“Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham… And I am one of them, and so are you… So let’s all praise the Lord!”

It’s true you know. Check out these verses that we walked thru last night. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it!

Genesis 15:1-5, 12-14
Exodus 12:40-43
Genesis 17
Acts 20:28
Galatians 3:26-29

You can start at any time, but we started this week.  To get on track with us simply go to “youversion.com” and get on their read through the Bible Chronologically plan.  Here’s the link!

We started on May 30th so you’ll have to adjust your calendar a bit.

I can’t wait to see what God does!

If you knew that you only had a few days to live, what would you tell those you’ll be leaving behind?

We started the series with a message titled “Dirty Jobs”.  We took a look at John 13:1-17 where Jesus lowered Himself to the degrading task of washing the feet of His followers.  Now back in the days of Jesus they didn’t have a lot of paved roads and if they had any shoes they were usually some type of sandal.  Needless to say, their feet would get pretty dirty pretty fast.  It’s amazing the things you’ll do for the ones you love…  wash their feet, pluck their eyebrows, pop a gnarly, overgrown, nasty looking zit on their back!  (I’m not saying that I know anyone that has ever done that or anything)  But here’s the deal, Mike Rowe from “Dirty Jobs” has got nothing on Jesus!  Jesus washed every single one of these disciples feet and not only that He later went on to be spit on, beaten, have His beard plucked out, ridiculed, stabbed and hung on a cross all to finish the work for which His Father sent Him to this earth to do.  And He did it all without complaining!  Now that’s love!

The thing that stood out to me however was what Jesus said at the end of this feet washing excursion.  He looked the disciples square in the eyes and said, “You should do the same thing…  and you know what, if you do it, you’ll be blessed.”  (paraphrase of John 13:15-17).  That word “blessed” stands out to me because that’s what we named our 3rd son.  His name is Asher which means blessed in Hebrew.  And let me tell you, he is the happiest kid I’ve ever met!  But Jesus says that if we’ll do this nasty dirty job for others, we’ll be blessed…  happy…  encouraged even!  Really?  Washing feet makes you happy?  I’m not sure I follow that logic.  That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me.  However, when I think about some of the things that I would do for my family, the ones I love, the ones closest to me, I realize that I would washing their feet isn’t even that big of a deal.  I would easily do that for them…  in fact, I might even go as far as popping some nasty zit on their back if they needed me to.  (not that it’s ever happened before or anything)

What about you?  What lengths would you go to show your love for others?

Last Sunday we also launched our new series “To Save A Life” based on the movie.  The first week was fairly heavy as we shared some statistics on teen suicide.  According to the To Save a Life statistics, over 5 million Americans have attempted suicide at one point in their life.  It’s the #3 cause of teen deaths in today.  Those are some scary statistics!  Praise God that many of the students at our gathering Sunday night chose to find their hope, meaning & acceptance in Christ.  It was a powerful night.  I pray that they will continue to look to Him for their peace in trying times.

When we look at the life of Jesus we find that He spent a lot of time with the disciples, but apart from that, He spent an awful lot of time with the lepers and the thieves, the down and out…  the outcasts!  In fact I think we could say that He spent more time outside of the Church buildings than He did inside.   What about us?  I’d say that we’re never more like Jesus than when we’re hanging out with the down and out.  When was the last time you hung out with someone like that?

I only wish it was that easy!  Or is it?

As we looked at John Chapter 3 we realized that Nicodemus was trying to comprehend spiritual concepts using natural logic.

“How can a man be born when he is old?  Can he enter a second time into his mothers womb and be born?” John 3:4

So often we do the same thing.  We try to understand spiritual things within the confines of natural logic.  Or worse yet, we try to accomplish spiritual things using natural power…  namely righteous living.  To use a phrase I learned from Miles McPhearson in our Do Something series, “It’s impossible to accomplish spiritual things using natural power!”.  We need spiritual power to accomplish spiritual things.  And the only way to get that is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and that only comes through our repentance and confession of faith in Jesus Christ who displayed His power and authority by coming from above, dying on the cross and rising again only to ascend back into heaven.

Have you done that yet or are you like Nicodemus, still trying to conquer this world using natural (and sinful mind you) power?

Too often we focus the majority of our attention on the things that are flashy, the things that are seen and get the most attention (good worship, solid teaching, massive outreach, etc.).  These are all well, good and necessary, as was Jesus’ turning water into wine, but what about the things that are primarily unseen, the more functional things?  Things like prayer, fasting, purity, etc.  How much attention do we give to those?  You can see how easy it is to become “white-washed” tombs and not even know it while focusing on the flash and forgetting the function.

Much like Steve Jobs has done with the iPhone, I think it’s both possible and necessary to develop a balance between both flash and function in our spiritual lives.  Be careful however, if you’re all flash and no function you’re likely to end up more like Verizon’s first attempt to compete with the iPhone, (The Storm), useful only for a season and in desperate need of an upgrade…  spiritually speaking of course!

So how much attention are you giving to the seen as opposed to the unseen, the flash as opposed to the function?

We’ve just extended the discount deadline…  $140 if you pay in full by this Sunday (Jan. 9th)…