his disciples, Roman imperialism was obvious and troubling. Religious corruption and abuse of power among the Jewish leaders was obvious and troubling. The in-breaking of God's Kingdom was hidden. We are similarly troubled by much in our day that is obvious. But where God's Kingdom is making in-roads is hidden. Amidst all the turmoil and chaos, we can't see clearly on our own what God is doing and how we might join him. But if our preoccupation is with the troubles which are obvious, rather than the present rule and reign of Jesus, and the present ministry of the Spirit, we'll miss a major opportunity.

Whenever the kingdoms of this earth are shaking, the Sovereign God is behind the shaking, and it's always to reveal the Kingdom that cannot be shaken. And that Kingdom is manifest visibly on earth by the corporate witness of churches as Kingdom outposts. It's the people of God united by their aliveness to God and obedience to God that will draw a godless world back to God. That's what the church and the world need right now. To come to the end of our selves and to recover a big view of the glorious God who exists eternally as Father, Son and Spirit, to bring salvation to the enslaved masses, forgiveness to guilty sinners, and renewal to a dying world.
Are we ready for this moment?

"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving."
Colossians 4:2

At the beginning of the year James cast a vision for 2020. Of course, he had no idea what this year would bring but, we never know that. He started with this verse in Colossians 4 through v. 6 and urged us to stay low, stick together, and make disciples. Staying low is about humbling ourselves before God; seeking the low places before the Lord. James said, “Prayer is an acknowledgement of our humility.” We also started the year with a week of fasting and prayer as another aspect of staying low.

In our week-long media fast and deep dive into John 13-17, the prayer team has sensed a need to gather together for prayer as well.

We are inviting you to a virtual prayer gathering this Friday at 8:00pm. In this time we can practice both staying low and sticking together. In that first sermon of the year, James gave us five characteristics to nurture in prayer:

1) Take God seriously
2) Take our weakness seriously
3) Take sin seriously
4) Take grace seriously
5) Take the Gospel seriously

Let’s enter in together and take seriously the call to stay low. Let's devote ourselves to prayer together!

Prayer Gathering Link: Click Here

This entire section of Scripture is so profound and deep. Meditating on each idea is a worthy use of our time. Today, though, I can't help but zero in on v. 34-35.

"A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Let's take it by each phrase...

"A new commandment I give you..."

Jesus isn't making a suggestion. This isn't something that we should take under advaisement and consider to what degree we will take it seriously and implement it. This is a command. This is Jesus, clothed with authority from on high, the King of Glory himself, having taken the form of servant for our sake, telling us to follow his example.

If we are followers of Jesus, this is non-negotiable and non-optional. Jesus isn't a ranting and raving parent insisting on our obedience with threats. But he is to be taken infinitely more seriously. This is not a game or a joke. This is not sentimentalism. This is life and death. Jesus is telling us how to love him and how lead others into life with him.

"that you love one another..."

Jesus is talking about loving other disciples of Jesus. Loving those around us who love Jesus like us is how we most obviously obey Jesus. God's commands are always given to us, not to rob us of life, but to lead us into the fullness of life. So Jesus is telling us here that our fullness of life now will be discovered and experienced through our loving relationships with one another. Life with God is by extension life with the people of God in loving fellowship.

"just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another..."

Things get real here. Without v. 35 we can think of loving each other in ambiguous terms. Apart from v. 35 we can be vaguely well-wishing toward each other and think we check the box. But v. 35 is there. And presses the point. Jesus is taking us beyond any natural conception of love. He's taking us beyond any natural desire to love. And he's certainly taking us beyond any natural capacity to love. He's commanding us to love each other, using his loving heart toward those who are his as the standard by which we measure that love.

This is problematic for us because it expands our minimized ideas of love well beyond the limitations we imagine. Jesus left the glory of heaven - a place of comfort, familiarity, status, belonging, love, privilege, peace, wholeness and beauty - to experience life among us on earth - a place of brokenness, displacement, alienation, rejection, hostility, injustice, disorientation, fragmentation, vulnerability, and exploitation. And that's just the beginning of loving "as I have loved you."

Jesus was willing to lay down his rights for our sake. Most us are moved by the thought and probably even desire at some level to follow that example. But Jesus did not do this theoretically, he did it concretely. He didn't just risk experiencing the worst here, and somehow avoid it. He willingly gave himself over the worst here, and endured every bit of it.

Jesus loved us to such a degree and at such a cost that he took on our weakness, our temptation, our shame, our guilt, our punishment, our suffering, to spare us from that which we deserved, and in order to give us himself and the status he has with the Father by virtue of his perfections. And he did so with no resentment, no hostility, no limits, no lines, and no exceptions.

"As I have loved you," therefore, means we move toward our enemies; see worth in the overlooked; takes seriously the marginalized; give selflessly to the entitled; respect those who offend us; sacrifice for those who take advantage of us; enter into the world of the "foreigner"; invite into our world the "other"; give up our comfortability for the possibility of restoring another's humanity and dignity; take responsibility to fix things we didn't necessarily break; and lay down our rights for the good of our brother rather than assert our rights at the expense of our brother.
Loving each other as Jesus loved us means nurturing emotional connectedness; bringing light-heartedness to heaviness; gentleness in place of abrasiveness; lowliness instead of arrogance; humaneness instead of callousness; attentiveness instead of dismissiveness; and kindness as much as correctness.

Jesus' example has us looking for how I can go further raather than why I shouldn't; exploring how I can give more rather than explaining why I give less; finding ways to heal others' wounds rather than nursing our own grievances; telling the truth with my words to you, but also upholding and honoring the truth with my treatment of you; holding to sound doctrinal positions without ever abandoning a humble disposition; and winning people without having to win arguments.

Loving as we have been loved means refusing to alienate; resisting the urge to write off; rejecting the instinct to set boundaries; risking the chance to be misunderstood; resolving to suffer for the benefit of another; rencouncing any claim of comfort and ease; relieving pressure wherever possible; wrecking the status quo; ruining cultural norms and societal expectations; resigning to lose face; and rejoicing in the aliveness of others.

These are some of the implications of what Jesus is saying when he says "as I have loved you..." Jesus is telling here, that we have not yet gone far enough. We have not come close as of yet to the limits of Jesus' love for us, therefore, we have work to do.

Here's what is at stake.

"By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Jesus is saying that when his disciples love each other in a way that reflects his love, it will be obvious to the world that we are of him. That doesn't mean the world will like us. They certainly didn't like him. Even if we do this perfectly some in the world will hate us as they hated Jesus. But, at least the world will hate us for being like Jesus, and not because we bear no resemblance to the Jesus we profess.

Jesus is giving the world permission to judge us on the quality of our love for one another. He is saying that the world has every right to think we're liars if our love for each other doesn't go far beyond the love of ordinary people for their friends. The love of Jesus and the reality of Jesus is most clearly displayed in the world by the love which Christians have among themselves. Which means that the gospel is most powerfully undermined where such love for one another is absent. We need to think about that.

The truth of the gospel holds regardless of our faithfulness to obey Jesus here. But the believability of the gospel is powerfully enhanced when we to obey Jesus in this way. This means that our witness to the world is communal by nature. Evangelism was never meant to be individualistic. We declare the truth of the gospel with our words, but we demonstrate the reality of the gospel by the beauty of loving community that goes way beyond anything the world has to offer or point to.
Beloved, we haven't gone nearly far enough yet in this. And the world needs to see the beauty of Christianity right now more than ever. We all have a meaningful contribution to make toward that end.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
— Jesus, John 14:1

This world is troubling. It's troubling on many levels in fact. In John 14:1, Jesus offers himself as a way to untrouble us in the midst that which is troubling. My desire to enter into a week-long media fast this week, and to invite you into that with me, is to take John 14:1 seriously. These are troubling days within our world, our nation and our city. And the things troubling us are not trivial. They matter. This media fast is not an effort to detach us from these realities. It is an effort to help us sort through them in a more focused and sane way.

Rather than taking our cues from our carefully curated newsfeeds, this is an attempt to have our thinking biblically ordered; to have our emotions biblically filtered; to have our understanding biblically formed; to have our interactions and engagement biblically rooted; to have our total responsiveness biblically grounded. So, I'm reading through John 13-17. This is a summary of the Christianity our world needs from Christians right now, according to Jesus. Here are the first twenty verses:

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”  Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
John 13:1-20

This is a familiar passage to me. It's probably familiar to you too. I don't have any new ground-breaking insight here, but to perceive Jesus in this scenario, with the pressure building, when we are in an intense time is helpful.

Jesus isn't washing the feet of the disciples at a convenient time. This is not Jesus getting a break from the demands of daily life and getting into a sentimental frame of mind. This is Jesus in the heat of battle; at a moment of anguish; at a point of real human weakness. Jesus had every right to be irritable, impatient and self-centered from a human standpoint. He had every right to take a break from humility and lowliness of heart. He had every right in this moment to assert his own rights. And yet he took again the posture of a servant.

The Bible tells us a lot about humility. But Jesus shows us humility. And that's the thing... Humility isn't just internal, it is something observable. We aren't humble because we think humble thoughts or imagine humble actions, or wish humble things. Humility isn't about taking the low place mentally or emotionally, it's about the low place actually... in reality. Humility is born in the heart to be sure, but it is an animating and energizing force.

Read the text again if you need to. Jesus is not theoretically humble. Jesus is practicing humility. Verbs are all over the passage. Following Jesus means more than thinking of yourself as a servant. Following Jesus means living as a servant. We take the posture before our friends - and our enemies - which he himself took. Certainly a servant is not above his master.

This is so hard. I don't like to serve. I like to be served. I don't like taking the low place in social environments. I like having a place of honor. I don't like to be overlooked or ignored. Neither do I like to be criticized or corrected. I like to be noticed and affirmed. Right now, in our world, the easy thing is to say something, post something, attend something, declare something, or learn something. What is hard is to do something.

It's easy to criticize and blame and accuse and throw stones. It's hard to build bridges. It's hard to place ourselves beneath others or to inconvenience ourselves for the good of others. Yet that's what Jesus does in John 13. He shows us a way through our most pressurized scenarios, when our hearts are most troubled and our world feels most fragile.

Get outside of yourself. Get outside of your head. Get outside of your echo chamber and your insulated, self-protective bubble. Get on your knees. Be willing to embarrass yourself and get your hands dirty by doing the things no self-respecting person would do. There is something we can all do today to forsake a place of honor, or even a place of middle-class mentality, and take the low place. That might be in your home with yoru family. That might be with a neighbor or a co-worker. That might be with an extended family member or old friend who has alienated you but still needs you.

The biggest challenge here is that we don't even want to do what is best for us to do. We need the help of Jesus to follow Jesus where only Jesus will lead us. But more than that, we need the help of Jesus to want to follow Jesus where only Jesus would lead us. Taking the place starts there. Admitting that we want to avoid the low place and spend most of our lives figuring a way out of the low place. And then, while we still don't feel like it, we follow Jesus to that place and discover that Jesus is powerfully with us there.

Our world right now needs followers of Jesus in every place to follow Jesus to the place. Pride and brashness and "look-at-me-ness" is everywhere. The people around us really need an encounter with the meekness, kindness and "how-can-I-serve-you-ness" of Jesus, through their Christian neighbors.

It is a crazy thing to follow Jesus and have boundaries around his claim on our lives. He said in verse 15, "I have given you an example, that you also should do just I have done to you." Following Jesus means taking actual real life steps, regardless of our feelings, to go where he leads us. Biblical sanity means rejecting our imaginary barriers which excuse us from obedience to Jesus. Biblical sanity renounces the distorting impulse to feel entitled to all the rights of children of God while neglecting the corresponding responsibilities of children of God. Jesus has dignified us beyond our anything we deserve in ourselves, and you and I have the chance to dignify those around us beyond what we think they deserve.

Let's stop worrying about fashioning some image of ourselves, or what people think about us, and start worrying about how we image God by serving other image-bearers of God. Who are you going to help today? Who are you going to treat as worthy of your best? For whom are you going to inconvenience yourself in order for them to encounter the heart of Jesus? Whose feet are you going to wash?

Here we are on day 1 of a week-long media fast. I've received some questions seeking to clarify what qualifies as "media" in this media fast. I don't take that to be people trying to get around the spirit of exercise, but more a recognition of how media-laced our lives are. So, for my part, I'm trying to abstain from all unhealthy media use which busies my soul with the cares of this world and sabotages the truth and gospel clarity.

I'm staying off Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, all podcasts, all blogs (except this one) and all news outlets. Yours may differ slightly. I'm not here to enforce or police anyone. This is an invitation out of that which distracting and even assaulting our souls in order to dial deeply into Jesus and the peace which he offers us.

So, in addition to some daily Scripture readings, I wanted to suggest two sanctifying forms of media which are likely to spur on your aliveness to God.

The first one is surprising, but decisively helpful. One of my daughters yesterday, on Father's Day, literally declared to me in a moment of overt disobedience, "I won't back down." I dealt with the situation parentally but it put something in my mind that wouldn't go away... Tom Petty.
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down."

I dare you to listen to that song. I have several times. It helps my resolve. I may listen to that one every day for a while. Here's a link to the song.

The second one may be more obvious if you're aware of it. It's the show The Chosen. If you haven't watch it yet, you totally should. If you have, you may think about watching again. It's a beautifully made drama series about the life and ministry of Jesus. I will warn you that it starts a little slow and the pacing is slow throughout. It captures something of the pacing of the times I believe.

The first couple episodes develop some background with creative liberties, but then we start to see narratives from the gospels come to life and it is breathtaking at parts. I've cried through most of the episodes which beautifully capture something of the heart and personality of Jesus. The first episode is embedded below but you can link to show page above.

Every episode is free on YouTube. Take advantage.

Joe Hwang and Rachel Furnish are two of the most evangelistically gifted people in our church family. They love Jesus, love the gospel, love people and love obeying Jesus as ambassadors of Christ. Here is a story of what the Spirit is leading Rachel and the Hwangs into together:

https://youtu.be/Rms7r9VqSTY

Due to COVID-19, we have not gathered in person for church since early March. Because we rent a school, when and how we are able to begin gathering again is not ultimately up to us. As we continue to wait things out and explore other alternatives, we are ready to begin gathering together responsibly for worship and fellowship on Sundays. As of June 14 we will continue to stream our Sunday service, but we are encouraging you to transition into meeting in one of our House Church environments for the summer.

The latest recommended guidelines for gathering in groups is to limit the number of people and follow other social distancing protocols. In our desire to move forward responsibly, we are limiting the attendance in each of our House Churches. Additionally, because each home environment is different, they will be operating with varying protocols.

*IMPORTANT*
Our Sunday virtual gathering begins at 10:30am, but it is essential that you contact the hosts before Sunday to receive information specific to their home. We are asking that you RSVP each Sunday as well and to stay in contact with hosts so that you are aware of any changes that are made along the way.

We understand that some of us are more anxious and apprehensive than others about gathering again, so this is in no way to pressure anyone into these environments. If you are still feeling led to maintain distance,  we would encourage you to gather with even just one other family unit at the earliest possible time to re-establish meaningful connection with the body of Christ. We trust the Holy Spirit to help each of us do this in the right way at the right time.

1. Norcross - James & Betsy Rowell - james@generationsnorcross.com
2. Duluth - Sean & Natalie Specie - seans@elevateexperiences.com
3. Duluth - Zac & Jasmine Gilcrease - zgilly21@gmail.com
4. Duluth - Tyler & Samantha Hammett - wtylerhammett@gmail.com
5. Chamblee - Ray & Jill Wtulich & Scottie Finlayson - scottfinlayson3@gmail.com
6. Peachtree Corners - Jim & Martina McCallie - jim.mccallie@gmail.com
7. Sugarloaf - Tyler Hoitsma - tylerhoitsma@gmail.com
8. **Beginning June 21 - East Roswell - Paul & Karen Wilson - paulw@generationsnorcross.com
9. Norcross - Adam & Lisa Barker - adambarker23@gmail.com

We want to create a forum to serve and equip parents during this ongoing season. Plus, Adam is just funny and entertaining so please watch this informational video.

Three things have coalesced to create this post.

I preached yesterday on Psalm 124 and stated within my introduction that in many ways, gospel ministry is a ministry of reminder. The entire message was framed as four important reminders; the whole context of the Songs of Ascent we're walking through is the spiritual renewal around festivals of remembrance. Those ideas are one piece of this post.

Another piece is the recent news of deteriorating health of Ravi Zacharias, the well-known Christian apologist who lives in the area and whose global ministry, RZIM, is located close right here in our community. Perhaps you have seen all over social media platforms one or more of the many tributes being written and posted about his impact. He will be passing into the fullness of life soon. He has had a formidable kingdom influence on this world and has fulfilled his purpose in his generation, which is all anyone of us could hope to do.

The third thing that has led to this post is graduation season. John Krasinski honored graduates on his weekly must-watch YouTube program Some Good News (SGN), last week. Former President Barak Obama, along with many other celebrities helped to give graduates a virtual commencement they could remember during this pandemic which has robbed so many of their would-be celebrations. We have received some graduation announcements from friends and family as well. It is a significant event in a young person's life. We need these markers and celebrations.

So, what do all these have to do with one another? There is a very concrete memory I have. I finished high school at Providence Christian Academy in Lilburn 21 years ago this month, in a graduating class of 62 I think, and Ravi Zacharias delivered the commencement address, in which he emphasized the importance of what we remember and what we forget.

I wasn't dialed into the privilege of the moment in that moment, from the standpoint of our speakers notoriety, but I remember being riveted to Dr. Zacharias' address. It was compelling. He spoke with such clarity, conviction, concern and compassion. He spoke as someone who knew something we really needed to know; who knew Someone we really needed to know. I wonder how many of you remember who spoke at your graduations, much less what they spoke about.

Commencement addresses are supposed to be obligatory and ignorable sentimentality for parents more than actual substantive, life impacting marks on the souls of students, right. But, I have never forgotten title of his address: Postures of the Mind and Affections of the Heart. Nor have I forgotten his message. I was remembering last night, being an 18-year-old kid, staring over the unknown horizon at this pregnant and scary moment. And I remember being absoutely convinced by this giant in our generation that my anonymous life mattered; that my future mattered; that the engagement of my mind and heart with reality mattered.

I don't think that speech ignited anything in me. But it fanned a flicker into a flame. His words gave oxygen to this young man's embers for life and meaning and Jesus. I've always been grateful for that. And today, I'm remembering him, and that subtle but consequential event. And I'm remembering myself, and even preaching to others now the importance of remembering that which is ultimately worthy of remembrance, which was a central theme of his address that night.

I searched and was able to find a recording of that message which is below if you are so inclined. It's worth the listen.

You may wonder how such a small school had such a major speaker for their graduation. Well, it just so happens that one of those 62 students was Dr. Zacharias' son, Nathan. Many people are praying for Dr. Zacharias today and are grieving the loss of this winsome ambassador for Christ on the global stage. I'll be praying for Nathan, who is just a young man my age who is losing his dad, and one for whom my heart aches.

https://www.rzim.org/listen/let-my-people-think/postures-of-the-mind-affections-of-the-heart

I wrote part 1 of this post on April 30th, with the intention of posting part 2 the next day. Life working from home with a bunch of kids in quarantine has a way of disrupting some of our intentions. That was the end of that week, and then it was on to some more pressing matters the next week... all that is to say, we're almost two weeks later and I'm finally posting part 2.

If you've listened much to my preaching you know I have been impacted quite profoundly by Francis Schaeffer's writings. I wanted to give you all a little taste of his insights here. He wrote a little work in 1974 called Two Contents, Two Realities which is as timely today as could have ever been.

If you're part of Generations then you know we conceive of discipleship as continual growth in 4 key areas: Gospel (theological clarity), Spirituality (personal reality), Community (relational beauty) and Mission (intentional ministry). I see some reinforcement of those categories in Schaeffers little book, Two Contents, Two Realities.

In Part 1, I summarized the two contents with excerpts from Schaeffer, and I'll do the same here with the two realities.

The First Reality: True Spirituality

Let us emphasize again as we have before: we believe with all our hearts that Christian truth can be presented in propositions, and that anybody who diminishes the concept of the propositionalness of the Word of God is playing into twentieth-century, non-Christian hands. But, and it is a great and strong but, the end of Christianity is not the repetition of mere propositions... the end of the matter is to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds. The end of the matter, after we know about God in the revelation He has given in verbalized, propositional terms in the Scripture, is to be in relationship to Him. A dead, ugly orthodoxy with no real spiritual reality must be rejected as sub-Christian.

Back in 1951 and 1952, I went through a very deep time in my own life. I had been a pastor for ten years and a missionary for another five, and I was connected with a group who stood very strongly for the truth of the Scriptures. But as I watched, it became clear to me that I saw very little spiritual reality. I had to ask why. I looked at myself as well and realized that my own spiritual reality was not as great as it had been immediately after my conversation. We were in Switzerland at that time, and I said to my wife, "I must really think this through."

I took about two months... I thought and wrestled and prayed, and I went all the way back to my agnosticism. I asked myself whether I had been right to stop being an agnostic and to become a Christian. I told my wife, if it didn't turn out right I was going to be honest and go back to America and put it all aside and do some other work.

And gradually I found something. I found something that I had not been taught, a simple thing but profound. I discovered the meaning of the work of Christ, the meaning of the blood of Christ, moment by moment in our lives after we are Christians - the moment by moment work of the whole Trinity in our lives because as Christians we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That is true spirituality.

The Second Reality: The Beauty of Human Relationships

Read the New Testament carefully with this in mind; notice how often Jesus returns us to this theme, how often Paul speaks of it. We are to show something to the watching world on the basis of the human relationships we have with other people, not just other Christians.

I am talking first of all about non-Christians. The first commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. After Jesus commanded this, someone said, "Who is my neighbor?" And Jesus then told the story of the good Samaritan. He was not just talking about treating Christians well; he was talking about treating every man we meet well, every man whether he is in our social stratum or not, every man whether he speaks our language or not, every man whether he has the color of our skin or not. Every man is to be treated on the level of truly being made in the image of God, and thus there is to be a beauty of human relationships. This attitude is to operate on all levels.

Now, if we are call upon to love our neighbor as ourselves when he is not a Christian, how much more - ten thousand times ten thousand times more - should there be beauty in the relationships between tru Bible-believing Christians, something so beautiful that the world would be brought up short!... I we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.

Men should see in the church a bold alternative to the way modern men treat people as animals and machines. There should be something so different that they will listen, something so different it will commend the gospel to them... There should be beauty, observable beauty, for the world to see in the way all true Christians treat each other.

In Summary:

We need two orthodoxies: first, an orthodoxy of doctrine and, second, an orthodoxy of community... When a person really has desperate need in the area of race, or economic matters, or psychological matters, does he naturally expect to find a supporting community in our evangelical churches? We must say with tears, many times no!

Both orthodoxies must be practiced down into the warp and the woof of life where the Lordship of the Lord Jesus touches every area of our life... And when there are the two contents and two realities, we will begin to see something profound happen in our generation.

I hope this gives some introduction to Francis Schaeffer that may draw you toward his larger body of thought and work. There is a lot to explore from him. If any of this has awakened an appetite for more I would commend to you his book, True Spirituality, which expands on these ideas and is the more robust outworking of that season of wrestling which he references above.

People talk about books being classics. True Spirituality is truly a classic. I read it 5 years ago and it radically altered the trajectory of my life, my ministry and Generations. In that sense it has influenced all of you already. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that outside of the Bible, this has been has shaping to my as any book I've read so I commend it to you all.