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Family on Mission

Video (Betsy Butler):
I guess God’s timing is never our timing. I would have healed me way back there But he let it go on, and maybe I needed that. God knows what we need better than we do. My Name is Betsy Butler. I’m 81 years old. As I look back, I can see so man good things God has done in my life.

Gary Kinnaman
Series: Generational Blessing

Video (Betsy Butler):

I guess God’s timing is never our timing. I would have healed me way back there But he let it go on, and maybe I needed that. God knows what we need better than we do. My Name is Betsy Butler. I’m 81 years old. As I look back, I can see so many good things God has done in my life.
The very first, really good thing he did for me was he gave me godly parents. I have very fond, very early memories of my father. On Sunday morning, we would sit on the front porch in a big, old chair and he would read me the funny papers. When we finished the funny papers he would arrange me on his left knee, and on his right knee he would lay out a big, black Bible. He would go from the funny papers to going over and fine-tuning the Sunday school lesson that he would teach to the men and women in our church that morning.
That was the beginning of my learning about God, learning to know who God is, to love him, and especially to love his Scripture. See, God knew that that little girl, three or four years old, sitting on her daddy’s knee, would be teaching that same word of God when she is eighty-one years old.
When I was eleven years old, my father died. I was so mad at God. And out of that anger came rebellion, sadness and loneliness. But life went on and the next really big good thing God did for me was to give me a wonderful husband. And God knew I needed it.
Four years and two babies later into our marriage, we were living what we considered a really good life. We went to church on Sunday, but we were not serious about God. We gave him very little time during the week. So God allowed a reality check to come into our life. I was about twenty-five or twenty-six and I became very sick. I had a sudden, severe onset of rheumatoid arthritis. All of life became a struggle.
My husband, who will forever be my hero, sold everything we had, took his little family to Arizona for a hot, dry climate. When we got here, we found hot and dry, but we found what we really needed, and that was God. God plunked us down into a Spirit-filled Episcopal church that believed strongly in the healing power of God. They prayed for us. They helped us. They did everything they could to encourage our faith. And we began to grow.
In the next few years, we began to study the Bible intensely, as if we thought it might be snatched out of our hands any minute. All the time we were believing that God would heal me and we read scriptures about Jesus healing people over and over. And we thought, why not heal me?
What I was doing became more important than the healing. And so I made a promise to God that no matter whether he healed me or not, I was going to love him, I was going to serve him every day of my life. Down the road, God did heal me through miraculous, divine appointments. I am cured of an incurable disease.
Now, when I look back at my life and I look at those hard years that we went through, I know that Satan was trying to destroy us and to destroy what we had, because that’s what he does best. But the goodness of God is greater than all the evil schemes of Satan.
God is faithful when we are unfaithful. God is good when we’re not so good. He can be depended on.

Ryan Romeo:

Isn’t that great? I love that. It’s funny. I oversee Communications, so I’m always telling the Communications people we’ve got to get things short—you know, we’re in a society where we don’t have much attention span. This is one of those that’s like, “Okay. Just take it easy. Just breathe a little bit. Let’s hear some stories.”

And if you were here last week, we had Jim Watkins. He did the same thing. A flyover of his life and some major points in it. And that really is the heart behind this sermon series Generational Blessing, that we would have cross-generational blessing. For those of us who are a little bit younger in years, that we could glean from those who have been around a lot longer than us.

And that’s our heart, to really honor and love each other in the series. Our prayer really is that Psalm 133, when it says, where unity is God commands a blessing, our prayer really is that God would command that blessing as we unify, not just with a group of people that we connect with, but cross-generationally. That we would really connect with generations that are different from us. That out of that unity we really believe that God’s going to command a blessing on our church.

That’s the series we’re in right now. Generational Blessing. And now it’s my pleasure to introduce our speaker, Gary Kinnaman. Gary started a little church called Word of Grace that eventually became a little church called Hillsong Phoenix here in Phoenix. He’s also been a real great friend to us. He’s an author who’s written a lot of books that are really great. But he’s known Mark Buckley a long time—back when Mark showed up here in Phoenix. So please join me in welcoming Gary Kinnamam.

Gary Kinnaman:

Good morning. So, I’m the old guy, you know. Yep. I’ve been in ministry here for decades. That’s pretty much it. How many of you have family, or you come from a family? That’s great. I want to make sure this is a relevant message.

How many of you have people in your family you just love them to death? How many of you have people in your family you do not love them to death—you pray for them to die? You love them, but you don’t like them. Is that another way to say it? All right. “I love them, but I don’t like them.”

My wife is here. She’s actually sitting through two services, so we’re going to take a special offering for her after this service. She’s right there. My wife, Marilyn. So, I have a family that brought me into the world, and I have a family that I brought into the world. Marilyn and I have been married forty-eight years. We have three children. You can figure out how old I really am. The oldest son turns forty-six in the fall. We have a daughter, forty-three. My oldest son has a full-time ministry in Southern California, in Ventura, and he has three children. You can do some adding here. And then our daughter’s in Denver. She has four children. What was she thinking? And then we have a son who’s thirty-six and he’s got two children. He’s in the Navy, serving God and country in the United States Navy. He’s got a really tough job. He plays the trumpet in the Navy band. What do you think of that?

So let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, for your presence here in this church. I thank you, Lord, for the friendships that I’ve had here in this place, Mark and Kristina, and so many of the people who have served ministry here and we’ve encouraged each other, we’ve comforted each other. I thank you for David Stockton and the marvelous transition that this church has been experiencing. And it’s growing and people are giving their lives to Jesus. And I pray that, as we talk about family this morning, you will be present with us and show us how amazing, how transcendent family really is for us in all the best times and in all the worst times. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

How many of you have seen this book or read this book? This is for older people. The Purpose Driven Life. Rick Warren—this was his best-selling book. He had a book preceding this called The Purpose Driven Church and now he did this book and this book sold so many copies that he paid back the church for the salary they had given him for twenty-three years. I did some math. I’m a writer and my books haven’t done quite that well. But anyway, I did some calculations and in fact, he made that much money on his book in like three months, ninety days. It’s unbelievable. But they give away an extraordinary amount of money. I think they give away like seventy, eighty, ninety percent of their income. He really is a great Christian leader.

So anyway, I especially like the subtitle. Everybody knows The Purpose Driven Life. Do you know what the subtitle is? What on Earth Am I Doing Here? Why don’t we say that together? What on earth am I doing here? You’ve never asked that question, right? And maybe I love even more the first sentence in the book. What’s the first sentence? “It’s not about you.” I want you to just look at the person next to you and tell them, “It’s not about you.” Some of you have been wanting to say that to your spouse for years. So tell them again, if it felt good. Just say it again. "It’s not about you.” I have a hunch before the day’s over you’re going to say that again. Not for fun.

I’ve come to believe that there are two principle themes in the Bible. We’re addressing one of those themes, but I want you to see it in context. To me, there are two major themes in Scripture that tie everything together. The first theme is community. Family. Or community. Relationships. Where we learn to live with differences. Where we’re loved. Where we love. But where we’re also placed with people that we don’t love. We don’t like them. Community. That’s what develops us as people.

But the community has a purpose and this is the second theme that’s all the way through Scripture. It’s the kingdom. Jesus prayed, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And he begins by saying, “Our Father.” That was novel. That was revolutionary to begin a prayer by saying, “Our Father.” So, it’s about family. But it’s about family with a purpose. And God has a purpose for your family, in your life, and you have a purpose for your family and all the people that are around you.

These are the two major themes. The better witness we are, the more effective we are in expanding the kingdom. God doesn’t just want us to preach at people, he wants us to live out the life that he’s given us. How do we learn life? We learn life in family, for good or for evil.

I’ve done countless weddings. I have forced the couple to say, “For better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness or in health, until one of us dies. Until death do us part.” But that’s about how life in family is terribly difficult at times, but it teaches us how to become more like Jesus. Or we can become more like the devil. Both happen.

There are two main themes: community and kingdom. Here’s my message today in a nutshell: You and your extended family—past and present—have a mission. It’s about your family, your extended family, all the people in your family. You know, the immediate family is kind of a myth, because it takes more than two adults to raise one child. We need help. We need the extended family.

My brothers were part of our family growing up. We helped each other with our kids. And right now, my son, David, is in Denver because he wants to spend a lot of time with his brother-in-law, my daughter’s husband. They have two boys who are in their early teens. And they want to spend time with them and nurture them. And sometimes an uncle can do more for a teenager than dad.

There’s this myth that we can just do it alone. But we are a community of people and we need each other. The extended family, past and present, are very powerful. So let’s see how this unfolds in Scripture. I have a bit of my personal theology about the family. Let’s begin in Genesis 2, talking about the creation. This is the creation.

And God said, and I’ve got to pause there and say the Hebrew word for God is Elohim. And that word, oddly, is plural, it really means Gods, and yet the Hebrews were the only ancient people that were monotheistic. The great statement of faith of the Hebrew people is “Hear O Israel for the Lord thy God is one God.” “Hear O Israel for the Lord (Yahweh), thy Elohim (Gods) is one Elohim (Gods).”

And from a Christian perspective we say, “Well, this is telling us about the trinity.” So we look at Genesis 1:26-28

26 Then God [Elohim] said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,

God makes us in his image, in eternal community. God is community and he makes us a community.

…so that they may rule…

There’s the kingdom. So there’s family, community…”so that they may rule.” They need each other to rule because life is difficult.

over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

And I kind of think that implies the serpent. There’s natural domion. There’s also spiritual dominion.

27 So God [Elohim – the Gods] created mankind in his own image,in the image of God [Elohim] he created them; male and female he created them.

He started with two people—very different, and the world’s been a fun place ever since. He didn’t just make Adam. He made Adam and Eve in this creation account. And why? Because that’s essential community. He brings people together who are not the same, but are very different.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number;

That would be family and community.

fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

In the old King James it uses the word kingdom. And we use it in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” And a kingdom is a king’s dominion. The dom comes from dominion. That’s what a kingdom is.

So there’s the creation account. We see this idea of community and kingdom doing things, serving God, representing God together. Then there’s the call of Abram. That was his name before God came to him and renamed him Abraham.

Genesis 12:1-3
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;

So there’s this extenderd community.

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

We are children of Abraham. What does it say? “And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

It’s not about you. It’s about what God wants to do through you. And family is about getting you to that place where you are really trusting God. You understand that life is wonderful. Life is also complicated and sometimes painful and difficult. But you learn about God and his provision and you get into his presence, and then you have something to offer to the people around you.

This is incredible. It’s the promise in the ancient book Genesis that initiates the narrative of human history, especially spiritual history. It’s God’s holy family with a lot of unholy people who become the bearer of his purposes to redeem a fallen world.

Isreal was God’s chosen people, his children, his family chosen for mission. I don’t have any more fear. We sang it over and over. Because I’m a child of God. So God becomes a part of our family. That was always his intention. It’s why Jesus says, “You must be born again.” Because, where you are, your family is dysfunctional and you need some new genes. I call it “re-gene-eration.” You know regeneration. It really means you get new genes. You get the nature of Christ.

I have a number of things to say about this next point. This is my third and main point. I want to talk about the spiritual power of the family and I want to start by talking about this odd little phrase in Exodus: a lamb for a house. Exodus chapter 12.

So now you’ve got Israel and through the story in Genesis, there’s been a famine. And Joseph is in Egypt, and his brothers come to Egypt for food and he’s reunited with his family. They end up there and they become enslaved. So God raises up Moses to lead them out of slavery, through the Red Sea. He parts the sea and we go into the desert. There’s sort of a process of life before we can enter into everything that God has for us. So there’s a wilderness and then we get into the Promised Land. That’s not heaven. That’s finding God in life.

It says this: While the people of Israel are in Egypt, God institutes a very permanent religious ceremony and event.

Exodus 12:3-4
Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor,

What’s the lamb? It’s a symbol of Jesus. And they’re going to execute the lamb and they’re going to take the blood and paint it on the lintel, the top of the door, the panels on the side, because the angel of death is going to go through Egypt—the angel of condemnation and judgment. And when the angel sees the blood, he passes over the house. (That’s why it’s called the Passover.) He doesn’t look inside to see if the family is praying together. Because, you know, “the family that prays together stays together.” They just look for the blood. And, for all we know, there were family arguments going on. But, because they’re under the blood, there was no condemnation.

And it’s a lamb for a house. This is a very powerful image. It’s not individual. Sometimes I grieve the way we do communion. It’s very individual. It’s not really family-oriented. It’s not around a table. Sometimes worship centers have a sign on the door: No food or drink in the auditorium. Well, how do you do communion? Originally, communion was a table. It was a family event. Jesus was with twelve people and he broke the bread and he said, “This is my body.” And then they had dinner together. And after the dinner, he took the cup.

So the Passover is a lamb for a house. Jesus was celebrating the Passover with his disciples. And that weekend he was becoming the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. It’s all so powerful. It gives me chills. I’ve been doing this stuff for years and I still get chills when I talk about this. (Some people would say, “It’s neurological and you need to see a doctor.”)

Anyway—it’s a lamb for a house. And they must share with their neighbors. If the lamb is too much for the house, get a few more people in there.

The spiritual power of family is so clearly stated in the Ten Commandments. For those of you who need a review of the Ten Commandments, I have a list.

The first commandment: No other Gods.

The second commandment: No idols

The third commandment: Don’t take God’s name in vain

The fourth: Sabbath

This is something very few people really know or understand. You have three commandments about God. You have the Sabbath, which takes God to us. And the next six commandments are about our whole life. The Sabbath is about how we have to bring the God that we love and serve and submit to into all of these different areas of life—from family to possessions to shopping. There’s a commandment about shopping. It’s the last one: Thou shalt not covet. And that’s what you do when you go to the mall. You don’t buy anything You just go to see what you might want. Just to ruin your day.

The fifth: Family

That’s the first one because everything starts in family: good, bad, wonder, evil, abuse. It all starts in family. So you’ve got to first bring God into that part of your life. What does this say?

Exodus 20:12
Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you, [This is the only commandment with a promise.] so that you may live long and so that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

This is awesome. It’s the first commandment. It’s about family. If you don’t get it right there, you’re going to take all that crap—excuse me, I’m only here maybe once in every two years—you’ve got to take that into all your other relationships: what happens in your family, and how you deal with it.

God says that, “If you honor your father and your mother, you’re going to live long and I’m going to bless you.”

I’m sure there are many people in here who have no interest whatsoever in honoring their father and their mother. Because their father was abusive, or their mother was abusive, or they got divorced. Or maybe you don’t even know who your father is.—you never met your father. Or maybe you were adopted and there’s always that shadow: “Who am I, really?”

It’s okay to ask those questions, because family is such an important part of the plan of God. I call it transcendent. It’s not just about human stuff that they can figure out with a theory of evolution. It’s a transcendence. You feel it when you go to a wedding. When two people get married you feel the presence of God. It’s human, but it’s not just human. There’s something spiritual happening here.

I’ve got a friend who does pre-marriage counseling in the Catholic Church, he and his wife. I had breakfast with him a a few days ago and he was talking about how this works out. He said, “You know, people come and want to be married in the church, even though they have no relationship with God. And maybe they have some history of being Catholic, and they bring their boyfriend or their girlfriend and they want to be married in the church.” Why? Because marriage is about God.

So, the Ten Commandments. “Honor your father and your mother.” It doesn’t say “like them,” or “spend time with them until you need to see a therapist and take medication.” You honor them because you wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t sort of got together, if you know what I mean. You wouldn’t be here. And so, you have to see the origin of your life as something that’s planned by God.

I’m going to go into this pretty deeply when I talk about my family tree and Jesus’ family tree. Look what it says: So you honor your father and your mother and the power of family—families are for the lonely. So God’s plan is to place people into families when they don’t have a family. That’s what the church is about. The church is the family of God. So the writer says:

Psalm 68:5-6
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

I like the way it’s translated in the Message. Not quite as religious.

Psalm 68:5-6 (MSG)
Father of orphans, champion of widows, is God in his holy house. God makes homes for the homeless, leads prisoners to freedom, but leaves rebels to rot in hell.

Nobody said “Amen.” Some of you wanted people in your life to rot in hell, okay? Because they’ve put you through hell. Let’s get realistic here. This isn’t just about punishing bad people and getting even. The fact is, rebels rot in hell because hell is the absence of God. The more you do life on your own, as a rebel, the more you will have hell in your life. You need God and you need your family, all the people you love and the ones you don’t like. You have to see the plan of God in that.

When Paul talks about the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians, he talks about members of the body need each other. The eye can’t say to the ear, “I don’t need you.” How many of you have said that about some other person in your life? “I don’t need that person in my life!” But Paul says “God has placed all the members of the body right where he wanted them to be.”

And that’s about relationships. Paul’s talking about relationships. So I can say the same thing about family. My son in-law discovered this. When you get married, you don’t just marry your spouse, you marry her family—all of them. The good ones. The dysfunctional ones. It’s not an accident. Human life isn’t random.

The next reason why families are so spiritually powerful—I don’t know totally what this means, so I’m just going to let David explain this when he gets home. You show him this verse and say, “Would you explain this? Because Pastor Gary just read it and didn’t explain it.”

The spiritual power of families is crazy-amazing. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:12-14:

… If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, [if she’s willing to put up with his religion] he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.

But look at this. This is so transcendent. I can’t fully explain it, but I know it’s a lamb for a house.

For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

It’s a lamb for a house, even if people in that house are not believers. But if you are the only believer in the house, you are the hope of that home. This is incredible. The children are made holy, the unbelieving partner is made holy. It’s incredible. I can’t explain it. I’m going to let David Stockton explain how that works. You say, “You mean, they’re all going to heaven?” I don’t know. I just know what the Bible says here.

The family is a church in miniature. Paul says “the man will leave his father and mother,” he quotes Genesis, “and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh.”

And he says right after that, “I’m speaking about Christ and the Church.” That a marriage is a symbol of Jesus and his bride, the Church. This, to me, is why weddings are so holy. I always talk about this at weddings. “If you feel religious right now, or spiritual, it’s because this beautiful, perfect couple is the best they’re going to look in their whole life.” It’s a picture of God in us.

I want to read something to you. This is going to blow you away, some of you:

The Christian family constitutes a specific revelation and realization of ecclesial communion, and for this reason it can and should be called a domestic church. It is a community of faith, hope and charity. It assumes singular importance in the church, as is evident in the New Testament. The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. [We talked about that from Genesis, right?] In the procreation and education of children, it reflects the Father’s work of creation. It is called to partake in the prayer and sacrifices of Christ. Daily prayer and the wording of the word of God strengthen it in charity. [This is where we learn how to live out the fruit of the Spirit.] The Christian family has an evangelizing and missionary task. —Catechism of the Catholic Church

This statement is from the Catholic catechism. It couldn’t be worded more powerfully.

So, this from my catechism—I wrote one, too.

The family and the church family are places that God has created where we learn to live with differences. Learn love and grace in conflict. We find our future together. The church becomes our family when we’re born again. It’s a place where we learn to love one another and the world around us, and are nurtured to serve one another and advance the kingdom of God.

Now I want to talk about beyond the immediate family: genealogy. Where you come from will determine who you are. If you’re adopted, if you don’t know who your parents are, if you are perfect (which is never the case), it helps you find your future. I want to show you a picture here. This is a picture of the stairway of my daughter’s house. When you walk in to the house, there’s a living room to the right and dining room behind the living room. There’s a stairway to the second floor. I gave her most of these pictures, but she collected some of them as well. At the very bottom is a picture of my mother and dad getting married. As you make a turn on the landing is a picture of my wife and me getting married. And a picture of her husband’s dad and mom getting married. It all culminates in these two couples who end up bringing Jeff and Sherry together in marriage, who now have four children.

The next slide is just my family. The bottom picture is my mom and dad getting married and my grandfather is doing the wedding. Then there’s a picture of my grandfather and his wife, Theodore and Dorothea. It goes all the way up there. I have the marriage certificate from my great-grandfather Kinnaman. They were married in the late 1800’s. And I have a love letter that he wrote to my great-grandmother (neither of whom I ever knew).

I look at those pictures and I never am at Sherry’s house without standing in front of those pictures. And I think to myself, all these people fell in love and they had sex. And here I am. It’s like God had to do a lot of work to get to me. And those people weren’t thinking about me, the next generation. They weren’t thinking about me sharing God’s word with you. But God was thinking about that. I’m not an accident.

A lot of things have happened in my family. Terrible, bad, they appear to be accidents; but nothing is an accident in God’s plan. This tells me two things. God is in control. Is he in control when bad things happen? “Well, I don’t know.” If that really troubles you, I have a Bible verse for you:

Romans 8:28 (ESV) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

If you think your life is random, or it’s just an accident—people did stupid things and you’re just a victim: All things work together for good for those who love God. So whatever happens, somehow God fixes it.

While I’m freaking you all out—how does the New Testament begin? It begins with a chapter on the genealogy of Jesus. It is a happy, dysfunctional genealogy. There are all kinds of famous people in there, but it doesn’t pull any punches. One thing is that there are four women in the genealogy and nobody ever did that at that time. Gals, sorry to say that. Women were never mentioned. But it’s not just four women, it’s four women who have unique stories.

The first woman that is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew Chapter 1 is Rahab. Does anyone know what her profession was? She was a gentile and she was a prostitute. And she was in the genealogy of Jesus.

And then the next woman that is mentioned is Tamar. Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. That sounds really regal and awesome. Jesus—he’s the lion in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He’s the Lion of Judah. So Judah begat Perez (he’s the first hispanic in the Bible). Judah begat Perez by Tamar. Tamar wasn’t his wife. Tamar was his daughter-in-law. It was incest. I won’t tell you the whole story. I wish I had time, but I’ve ruined so much of your day already. Judah had Perez. (Twins. I can’t remember the other name, I think it was an Irish name.) Anyway—by Tamar, who was his daughter-in-law. And that’s in the genealogy of Jesus.

Then it says David begat Solomon and it doesn’t mention Bathseba’s name. It says, “David begat Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” That’s how it’s in the genealogy.

And the last woman was Ruth, who was a Moabite. She was a lovely, holy woman. But she was a Moabite. She was a gentile. And so, they’re telling the whole world that Jesus had gentile blood.

Who is in your genealogy? What kind of nasty, evil, weird, wonderful people are in your genealogy? It took God a lot of work to get to you. How did God get to His Son, who was promised in the Garden of Eden? He went through a whole series of human relationships, who didn’t know that they were in this chain of life that was going to lead to the birth of the Messiah.

Of course, God corrected some of that when it was the Holy Ghost who came on Mary. He gave Jesus the nature of God himself. He ended up with two genealogies.

But this is so powerful. I’ll say it again: God is in control. When you think he isn’t, at least you have the promise: All things work together for good.

When terrible things happen to us and we start saying we’re a victim, we’re really denying that God’s in control. Or we’re denying that, whatever happens to us, there are some things that God can’t fix. You’re a miracle!

My fifth point here is the Communion of the Saints. It’s in the Apostles Creed. It doesn’t mean what you think it means, that the communion of the saints is that we’re in church together. Let me explain what it means. The Communion of the Saints in the Apostles Creed:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day, he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, where he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church and the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

What is the communion of the saints? In Latin, it’s communio sanctorum. It refers to persons. It is the spiritual union of the members of the Christian church, living and dead. It’s not just living people gathering together, it is the fact that everybody in your genealogy is still alive. They’re just not alive here. I’ve said a lot of stuff to put you into a tumble. This is really freaky. They’re here with us. They’re what the Bible calls the “great cloud of witnesses.” Catholics pray to the saints, It’s not my thing. I’m not Catholic. I’ve mentioned them a couple of times. They pray to the saints. They acknowledge the saints. They have a sense that the saints are living with them. And they’re much better about keeping this “great cloud of witnesses” in their faith and reality and practice.

Look at Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, [that would be all the amazing faith people in Hebrews 11, or in your genealogy] let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,

I have family in heaven. I wish I had time to tell you how they still impact my life. My mother. My grandfather, who was a pastor. My great-grandfather, who was a pastor, came to America as a missionary, a German immigrant. They still speak to me. I don’t know. Are they watching? If I played football, I know they’d be watching me play football. It’s what they do.

I want to wrap this up with a story. I want to show you a picture here of family. This is my wife’s sister, Annette and her husband, Jeff. They’ve been married fifteen years. She’s never had children. He had a daughter from a first marriage, who committed suicide. They’ve had a lot of pain in their life. They live down in Saddlebrook near Tucson. But for most of their life, they lived in Escondido, where my wife was born. My mother-in-law adopted Annette. She was an RN who worked at a little clinic in Escondido. A nineteen-year-old woman came in. She didn’t have an abortion, she had the baby. And Marilyn’s family adopted that baby, and that’s Annette.

Annette has always wondered where she really came from. She’s had 23 and Me, but she had not been able to find her real family. She didn’t know if wanted to. She felt rejection. “My mother didn’t want me. Why should I be interested in knowing about her?” She’s 63 years old and she still brings it up. So her husband, who’s sort of compulsive, and I call him a sleuth. Last weekend he went online for about three hours and he found her mother! Next picture: The woman in the middle is my wife’s adopted sister’s birth mother. And that’s her husband on the other side. And that’s her son-in-law, and that’s Marilyn’s sister’s birth sister. They have the same father! She got pregnant out of wedlock, and this is the way it was in the early 50’s. They sent her to California to have the baby. She came back and nine months later they got married. And they had three more daughters.

My sister-in-law, Annette, has been on the phone all week, every day, talking to this sister in Michigan. And they’re laughing and they’re crying. What’s up with that? It’s family! It is the power of family! I can’t explain it. I say to young women who are expecting, I say two things (I love to say this): “Right now, you love that baby. You can’t wait for it to be born. But when you’ve had that baby in your arms, you will not be able to describe how much you love that child.”

You hold a child and there’s a bonding that takes place. In fact, Annette’s birth mother was not allowed to hold the child. She had the child and the child was taken out of the room.

There’s a bonding. How do you explain that? How many of you love your children? How many of you love your children more than you love the neighbor’s children? How many of you love your children more than you love the neighbor’s children, even though the neighbors have better children? What’s up with that? This is transcendent.

There are two things I say to young women. “You’ve not going to believe how much you love that child. You’re also not going to believe how difficult it is to raise that child from the colic to hormones.”

I said this to my daughter-in-law, and you can tell I’m kind of sideways. And she had her first baby, and she’s nursing little Oliver. They thought it was going to be a girl. She had all girl stuff. Some mistake with the ultrasound. She had a boy. We were outside the delivery room. There was screaming and yelling, they were saying, “Oh my God!” And they didn’t have a name for him for about three days. The hospital said, “We can’t let you go home unless you name this child.”

So she’s nursing little Oliver. And I said to her, “Do you hear that sucking sound? It’s going to last at least twenty years! You have no idea how much work this child’s going to be. And this child will not appreciate you until this child has children.”

Which has led me to believe that this is a promise in God’s word for grandparents:

Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.

Could you lift your hands to the Lord? And could you say this prayer with me?

Heavenly Father, you had to do a lot of work to get to me, but you gave me life through my mother and father, and I’m grateful. I’m a miracle! And I believe, Lord, that you are in control. I belong to you. I’m not only a child of my mother and father, but I’m one of your children, and I say, ‘Hallelujah and Amen.’”

©️2019 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV®,
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Guest User 7/14/19 Guest User 7/14/19

Generational Blessing

Video (Jim Watkins): “In terms of a legacy, let me recite a saying that I picked up out of a book that said, 'Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you.’ I look at life, and most people do, I think, in four quarters. You know, there’s 1-20, 20-40, 40-60, 60-80.

David Stockton
Series: Generational Blessing

Video (Jim Watkins):

“In terms of a legacy, let me recite a saying that I picked up out of a book that said, 'Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you.’ I look at life, and most people do, I think, in four quarters. You know, there’s 1-20, 20-40, 40-60, 60-80. In that first quarter of life, 1-20, I thought I knew God, but as I reflect on it, fortunately, God knew me. As I look back at some of the reckless decisions and shameful behaviors that I had during that time of life, I realize that he was really giving me cover. I wouldn’t see that until hindsight. After I had accepted the Lord and I look back on my life, and I look at all of those times that things could have just gone off the rails—even to the point of death—and think that the Lord’s hand was upon me, saving me for a relationship with him.
“I was married, starting to raise children, trying to get established in my career. It was toward the end of that second season when I went and met the Lord. That was a significant change in my life, It was interesting. My wife told me that after I came home from that week all zealous, that I would be tested. She said, ‘Expect that you will be tested.’ Well, the following week I found out that I was going to lose my job—it had been eliminated. So, during that second season, after I had met the Lord, he had other things in mind for us, and brought us into the desert.
“In that third season I began to go deeper in my faith. I started getting involved in Bible studies, I started teaching Bible studies and facilitating them.
“The fourth season, which is the one I’m in right now, things were good. Empty nest. Kids were gone, off the payroll. Things were good there. And then there was a speed bump. My wife got breast cancer. During that period, I never got mad at God. ‘Why is going this way? Why does it have to end this way?’ I thought The Lord’s will in this will eventually be apparent to me.
“It was an opportunity to take my relationship with my wife even deeper. I can remember a few days before she died, I asked her, ‘Are there any wounds that I’ve caused that I need to ask forgiveness for?’
“It was one of those priceless moments because she said, ‘I’ve never felt more loved.’ Little did I know when we had that conversation that within two or three days she’d be gone. So it was a nice way to end our life together.
“So after several months, I talked with Mark Buckley and said, ‘Mark, you know, I’m feeling isolated and kind of lonely. I’d like to try to find a companion.’
“His answer was straight out of Genesis. He said, ‘It’s not good for a man to be alone.’
“As an example that you can teach an old dog new tricks, I went online, used social media, went on Christian Mingle, and connected with my second wife, Angie.
“In terms of an overarching theme, I think I can only respond to that in the current time. I can’t go way back and say, ‘This was my theme going forward,’ other than, at the time, I wanted to be a good father, a good family man, I wanted to be full of honesty and integrity in my life; but as I look at an overarching theme now in terms of how do I want to finish and how do I want to finish strong, I think that theme would be: Build on the past, always be consciously grateful for what the Lord has done in my life; and whenever there’s a scintilla of doubt, just look back on how he’s gotten me through so many problems. The Lord has always been there. He’s never failed me. And I know he’ll never fail me in the future.”

Amen to that. We are starting a new series called “Generational Blessing.” There’s going to be a lot more of that. We ‘re going to try to get some perspective from the Bible, but we’re also trying to get a little perspective from some of those who have walked a great many years in this life, and walked a great many years with Jesus—learning things. It’s going to be interesting. A little sobering, hopefully, at times—a little humbling. But it should be really good.

We actually have four things that we hope this series produces in us as a church family. We want to resist our culture’s urge to honor the young and famous, and try to figure out how to be more biblical and honor the old and humble. It’s definitely the way of the Bible. We want to engage with and embrace those outside of our generation. We’re hoping this series will stimulate you to say, “Man, I want to call somebody who’s older or younger and find the riches that are there in that multi-generational life.”

The church is made up of every tribe, every tongue from every corner of the earth, from every age. The Bride that Jesus Christ died for and is drawing together is a bride that literally is not just millennial and baby boomer. It’s all ages since the beginning until the end. There will be people that are a part of that Bride of Christ, part of that heavenly body that come from every age. It’s just mind-blowing. And God’s vision is always so much bigger and broader than ours.

Another thing we hope is that we will begin to acknowledge and appreciate the frailty and brevity of life that will let the winds of eternity blow in and, though we can’t comprehend them, we’ll let them stir in us and help us understand that really our life is very short, very frail, very brief and very precious. Every breath is a gift. Every day is a gift and can be used in good ways and ways that aren’t so good.

And another thing we to happen is that we will get to know Jesus more, as always. We want to grow more dependent on the faithful Rock of Ages. Set our feet more firmly into that Rock that has been faithful for all time and will be faithful forevermore.

That’s what we’re hoping for. Trying to build our lives on the good things. We know that there are different generations, even alive today. I just had the opportunity to go camping with Jim Watkins, the guy on the video. He’s the chairman of our elder board. He invited me—he’s invited me multiple times to go to the Black River, fishing with him. It hasn’t worked out, but then this year it did. I told a little bit of those stories. But it was incredible to be with a guy who’s in his mid-seventies. He drove his truck until, literally, you couldn’t go any further because he had run over so many trees. We were like, “What’s that smell?” Well, basically, that’s trees under us that are burning because we’re just romping right over them.

We get there and everyone gets their heavy backpacks on and we hike down this mountain about an hour and a half. He’s just leading the charge, no problem. It was really amazing to be with a guy who’s fortunate enough, by God’s grace to be at that age and still really healthy in a lot of ways. But he does have a weakness. I was following him down this trail. We were just hiking and hiking. Again, I’m going, “Man, this guy is so incredible.” And I hear a rattle snake. It’s rattling really loud. But he just kept marching through. He has been bitten by a rattle snake in the last year. And I’m thinking, “Man, this guy is so tough that not even a rattle snake moves him.” He’s just walking right by. And I saw the rattle snake. And I was just, “Ahhh! Jim! A rattle snake!”

He came over and he was poking it and prodding it. He’s like, “Yeah. Look at that rattle snake.”

I’m like, “Man, this guy is hard core. He’s really hard core.”

Later on, I was asking him, “How many rattle snakes have you seen out here?”

He said, “I’ve never seen any rattle snakes. Maybe one time when I first came, thirty-five years ago or something.”

I was like, “Wow. That’s crazy,”

So, then when we’re hiking out, there were four of us, and Jim’s leading the way. We’re all trudging through and he’s having no trouble. We get to the top and we’re just about back to the car when, all of a sudden, I hear that rattle again. I was freaking out and saying, “Rattle snake! Rattle snake!”

He’s like, “What’s that?”

He turned around and I was like, “There’s a rattle snake right there!”

This thing was just so loud. And Jim comes over and he’s like, “Wow! There he is!”

And I go, “Jim, can you hear that?”

He goes, “It’s making noise?”

I was like, “It’s screaming at us! It’s so loud!” I turned on the camera and I was like, “Listen to this!”

And the first time he didn’t have a hearing aid in and he couldn’t hear it, which makes sense. The second time, he had his hearing aid in, but whatever the frequency, he couldn’t hear it. He literally looks at me and says, “Maybe that’s why I haven’t seen one in thirty-five years!”

I was like, “Oh, my goodness!”

We were about done with the trip. But I vowed that, any time I’m with Jim I’m staying right next to him because I don’t want him to get bit by another rattle snake.

I tell that story, One, because it’s amazing what he is able to do all of that, but I can’t emphasize to you enough what a privilege and blessing I feel right now to have somebody like Jim in my life. I’ve told him this numerous times and, this isn’t a surprise to him, but just to have a guy like that who’s rooting for me, cheering for me—and he’s the chairman of an elder board. So, in my position, I have a bunch of volunteer elders who are all just trying to say, “We just don’t want this guy to fail. How do we keep correcting him when he’s getting off and encouraging him when he’s not?” They are literally trying to make me succeed in everything I do. It is such an honor and a privilege and a joy and a strength. I’m so thankful for it.

Jim and I have had many talks. We’ve been on adventures together. It’s just so rich. And if you don’t have something like that, I would encourage you to start praying very, very fervently that the Lord would bring something like that into your life. And if you’re saying, “Everybody older than me is dead, because I’m really old,” then go ahead and pray that the Lord would start showing you who you could be that for. It is so needed and necessary in this Christian life, let alone life in itself. We need each other.

Our goal at Living Streams is to be a multi-generational church, which is the most miserable way you can do church. Right? It’s like, “Let’s be all young with our everything and then at least the young people are happy.” And the old people are grumpy. “All right. Let’s just make it a little more old with everything. We’ll get the old people happy.” “Let’s be multi-generational.” Then everybody’s unhappy. Right? I mean, that’s basically what we’ve said. “Okay, Lord, we’re going to be multi-generational.” But it’s because we believe there is a treasure and a richness there that we desperately want. It’s worth whatever kind of discomfort or misery we might go through.

The generations that we know are alive today:

The Traditionalists born before 1945. Again, the dates aren’t quite as important, they’ve discovered it’s more the collective experiences that that age group has gone through. The Traditionalists went through World Wars, the Great Depression, and they remember when they got sliced bread, I guess.

The Baby Boomers are those who remember living through Vietnam, the Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, Moon Landing, Woodstock and when they got their first TV.

Generation X. Both parents worked a lot, so less supervision. Music Videos changed everything. And they remember when they got their first computer as a family.

And then the Millennial generation. They remember all the technological advances. They remember when they got their first phone. Facebook, Instagram. The world got a lot smaller because of the ease of travel and communication. This is their shared experience. You guys keep thinking I’m going to make fun of them. “You said Millennials, where’s the joke?” It’s all right. We’re trying to honor everybody right now. I’ll make fun of you later.

Generation Z. Those that are born from 1996. Basically, there are four necessities of life: Air, Water, WiFi, Food. Basically, that’s it. “Food is okay, as long as I’ve got WiFi.” Their online personality and relationships are just as important as their offline in time spent and investment. Now, I don’t think anyone would actually say that at this point. But it’s kind of interesting that they’ve always lived with kind of an online personality. So the two of them are very important. Their interactions in both places are very important and they shape them differently than the other generations.

Again, when the Bible is talking, it’s not just talking about America in 2019. It’s speaking things that are relevant way beyond America, way beyond our generations that we can name at this point: every age, every nation, every tribe, every tongue.

I want to turn to Psalm 90, if you would. We’re going to work through Psalm 90 a bit. It’s a Psalm by Moses, which is weird if you know anything about the Psalms. It’s the only Psalm by Moses. All the other Psalms are written by David, or a lot of times were at the same time that David was alive or just after that with Asaph. This Psalm by Moses had been preserved by the Israelites into the Psalms. It’s been preserved by both those involved in Judaism and Christianity today.

Psalm 90 is the start of a new book of Psalms, Book Number 4 of Psalms, which, if that doesn’t make sense, do a little research. It’s kind of fun. A little breakdown of the book of Psalms.

We don’t know exactly, but Moses was probably old—real old. What we know of him, he was about eighty when he started his relationship with Jahweh, the God of the Bible. And so, it’s after that, between 80 and 120, somewhere in there is when Moses was probably writing this thing. You’ll see how that makes a lot more sense as we go through this Psalm.

Psalm 90:

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.

2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Moses starts out and we don’t know what is stirring in him that is causing him to pray at all, or to pray specifically in this way. You guys know there are times in your life where all of a sudden you’re stirred to pray. Maybe you have a need or lack, or maybe you’re just feeling caught up in something you’ve seen that’s beautiful, and so you’re stirred to pray. But then, what you pray actually is also coming from what you are experiencing in life. We don’t know exactly, except that he’s old. And he’s come to this point where the intensity of his mortality is great. He’s probably thinking about death a lot more than when he was younger.

There are people in this room who are at that stage. They are thinking about their mortality. It is yelling at them. It’s tapping them on the shoulder. “Hey. Hey. Hey.” All the time. Now, all of us know that life could end at any minute, but Moses was probably in that stage where he was dealing with the reality of death. And he’s saying, “God, you have been a refuge to every generation. I know that you are way bigger than I could ever comprehend. That you are not just my God and the God of my time, but you are the God beyond time.”

And he even talks about, “You are ageless, going back. Timeless, going back. Timeless, going forward.” This is an interesting concept for Moses to be grasping. This is eternity, which is a very, very vast concept that causes even our great scientists to stumble and kind of falter in trying to explain eternity. Basically, no beginning and no end.

That’s different that you and me. The Bible teaches that we are not eternal. It might sound funny, and, obviously it’s semantics. We don’t inherit eternal life from God, even though that’s what the interpretation is. We inherit everlasting life. The difference is that we have a beginning. God has no beginning and no end. We have a beginning and we have no end.

Moses is grasping in this moment the reality of God being timeless, not ever dealing with mortality. Not ever dealing with limit. Not being finite.

Then he goes on to say:

3 You turn people back to dust,
    saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
    are like a day that has just gone by,
    or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
    but by evening it is dry and withered.

Again, Moses is trying to be in this moment, and he’s saying, “Not only are you eternal and immortal and limitless, but when I look at humanity—pitiful. So brief. So frail. So small.” And he’s just caught up in this reality. He knows that death is coming at any minute, no matter how hard he fights, no matter how much he flexes, no matter what he does, he can’t beat it. And he’s been experiencing it little by little his entire life.

Death is not something that’s brand new in his life. Death is something that’s always been there. And we, mankind, though we think we’re so fit and strong and big, we’re just like a blade of grass that grows up in the morning and is gone in the evening.

And then he says:

7 We are consumed by your anger
    and terrified by your indignation.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
    our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
    we finish our years with a moan.
10 Our days may come to seventy years,
    or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
11 If only we knew the power of your anger!
    Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

So here, Moses is speaking to the pain of life, not only is God limitless, immortal, infinite, and we’re so brief and frail, but this existence that we have here in life is rough. It’s full of pain, challenge, loneliness, loss, heartbreak. Welcome to church, everybody, Hope you’re really getting built up by this.

And he says,“You know, I understand that this is linked to our sin, that we hurt each other, that wars happen, that people are brutal and angry and spiteful. Not only do we have pain in our bodies, but we inflict pain so often.” He’s just being honest. It’s like all of this truth is being presented to him and he’s not rejecting or ignoring it. He’s just embracing it.

It’s funny. In Ecclesiastes Chapter 12, there’s another writer in the Bible. He speaks to aging. He speaks to old age, It’s the wisest man, Solomon, who is writing.

In Ecclesiastes 12 (NCV), he says it this way:

1 Remember your Creator
    while you are young,
before the days of trouble come
    and the years when you say,
    “I find no pleasure in them.”
2 When you get old,
    the light from the sun, moon, and stars will grow dark;
    the rain clouds will never seem to go away.
3 At that time your arms will shake
    and your legs will become weak.
Your teeth will fall out so you cannot chew,
    and your eyes will not see clearly.
4 Your ears will be deaf to the noise in the streets,
    and you will barely hear the millstone grinding grain.
You’ll wake up when a bird starts singing,
    but you will barely hear singing.
5 You will fear high places
    and will be afraid to go for a walk
Your hair will become white like the flowers on an almond tree.
    You will limp along like a grasshopper when you walk.
    Your appetite will be gone.
Then you will go to your everlasting home,
    and people will go to your funeral.
6 Soon your life will snap like a silver chain
    or break like a golden bowl.
You will be like a broken pitcher at a spring,
    or a broken wheel at a well.
7 You will turn back into the dust of the earth again,
    but your spirit will return to God who gave it.
8 Everything is useless!
    The Teacher says that everything is useless.

We can read this, and I think everyone is here because they are somewhat able bodied. We kind of laugh a little bit, even though some of us might feel a lot more of this than others. But this is real. If you’re ninety, maybe you can laugh at this, but it’s a different kind of laughter because you’re feeling it.

Every one of these things is just a reminder that death really is what’s happening. Death really is a reality. And, just like Moses is describing, our life lives under the shadow of death. There is a curse over this life. It’s true. Adam and Eve were in the garden and there was paradise. There was no death, no pain, no sorrow, no shame, no guilt. There was none of these things that he describes. And then, one day mankind, Adam and Eve, decided to trust something other than what God had said. Whether they trusted the word of the serpent, whether they trusted their own discernment and understanding. Whether Adam trusted Eve or Eve trusted Adam—it’s hard to know exactly. But they trusted something other than what God had sad. And immediately there was a curse on this world and this life that we endure every day.

Now, by God’s grace, God said, “Let us not also let them eat of the tree of life and let them live forever under that curse. But let us get them out of the garden so that, at some point, they will die so that they can once again be free from the curse.”

Moses is alluding to the curse, the reality of death and the shadow, and that death is having its work in us each and every day.

He goes on in Psalm 90, in light of all of that, the agelessness of God, the frailty of humanity and the curse that we live under, this is what Moses prays for, what he asks for towards the end of his life:

12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

He doesn’t pray, “Lord, could you make my hip stop feeling like that? Or could you just give me one tooth back so I can chew? Lord, will you just take me away and let death come right now?” He doesn’t pray any of those prayers. He says, “Lord, will you help me to know how best to use each one of the days that I have left?”

It’s sad, I think, to the Lord and maybe to Moses, that we would have to wait until the end of our life to pray prayers like that. Hopefully somehow we can stir up a little bit of that understanding. Then he also prays:

13 Relent, Lord! How long will it be?
    Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
    that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    for as many years as we have seen trouble.

I think this is a very interesting prayer here. Again, he doesn’t pray that God will take away the reality of death and what it works in our bodies and in our lives. But he says “God, I pray that as death increases, as the pain of aging increases, I pray that your joy, your unfailing love and your gladness would increase at a greater rate; because I know that you are more than enough for me. You were more than enough for me when I faced Pharaoh and the Egyptian army. You were more than enough for me when I faced the Red Sea. You were more than enough for me when I walked through the wilderness with no food or water. Lord, you’re shown how sufficient you are. That you really are the I AM. And I pray that now, as I face this whole different kind of enemy, I pray that once again you would be more than enough for me.”

That’s a beautiful prayer. It’s the kind of prayer that I’ve been praying for my daughter, Bella, who’s in a wheel chair. I would love for the Lord to heal her and not make her go through a lot of the things she goes through, but when I prayed those prayers, it just felt like ‘eh. And I remember at one point I was stirred by the Lord to pray a prayer like this:

“God, I just pray actually that you would heal her in the way that’s most significant for her relationship with you. And I’ll just butt out, if that’s okay.”

And I felt like the Lord said, “Now, I hear you. Now I hear you. You don’t even know the moment I have set up between me and her.”

I said, “Okay. And I’ll just do my best to fill her with joy and love and gladness so that she can overcome whatever hard may come.”

And it’s true for all of my kids, not just her.

And then he goes on to pray one more prayer:

16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.

He first prays that the Lord would teach him to number his days, to make the most of them, to have a wisdom for how to use them in a wonderful, beautiful way. But then he prays not that God would remove all the pain from his life, but that God’s sufficiency would be more than the pain. That’s a prayer that God loves to answer, by the way.

And then the last thing he prays is that, “God, somehow, in light of all of this, you would produce something from my life that lasts beyond my life. I just want something I do to be meaningful for those who come after me. Establish the work of my hands.

The way he says it there, “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.”

“Lord, I pray that you would do something in me that helps my kids and their kids and their kids all be able to pray the same thing that I’m praying. Lord, you have been a dwelling place to every generation.”

Moses could think of the stories that had come before him, how God had been so faithful. He’s praying that now his kids and their kids would look at his life and think, “Wow, God, you have been faithful.”

And I love it that he’s kind of ending his prayer with the beginning. He’s saying, “Lord, establish the work of my hands.”

And yes, we know Moses for a lot of other things, but in this Psalm, the very prayer that Moses prays God actually preserves in answer to his prayer. Do you see what I’m saying? He prays, “God, let something that I do, something of my life last beyond my life.”

And God says, “Well, I’m going to take this prayer you just prayed and I’m going to make that the very answer to the prayer you just prayer.”

And now, four thousand years later, we’re reading this prayer—preserved, established by Moses and God together. And I pray that we would be able to pray in that way, that we would have that picture of eternity. The parade of history is going past and we can only see this one section, about seventy or eighty years. And maybe we can look back and say, “Yeah. I heard some stories from before. Yeah, I can see the future a little bit, what’s going to happen.” But it’s still so small. And yet, God is above. He’s kind of like up in the blimp and he sees the end from he beginning, and ever twist and turn and corner.

Moses is teaching us that, when we pray, we should try to get up with God and get a picture of what sovereignty sees, what eternity sees, and pray those type of prayers. So we can take this prayer and measure it against the prayers that we’re praying, and see if we’re too focused not he here and now—the momentary. If we’re too caught up in the economy of this world instead of the economy of heaven, and learn to pray prayers that God really wants to answer.

Why don’t we do that now. Bow your heads and close your eyes. We’ll take a moment here:

Lord Jesus, we do pray that, right now in this moment, Lord, pray that you really would breathe your breath on us, that you’d help us see things the way you see them. That you’d open our eyes to our blind spots. And Lord, you would put some prayers in our heart that are worth praying. Prayers that will honor you and bring you glory. I pray this in your name. Amen.

I want to show you one more illustration. Many of you have probably seen this. It was done by a man named Francis Chan. He was trying to give an illustration of forever vs. today. He did it pretty smooth. I’m obviously not, right now. I’m going to try this one more time. Boom. Look at that. Pretend this rope goes on a long way, way further than it went. This is forever. Basically, we’ve got this rope and it goes on forever. And that’s our plan. God says that we’re created forever. We have this life in this body, but once we die, our being exists on. God intended it that way because he wants us to experience life to the full and life to forever. That’s the way we’re made. This is what we should be thinking about. This is what we should be worried about. Instead, this is what we’re worried about. We spend all of our life, energy, time, really trying to make the most of this [tiny portion of the rope] instead of making the most of this [the whole rope].

The illustration is that same thing that Moses said, “Teach us to number our days.” Teach us to realize how insignificant this life is, this seventy, eighty, ninety years is in comparison with what you’ve made us for. Now, the marvel of Scripture is that what happens in this life affects the rest of this, so this is important; but, for some reason, we get so focused on this, and I think God is just going, “What are you doing? I want to talk to you about this and you’re saying, ‘We just want to talk about this.’”

But there’s something about this small section that the Bible teaches is so vitally important. Because there are two ways that we go into forever. One is forever in life. The other is forever in not life—in death. Heaven and hell is the way that they’re described. And it’s not a popular thing to say, but the Bible is very clear that what you do with Jesus Christ in this life affects what your forever is going to be like. God created hell not for people. The Bible is very clear. He created it for the devil and his angels. And yet, those people who reject Christ, who do not surrender to the love and forgiveness of Christ, God says, “Well, I’m not going to force you to receive my life. If you want to be without my life, I’ll honor that. But you’re going to have to do it over my dead body, literally, the body of Christ.”

And some of us still, in our stubbornness and pride think we’ve got this all by ourselves. I’m hoping that, somehow, the light of all of this breaks some of that pride and you’ll come to Jesus and receive the life, the forgiveness that he wants to give.

I love the way that hymn says it. I thought this was so great. In Christ, if you’ll come to him, if you’ll surrender to him, you’ll receive “pardon for sin and a peace that endures.” And then you’ll receive God’s own presence to “cheer and to guide you along the way.”

Most of us are here because we’re experienced that. And the only one keeping you from Jesus right now is you.

We’re going to finish with communion. We’re all going to take a piece of bread and a cup and hold on to it and we’ll take it together. If you are someone who is not surrendered to Jesus, this is a golden opportunity for you. What we do with this is remember Jesus’ broken body. He was broken so that we could be made whole. And his shed blood. He allowed his blood to be shed on that cross so that we could be washed clean, past, present and forevermore. So we take this and we remember Jesus. We invite Jesus to come in again. But if this is your first time, you could take this and invite Jesus to come in for the first time. And he will come in and he will fill you with cheer, gladness, love, and forgiveness. And he’ll lead you to life everlasting

As they are passing this out, just take a moment and talk to the Lord. Confess your sin. Confess your forgiveness. Just allow him to speak to your heart in a moment of silence.

As I was praying this morning for all of us, especially those who are here that don’t really know Jesus or haven’t really surrendered, I just had a picture that I think was from God, of someone who just kept going down these streets and running into dead ends. I don’t know if you keep trying new things, thinking they’re going to bring you new life and they just keep ending up as dead ends. But the way of Jesus is a path that shines ever brighter to the perfect day. It doesn’t end. Jesus wants to take your hand and lead you down that path, if you’re ready. If you’re ready to say ‘no’ to all the other dead ends.

So Jesus, we do come to you right now. We’re all at different stages in our relationship with you. But I pray that, as we remember your broken body, you really would come and fill us. That you would shape us and form us to be more like you. Thank you for your broken body.

Let’s take the bread.

And Jesus, I pray that you would also come once again and cleanse us. That you’d just wash away all of our shame, all of our guilt, all of our fear, all of our self-righteousness. That you would just make us clean and you’d help us to believe it, as well.

Let’s take the cup.