David Stockton 5/23/21 David Stockton 5/23/21

Overcoming Destructive Anger

You guys know what today is? It’s Pentecost Sunday! Woo! It’s the day that we remember when the Spirit of God was poured out upon the Church and everything changed. So, when David asked me to speak on my anger story, I thought, How am I going to tie that into Pentecost Sunday? I will do it! One of the things I want to say is…

Series: The Sermon on the Mount
May 23, 2021 - Kurt Cotter

One of the things I want to say is, David talked about last week, he said that the way we really experience change is we walk in the Spirit. In Galatians 5 it says “Walk in step with the Holy Spirit.”

The way I look at it is, I like to think of Jesus introduced the Holy Spirit in John 14, 15 and 16, and he called him our helper. He called him our comforter, our counselor, our teacher. And he invited us into a relationship with God the Holy Spirit. So I want you to know that what I’m going to share today, it didn’t happen by might or by my power, but by the Spirit of God. He’s our helper.

So I hope you guys will learn how to work with the Holy Spirit and let him give you the power to fulfill what the scripture says. So let’s pray as we open up in Matthew 5:21.

Father, we thank you for your presence that’s here. We celebrate the coming of your Holy Spirit, and we invite you into this room, that you would work in our lives, that you would show forth Jesus through us. And we ask it in your name. Amen.

Okay. Matthew 5:21 through 24 is the scripture I’m going to focus on today.

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

We all know that God looks at the heart. Man looks at the outward appearance. But when he sees inside of a heart of a person anger, it’s a serious issue with God. We can tell by what we were just reading. Here Jesus says, “Yes, you’ve heard it said if you murder someone you’re subject to judgment. But I say if you’re angry with a brother or sister you’re subject to judgment. In fact, if you call them a fool you’re also in danger of judgment.”

Now, I know firsthand about the damage that can happen in relationship because of destructive anger. And the things I spoke out of my mouth to those that I love, especially. I think everyone agrees that, when you first give your life to Christ, you become a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things have become new. And you change, right? But a lot of people don’t realize that even after thirty years of walking with Jesus, he still wants to change us and he wants to transform us into his likeness.

So, how can we change? Jesus is changing us from glory to glory. It says this in 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NKJV), which is not in front of you. But you all know this one.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

So we are being changed as we gaze upon the face of Jesus and behold his glory. He’s changing us from glory to glory. Anybody know what’s in between the glories? A whole lot of painful things to change your life. That’s what I’m going to talk about.

Also, the other verse that’s very familiar to you is Romans 12:2 (NKJV). It says:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So, as we surrender our lives to Jesus every single day, he’s renewing us and transforming us by the renewing of our minds. Our minds need to change. They need to be renewed.

So, today I want to share a practical side of what it means to walk in the Spirit, what it means to see a change by the grace of God, the power of God’s word, as God changed me from having a horrible anger problem.

I’m originally from West Covina, California. I’m one of seven kids. I’m number five and I have a twin brother who doesn’t even look like my brother. He’s four minutes older than me. We’re fraternal twins.

My dad was a World War II vet. He was a marine raider and a gunner in the South Pacific. He went in when he was sixteen. I still have his uniform. He came out and he had PTSD. They called it being shell shocked in those days. One of the issues that a person with PTSD struggles with is a lot of anger. And so I saw it growing up very much.

So, at the age of sixteen, I was the first one in my family to ask Jesus Christ to be the Lord of my life and my Savior. It was during the Jesus People Movement — especially in SouthernCalifornia it was really rocking.

My mom and dad didn’t really like the changes they saw in me. My life changed so radically they thought I was involved in a cult. So my dad actually found, he looked in a law book to see if he could find a law that, if you can’t control your minor, then you can turn them over to the police, to the juvenile authorities. He found one and took me to the police station and he made me promise I wouldn’t go back to church until I was eighteen.

The police officer dropped his jaw on the ground and was like, “What? You don’t want your son to go to church?” He said, “Well, doesn’t this law say this?” And he said, “Yes, Mr. Cotter, it does.”

So I had to promise I wouldn’t go back to church. So during that time I remember the guy who discipled me, Andre Jackson, he stayed in touch with me and prayed for me. Then one day I took a loving stand and I just came down and said, “Mom and Dad, I love you, but I love Jesus more and I want to go back to church.”

So, to make a long story short, my mom beat me. She said, “How would you like a beating for Jesus?” I said, “Go for it.” So she just slapped me. After that, she came with me to church. She found out that it wasn’t a cult. She almost came to Christ that day.

For me, it was like this was real. I saw light and darkness. I knew what it was like to just really give it all to Jesus. So I continued to serve Jesus and ended up feeling a call to ministry. So straight out of high school in 1976 I moved out here to go to Bible college. It was called Sweetwater Bible College and it was part of Sweetwater Church. A couple of years after that, I met my beautiful wife, Faith, who plays the keyboards. You guys know her. The week after I graduated from Bible college, we got married. It was May 30, 1980, which we’re celebrating our anniversary next week.

Fast forward to 1993. We came to Living Streams and I was a youth pastor, believe it or not, here, with our little family. A little after I came on staff here, Faith and my two older kids, Melody and Jason, they were trying to help me see a blind spot. Anybody have blind spots? It got so bad, my anger problem was so bad that Faith was considering leaving me if I didn’t change. So she fasted and prayed and she and my two oldest kids lovingly confronted me on one Saturday.

They said, “You have an anger problem.” I remember I had a bigger problem called denial. It’s not a river in Egypt. It’s a reality and it was in my life. I would say, “You think this is anger? I’m a puppy dog compared to my dad!”

I have this funny thing. I like to talk to the Lord and he talks to me when I mow the lawn. So, on Saturday — I love mowing the lawn. I still do. I did it yesterday. — So I’m out there mowing the lawn after I just lived in denial.

By the way, you guys. We all know the verses that say, “Be anger and sin not.” And we go and say, “Well, Jesus made a whip and drove out the money changers in the temple.” I knew all of that and I used to use it in my denial.

Anyway, I asked the Lord, I said, “Lord, do I have an anger problem?” And I’m over there mowing the lawn. And he said, “Either those you love most are wrong again and you’re right again, or it’s the other way around.” And I go, “Oh, wow! You’re saying I have an anger problem.”

I remember coming into the house and just breaking and crying. I said, “I know I’ve said I’m sorry a hundred times, but this time I want to change.” And I said, “Please, help me.” So I asked them for their forgiveness. This time I knew I had to repent if I was ever going to really, really change. So I camped out in Psalm 51. You guys know the Psalm where David is repenting from his sin with Bathsheba? It’s a place of humility. It’s a place of being broken at the foot of the cross.

So then I asked my family, I said, “So help me understand what I do.” They would let me know that, not only was it my words, but my body language. They said, “You scream at us with your eyes and you get this vein popping out on your neck.” It was also my tone, a condescending tone, angry tone. Fifty-five percent of communication is body language, you guys. Thirty-seven percent is tone. So you’re going to have to work on those parts, too.

One of the things I learned about repentance is that I couldn’t blame anybody. I had to stop being defensive and stop blaming people for it and making excuses. I needed to come to a place where I owned how I made them feel, how my yelling hurt them, the ones that I loved the most.

So Jesus took me on a journey and he started to show me the roots of my anger. One of the roots that he showed me was that I would feel frustrated and I would get pictures in my mind. I would feel like a dog that’s being cornered, that would growl. I remember saying many times, “What do you want me to do?” When I was frustrated. And I couldn’t show frustration with out showing anger. I didn’t know how. That was one of my roots. I had to deal with the frustration in my life.

The second root was what I call the pressure cooker. I would let all the things, the stressful things people said or did, just build up and build up and build up. Sometimes it was passive aggressive. You know? You just hold it in, thinking, Oh, I’ll be fine. Then, when you least expect it, with those you love most, you explode. And that’s what was happening all the time in my life. And I didn’t like it.

Then, the third root was when I felt disrespected. I think we as men, I think women do too, we like to be respected. Even Ephesians 5 says, “Husbands love your wife as Christ loved the Church, wives respect your husband.”

I was doing all the wrong things to get respect. So there was this thing the Lord began to show me. There’s this principles that, if you believe a lie you get into bondage. But if you believe the truth the truth shall set you free. Right? So the Holy Spirit began to show me the lies I was believing. I know there were many of them.

But one of them happened on one of the Saturdays, I remember, with my two older kids. I don’t know. To me it’s chore day. Right? I’m still old school. So I was like, not only I’m doing chores, but I said to my older kids, “You need to clean your room.” So I told them, “Please clean your room.” Then, an hour later, I went over and checked the rooms and nothing happened in both rooms. So I went back to them and I said, and I turned the volume up the next time, and then I waited another hour and then I checked both rooms. Nothing was done. So this time, I went ballistic and just began to scream at them until I saw them actually go into the rooms.

In my mind I started believing this lie. See? It works! They respect me when I yell at them. But when I came to my senses, I go, “How many angry people do I respect?” Did I respect my dad when he was angry? I became fearful of him. So I was destroying my relationship with my kids, thinking I was getting respect from them.

So I really started to believe, when I came to my senses, that really what kids respect is when they see you with a humble heart lead by example, be honest about your faults, and don’t just sit there and use your anger. That doesn’t get respect.

After that, I started to go through this thing of being accountable to my family. I don’t know why Saturdays, but I decided to ask them to give me a grade. I would say, “How am I doing, guys?” And I remember, Jason, my oldest son, he goes, “I’ll give you a C+.” And I’m like, “Aw. What do I need to do?”

You know, one of the things that really helped me was asking them, because I have this cluelessness. Anybody ever struggle with cluelessness and insensitivity? I didn’t know how I came across to them. So my grade my started getting up to A’s. And God began to work in me.

The other thing was, when I talk to couples, I like to talk about environment in your home. So my relationship with my kids and my wife, at that time, I had walls come between us and I had a picture of egg shells everywhere. It was like, when dad comes home everybody just kind of goes in their room. “Mister Grump’s home again.” So I needed to learn how to sweep up the egg shells, tear down the walls and build an environment that’s like a well-watered garden.

One of the things that I wanted to learn to do is to develop a communication with my family where it was safe for them to open up, even about things that they’re having a struggle with me. I encourage you guys. Provide a safe environment where they can talk about anything that’s maybe bothering them about you.

I learned how to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry.

I mentioned that my dad and the anger I saw in him growing up. I realized I needed to own my anger and I couldn’t blame my dad for my anger problem. But I did realize that I needed to forgive my dad and I needed to honor him that it may go well with me and my days will be long on the earth. Isn’t that the promise of God?

So I asked the Lord and the Lord had me write out a letter to my dad. He had me go on what I call a gold mining trip. I started to remember all the camping trips my dad took me on, and all the fishing trips he took me on, the way he gave one of his kidneys to one of my sisters at UCLA Medical Center when her kidney failed. And he stayed with my mom fifty years. And I wrote it all out to thank him. And you know what happened? I began to have all this unforgiveness go out the door. I was no longer offended.

So the next point is, stay unoffended. The last part of this verse that we just read was telling us that, if we remember someone that has something against us, leave your gift at the altar and go be reconciled to him. So part of my freedom was learning to forgive quickly and be unoffended. You know, when Jesus taught us to pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” so, even on a daily basis I take inventory and I say, “Lord, is there anybody I need to forgive? I release forgiveness right now. Open the cage and let them go free. You forgave me a great debt. So I forgive them.”

I found out my dad carried that letter with him until it became a little rag. Then something happened and my mom got Alzheimers later. Soon after that she died. My dad was still in the same house that were raised in in West Covina. He became very feeble and he needed my help. I became the pastor of the family. So I kept going back and forth. It was during that process that we became so close, we were like best friends. And I can tell you my dad gave his heart to Jesus right before he died. It’s so beautiful what the Lord did.

I’m here to tell you — my daughter over there, that’s why I’m crying. Rachel is 22 and she said, “Daddy, I’ve never seen your anger.” God changed me, you guys. I’m here to give you hope. If he can change a grouchy old man like me, he can change you, too.

But if I was to pick the most important thing about my lesson that I learned after being a Christian for many, many years and even a pastor, I needed to repent in order to change. So I would say repentance is a process. There’s a godly sorrow that’s works repentance. And there’s a change of mind. That’s what the word repent means. It means to change your mind and then you turn and the word of God renews your mind and you become a different person.

Bringing you back to the Day of Pentecost — I told you I would bring it back to Pentecost Sunday — when Peter preached the gospel, he focused on the resurrection of Jesus. At the end, with these 3,000 people, they said, “What must we do to be saved?” He said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Then, in Acts 3:19 (NKJV), it says this in another sermon that Peter preached:

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,

You know what the word refreshing means in the Greek? Revival. When you repent and you turn your heart, you just surrender. The Holy Spirit begins to bring times of refreshing and a personal revival. May you experience a personal revival in your life today.

God bless you.

DAVID:

All right. Well, again, we came into this understanding that, as we speak about some very specific issues, I mean, our world wants us to focus on lots of different issues of what is making America or making society not great. It’s got our attention all over the place. But Jesus is trying to drill in to some weighty, weighty matters within humanity.

We knew that, as we would do this, it would probably stir up some stuff in our hearts, especially anger. Anger is not a 3%, 10%, 15% of the population type thing, but we probably all have a story whether our own anger produced something that is ugly, painful, or someone else’s anger that has done that to us.

We knew we were going to be doing this, so we wanted to create this time at the end. A little differently, a little more thorough than we usually do. And just ask the Spirit to come and minister his word deep into our souls in a supernatural way. So, Kurt and I, as we prayed and as Kurt prepared and even this morning as I was praying, there are a few things that came to mind that I feel like our people who are listening on line — just because you’re online don’t think you’re escaping this — and people in this room that the Spirit of God really wants to talk to right now. Wants to do something with this message besides just leave you hanging or unsure. Wants to come close. Like I said, we’re moving from a classroom to a hospital at this moment.

If you can hang in there, and if you can kind of try and fight off the birds of pride and the birds of fear that wants to come and nest in your soul, and allow the Spirit of God to come. I know it’s tempting to kind of just shut off and ignore when the Spirit pricks our hearts, to just run. But this is the time to really allow the Lord to come close and see what he has for us.

The first thing that I wrote down was somebody that basically just, in light of last year, they don’t have PTSD, they have PPSD. Post Pandemic Stress Disorder in some ways. The amount of beating they took, kind of like what Kurt was saying, the frustration, the pressure cooker of last year. It could be all of the little things, or it could be some big things like divorce or loss of certain relationships or family dynamics. And you just have found yourself now where, your skin is so thin and you don’t know how to get back to a place where you’re not so frustrated, you’re not so upset, you’re not so easily angered all the time.

What I felt the Spirit said was, that person, if they’ll acknowledge that, if they can receive that, then I’m supposed to minister to them the verse that Jesus said, “Come to me all that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” The Greek word for rest there is anapauō. It says “to cause or permit one to cease from any movement or striving in order to recover and collect their strength.” If we’ll figure out how to, instead of trying to figure it out more or try harder or strive more, if we’ll learn to quiet ourselves and really kind of practice silence and solitude, to try and get away with the Spirit of God like Jesus often did, that, what will happen is we’ll find that refreshing, that restoring, that replenishing. The gathering of strength, the collecting of strength will happen and we won’t be so quickly and easily angered.

The second person, was someone that really, when Kurt was talking about feeling disrespected. This is the person, whether you did it subconsciously or cognitively, you’ve really come now to the place where you are using anger as a tool to get love, to get respect, but it is a lesser and a counterfeit love that is never going to satisfy you. It might scratch an itch, but that’s it. You’ve been relying on anger to produce this and you’ve been using it to think, Maybe I have the power and authority. And it makes you feel better about yourself. But really you’re creating some sort of slavery, not some loving relationship.

In the face of that, I really felt like you were creating — when Kurt said that in this service, it really resonated in my heart — this egg shell environment for the people who you really love. You might not realize it because you don’t walk on egg shells, but everybody around you is, and can’t wait for the day to be away from you.

What’s so beautiful about Kurt’s story is he woke up before his wife decided, “I can’t be here anymore.” By God’s grace he woke up before his kids said, “Forget it. I’m done with this guy. I’m sick and tired of the egg shells he’s created.”

That was beautiful and wonderful and Kurt was able to repent. And Kurt has now, through the help of his kids, but really the Spirit, he gets to that place where, whenever he feels like he needs to act out in anger in order to get the thing done, to get the feeling that he wants, he now stops himself and says, “Okay, God, I’m giving you control. I’m letting you come in.” And when we give control to the Spirit, what happens is he gives us self-control. It’s one of the fruits of the Spirit.

The third thing is there’s someone out there who’s been holding on to offense and unforgiveness. They basically keep drinking that poison helping it will kill the person that they hate. It’s totally foolish. And it’s hard, because sometimes we really do get hurt. Injustice does happen in this life, in this fallen world.

And what Jesus is saying to you is you need to repent and you need to forgive. Not forgive once they sorry in the right way. But forgive because of what Jesus Christ has forgiven you. And to go ahead and write that note. Remember how he just started going on a treasure hunt and wrote down the things his dad did that were good, and all of those things, and trying to see past the other things. Because that’s what Christ has done for us. And that forgiveness slowly but surely took root in his heart and overcame the unforgiveness and bitterness. And that’s a word for you.

Another one is, as I thought of this one I started to weep a little bit, because there are people, again online or in here, that are just stuck. The damage has been done. They didn’t wake up before the wife left and the kids wrote them off. And now they’re alone and they’re angry. And they don’t really believe that anything good can change them. They’re too broken, too shattered.

In 1 Corinthians 12 we’re told that one of the gifts that the Spirit gives us is a gift of faith. I felt like the Spirit was telling me right there as we were singing these songs and I was listening to Kurt, that he wants to give the gift of faith to someone who’s in this situation. That without the Spirit actually quickening their soul in some supernatural way, there is no way that they could actually start hoping again and believing that they can be restored with their family.

But God is speaking to you. The Spirit is drawing near to you. The Spirit is quickening in your soul even now and he’s telling you, “Hey, it’s time to start believing. It’s time to start walking with Jesus, staying close to him and, in time, you will get to see redemption. That which was lost becoming found. That which was broken becoming whole. The years that the locust have eaten being restored to you in some sort of supernatural way.”

As you try and receive this, all of the fear of disappointment, all of the walls that you’ve put up, everything in you is just raging against this gift of faith that the Spirit wants to bring you. Yet, if you let it in, that faith will help you see mountains moved.

And the last thing was new for this service. The skeptic. There are people in here, again, you’ve heard it but you don’t believe it, that God intervenes. What I wrote down was: You don’t know if God intervenes, but you do know that anger controls you.

And God is meeting you here in this moment and he is saying, “Hey, you want to see what I can do? Walk with me and you will see your anger gone. It will not rule you anymore if you surrender your life to Jesus.”

Let’s pray:

Jesus, this was a lot. I don’t know where people are at in light of these specific things, but I pray that you would bring clarity and, Lord, that you would intervene. I pray specifically for that skeptic who’s listening. Whether it’s in this moment today or somehow they hear this later on on the internet, whatever it is, Lord, I pray that they would know that you’re speaking to them and they would trust you, they would surrender to you, and you would steal their anger away and you’d replace it with your peace. Thank you, Lord.
Lord, we pray that we really would receive everything you want. We want the greater righteousness, Lord, even though it scares us. But thank you for giving us your Spirit that can lead us there. Amen.

Will you guys stand with me as we kind of close with a song here. We have some people up front that would love to pray with you.

One last thing before we go, we have this text number that we’re going to pop up on the screen. We’re going to have this up throughout the next part of this series because we know this stuff can be a little personal and a little intense. We don’t anyone to go alone. We don’t want anyone to feel they have to do this stuff alone. So if you text this number you can stay anonymous or not, but we’re going to connect you with a pastor. And we’re going to connect you with something that will really help walk with you as you go through this journey. Because we want to see the full freedom coming. 602-932-1520

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David Stockton 5/16/21 David Stockton 5/16/21

The Law of the Spirit

We’re in Matthew 5 if you want to grab a Bible and turn there. We’ve been trying to understand the way of Jesus. We’ve been trying to get a vision for the righteousness of God. In particular, we’ve been sitting on the side of a hill with Jesus as he give us the Sermon on the Mount, as he is inviting his followers to know and understand what it would look like, what it would feel like, what it would taste like, smell like if they followed…

Series: The Sermon on the Mount
May 16, 2021 - David Stockton

We were doing great until we got to Matthew 5:17 through 20. If you‘ve been with us the last four weeks, you understand why I say that. Because we were just supposed to do one week with Matthew 5:17-20, but this is our fourth week with it. Because it’s such deep waters. I think it’s so important for understanding and unlocking the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

Basically, he talks about the law here. In some ways Jesus is so much more than a rabbi. He’s so much more than a teacher. But in another way, he really is helping his disciples understand ethics. Ethics is basically when you have a decision to make, which way are you supposed to go, what are you supposed to do.

I had two young guys call me this week for advise. At first I was like, “Yeah, man. I’ve got young guys calling me for advice. Maybe they think I know some things.” Then I realized it’s probably just that I’m older and I know them. And they’re like, “He’s the only old guy I know. Maybe I should call him.”

The first one was calling me because he had an ethical dilemma. His dilemma was that he’s a musician and musicians had a really rough year last year. So he was wanting to gather some of the other musicians he’s known and done tours with, all together for kind of like a retreat or conference where they get together and pray and encourage each other, and listen to the Lord and worship. And they kind of set their sites on what’s forward out of this retreat. He was really inspired by the Lord to do this. So he, of his own volition, was looking for places to do it. He found this one place that he could afford and it seemed to good. He went and visited it and he felt like the Lord was saying this is it, this is so good.

But then, he found out that what the denomination of the place was, and some of their stances on cultural issues today, as well as some of their practices, he was kind of having some questions. It didn’t quite line up with exactly the way he believed. He thought — and it’s not anything horrific or anything — it’s just some little issues.

So he called me to say, “I don’t know what to do. I feel like the Spirit’s saying ‘go,’ but then, when I think about some of the rules and regulations that I know are in the scriptures, and some of what these guys say, we kind of vary. We differ a little bit on some things.”

And I was like, “I’m so glad you called me this week, because, basically, what I’m teaching this Sunday is ‘to the pure all things are pure.’ And ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.’” And I said, “I’m excited you called. Because I know you know the word of God and you want to apply the word of God, and you submit to the word of God, and you’re inviting community into your life to help you process all of this. But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, if the Spirit says, ‘Go’ — go!”

And he was like, “What?” Because he thought for sure I was going to tell him, “Yes, you should be more careful. Yes, this isn’t going to line up perfectly, so you shouldn’t do it.” And he was surprised that I was able to tell him, “No, man. We understand that the Law is good, but there is a higher law that we live by — the Law of the Spirit. And we’ve got to graduate into that if we’re really going to see this world changed.

So another guy called me the next day. He was saying, “I just got invited — I’ve been hanging out with this guy and I’ve been trying to find a way to continue to get to know him and share Christ with him. He just invited me over to his house for Ramadan dinner.” He was like, “I really thought that was great and I feel like this is what I’ve been praying for, an opportunity to go and meet his family. Yet, I’m like, ‘What do I do?’”

“I’m so glad you called me, young man. To the pure, all things are pure. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Yes, I understand. You are right. There are things we need to navigate. There are things we need to understand. Absolutely. And if the Spirit is saying, ‘Don’t do it,’ You shouldn’t do it.

But if you have the Law, and you’ve processed the Law and you’re saying, “Okay, I understand that. That’s good. I’m affirming that. I’m inviting community around me to help me process this so I’m not just doing my own thing. And through all that process, the Spirit is saying, ‘Go,’ go, man! Go! You have the Spirit of God. We’re called to be salt and light. And salt and light needs to get out of the walls of the church and get into society. That’s where it’s the most effective and the most powerful.

And he’s way more prone to legalism, like I am. Like, he loves good legalism. “Give me some rules, man. Yeah. I love it. It feels so good here with all these rules. It’s nice. Yeah. Check them off.” So it was really hard for him to process what I was saying. And because some of you might know the danger of what I’m saying, as well, if people want to abuse the freedom that Christ has given us.

And there are people these days, you know — those are kind of some light and fluffy ethical issues where there isn’t major ramifications. But then we have others. Racism. Sexuality. These are ethical issues that we’re navigating right now. It’s funny, because I’ve been processing a little bit. I don’t know if you know Ibram X. Kendi and some of the anti-racism ideology that he’s putting out there, that is actually making its way not into headlines, but actually making its way into schools around the country, and also Arizona. So it’s something that I’ve been, like, “Okay, I really need to know what’s going on here.”

It’s so interesting, because at first, what Ibram X. Kendi says, is basically it’s not enough to be not a racist, you have to be anti-racist. There are only two camps. You’re either a racist or an anti-racist. Please track with me here. Send me emails if you need clarification. I’m not trying to make some massive point here. I’m trying to help use this as an illustration of why we need the word of God and we need the Spirit of God.

But his idea sounds kind of similar to what Jesus would say, honestly, that “You’ve heard it said that you shouldn’t be a racist. But I say to you you need to be anti-racist. You actually need to be proactive and make sure racism doesn’t happen.” And I think that is kind of actually what Jesus does say in the Sermon on the Mount. “You’ve heard it said, ‘Don’t commit murder. But I say you shouldn’t be angry with your brother.” Jesus kind of takes it to this next place. So you have that. But the sad and scary thing is, the very next step for Ibram X. Kendi, and really the ideology that’s being accepted worldwide goes to this place:

The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. And the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.

Which is absolute crap and horrible evil. It’s the exact opposite of what the entire civil rights movement was trying to put forward. It’s so against the way of Jesus. But you see the subtitles in the ethical issues that we’re dealing with today. And the importance that we know the way of Jesus, that we understand the Law of God, but also we are led by the Spirit.

Again, there’s way more conversation to have over this. I’m happy to have those conversations. I had one last week. I actually love it. I love processing this stuff, because we’ve got a lot to learn these days. But we also have to be able to figure out how to navigate these extremely challenging and difficult ethical issues that we go through, whether they’re in the grand scheme of society and culture or whether they’re inside our own hearts and our own souls, or maybe in our own marriages and families.

So that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to understand the way of Jesus. And what he does in Matthew 5:17, is he says this:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

He’s affirming the Law of God and how good it is. The rules.

Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

So here he’s saying, “I’ve not come to abolish all the rules, regulations, the Law, all of those things.” The covenant God made with Moses. The 613 mitzvot that have been passed down through Judaism. The Judeo-Christian ethic, as we would understand it. Not coming to get rid of those things. Those things are good and helpful and right. Scriptures are good and helpful and right. “I haven’t come to abolish them. I’ve come to fulfill them.”

And what he means by fulfill them, the word fulfill there, means “I’ve come to complete. I’ve come to fulfill it so that next thing can come.” And that’s where we have old covenant and new covenant. We have Old Testament and New Testament. Jesus fulfilled something in order to usher in something new. A new covenant. A new relationship that we have with God.

And that’s what we’ve been trying to do over the last four weeks. And I admit, I haven’t done that great. But honestly, I’m learning this along with you. But I feel like each week we’ve gotten a little more piece of the puzzle, a little more clarity. Like we’re trying to turn a corner. We’ve really been kind of diving into the scriptures and how important they are for us, especially insight of all the craziness around. But we’ve got to turn this corner to not just be relying on the laws of God, but relying on the Spirit of God. Not just living according to the Law, but living according to the Spirit. And that’s what we’re trying to get into.

So to reaffirm what we’ve said. There’s three things we’ve talked about:

1. The Law is good for training us in righteousness.

2 Timothy 3:16 says:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

That’s how I got that super clever point out of that.

2. The Law is good for showing us we are unrighteous.

Now that doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it is important. You need to know when you’re getting it wrong so that you don’t keep getting it wrong. And this comes from Galatians 3:

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”

So basically the Law is good in helping us know that we are unrighteous. And this is where it’s a little interesting. If I were to murder someone and then say, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m just going to do so many lawful things. I’m going to drive the speed limit. I’m going to pay my traffic picture fine thing. I’m going to pay my taxes.” Whatever. I’m trying to think of more laws.

But the more laws we fulfill, it doesn’t take away the guilt from the law that we did. I can’t go into a courtroom and go, “Yes, I murdered him in cold blood. However, I drove the speed limit my whole life. So that should at least take away what I did here.”

It’s not the way it works. We need the law. We need the guidelines. We need the structure to help us know when we’re in and we’re out. And that’s a thing that God gave us. And it’s a good thing. It doesn’t feel good. It feels horrible when we find ourselves outside. But at least it wakes us up to the reality of where we’re at. So the law is good in that way.

Another way we talked about last week:

3. The Law is good at being a strict tutor holding us until maturity comes.

Galatians 3 in the Message says this:

Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law. The law was like those Greek tutors, with which you are familiar, who escort children to school and protect them from danger or distraction, making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for. But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.

So what he’s saying is that the Law was this tutor that was kind of trying to keep us together. We said the Law was like a mom (on Mother’s Day. You know, you’ve got to use moms there.) So it’s like a mom holding you together. You’ve got all these rules and laws to keep you from sitting on the couch you’re not supposed to sit on. (Again. Last week.) Until the day you have enough maturity, common sense and self-control that the mom can say, “All right. Go.” And you’re good. She trusts you. You’ve got this. And that’s what the Law was doing.

Yet, for some reason, sometimes Christians just want to stay there. It would be like this. You guys have seen those big eagle nests. Bald eagle nests in northern Arizona or somewhere else. Way in the tops of those trees, giant eagle nests with these branches kind of woven together somehow by these eagles. And they actually have sticks that are pointing in at the top to make sure that the eagles don’t fall out.

So the Law is like this eagle’s nest. It’s there to keep us from falling out. It’s there to keep us from going in the wrong way, or from danger, all of these things. But when the eagle grows up and is not a little baby anymore and it’s got these wings, it’s got these talons, it would be so weird, lame and dumb if the eagle was just like, “This is it, man. I’m just staying right here. Yes. Check me out. I’m going to be the best eagle nest person there ever has been.”

It’s honestly what it looks like when Christians try and get really good at church. When all they want to do is be good at church, it’s annoying and weird sometimes. Some of the stuff they come up with, you’re just like, “What are you doing, man?” It’s like a different language or whatever.

But they’re really good at church. They’re really good at the eagle’s nest. That’s what the Pharisees were. They were these puffed up little eagles saying, "Check me out I know all the laws so well. I can go around in circles in this eagle’s nest all day long, going, ‘Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.’”

And Jesus comes and says, “When are you going to learn to fly? When are you going to understand this was an old covenant that was just here until the new covenant could come where the Spirit now is the wind beneath your wings.”

This is what we’re trying to do. This is what you and I have to get to. The eagle’s nest is not bad. It’s actually wonderful. Especially for new believers. Especially if you’re not sure what to do. Especially when times of shaking happen. I think it’s okay. Fly back to the eagle’s nest and sit in there a little bit.

And that’s what we’ve done. The winds have gotten crazy around our society. So we as a church have said, “Hey, let’s get back to the scriptures. Let’s really make sure we’re good on what God wants and requires. Let’s really understand how God has worked in times past. Let’s really understand this.” But that’s only the start.

My prayer has shifted. I don’t want our church to be only good at the Law. I want us to know God’s ways. I want us to know God’s word, definitely. But I want our church to be filled with the Spirit way more, and walking in the Spirit, and learning to live by the Spirit. What the world needs is eagles that fly, not eagles stuck in a nest. So we’ve got to make this shift to living by the Spirit. So that’s what we’re going to try and teach today.

First of all, we’ve got to understand the connection. The Law was good for training us in righteousness, but it was powerless to help us become righteous. But living by the Spirit, when the Spirit comes, he not only leads us in righteousness, but he empowers us to be righteous. It’s a big shift that happens.

2 Corinthians 3:7 says it this way:

Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?

What’s better? An eagle in a nest or an eagle flying around. Yeah, flying.

If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!

This is Paul understanding there’s something new that’s come. He’s trying to help his readers understand there’s something new that’s come. Living by the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit. It’s the graduation from the Law. It’s what’s going to bring life. It’s what’s going to bring righteousness. It’s what’s going to bring salt and light in the world, which is what we’re trying to do.

Secondly the Law was good for showing us our unrighteousness. But watch what happens here in Romans 8. The Spirit actually accomplishes righteousness in us. Romans 8:1-4, which, by the way, Romans 8 is the most single important understanding of this. Romans 8, you should memorize it. I should memorize it. I don’t have it memorized. I should memorize it and then tell you to memorize. That would be better.

It’s so good. You know they tell you, like, if you could have one book on a desert island and that’s all you could have. I mean, if you could get the Bible, great. If they’re like, “No, it’s too big.” Get Romans. If you can’t get Romans, get Romans 8, okay? That’s basically what I’m trying to say.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

What about when I acted out in my homosexuality before I came to Jesus? Can I be free from condemnation. Yes! In Christ Jesus, you can! No doubt about it.

What about when I really, really hurt those people in that way? What about when I really let my wife down? What about when I left my kids? Whatever it might be. Whatever it might be. Once you’re in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation. What that means is God does not have any anger toward you. God is not disappointed in you. God has completely forgotten all about it. Your sins and iniquity he remembers no more. There’s no condemnation. You are justified in Christ Jesus. It’s just as if you’ve never sinned at all.

What about my sexuality and what was done to me or what I did to somebody? No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And he goes on:

because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

And this is where something begins to change when the Spirit comes. All of a sudden he starts to write his will on the table of your heart. Another way to say it is he starts putting desires in your heart that are beautiful. He starts putting desires in your heart that are true righteousness — not the lesser or the counterfeit righteousness, but the greater righteousness. The kind of righteousness that doesn’t just make you righteous, but it actually rights the wrongs in the world, which we’re going to be talking about in the next six weeks.

It’s a fascinating thing that God comes and begins to do that work in us so that now, when we walk in this world, we’re walking in a different way. It’s a different flavor coming out. It’s salty. It’s light-y. It’s righteousness.

Then, the last thing, the Law was good at being a temporary tutor for us, but the Spirit brings something brand new. The Spirit brings freedom forever. Now, 2 Corinthians 3:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And then, even more risky than that, Titus 1:15 teaches:

To the pure, all things are pure…

Now, this I don’t want my daughters to read. They are not allowed to read this verse until they’re like 80. Because as soon as they get a hold of this verse — they’re not in here, are they? Yeah. Make sure they’re not in here. No, I’m just kidding. As soon as they get a hold of this verse, they could throw this at me no matter what I say. “To the pure all things are pure, Dad. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. What are you talking about? We’re not going back into that legalism.”

This is not safe. But this is the truth. If you ask me this, God made a mistake here by giving people this kind of freedom. But it’s what God wants to do. To the point where Paul had to write this verse in the Bible:

Because of this freedom … because to the pure all things are pure … because we can do whatever we want and we’re forgiven, we’re cleansed, there’s no condemnation no matter what. Why don’t we just go sin, then? We get the pleasures of this world and the forgiveness of God. He literally was like, “I know what I’m saying is leading you to this, but it’s antinomianism.”

It’s this idea where people say, “Okay, if God’s going to do all that, why don’t I just get both?” And Paul’s like, “You can You can. If that’s what you want to do with the gift that God has given you, you can.”

So should we sin that grace may abound? But his next line is, “God forbid.” Why would you do that? Why would you do that with the love of God? Why would you do that with the gift of God?

It’s the same thing that Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, as she says, “Hey, there’s no more accusers. There’s no one here to condemn me.” And Jesus could have said, “Except me.” Right? Like, “I’m the one without sin, and yeah, what you did was wrong. So let’s talk about that.”

He said, “Go your way and sin no more.” Like, “There is no condemnation for you, even from me, who has the right to condemn you. But go your way and be free. Use your freedom to do righteousness. Use your freedom to help others. Use your freedom to honor God. Use your freedom in those ways.”

And Paul has to caution. There’s so much freedom that we have. He says, “Don’t use your freedom to cause your brothers to struggle, or your sisters to stumble, who might be struggling with the very thing you’re saying, ‘Hey, look, I’m free. I can do this.” But if it causes others to stumble, you’re not using your freedom properly.

So Paul has to do some teachings on how to properly use your freedom. Because you’re that free in Christ Jesus.

Another verse:

All things are lawful, but not everything is profitable.

He’s trying to teach people on the other side of their freedom, “to the pure all things are pure,” now, just don’t abuse it though. Because it’s that ridiculous what God has given you. It’s that good of news that Jesus ushered in in this new covenant. Now where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is absolute freedom. And to the pure all things are pure.

Now you know why I don’t want my daughters to know about that. Because I’m the eagle’s nest. I’m like, “Heh, heh. Come on. Get in my nest. Get in the nest here, little eagles.” And then my oldest daughter’s like, “What are those people doing over there?” I’m like, “They’re not doing anything! Why do you have to have these wings? You don’t have wings!”

But that’s a bad dad. That’s a liar. And Jesus is too good to do that to us. He wants us to be free, so free. He wants us to fly. And so we’ve got to learn to walk into living by the Spirit. And there are cautions, for sure. And there’s the importance of the Law of God.

That’s why, when those guys asked me about their ethical dilemmas, I know they know God’s word. And I know they submit to it. That’s why they’re asking me. I know they understand that they need other people to help them process things. That’s why they were asking me. And because of all those things, I was able to say, “Go, be free. Go free and be bold. The gates of hell cannot stand against you.” So we’ve got to learn to live into this. I want to give you a couple of examples about what this looks like.

First of all, the way the Spirit works in our life is kind of like an electric bike. I wrote an email about this this week. I write a weekly email every week. If you want to get it, then just email me and I’ll get you on the list and you’ll get a weekly email from me right in your Inbox all the time. You could just delete it. I don’t care. But I try and write them. Sometimes they’re good. Sometimes they’re less good.

But I was writing about it this time because this is helping me understand this. My wife and I went to Coronado Island on spring break. It was just the two of us. We wanted to go kind of bike around the island. So we went to this place where you could rent electric bikes. They gave us this map. It was kind of like all of these cool places you could see on the island. So it was like, “Oh, that would be great.” But it was pretty far. So we were like, “I don’t know.” And we were only budgeted for an hour of money. So then it was like, “Okay, I don’t know how we’re going to do this. Maybe we should just not do as much.”

But then, when we got on those electric bikes, we had never done it. We didn’t know how awesome those things were. One pedal is worth like a hundred pedals because you’re hooked up to the power. I didn’t figure out that there were different levels. My wife was on high and I was on economy. I was just like working to try to keep up with her. I was like, “What is up with this lady.” But then I switched it and it was not bad.

It’s not the bike doing all the work for you. It’s that there is really a union. Your effort and energy, which is so pitiful and weak and couldn’t get the job done, connected with the full power of that battery. We cruised that entire island. We got back with time to spare and then went over to another place and got lost. (It was weird.) We could have had so little if we just had us. But connected to that it was like we got this much fuller experience.

The Spirit comes into our lives. The new covenant is God dwells inside of us and our five loaves and two fish can now feed five thousand. We can be the little be that just has a little bit to offer and say, “Well, Jesus, I’m putting it in your hands.” He’s like, “Well, stick with me, kid, and watch.” Boom!

And, honestly, that happens every single Sunday morning as I get up here. And all I have is just something real little. And last week I had maybe one loaf of stale bread. And what was so funny is a bunch of people told me that the Lord really spoke to them last week. And I was like, “Heh, heh. Electric bike.”

Or think about the disciples. These guys don’t know what’s going on. They’ve been with Jesus. And now they’re walking by a guy at the temple who can’t walk, that they’ve seen their whole lives maybe. And there’s just this little bit of stirring in their souls. A little of compassion. A little bit of consideration that was different, maybe, than other days. And they guy is saying, “Can you give me some money?” He’s like, ‘Silver and gold have I none, but I’m going to give you what I do have. And it’s small and it’s puny, but it’s connected to the living God.” The next thing you know, that guy is dancing around in the church, causing a whole ruckus.

And it looks like my mom, like I said last week, was on her death bed, cancer was wracking her brain. She knows the end is coming. She knows she’s losing everything. She knows she’s leaving us and that breaks her heart. With all the full weight of all of that, she had perfect peace. She had that peace that passes understanding. It made no sense as I was talking with her. Because the Spirit of God was there. And her little bit of faith, her little bit of courage, her little bit of strength, coupled with the Spirit of God was enough to give her perfect peace in such a challenging situation.

And for me, as a young man, I remember I was reading 1 Samuel 14 about Jonathan and his armor bearer, and how they went and fought against the Philistines. And what happened was, Jonathan was saying to his armor bearer, his buddy, he’s like, “Hey, all the Israelites are hiding in caves because they’re so scared of the Philistines.” But he’s like, “There’s something in me. This is not right. We are the children of God. This is not right.” So he says to him, “Let’s go over to the Philistine camp where they’re all camped out on that cliff. Let’s go show ourselves to them.” Which was like the whole of their plan, which is not a lot.

But then, his next line is, “And we’ll see what the Lord might do.” So they did. And the Lord basically not only helped them to conquer that, but all the noise of that battle caused all of the Israelite arm to come out of the caves and to drive off the Philistines. I just thought, Man, let’s see what the Lord can do!

So I was graduating college and this was kind of stirring in me. The Spirit was just like Boom, boom! I’ve got to see what the Lord can do. What can I do? I’ve got to see what the Lord can do. And I ended up coming up with this idea of going to Ireland. So I talked three friends into going with me. We bought a ticket and we were going to Ireland and we were coming back three months later. The whole plan, except for we wanted to see what the Lord might do.

I have so many stories to tell, but within three days we had a place to live, we had jobs, and we had our names sent out to basically all of the high schools and, kind of like Young Life Ministries, high school ministries of Northern Ireland, literally every two days we would get on a bus and I’d say, “Can you take us to this Bali-whatever, you know, Balihooli, Bali-whatever…” and they would take us to those places and we would share with the high schoolers that were there after school or in school. Sometimes we’d be doing the assembly so there’d be like two thousand high schoolers. And me and my friends would be like, “Hey, we don’t know what we’re doing here.” And we’d share the word with them. Tell them about Jesus.

I just remember at the end of that time, going, “Wow. Man, the Lord can do a lot with a little.” We really got to see what the Lord could do.

And what is fascinating is that that gave me the courage when my wife — I married a crazy lady — and Brittany Stockton, who was in Belize last week — and any time she comes back from Belize, I’m like, “Yes! She didn’t stay!” You know? Like, “She came back to me! All right! It’s awesome.” Because of the way her heart is and all of that.

Yet, she felt like the Lord was saying we should go to Belize for a year. This was a while ago. And I was like, “Why?” And she said, “Let’s just see what the Lord can do.” And I was like, “Oh, don’t say that!” Big time stuff.

So we do. We had a one-year-old daughter and we moved to this tiny little village that didn’t have running water. We just wanted to see what the Lord could do. And part of our idea was we’d get to see someone from Belize who was raised up to oversee the churches. Because, as it was, the only time there was church was when a missionary came to town.

Sure enough, long story short, everybody knows a little something about this, the guy who preached four weeks ago, his name is Kenny Welch, and he’s been leading two churches there for a long time now. We got to see what the Lord could do. Not because we had anything great. Because the Spirit was moving. We were living by the Spirit.Now, don’t think I’m saying living by the Spirit means you’ve got to go to another country. Not at all. That’s not what I’m saying. But you’ve got to go do what the Lord’s asking you to do.

One other time that was helpful for us trying to figure out how to live by the Spirit, we were going back to Dangriga, which is the next town down, next village down in Belize. I was going to be there for two days. We needed to find a place to live and what ministry connection we were going to do, because we didn’t know anyone in the town. And my wife and I got down on our knees and we got a pen and paper out. We were like, “Okay, Lord, we’re just going to sit here and we’re going to write down anything your Spirit brings to mind.”

So we each wrote down a few things. A couple of them in particular, my wife had this picture of this house. There was like a veranda upstairs and there was a young boy kind of staring out like he was looking at the sea. Then I wrote the name down “Raul,” which is funny because we were going to central America. But I was like, it was Raul or something like that.

Lo and behold, I get to Dangriga. I’m there and there were only like a couple of minutes left. We had like a half hour before we had to go back. We hadn’t really found a place to live. And I saw a truck with a ladder in the back. This is how desperate it had gotten. I said, “Let’s go talk to that guy.” I said, “Do you know any places that are available for rent?” Because you can’t just Google that in Dangriga. He gave us the name of this lady.

So we talked to this lady. And we went over there and there was this house. And I didn’t even think of it. But I took a picture of the house and I sent it to Brittany. And she was like, “That is the house that I saw!” And one of the nephews of one of the guys with us was standing upstairs on the veranda and he was looking out at the sea. She was like, “That’s it!” And I was like, “awesome.”

But this is me. That was more expensive than the other house that we were kind of thinking about. And I was like, “I don’t know.” But then, one of the guys we were with had a dream that night that something horrible happened to my family in the other house. And I was like, “All right. Where are we signing up?” But this is how the Spirit needs to work with me. I need extra credit type stuff to get me there.

Then the name Raul was so interesting because we were trying to figure out this ministry connection. We were driving in and we saw all these people broke down and we stopped to help them. They didn’t need help. But I remember this guy was wearing this shirt that said “Kids Connect for Jesus.” I thought That’s a weird shirt.

Then we drive into town. We met with this pastor and he was like, “Man, I think you guys should work with Kids Connect for Jesus. They seem like a ministry you could connect with. I’m like, “Oh, okay.”

Then I had an ear infection. I was like, “Could we just stop at a doctor’s office real quick because I’d love to get some drops or something.” So we go to the place that those guys knew and it was too crowded. The guy’s like, “Hey, we’ve got too many people so we’re not going to see you today. But if you go down the street there’s another guy.” So we go down the street. Little house, podunk thing. But there’s a guy in there, he’s a doctor and he’s actually from India. And his name is Dr. Raul. When I saw Raul, I was like, “Raul? What? No way!”

And as we walked into the office, literally, we almost crashed into this lady as we were walking in. She had a big shirt that said, “Kids Connect for Jesus.” And we ended up connecting with Kids Connect for Jesus and doing ministry with them. It was like, Wow! This is living by the Spirit.

Now, again, that sounds all magical and mystical. But it was very natural. It was very simple. It was stuff that we were dealing with and God was leading us and guiding us. It didn’t mean that we didn’t have the structure and all of the goodness of the Law and the scriptures and all those things. Like I said, the whole “See what the Lord might do,” that came out of the scriptures. The Spirit loves to use the scriptures to guide us. But at the end of the day, we can’t negate or forget about the Spirit and just live out of the scriptures, because in that there is death. But when the Spirit comes, there’s life.

I have so many more stories to tell. And I know many of you have stories of how the Lord has led you and guided you. And it’s my job as the pastor, a teacher, whatever I am in this place, to help us understand and see what Jesus is really trying to do.

Again, it would be so much easier for us to just buckle down into some legalism. Especially me. I love it. But it would be so much less than what God really wants to do. And, ultimately, it wouldn’t create the salt and the light that this world desperately needs. You are free in Christ, in ways that you would never actually believe if you could. Well continue trying to live into this freedom that he has given us and keep trying to learn how to do it.

A couple of guys that are smart — C.S. Lewis writes it this way. He says:

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out.” Rather, “The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to ‘inject’ his kind of life and thought, his zoe [life], into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.”

And Dallas Willard says it this way:

“Now, what we can do by our unassisted strength is. try small. What we can do acting with mechanical, electrical, or atomic power is much greater. Often what can be accomplished is so great that it is hard to believe or imagine without some experience of it. But what we can do with these means is still very small compared to what we could do acting in union with God himself, who created and ultimately controls all other forces.”

Let’s pray:

Lord, I pray for each person in this room that is facing an ethical dilemma — whether it be within their own soul or household or in our society — whether it be a friend of their who has just confessed some really heavy things— whether it be a daughter or a son who has decided they are homosexual or identifying in some other way outside of what you prescribe — whether it’s some sort of anger issue or someone has wronged them or offended them and they just want their version of justice — or whether it’s just a decision about what to do and where to go — I thank you that your Spirit has come. And I pray your Spirit would lead them and guide them and empower them to walk in your ways, and they would be able to see what the Lord can do, and they would trust you and they would surrender to you, they would have courage to step out in whatever you do say and speak to them. I pray all this in your name, Jesus. Amen.

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Guest User 9/29/19 Guest User 9/29/19

When Jesus Shows Up

David Stockton
Series: Church Around the Table

We’ve been going through Church Around the Table. We’ve been trying to define what the Church is. There are a lot of different thoughts — whether the Church is good or bad—that the Church is is based on people’s definition of the word.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul is laying out what he thinks the Church is. He was saying it at a time when the Church looked nothing like it looks today. It was a fledgling movement that was basically about to be snuffed out by Roman persecution. There was not much to it. But he was talking about it as being this Body, this Bride, and this family that is going to fill to world in every place with the fullness of who God is. And everyone would laugh at him, for the most part. But, sure enough, here we are a couple thousand years later, and the Church is a powerful entity.

We also define the Church both as an organization and as an organism. The organization of the church is like Living Streams—or whatever church you grew up in. It’s an organization that is supposed to be a good house, a fruitful environment for the organism, which is the Church, which is you and I—the people that Jesus died for, the people who are following Jesus, the people filled with his Spirit. Living Streams is just an organization that will come and go as the sands and winds of time change. But the organism will continue to go on. My job is to be a leader of an organization. What I try to do is make sure that this place is a really good house for the organism of the Church.

So we’ve spent some time defining that. You can go back and look at some of those things. The organization has had good seasons and bad seasons, no doubt about it. But the organism has continued to grow into this beautiful thing that is the fullness of God in every part of this world. It is the single, most dominant force for good the world has ever seen. Any true historian would say that it is just amazing what these people have done in this world. We’re going to talk a little more about that.

We’re trying to get this concept Around the Table to help us understand that Church is not something that happens for an hour on Sunday mornings. Church can happen there, but what Christians are supposed to do happens outside of these walls and outside of this Sunday morning context, for the most part. This is just supposed to help us, encourage us, teach us, equip us, so that we can go be the Church outside. So that’s where we’re trying to get people’s minds to think about your own home. Or when you’re having a little lunch break at work. Church can happen around the table.

For me, one of my first real, powerful church experiences was around food stamps, with a friend of mine who was loving on me and caring for me, but he was living on food stamps. We talked about Church happening in a 15-passenger van. For Jesus and Peter, Church first happened when Peter had a boat, and Jesus came and hung out in his boat for a day. Peter left feeling really dirty. And Jesus said, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of that.”

We’ve been spending the last two weeks talking about the Church that was happening around the table at the Last Supper. Are you with me there? We looked at Matthew, Mark and Luke’s account. Those are three of the four gospel accounts. They really focused on that moment when Jesus was having his last meal with his disciples. When he was trying to give them that final message, that final teaching that would stick in their minds. What he says to them is, “I’m giving you my body and blood.” And he hadn’t gone to the cross yet, so they were thinking in that moment about all the times that Jesus had cared for them, served them, saved them, and healed them the last three years of walking with him. That Jesus, who they now realized is a lot more than just a man. He’s their teacher, he’s their rabbi, he’s their Lord and Savior. He’s actually served them and given of himself for three years.

He’s saying, “You guys know, this is my body. This is my blood. I am giving it for you. have given it for you.” He was also alluding to the moment on the next day when he would physically offer his body and blood as a sacrifice for their sin and the rest of the world.

So when they finally remembered that moment of Jesus’ teaching around the table, and then they knew of the crucifixion, the message was so powerful in their lives that they completely devoted the rest of their lives to that, even to the point of being martyrs for that cause. What Jesus was trying to teach them was, “Just as I have given body and blood for you, I want you to now go and give body and blood for others.” It’s a heavy thing.

So Church is not a picnic. Church is not a little club. Church is not easy. It’s the hardest thing you will ever do, if you you really want to follow Christ. The covenant he made with those disciples was, “Just as I have given body and blood for you, I want you to now go and give your body and blood for others.” It’s intense. It’s heavy. Another way to put it is, “Just as I have loved you, I want you to go love others.” It’s a very, very high, hard calling. And last week we talked about how he empowers with his Spirit to do that.

The next week we looked at John and saw how he also talks about the Last Supper, that Church Around and Table moment, but he never mentions the body and blood. Not to contradict them, but he wants to focus on a different thing. He said when they first walked into that room, Jesus shocked them by taking off his outer clothes, wrapping a towel around him, getting the basin that was there by the door, and he started to wash his disciples’ feet—which was something that a lowly servant was supposed to do.

He washes their feet and he does this very cleansing, very kind, very humble way of caring for them; and it was so important that John, 60 years after Jesus rose from the dead, writes that as his account of the final message of Jesus Christ. And Jesus said, after he did that, said, “Now I want you guys to go and do as I have one unto you.”

We talked about another way that Church is supposed to be going on. When we go into this world, to seek to cleanse the world. To seek to wash the world—refresh the world—instead of condemn the world. That’s the call of what Church Around the Table is supposed to be. Giving body and blood and seeking to wash and cleanse and renew people around us.

That’s what Church is. Church happens when we do those things. No matter where you are in this world. No matter what frame of mind you’re in. Whatever.

I want to illustrate how this happened after Jesus left. Jesus sends this message. He establishes these things, and then we have the book of Acts. Now Jesus is gone. The followers of Jesus, who have made this covenant with Jesus, are now practicing this. We see in Acts 2:42 (MSG):

41-42 That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.
43-45 Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met.
46-47 They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

This is now Jesus’ teaching imparted to his people. Jesus is now gone and this is an account of what took place just a few months later. They were now practicing the way of Jesus. Those who learned this lesson, those who were imparted this lesson, those who got to watch Jesus do it for three years, and then it all culminated on the cross—they now started to walk it. I love these people. I love Jesus for sure. But I love these people because they were doing it without Jesus there in person. How he was there with the Holy Spirit. But these people were like you and me. They didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to do, but they had some teachings from Jesus and then they had the power of the Holy Spirit.

I love looking at the book of Acts. It’s like, “Okay. Okay. I can get into this.” It’s also challenging because they got to see some really cool things happen. But their practice was in the temple and then house to house. That’s what we’re trying to get into our minds. It’s good for us to gather together, encourage one another, and celebrate what the Lord has done. But it’s also important for us to think about Jesus showing up outside of this place: in our homes, our workplaces, Life Groups, and things like that.

Acts 5:41-42 (NIV)

41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. ‘

They had just received a rebuke and a flogging from the Sanhedrin.

42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.

Here are some accounts from the early book of Acts and what was taking place. The time frame was probably about 60 a.d. when this was going on. But I want to borrow some Roman historians’ words about the Church. We’re going to go extra-biblical here. This is not in the library of Scripture. But these are some Roman historians that were writing around 100 a.d. and around 350 a.d. They were describing these followers of Christ and what they were like. They obviously don’t think that they are right. They don’t like them, necessarily. And there is persecution, so there are some heavy things. But I want you to just understand that these people were practicing this way in such a profound way, that the Roman historians were taking note of it, as well.

Here’s a Roman official named Pliney writing to another Roman official named Trajan around 100 a.d. He says,

Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, the stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserved to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly, but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred Rome.

And here’s what they were guilty of, according to Pliny:

They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden public associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

There’s a lot to take in right there. But around 100 a.d. this Roman official was talking about these Christians, and how they kept getting together before dawn. They would get up before dawn and they would sing some sort of hymn to this Jesus, as if he was a God. And they would have this time together and then they would continue it on from house to house. They would have this fellowship. They would care for one another. They would do all these things.

Then you go further on and there’s this Emperor Julian around 360 a.d. He says this:

Atheism…

The Christians were considered atheists because they didn’t believe in the polytheistic gods of the Romans and Greeks. It’s kind of weird, right? Because they only worshiped one God they were atheists—because they didn’t believe in all the gods.

Atheism has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor, but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.

So three hundred years later, after Jesus was gone, this is the testimony of a Roman emperor, writing about these Christians who had become a huge problem for them; because they were doing things like rendering service to strangers and caring for the burial of the dead. They were caring for their own poor and also for the Romans’ poor. They were giving body and blood. They were washing people’s feet—not just their own—but those around them.

What history teaches us is around 316 a.d. is when Constantine became emperor, and he basically took away the ban from being a Christian. It wasn’t illegal to be Christian anymore. It was a big move. What was illegal, and what Paul talked about as being this beautiful thing, but it was just this fledgling, persecuted movement in the Roman Empire had now become something that the Roman Empire said, “Ok, what you’re doing is actually so good, we can’t deny the beauty of it, so it’s no longer illegal.

And this was in 360, so there was a lot of debate about what to do about it. So in 390, Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire. And Rome has a very different story from that point on.

The power of this movement. The power of the people of God, filled with the Spirit of God, giving body and blood, washing one another—actually caused the Roman Empire to be completely turned upside down. That’s the Roman Empire. We’re just dealing with America. There is just so much beauty and power if we can get this right. If we can be who Jesus has called us to be and wants to empower us to be.

The second thing that I think we need to notice, as we read these same Scriptures, and we think about Church Around the Table, is that true church happens when we give body and blood; and we wash one another and wash the people in this world; but Church also happens when the life of Jesus shows up. So that Acts 2:42, remember that whole phrase that talked about how they devoted themselves to the apostles’ doctrine, the breaking of bread, fellowship and prayer—it says that they were caring for one another in a really beautiful way. And it says that all of these signs and wonders started showing up all over. It was just as if, when Jesus was alive and Jesus would show up, healings would happen, miracles would happen, wonders would happen. They just followed everywhere Jesus went; because the life of Jesus was being manifest into the world.

Now, what was a shock, and something that the book of Acts writers were marveling about— that Jesus is not here in body, but the life of Jesus kept showing cup in the same way. The manifest presence of God kept popping up. They’re having a little time together, all of a sudden somebody comes in that is sick, or can’t see or whatever. The next thing you know they’re leaving and they feel better or they can see. The life of Jesus. Those things kept popping up.

The disciples were harkening back, thinking about when Jesus first came on the scene. He had just been baptized by John the Baptist. He had just spent time in the wilderness. And now he’s coming back full of the Spirit and ready to do his ministry. He starts out going to synagogues and reading a verse from Isaiah that says (Luke 4:18, 19):

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then he sits down and everyone’s looking at him. Jesus says, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” It was a big moment, where Jesus is like, “Watch out. It’s on.” And, sure enough, as he goes out from that place, some would reject him, some would come to him. And those who came to him with any kind of illness would be healed. The life of Jesus was showing up. The promise of Jesus, followed by the life of Jesus.

And we talked about John the Baptist in Luke 7. He believes Jesus is the Messiah. But now he’s in prison and he’s about to lose his head. And, like any of us, he’s like, “Hey, Jesus. I think one of those things you mentioned was ‘setting the captives free.’ But I’m still here.” So he sends some of his friends to say, “Hey, Jesus, are you the one? Or is there another one who might set me free. Because I’m not free. I’m sitting right here.”

And Jesus responded to him and said (Luke 7:22):

“Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”

Jesus said, “John, look at the fruit that’s on the tree and then tell me whether the tree is real or not.” What he was saying was, “Yes, this is it.” And it’s a hard thing for John to hear and process when it doesn’t happen—to trust God in those moments. Jesus is saying you can judge the tree by the fruit. The life is showing up everywhere. The kingdom of heaven is breaking into our world, and we’re seeing the evidence of it all around.

What was so amazing was, again, he was there with the same guys that he had the Last Supper with. In Mark 16, he says to them:

15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Now plug your ears if you don’t want to have Jesus mess with your life.

17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

Jesus is saying, “Look, I told you it would happen. It happened. John was wondering, I reminded him it’s happening. And now I’m going to go away and, guess what? It’s going to keep happening.”

And the disciples were like, “Well, how’s it going to happen if you’re not here?”

And Jesus was like, “Those who believe in me, those who are following my way, those who continue to do the things that I taught you to do—as you do them…”

…the life of Christ will show up. The manifest presence of Jesus will show up. And when it does, things like this will happen. Sick people will get healed. You’ll speak in new tongues. You’ll cast demons out of people so they can be free. Something about snakes and poison and whatever.

So here we are. We got to see Jesus promise that. We got to see it show up in the book of Acts. But this is 2019 in Phoenix, Arizona. Where’s the life of Jesus? And you in your relationship with God and your journey, maybe you’re saying, “Jesus and all this is crazy stuff!”

I totally understand how you can think that. So you have a decision to make. Are you going to step into this family? Are you going to start following the way of Jesus, hoping and believing that the life of Christ will show up? And you’re sitting around a bunch of people who are saying, “Yeah, he shows up.”

Some of you are saying, “I’ve been following Jesus for a while but I haven’t seen a lot in my life. Maybe I’ve seen it in others, or I’ve heard other people talk about it. But they’re kind of crazy, so I don’t know if they’re telling the truth. Is it for me too?” And the message is, “Yes. It is.”

And then there are a lot of people in this room who, if you really sat them down and asked them, “Has the life of Christ shown up?” They would look you in the eyes and say, “Yes.” And some would say lots of stories and some would maybe just tell you a couple. But Church happens when the life of Jesus shows up. It follows the believers.

In Mark 16, Jesus said, “Now it’s your turn to go and do these things.” The apostles experienced it. For us at Living Streams, here in this one small representation of the family, we’ve been able to see the life of Jesus show up. I actually asked Pastor Kurt, who loves to pray for people to be healed, to start cataloguing, you know, like they did in the book of Acts—start listing them. This date, this time, this is what happened and this is how we followed up to make sure they weren’t just having a moment. But like, a week later, a month later, we checked in and, sure enough, there it is.

We had a guy, I just heard, that had a problem with his shoulder. He had surgery and then he had done something and re-hurt it. He was so bummed out. Then in one of our church services, just a few weeks ago, he was singing and thinking about how much his shoulder hurt. He felt like the Lord told him to lift his hands in worship. And as he did, he said his arm kind of got warm, and got healed up. Then he was like, “No, that can’t be right.” But the pain has been gone for over three weeks now. I don’t know what that does for you or what that doesn’t for you.

Kurt started pulling out all these stories. I was like, “Holy Moly, there are a lot of stories.” But some of them are hard to verify. And then some of them, a month later, are like, "I don’t know why, but the pain is back.” I don’t know what to do with all of those things.

What I can do—I can offer to you as one person, just like the gospel writers did, my account of what Jesus has done and how his life has shown up to me.

First of all, when I was about fourteen years old, I didn’t know any of this stuff. I didn’t really care about this stuff. I just wanted to play basketball. I was at a retreat with friends. Kurt was actually one of the guys that was leading the retreat. I was there because there were some friends and there was a gym and you could play basketball. At one point they were having a time—and I didn’t understand what was going on—at one point one of my friends was saying “yes” to one of the things the pastor was saying about being baptized in the Spirit of God.

Again, I was not paying attention. I didn’t know what was going on. I just knew that at one point there was a circle of everybody and they were all putting their hands on him in the middle and praying for him. Because I was his friend, I thought I should probably do something. I was putting my hand on them and all I could think about was my hand. I was like, “This is weird. Does that person think I’m weird? Is this weird? I don’t know this person that well, but I can’t reach the guy.” All I was thinking about was my hand. That was the full extent of what was happening for me and my fourteen-year-old brain.

But I could hear people start to speak in tongues. I didn’t know they were speaking in tongues. They weren’t speaking English and I thought, “Okay. People do that—maybe.” I’m not joking. I have no reason to make this up. But, as this fourteen-year-old, in this very weak moment of trying to love on my friend and say, “Hey, yeah, I care about him,” I started to speak in tongues just a little bit. I started to speak in a language that wasn’t familiar and it was short. It wasn’t long.

I went right back to being just as self-centered and crappy of a teenager as I could be. Again, I had no framework for it all. I just thought, “Well, that was weird. Was I just mimicking them?” That was it. I literally did not think about it again until I was eighteen years old and I was in a little Bible study school and they were teaching on baptism of the Holy Spirit, they were teaching on the gifts of the Spirit and they were talking from the Scriptures about this thing called “tongues.” And I was like, “Whoa. Wait a sec.”

And it was funny, because at that point—you’re going to crack up—but at that point I was trying to figure out if tongues was right or wrong. I was trying to figure out if it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I had a problem, because I didn’t know anything and it happened. And the only thing I could think was just that God, in his mercy, was basically just kind of pouring out his Spirit and there was this little splash that came over to this dumb little kid.

God knew the story. God knew what was going to happen and, in his mercy, he was like, “Watch this.” And he let a little splash over on this kid. So now I’m having to learn about something that had already happened in this moment of Church that was taking place where we were trying to care for this guy and love him. The life of Jesus showed up. And I didn’t even know it until years later.

And then you continue on and he talks about speaking in new tongues. I was with my wife and my one-year-old daughter and we were totally diving into all that the Lord had for us. We felt that he wanted us to go to Belize, to this village that we knew about, and just love on these people. Go give body and blood and to wash their feet. We were there, doing it as best we can, not really sure what we were supposed to do.

One morning, early, I heard this guy yelling from the little dirt road that was next to our house. “Hey, Pastor David!” I looked up and it was just getting light. He said, “You’re needed in the other part of the village.”

So I got dressed and went down there. He had a bike for me. We rode bikes to the other side of the village. I walked upstairs, still trying to get my eyes to stay open. There was an older guy who was reading Scriptures about demon possession and those type of verses. There was a lady and her daughter sitting on a couch, crying. They looked like they had been through a lot. I just sat there and watched this happen. And then he prayed for them. Then we walked down the stairs.

He looked at me and said, “Do you have any experience in this type of thing?”

And I was like, “Like getting up early? No, I don’t. Honestly. I don’t. You can see on my face, no, I don’t have a lot of experience in it.” But I knew what he was referring to. I just kind of smiled and was like, “I don’t know.”

We walked over and there was a young man, probably about twenty-one, and he was with two friends who were sitting on the ground. He was sitting on a chair and was writhing up and down and making some moans. We walked over there. Obviously, he was looking to me to do something. I didn’t know exactly what to do. I mean, I knew some Bible verses and so I actually grabbed his hand. I knew his name, so I said, “I’m here. I want to try to help.”

I grabbed his hand. I was nervous, because in the Bible sometimes, you know, demon-possessed people are strong. Then he started squeezing, but it didn’t end up being that strong. It was strong, but it was just normal strong.

I got right next to his ear. All I could think to do was to say, “You’ve got to call on the name of Jesus. Jesus is the only one who has authority. Jesus is the only one that can save. You’ve got to call on the name of Jesus.”

At first, he was just kind of writhing, so I was just going up and down with him a little bit. At one point, it seemed like he was trying to speak, but he was choking up. We just kept trying. It was about eight or ten minutes of repeating this. At some point, he started saying, “Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, save me. Jesus, save me.”

Then he just went limp. Again, I don’t know what to do at this moment, but he’s limp and his eyes are closed. I had this thought, “Ask him what he sees.”

So I said, “What do you see?”

He said, “One of them left.”

I was like, Oh, no. What do you mean one of them left? And at this point, I just said, “Well, how many are there?”

And he said, “There’s one more.”

And I was like, “Okay, that’s not too bad.”

I don’t know! I don’t know what to think. So, I said, “All right. Let’s call on the name of Jesus.”

As soon as he tried to call on the name of Jesus, he started writhing again. We went through the whole process again and he went limp again. I said, “What do you see?” (It worked last time!) “What do you see?”

And I’m not joking. I’m not trying to make this sound better. He said, “A man in white told me to go to the church.”

I don’t know anything about the man in white. But I was like, “We’re going with him. We’re going with him. He’s talking about church. He’s in white. Sounds all right. Let’s do this.”

So we got him up and we walked him down to the church. Right as we were about to get him into the church, we were like, “This is cool.” In some ways, I’m like, “This is amazing.”

We got him to the church and we were trying to get him into the church. He started screaming and kind of pulling back. I don’t know if this is spiritual or not, but both of us lowered our shoulders and just smashed him into the church. But he was in the church now and he was okay. So I don’t know if that’s part of what the Bible teaches, but it just felt right at the moment. So he was in there. And there’s more story to tell about things that the Lord spoke to him.

We actually went to town. We came back and he was in a different place. He left the church and it was all happening again. They had garlic and crosses all over him. We had to get the toff of him. There’s more to it.

But I’n offering to you that, for this guy this was a significant moment where he experienced some freedom from something that was freaking him out. But for this guy, it was also significant. It was like the life of Jesus was showing up. And here, in another moment, where either Jesus was or wasn’t—Jesus was.

I could tell you more stories about healings and about how the Lord has shown up and those things. We are kind of out of time. But we’re going to keep sharing these things. If you want to hear more stories, talk to Kurt or talk to me if that is something you’d like to hear more about. If you have stories to tell, share those stories in your Life Groups or in other moments, if you can.

The life of Jesus is the fuel that we run on. If Jesus stopped showing up, we really don’t have anything. We just have a social club. But Jesus is showing up. He’s showing up Sundays. He’s showing up outside of this place. That’s the call. That’s the hope. That’s the prayer that we have.

Let’s close in prayer. Bow your heads and take a moment to allow Jesus’ Spirit to speak to your heart, to quiet your heart.

Jesus, we’re hungry for your life to show up. We know you rose from the dead. I pray for those who haven’t ever experienced your life connecting with their life. I pray that today, Lord, they would ask and you would answer, and they would become part of your family and experience your great salvation. Thank you that you pour out your Spirit, Lord. Fill us anew. In this week, as we’re going through our lives, I pray that you would awaken us to moments when you’re wanting to impart some special gift; and we would be obedient, courageous and faithful, and leave the rest in your hands.

7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Scripture is taken from Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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Guest User 7/28/19 Guest User 7/28/19

Lion Heads and Bear Rugs

Video (Bill Grove):
God says, “I’ll never leave you or forsake you. And God has been faithful to me all through my life in that regard. My name is Bill Grove. I’ve been a Christian, officially, for sixty years—seriously, for thirty-five years. In the early seasons of my life, God was faithful. When I was not paying attention, God was faithful, he was right there.

Lloyd Baker
Series: Generational Blessing

Lloyd Baker

Series: Generational Blessing

Video (Bill Grove):

God says, “I’ll never leave you or forsake you. And God has been faithful to me all through my life in that regard. My name is Bill Grove. I’ve been a Christian, officially, for sixty years—seriously, for thirty-five years. In the early seasons of my life, God was faithful. When I was not paying attention, God was faithful, he was right there. He protected me. He kept me out of danger almost as if, “I’ve got you. There’s something else, later, that I have planned for you.”
I was baptized and came to the Lord when I was twelve years old. At the time, there wasn’t a great deal of discipleship done for me in a little, small town in North Carolina. I pretty much lived my life knowing of Jesus, but not knowing him personally for the next twenty five years.
I was employed in North Carolina as a head golf professional at a small, private club. Politics got sideways and I was relieved of my position. My security in life was in that particular job. I can remember going in the shower one night, having lost that job, and having a small family, and I looked up into the ceiling of that shower and I can only remember one verse at that time. Odd, but that’s the way God is sometimes. “I cast all my cares upon you.”
The moment I did that, the power of God fell on me so strong that I fell down in the shower. I wept for, like, thirty minutes. I felt like I was carrying 500 pounds on my shoulders When I finally got off the floor of that shower, I felt like I could lift 500 pounds. That was why the second baptism. I turned my life over to Christ again at 37 years old and started the journey,
From that time forward, God has been faithful to my prayers. Incredible miracles. Incredible testimonies. Incredible experiences with Holy Spirit. Things that make you hunger for more each day.
I think the thing that I would like to pass along to young Christians is, and it’s in the Bible but it’s really expressed succinctly in the Message. The verse is, “Better is one day in his courts than a thousand elsewhere.” One day in his presence. One day following him, is better than a thousand days anywhere else. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Mark Buckley:

Thank you to Bill Grove. He’s an eleven o’clock guy and a wonderful man. We’ve got another wonderful guy here with us today. Lloyd and Judy Baker are here. Lloyd and Judy were sent out from Living Streams 2004. They planted Streams Church on the west side. It’s been an incredible, wonderful, fruitful church. They’ve gotten involves in missions through their daughter in Japan, in Ecuador—all over the place. They’re doing wonderful things for Jesus. I’m really proud to be their friend and I’m really thankful that David invited them back here.

He’s here because he’s got a message about the power of God. The power of a generational blessing is more powerful than any curse, any family tree that’s messed up, anything. It’s all about his grace and he’s chosen us to bless us. Lloyd, come up, preach and thank you for being with us.

Lloyd Baker:

This is my wife, Judy, if you don’t know. How may didn’t know Judy? Is there a couple our there? Yeah. She’s amazing, in case you didn’t know that. Would you agree? Okay, thank you. That’s the right answer.

Thanks, Mark. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Pastor Mark believing in us. In 1999 we were attending Living Streams and he came to me and asked if I would be a part of the staff. I just thought I’d never be a senior pastor again. Thank you, Mark. He believed in me. From there I blossomed.

And I was Pastor David’s first boss here at Living Streams. I was the guy that oversaw this guy. We have had this amazing journey together. We really learned to love each other through our diversities, and through that, we became very powerful together.

I’m going to start today by taking about my daughter’s dog. Her name is Brittany. This is her dog. That is a Rhodesian Ridgeback. She graduated from medical school. She had researched dogs and said, “This is the dog I want.” This was part of her present. Rhodesian ridgebacks are a unique dog. They were, I guess created is the right word, in South Africa. When the Europeans went down there, they wanted a dog that would protect their crops and their animals. So they took this wild dog from Rhodesia and brought European dogs and bred them together until they got this perfect dog that hunted in packs. They were bred to hunt in lions. That’s what they were bred for. They’re very relational.

A year ago, at exactly this time, I was in northern Arizona. I love to pick berries. There are some wild, black raspberries in northern Arizona. I’m not going to tell you where they are. But they’re called black caps. It’s the Arkansas in me. I love to pick them and make jams and other things.

I was scouting out a spot and I had Gemma, her dog, with me. She was off leash because she’s trained and sticks next to you. We call her a velcro dog. She likes to be right next to you. And so I’m in shorts because I was just scouting. And I sat down to just pick a couple of berries. And out of the woods stumbles a black bear. I know Chad. Chad, would you mind standing? I’m not saying you’re a bear - a teddy bear, right?

Anyway, a bear came out of the forest right about there. And I turned to grab Gemma. Needless to say, she’s bred to hunt, and she lunges between me and the bear. And then the bear takes off running. Hey, Chad, because you stood up, I have some black raspberry jam. And you get some jam, and you get some jam. I’m just kidding.

So the bear takes off running and Gemma takes off chasing the bear. And they’re both super fast. I’m in shorts and now I’m running through the berry patch and just ripping up my legs. Because if my daughter gets killed by a bear — yeah. So I’m running after the bear and her dog. They’re out of sight but I know the general direction. Finally, I catch up to them, and there’s the dog, looking up a tree. And there’s the bear up in the tree. She treed a bear!

And my daughter is so mad at me. But she brags about that moment to everybody she knows. “This is my lion hunting dog who treed a bear.”

The question I want to pose to you today is, Do you have any stories where you slew a lion? Stories where you killed a bear? Stories that will passed down from generation to generation? Because these stories can bring courage to your children, and bravery to your grandchildren, and tenacity and stamina for generations to come.

Today, in the word, we’re going to learn about how bear rugs and lion heads catapulted a shepherd boy into a king. I spoke this message about seven years ago and Pastor David asked if I would share again with you today.

We’re going to be in 1 Samuel 16. King David is really introduced in the Scripture right about here, Chapter 16, verses 2 and 3.

The Lord said [to Samuel], “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”

So, the prophet, the priest Samuel was supposed to go to Bethlehem and find Jesse’s family. They call Jesse’s family to this special feast. And that place he was going to anoint the new king of Israel. So, I can only imagine that there was a buzz around the house—that all the guys were getting ready. Cleansing themselves, putting on some Old Spice or something like that. And they all showed up to the feast.

And everyone was there, seven of the eight brothers. And David was left behind. He was out tending sheep. He’s out there by himself with the sheep and the goats. He probably was a little disappointed. Maybe he had his little lyre there and he’s singing Country/Western songs to the sheep and the goats. And my guess is he’s depressed. And everybody is there at the feast.

We all hold the life of David in great value, but his parents, his father and his brothers did not. We think he’s a man after God’s own heart. He’s a warrior. But they dismissed him as a snotty, little, younger brother; and not even his dad believed in him.

So, after the meal, all the boys are presented to Samuel. Samuel begins to look at them, and he begins to reject every one of them. He goes through all seven children, and he says, “Is there one left?”

And nobody has brought up David’s name already. So jumping down to verse 11:

So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?”
“There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.”
Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.”

12 So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features.

Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.”

And you would think after that moment that, all of a sudden, his father and his brothers would hold him in high esteem, knowing that he was being anointed. But that’s not the story. They actually had more contempt for him than ever before. He got sent back to the sheep and the goats.

Daddy sends all the boys (Chapter 17), he sends all the boys to the front line to fight the Philistines, except for David. David’s left back and all David is good for is taking some snacks to his brothers. So the story goes on. He takes some Cheez Whiz in one hand and Wheat Things in another, and a couple of Hillshire Farms sausage. In Chapter 17 we see what happens:

17 Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. 18 Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit.

See? I told you it was cheese and crackers. He takes them there for his brothers.

28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”…
32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”
33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

No one believes in David after he’s been anointed. Not even Saul, the king, believes in him. But yet, God has anointed him. This is the point. Right? If you’re waiting for affirmation, you’re going to be waiting a long time. Many times the reason people shy away from leadership and acts of bravery and their divine destiny is because they’re waiting for someone to give them affirmation. From your spouse. From your children. From your boss. From your pastor. Some of you are held captive by parents who do not believe in you.

Affirmation is not the point. Anointing is the point. Affirmation is nice, but anointing is irreplaceable. Anointing is the divine knowledge that God has specifically gifted you and called you to a task. And it’s never dependent upon man’s approval. If you’re constantly waiting for affirmation and confirmation, you’re going to spend a lot of time in deliberation and frustration. So lean into your anointing. Accept your divinely appointed task, regardless of affirmation.

I think there are so many ministries in the church that are understaffed because we pause for affirmation. And we’re frozen because of insecurity. So, again, if you’re constantly waiting for affirmation, you’re going to spend a lot of time in deliberation and frustration. So let’s see what happens:

34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

David had a huge advantage over every other man standing there, facing the battle; because back home, on the mother’s side of the bed, lay a bear rug. And when she woke up in the morning, she stepped out, not on a cold, dirty floor, she stepped out on a bear rug. And when her friends would come over, she would say, “Come here. Look at this bear rug. My son was out tending the sheep—David—and when a bear came, he took his sling shot and struck that bear down and today I walk on a bear rug.”

And every time David walked past their bedroom, he saw a reminder that God rescues and delivers. He had an advantage over everybody else. Over the headboard of his bed was this lion trophy mounted on the wall. So every night before he went to bed and every morning when he woke up, he was reminded that God delivers his people.

He had an advantage. So that moment, when he looked at the Philistine, he had a flash back and he remembered the bear and the lion. He said, “If God will rescue and deliver me from this, he will rescue and deliver me from this giant.” David had a huge advantage. The bear and the lion and Goliath will be the same.

If we never answer the bell for the first round, we will never have the courage for the fifth round. You see, one small victory leads to a larger victory. All to the glory and the power of God. But that power of God was available to every man there. And only the one who had a bear rug and a lion’s head stepped up to the task. Perhaps nobody there had one. And perhaps they didn’t have all these things. So they stood there, frightened. If you don’t take on the bear, you’ll never take on the lion. If you don’t take on the lion, you definitely will never take on the giant.

The story goes on and he does some sort of Braveheart thing where he kills Goliath and he cuts off his head. We won’t go into that part of it. But one thing he does is, he takes the sword and he puts it in the temple of God as a memorial to what God had done for him. I’m not sure I would have done that. I think I would have taken it home and put it over my dining room table and then invited my father and all my brothers to dinner. And I probably would have served something like swordfish and said, “This fish reminds me of the sword that I used.” I don’t know. That’s me. David was a lot more humble. He took it to the house of God as a memorial.

Fast forward years. Davis is about to become king. People are singing songs about him. Saul gets wind of it and Saul’s trying to kill him. So they are chasing after David and he is fleeing for his life. He ends up at the temple and he asks the priest for something to eat for him and his band of men. And he says to the priest, “We need weapons to protect ourselves because we had to run away in haste.” And here’s the conversation between him and the priest. It’s found in 1 Samuel 21:8

8 David asked Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
9 The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.”
David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

He’s fleeing for his life. He’s running. It’s a tough time. It’s a dry time. He ends up there and the priest says, “The only sword I have is this one.” And David flashes back and again and he says, “I remember that sword. There’s no sword like that sword. Give it to me.”

Because he remembers that God is a God who rescues and delivers. And this time, he’s in a tough situation. He says, “But I remember the bear and I remember the lion and I know, because of this sword, it will be okay and God will rescue me.”

Many times God gave the nation of Israel great victories. The Red Sea. Joshua is when they are going into the Promised Land and the same thing sort of happens to them there. So I want to read from Chapter 4:

5 …, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites,

So the Jordan River had split. They walked across on dry land. They’re on the other side and this is what Joshua’s telling the people:

…Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future,

[this is really important]

when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

When David becomes king, he keeps up this tradition. Every victory he has, he puts away swords and shields in the temple of God so that the people from generations will know the mighty hand of God.

We’re going to fast forward a couple more years. David is dead. Ahab and Jezebel have now taken over the ruling of Israel. They had actually died. They were ungodly rulers and they brought in all kinds of false gods into Israel. So now there’s a struggle between some of their lineage and the lineage of David. So they begin to kill off all of David’s relatives, so that they would have it, but there’s one left in the civil conflict. His name is Joash. He was a young baby and they hid him in the temple. They took him to the temple and hid him. When he was about seven, the word got out that there was still one left in the lineage of David in the temple. Here’s the story of that in 2 Kings 11. These guys find out and they’re on their way to kill Joash.

9 The commanders of units of a hundred did just as Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each one took his men—those who were going on duty on the Sabbath and those who were going off duty—and came to Jehoiada the priest. 10 Then he gave the commanders the spears and shields that had belonged to King David

So these people are on their way to take this life. And all the priests who are on duty, they call everybody together and he says, “Listen, take all these swords and take all these shields from the victories of David, that God gave to David, this memorial, and now stand guard over this child.”

…The guards, each with weapon in hand, stationed themselves around the king—near the altar and the temple, from the south side to the north side of the temple. 12 Jehoiada brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him; he presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. They anointed him, and the people clapped their hands and shouted, “Long live the king!”

So here’s a seven-year-old surrounded by men who had the treasures of the kingdom of God that David had won in victories. So all these victories—get this—they’re protecting the future of his lineage. David’s lineage was saved because of his past victories.

Our willingness to battle issues fuels the faith of generations to come. Our victories are the stepping stones to their greatness. Joash, at age seven, became king and he ruled for forty years. And he is heralded as one of the outstanding kings of Judah. And I can’t help but think that when he was young, perhaps he was wandering around and saw all these swords and shields. And maybe he asked the question, “What are these about?” And maybe one old priest sat him down and told him all these stories about lions and giants and bears (Oh, my!) Told him the story of every victory. And he knew that he was standing there today because of the victories of his forefathers.

My oldest daughter, Sarah, had diving scholarships. She was a springboard diver. And I forced her to go to colleges to look at them. And every time we went to look at a coillege, she said, “Dad, God called me to Japan.” I remember that day.

Pastor David and I actually led mission trips around the world. We went to South African in 2002. In 2004 we took 42 teenagers to the Czech Republic. I don’t know why we did that. I think we were crazy. But we did.

So she had been around the world. She was touched, but nothing like this. But in 2005 we took a team to do a Young Life camp in Japan. And as we were coming home, on that plane, she broke down, grieving, weeping. I told my wife, “That’s the call of God.”

So we’re looking at colleges and she said, “Dad, you don’t understand. God called me to Japan.”

She left, I think 13 years ago, and she’s never moved back. I remember once I asked her to give her testimony. She said, “I don’t have a testimony, Dad.” I said, “Yeah, you do. You have a father whose step-father beat him. You have a father whose biological father left at 2 and he’s a womanizer. You have a mother who has this faith that she never was fully engaged with her family, and now you live with this heritage of victories of the past. And that’s why you’re here today.”

She was there when Pastor Mark asked us if we would pray about starting a church in the West Valley. He had this vision. I remember the conversation because I told Mark, “Can I just keep my house over here at 32nd Street and Cactus, just in case it fails? I’ll just commute for a year or two.”

And Mark said, “No. You’ve got to live with the people you pastor.”

So we were out there, looking for a house. We finally found the perfect house. We knew the house would be our church office and it would be the youth group meeting place on Tuesday night. We found a model home that would be perfect for us. We thought it was amazing. And the whole family was there, my wife and the girls. We were five thousand dollars short on the down payment, so we were a little disappointed. We got in our car and started to leave. We were a couple of minutes down the road and something just hit me. I drove back and I said to the guy, “If I post date a check for a week, would you give me a week to come up with this money?”

He said, “Yeah, I can do that.”

So we took the plot map and, as a family, my wife and my daughters and I, we walked that property and just prayed and asked for a miracle. I think she was a junior in high school and our other daughter was in eighth grade. Every day they came home—you know, we had a week. And, “Did God give us the money?” I’m like, “Mmmm, not today.” I’m like, why did I do that? I mean, that’s really bold. Day two. Day three. No. No. No. And then, day five, a very good friend of ours from Living Streams took me out for lunch. And he said, “I heard about your house.” And he slid across a check for give thousand dollars and he said, “You guys have been so gracious to my family.”

That day, when they came home, my daughter was there when she saw that miracle, that God provides. So, in her mind, she really thinks that, if you answer the call of God, he always gets your back. See, that’s what she believes. She didn’t give it a second thought.

When you have bear rugs on your floor and lion heads on your wall, giants don’t scare you anymore. Imagine a world where children saw their parents through the power of Jesus Christ confront and conquer nagging sins. Parents confronting the demons of the past, when nobody believed in you, and overcoming by the blood of Jesus Christ. Where children saw their fathers lead them and their families spiritually. Where families let faith, not fear, direct their finances. Where giving to God and the church was not negotiable.

My youngest daughters is a P.A. She went a different route. She went to school and studied. So when she first started getting her paychecks—she makes like twice what I do—she just started tithing automatically. She said to me one day, “Dad, I have no idea why people wouldn’t tithe.” That’s because she lived in a house where we believed that, if you do that, God will just take care of you.

Imagine a world where young people dared to step out and do missions. They saw where their mother shared her faith unashamedly. Where the people on Sunday, that’s the people on Monday through Saturday. Where the word of God was honored over fear of the world. Where every house of every follower of Jesus Christ was full of bear rugs, lion heads and shields.

We have bought the lie that God is more concerned with our comfort than he is our conquering. We have been given an opportunity to build a trophy room for our king, but we must engage. We must give sacrificially. We must serve unconditionally. And we must live for a purpose greater than our own. Because I know that our king is more than worthy.

Talking about my younger daughter, when she was looking at universities, she had this unique privilege. When we were at this one university, we happened to be only a couple of hours away from where I was a teenager in the Ozark mountains in Arkansas. I said, “Let’s go for a drive.” We showed up to this little church called Drakes Creek Regular Primitive Baptist Church. I don’t know if they broke off of the Irregular Baptist Church, but they’re the Irregular Baptist Church.

Anyway, there was somebody there and they opened up the church. She got to see the altar where what should have been became what the Lord wanted in my life. Out in that graveyard, she got to see the gravestone of my stepdad who, after he left us when I was fifteen, he ended up killing himself. And she saw what could have been and the place at that altar, of what became. Because it was at that altar that I committed my life to Jesus Christ. It was at that altar that I answered the call to be a minister. I walked her down to Drakes Creek, to the exact spot where I was water baptized—where the old man was buried and the new man rose. She had this amazing opportunity to see bear rugs and lion heads.

Do your children know your stories? I think that we need to have the stories and I think sometimes we have let the altar go away, for whatever reason. I think there’s power in finding those places, and telling those stories and having those moments, and having a specific spot where you can tell your children, “It was at this moment, at this time, on this date, where this is what the Lord did for me. I want to tell you that story. And I want to tell you this story, and what he provided here, and when he did that.”

Perhaps you’ve never surrendered to the grace of Jesus Christ—you have never made a decision to fully follow him. Let this altar be that altar that you tell your children about. Perhaps you need direction. You feel called, but you’re unsure. Let this altar right here be that altar that you tell your children about. Perhaps there’s a bear directly in your path, and it seems insurmountable. A lion of financial debt. A bear of sickness. A giant of memories of the hurt from abusive situations. Let this altar, today let this altar be the altar that you tell your children about.

We don’t think altars are that important anymore. But you know, when Joshua crossed the Jordan river, he said, “Go back and get stones and build a memorial—an altar for God. So that every time you pass this place and your children ask, you can say, ‘That was the day the Lord delivered us.’”

I’m going to ask you stand with me today and I’m going to pray for you. But then, after I pray for you, this is a moment for you. If you fit any of those categories or anything else, and you say, “There’s just something in my path that seems insurmountable,” I want you to come down to this altar today, and the Lord will just start doing something in your heart.

Lord, I thank you for all the times that I had to stick a bear directly in the face. And by your power, by your grace, you took care of that. Father, thank you that you’re a good father, and that you guide and you lead; and even in the tough times, I can remember all the goodness that you’ve had for me, and I can walk through with faith. Today, help us to have the courage to take up the fight, no matter what that fight is. And I pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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.