Free My Soul!: From Judgements

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Free My Soul!: From Judgements

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: We will be freed in our souls from the bondage of judgment when we look to Jesus, the only truly righteous judge.

• Why Having a Judgmental Heart is Unhealthy

• How to Make a Right Judgment

• Looking to the Perfect Judge

PRAY

Why Having a Judgmental Heart is Unhealthy 

We must understand that having a critical, judgmental heart is bondage to our souls.

Think about it.

Why is having a judgmental heart so unhealthy?

• I am usually bitter and/or angry in my own soul when judgmental towards others.

• I am unable to enjoy the beauties of the life and relationships that I am given because I am always pointing out what is wrong, rather than what is right.

• When I am quick to point out the errors of others, I do not have the wherewithal to realize my own shortcomings and faults (Matthew 7:1-5).

• When I am judgmental, I am not happy until others are proven wrong.

• I miss the grace of God for my own life because I am so merciless towards others who have failed my standards.

As a result, I end up treating myself and being treated with the same lack of mercy that I withhold from others.

James 2:8-13

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

How to Make a Right Judgment 

Jesus does not tell us not to simply throw out judgments, but teaches us how to make right judgments.

John 7:24

24 “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” -Jesus

Part of being a disciple and learning to make disciples is growing in the ability to gracefully judge - to distinguish between good and evil in the world.

The only way to tell the true difference between good and evil is to align yourself with the one that is altogether good - God.

Your identity as a Christian is to be a part of a royal priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ (I Peter 2:9,10).

So part of the primary role of the believer is to distinguish between the holy and the common, the unclean and the clean, that we might be pleasing to God.

God foreshadowed this by speaking of the priests through the prophet Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 44:23-24

They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean. In a dispute, they shall act as judges, and they shall judge it according to my judgments. They shall keep my laws and my statutes in all my appointed feasts, and they shall keep my Sabbaths holy.

Two Categories of Judgment:

1. Judgments regarding the sin in the world:

God will judge sin and those who persist in it (I Corinthians 5).

We are to be ambassadors of reconciliation between God and mankind with the gospel of Christ here (II Corinthians 5).

2. Judgments within the church:

We are to encourage one another to grow in the image of God as we provoke one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:23-25).

This is where it gets tricky.

Many times, as believers, we mistake our preferences for what is the standard of good.

There is a difference between the commands of God and your personal convictions.

The only way that we are going to be able to walk in the love of Christ is to be able to distinguish between the two.

Romans 14 and 15 - In these passages, Paul instructs us how to live as followers of Christ, placing others’ interests above our own when navigating disputable civil matters.

Romans 14:1-15:13

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.

So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother?

For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.

So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.” And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.” May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

*We all want to see ourselves as those with strong faith.

We all believe our points of view are correct.  

However, God’s objective is clear - no matter how right you believe you are, or how you see yourself, placing others’ interests above your own for the sake of Christ is our standard of interaction with others in the world.

Our highest aims must be Christ’s goals - that which will both exalt and advance HIS eternal Kingdom.

Everything else is temporary and has a shelf-life to it.

The problem is that our character is cementing depending on where we stand and what we exalt.

*You are in error when you allow yourself to disobey the clear, written commands of God to uphold your own convictions.

How do I know when I am missing the mark in my judgments?

1. There is no reference to Jesus Christ - his character, his will or his Word.

2. I am more concerned with my interests than I am with those of others.

3. I am nasty in my disposition towards others who disagree with me.

-Always remember that you can be perfectly right while operating in the perfectly wrong spirit.

How do I make the right judgments?

Go prayerfully to Christ and his Word.

If I have chapter and (Bible) verse for why I am doing what I am doing, then I know it is my great ambition to align myself with the perfect judge, rather than the opinions and trappings of the world.

Looking to the Perfect Judge

Jesus is the only perfect judge, so we must align ourselves with him.

Everyone else in the world is driven by their ulterior motives and baggage.

It is through Christ’s life and example alone that we learn to make right judgments.

How do we know that we can trust Christ’s judgments?

His judgments were both selfless and true.

• This is why an encounter with Jesus Christ at the cross is imperative for our relationship with God and healthy dynamics with our fellow human beings.

• It was only through the cross of Christ that sin was both perfectly addressed and provision was made for a complete escape from judgments.

• It was only through the cross that both a perfect judgment and a perfect reconciliation were ultimately displayed.

• This is that into which God now calls us to follow him in relationship with others.

So what am I to do?

1. Repent of the ways that I’ve made idols of issues above Christ and his Word.

2. Repent of clinging to wisdom from the world devoid of the thoughts, character and motives of Christ.

3. Intentionally think about ways that I can be thankful for and commend others around me, rather than simply the ways that I can tear them down.

4. Make Jesus and his Kingdom my filter for all decision making, becoming all things to all people, so that by all possible means, I might win as many as possible to the person and cause of Christ (I Corinthians 9).

Through repentance and faith, we come into the peace of God for our minds, hearts and disposition toward others.

Come to the cross today and be freed of the bondage of judgments in your soul.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

More of you, GOD: Produce, Practice & Persevere

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More Of You, God! 

Produce, Practice, and Persevere

Pastor Cole Parleir

FOCUS: When we belong to Christ we will produce spiritual fruit that lasts, practice spiritual gifts, and persevere until Jesus returns.

• Producing The Fruit Of The Spirit

• Practicing The Gifts Of The Spirit

• Persevering In The Spirit Until You’re Perfect

Producing The Fruit Of The Spirit

When we abide in Christ he produces through us fruit that lasts thereby bringing glory to the Father and joy to our hearts.

John 15:1-14 ESV (The True Vine for true fruit)

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. '

• Every human will either be ‘taken away’ by God’s wrath or ‘pruned’ by His Word.

• Placing your faith in Jesus Christ is the beginning of an eternally fruitful existence.

What is this ‘fruit that lasts” that Jesus is speaking of?

Galatians 5:15-26 ESV (Flesh that fades vs Fruit that lasts)

'But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.'

• As believers, we can abide in Christ because His Word has made us clean thereby allowing His Spirit to dwell in us.

Ephesians 1:13-14 ESV

'In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. '

• The Holy Spirit in us is a guarantee of salvation as well as a life filled with God’s gracious yet painful pruning. (Eph 1:13-14)

• A pruned life is one that displays God’s character as we walk in Christ’s footsteps by the power of the Holy Spirit.

• This brings God the Father glory and His children joy.

Practicing The Gifts Of The Spirit

When we walk with Jesus the Holy Spirit will lead us to practice spiritual gifts for the building of his Church. 

1 Corinthians 12:1-11 ESV

'Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. ' 

• The fruits of the Spirit display God’s character. The gifts of the Spirit display God’s power.

• The manifestations of the Spirit are empowered by God in EVERYONE for the common good.

• We all have the same Spirit and the same mission to build the church. We all are gifted but do not all have the same gifts.

1 Corinthians 12:27-31

'Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.'

• All are to pursue and practice the most excellent way and highest gifts: the motivation of God’s love and to prophesy.

1 Corinthians 14:1-3

' Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. ' 

• Since God’s love builds His people and saves sinners, we are to all desire and practice prophesying.

1 Corinthians 14:24-25

'But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. '

• Prophecy is God giving the speaker information that will allow the hearer to know that God sees them, knows them, and is among His people. This will encourage, comfort and edify God’s people while creating a road for the Gospel to enter an unbeliever's heart.

In summary: 

“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy...So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But all things should be done decently and in order.- 1 Corinthians 14:1,39-40

Persevering In The Spirit Until You’re Perfect

Even at our best we are still practicing on this side of heaven. We must persevere by the power of the Holy Spirit knowing that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ”.

1 Corinthians 13:8-12

'Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. '

By the power of the Holy Spirit God does perfect work through imperfect people, preparing the worker and the field for the day of Jesus’ return.

• We can persevere in yielding to the Holy Spirit and practice without fear of condemnation when we miss it because our Savior is merciful to us as well as perfect for us.

• What God began in you by faith he will finish by that same faith.

Galatians 3:2-7

'Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. '

• We must be renewed daily in our faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord, as well as in the truth that the Holy Spirit is working miracles here and now.

• As we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit let us remember that we have the Holy Spirit because of the sinless life, substitutionary death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this Gospel we take our stand all the way Home.

Question: 

Have you taken your stand on the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  

Are you confident that he really has forgiven your sin, given you his Spirit, and will bring you all the way home into his Father’s house? 

You can be today if you turn from the works of the flesh and place your trust in Jesus’ work for you on the cross.  

'And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. ' - Philippians 1:6

Second City Church - Pastor Cole Parleir 2021 

More of You, God!: From Passion to Power

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More of You, God!: From Passion to Power

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

God desires his people to grow in the experience of his Holy Spirit - understanding why he is given and how he operates.

Focus: We will experience more of the Holy Spirit when we allow Jesus to expand our minds regarding who he is and how he operates through his Word. 

• Passion for God

• The Power Of God

• The Purpose of that Power

Passion for God

Passion for God and the power of God will always lead you to the person and work of Jesus Christ. 

Acts 18:24-28

Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.

There is always more to learn about God.

Apollos understood and taught about Jesus with great accuracy, boldness and fervency, yet still had more to learn.  

Priscilla and Aquila explained the way of God to Apollos more accurately, going beyond John’s baptism of repentance, that Apollos might become even more fruitful.

John 15:1-11

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

What does this mean for us?

We can have great passion for God even whilst God desires to give us more power to testify to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

As we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we become more like Christ and are filled with God’s zeal to share the good news of Jesus with others. 

Passion for God is fanned through God’s Word and prayer, leading to encounters with the person and power of the Holy Spirit.

When we experience the power of the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to take our faith from private to public in love for and service to the world (Acts 2).

And so we become ever more fruitful as God intends.

The Power Of God

God adds power to our passion for him by allowing us to experience the person of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 19:1-7

And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John's baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all.

*It is not enough that we are satisfied with what we have experienced in God, the exhortation of Scripture is that we pursue all that GOD intended for us in the person and power of the Holy Spirit.

Philippians 3:12-16

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Always remember that Acts 1 was a command from Jesus, not a suggestion.

*According to Paul’s interaction with the disciples in Ephesus, one of the first matters of discipleship is that believers are baptized in the Holy Spirit, to be released in the power of God.

As we look to Jesus as disciples and believe God’s Word, we can all grow in operating in the power of the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit comes on believers, God releases gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We do not earn the power of God.

Galatians 3:1-6

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

God gives his power as a gift and every gift from God is good.

We can trust the Holy Spirit and his gifts just as we trust our benevolent, Heavenly Father.

The problem has come when we have seen people mishandle the “gifts of God” in Christ’s name.

Always remember that the godly response to abuse is not disuse, but proper use.  

We find the proper use of God’s power in his Word - 

• The book of Acts

• I Corinthians 12-14

• Ephesians 4-5

• I Peter 4

God wants to use our lives to glorify his strength, not our own, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Purpose of that Power

God gives us his power to testify to the reality and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 14:1-5

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.

God commands us to eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

The gifts are all administered in partnership with the Holy Spirit, in submission to God’s word and in the character of love.

All the gifts of the Holy Spirit are to be administered with order, being both tested and affirmed by the Word of God.

The gift of tongues was given to edify the believers. 

As they spoke in tongues, the disciples were able to fellowship with and give praise to God by the Holy Spirit, uttering mysteries to God revealed by the Spirit.

In such languages they never cursed, defiled another human being or blasphemed the name of God (James 3:5-12).  

It was a pure gift for a pure fellowship. 

The gift was given to the believers in Acts to first strengthen them individually, providing a vehicle for fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and as a means of giving praise to God (I Corinthians 14).

Prophecy was given to strengthen, encourage and comfort other believers, as well as make the reality of God known to unbelievers.

1 Corinthians 14:20-25

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

How do I experience more of God?

1. You have hands laid upon you in prayer, as in Acts 19

2. You simply ask in faith in response to the Word of God proclaimed to you (Acts 10)

Luke 11:13

13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

-Jesus

You must live in the shadow of the cross to stay anchored in the purpose of the power of God.

As we continually reflect on Jesus’ substitutionary work at the cross, taking the wrath of God upon himself for our sins, that through repentance from our sins and faith in Christ’s work, we might go free, we live with a daily fear of the Lord.

And so we humbly handle the power of God in the hope of honoring the Lord, crying out daily for more of him, that we might make Jesus known to the world that he loves.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

More of you, GOD!: Presence

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More of You, God!: Presence

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

God desires his people to grow in the understanding of his Holy Spirit - who he is, what he does and to what he points.

Focus: We will better understand the person of the Holy Spirit when we look to Jesus and his Word.  

• The Presence of God

• The Person of God

• The Priorities of God

The Presence of God

God gives us not only information about himself, but his presence in the person of the Holy Spirit.

 John 14:15-31

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. 25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

There is one God in three persons - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is just as much God as God, the Father and Jesus, the Son.

The Holy Spirit was represented as God in both the Old and New Testaments.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was the person by whom the prophets spoke, performed their miracles and made predictions of both world events and the coming Messiah.

That same Holy Spirit is with us today as New Testament believers.

Why did God send his Holy Spirit?

God sent his Holy Spirit that his presence might be with us until Christ’s return.

Cultivating our relationship with the Holy Spirit is the manner in which we have direct access to the Father, through Jesus his Son.  

The presence of God in the Holy Spirit empowers us to obey the commands of God.

We show our love for God by obedience to God’s commands.

The more intimately you walk with the Holy Spirit, the more you will demonstrate and so prove your love for God (Romans 8:5).

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God.  The world is crowded with him.  He walks everywhere incognito.”

-C.S. Lewis

In what ways are you growing in your recognition of the presence of the Holy Spirit?

The Person of God

God’s Word allows us to understand who the Holy Spirit is and what he does.

John 16:4-11

4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

The Holy Spirit is God in the earth to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgement.

You do not have to convince people regarding the truth of God’s Word - when you preach it, the Holy Spirit testifies to it.

Jesus perfectly exemplified obedience to God’s commands.

Now that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit is with believers to constantly lead them into right decisions that both please and glorify the Lord.

The Holy Spirit reminds people with conviction that they will have to give an account for their lives in the judgment to come.

We can try to ignore, but we will not escape the judgment of God.

In what ways are you growing in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s conviction?

The Priorities of God

The Holy Spirit continually points us to God’s priorities found in his Word as we seek to live a life that glorifies Jesus Christ.

John 16:12-15

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The Holy Spirit continually takes from what is Christ’s and makes it known to the world.

In doing so, the Holy Spirit heals and makes us whole. 

The Holy Spirit primarily makes what is Jesus’ and makes it known to the world through Scripture (the Bible), the Word of God, which was breathed out by the Holy Spirit (II Timothy 3:15).

The Holy Spirit secondarily leads us with moment by moment promptings of how to use our time, our talent and our resources in manners which glorify Jesus.

As we grow in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, he not only keeps us from sins of commission, but also sins of omission.

James 4:17

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. 

In what ways are you growing in being led by the Holy Spirit?

We are continually led to the cross by the Holy Spirit, to experience first the regeneration and then the ongoing renewal of the Holy Spirit through repentance and faith.  

Come to the cross today to experience the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ, who paid for our sins by his sacrifice, and was resurrected by the power of God so that he might pour out the Holy Spirit by whom we live a life that glorifies God!

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

More of you, GOD

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More of You, God!

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: We will fulfill the mission of Christ when we know who he said we are to be, what we are to do and how we are to do it.  

• Who We Are To Be

• What We Are to Do

• How We Are to Do It

Who We Are To Be

We are to be witnesses of Christ’s life transforming gospel.  

Acts 1:1-11

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said,

“you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

"He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

What We Are to Do

We are to be witnesses of Christ by proclaiming his Word - all that he has done and all that he has taught.  

How We Are to Do It

We are to be witnesses of Christ’s resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

John 14:1-14

14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Thrive: In God’s Plan

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Thrive: In God’s Plan

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus:  We will thrive in every season when we learn to sow into that which God is doing.  

• God Has a Plan

• Sow into that Plan

• Reap with Christ

God has a plan

To thrive, we must acknowledge that God has a plan in the place in which we find ourselves. 

Genesis 26:1-5 

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Everyone, even the people of God, experience times of famine when they’re living in a fallen world.  

What you do during times of famine matters more than you realize and can affect your destiny in Christ.  

God made sure to intervene with Isaac to cut off our natural human proclivity to take flight when times get tough. 

Isaac learned from God that we should never make life altering decisions in the midst of famine without first seeking his counsel.

We may miss the voice of the Lord if we only make decisions based on felt needs that we perceive.  

There is a promise on the other side of famine when we cling to the unchanging purposes of God.

What did Isaac learn about God’s plan?:

God cares more about where we live than we do.

Where you live should be a calling, not just a concern.

When we embrace this biblical truth, we learn to thrive, living PRODUCTIVELY in the land to which God has called us. 

This means that we begin to serve our cities rather than using them, and understand that we have to spend time in them to cultivate them. 

Isaac was wealthy, having received an inheritance from his father Abraham, and had the means to leave Canaan during the famine, or any other time that he wanted to, for that matter.

Yet God instructed Isaac to stay, rather than opting for the freedoms that his upwardly mobile life provided, so that Isaac might fulfill God’s plan to build a legacy for the Kingdom of God in that land.

The question is:

What do we do with our freedoms and mobility?

And even before that:

What is the vision that God has given you and the people with whom God has called you to walk to be productive in the land to which HE has called you?

There was purpose in God calling Isaac to stay.

Why was God so intent on Isaac remaining in the land in the midst of famine?

God knew he would provide for Isaac, but was determined to also preserve something through Isaac’s influence in the land.

Something will always fill the intellectual, spiritual and cultural voids of our lands.

It will either be the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Darkness.

As the church, Jesus has said that we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16).

Too often the church has abdicated its role to be salt and light in industries, cities and nations because they have been swept up in delusions of comfort, wealth and personal satisfaction above all else. 

Yet Jesus warned against such things in his teaching of the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20).

When we are more saturated by our culture’s idea of fulfillment rather than driven by the pleasure of God, we abdicate territories to Satan being relegated to merely commenting on the violence, corruption and sin that have filled the void that Christians have left.

This is why notable theologian John Piper says:

“The task of all Christian scholarship—not just biblical studies—is to study reality as a manifestation of God’s glory, to speak and write about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it, and to make it serve the good of man. It is an abdication of scholarship when Christians do academic work with little reference to God. If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God, to make his manifold glory known and loved, then to treat any subject without reference to God’s glory is not scholarship but insurrection.”

― John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God

So what are we to do with our lives?  

We are to sow into the plan of God where we find ourselves.  

Sow Into that Plan

To thrive, we must learn to sow where God has planted us.

 Genesis 26:6-16 

So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord  blessed him, and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. (Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

By the command of God, Isaac settled in Gerar.  

What God knew was that:

TO AFFECT A PLACE FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD, YOUR LIFE MUST BE INTENTIONALLY SOWN THERE.

Yet there were other lessons that Isaac needed to learn to be the man of faith, the seed, that God wanted to sow into the land. 

The first lesson that Isaac had to learn is that to thrive, he needed to realize that the environment is not always the problem - it’s our life patterns. 

To thrive, Isaac had to learn to break the faithless patterns that were passed down to him by his father Abraham.  

There was another reason that God came to remind Isaac not to leave the land of promise to go to Egypt. 

During his time of famine, Abraham did what seemed natural to meet his needs, but got he and his family in trouble when he went down to Egypt.  

Now God was gracious  enough to cover over Abrahm’s mistakes and put him back on track in the land of promise, but Abraham had to go back to the place he left to rebuild altars of worship to the Lord (Genesis 12:10-13:4). 

Abraham, and now Isaac, were driven by fear and self-preservation rather than faith and the purposes of God.

They both had to learn that God had a plan bigger than theirs that involved a place, a people and a purpose. 

And when God shows you these things, by faith and with faithfulness, you sow into that plan.  

It is no different for us today in Christ.  

Most people end up in unfulfilled wanderings throughout their lives because they forsake one or all of these three things about which God is concerned.  

Yet God is determined to teach us how to live by faith, and will use life’s circumstances to provoke this.

God supernaturally provides as we sow by faith into his plan - even during times of famine. 

Isaac did not hoard his time, talent or treasure during the famine. 

He knew that each of these things were a seed that he could:

1. Consume and have no more

2. Horde and have nothing but false security and wasted potential

3. Sow and reap a harvest

By faith, Isaac sowed and in the same year reaped one hundred fold.  

*Even in famine, the place of God’s choosing, not ours, is where we will most thrive. 

Think of your marriage, city, ministry assignment and career. 

You will thrive when you learn to sow the word of God into each of these areas to shape them rather than letting your fear of lack in these areas shape you. 

Learning to sow by faith in the land which God has given you will allow you to thrive in any season, despite the circumstances.  

What types of famines have you experienced recently?

Relationally?  In your marriage or parenting?  In your career or financially?  Spiritually?

In what ways does God want you to sow by faith into that which HE is doing to bring a harvest in the very place you thought there was nothing left for you?

When we sow by faith into that which GOD is doing, like Isaac, we begin to thrive as we enter into God’s divine calling on our lives.

“You can’t submit a resume for a Divine calling. A calling is initiated by God, and has more to do with his plans and purpose than our dreams.”

-Christine Caine

What was the result of Isaac sowing into God’s plan?

*The people began to envy Isaac in the land not because he got lucky, but because he obeyed God by faith and began to reap the fruit of that which he had sown.  

Many times people want the fruit of what you’ve labored for without doing the work.  

God doesn’t work that way.  

This same principle of doing things God’s way and investing into what God is doing will apply to our marriages, child-rearing, relationships, work and ministry life as we learn to sow by faith into God’s plan.  

Reap with Christ

We will thrive when we find the life-giving waters in the land to which God has called us digging them along with those with whom he’s called us to walk. 

Genesis 26:17-33 

So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” From there he went up to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.” So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well. When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” They said, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.” So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, “We have found water.” He called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

Again, Isaac learned from his father Abraham that there will always be a people, a place and a purpose for you as you follow God (Genesis 12).

When you are a spiritual nomad without roots, you think that you will find the call of God by moving to an easier environment or seeking different relationships, but it’s the internal patterns that follow you that can keep you disconnected from God, his people and his purposes.   

Warfare did not mean that Isaac was to leave the land to which God had called him.  

It meant that he had to search for the life-giving waters within that land.  

Within the land in which God has called you, you may need to be ready to press past the warfare to find the wells that will bring you life. 

This means that you have to fight to find ways to meet with God in the midst of daily responsibilities and fight for the relationships in the church community that will strengthen you and help you grow. 

Do not give up because it is challenging to build relationships.  

Don’t let the fear of rejection keep you from thriving in Christ. 

Genesis 26:34-35 

When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

To thrive, we must have a culture of discipleship where we pass these principles down to our children.

Esau departed from the path of faith and became a bitter pill for his parents Isaac and Rebekah. 

Jesus, on the other hand, was perfectly pleasing to the Father.  

Under the threat of not a famine, but Herod’s infanticide, in a dream God called his parents to take him to Egypt.  

After Herod’s death, Jesus returned to the small, seemingly inconsequential of Nazareth to grow and be prepared for God’s plans. 

In the land of Galilee, Jesus sowed after a 400 year period of famine where the prophetic word of the Lord had become rare around the time of Malachi.  

In Christ’s sowing, he reaped one hundred fold in miracles, demonic deliverances, teaching regarding the Kingdom of God resulting in the multitudes being saved through his sacrificial work on the cross.  

Because his focus was making disciples, after his resurrection from the dead, those who would follow him lived in that same faith to bring the gospel to the world. 

The 120 disciples who remained after Christ’s ascension remained in the city to which he called them until the day of Pentecost when they were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill God’s plan. 

As they were, operating in the same signs, wonders and miracles as Christ, they went into a hostile world to turn it upside down with the love and good news of Christ. 

Now there are billions worldwide who call on the name of the Son of God.  

So again, where you live should be a calling even more than a concern that you might reap with Christ.  

In the place to where God has called you, he wants to use your life to be a disciple and make disciples of the unreached who do not know Christ but will come to know him through your life.  

This, your placement, is of eternal consequence. 

Paul summarized God’s plan to the Athenian onlookers of his time when he said:

Acts 17:22-31

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

So finally, what is God’s plan for the place where we live?:

1. That we would be provoked through that place to seek him and his Word.

2. That in seeking God, we would encounter him in Christ his Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. That in encountering God, we would become testimonies of thriving in every season by his grace so that others might come to know him as well.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Thrive: In Your Inheritance

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Thrive: In Your Inheritance 

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: You will thrive through each season of your life when you look to God for your inheritance.  

• An Inheritance From the Father

• Don’t Sell Your Birthright

• The Inheritance of Christ

An Inheritance From the Father

You have to know that God the Father wants you to thrive and has an Inheritance for you in which you will do so as you remain in him. 

Genesis 25:1-11 

Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Jokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country. These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife. After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi.

We need to stay near to God to get the heavenly goods he desires to bestow (including the promise, fellowship and gifts of the Holy Spirit).

Luke 12:32

32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. -Jesus

Intimacy with God leads to a sure inheritance in him.  

God entrusts his Kingdom to those who will steward their inheritance well and continue his purposes based on his promises. 

Genesis 25:19-28 

These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Starting later in life does not mean that you missed your inheritance, whether it be with the grace or gifts of God.  

Have faith to pray for the promises of God spoken to you by the Holy Spirit. 

Like Abraham and Isaac, I can look to God to fulfill whatever promise he has made to me, whether in his written Word or by the spoken word of the Holy Spirit.  

This gives me the confidence to not only wait on my inheritance from God, but to guard against that which would look to steal it.  

Don’t Sell Your Birthright

To thrive we must know that which threatens our birthright, and then protect it.  

So what is it that the devil uses to try to steal my birthright?

*The desire for momentary pleasures outside of the will of God come to steal your inheritance.

You don’t want to forsake your eternal reward for your short-term desires being temporarily satisfied.  

Carnal needs come and go. 

The inheritance of Christ is eternal.  

I need to learn to trust the Lord to thrive while suffering in a godly manner when I am in the in-between place.  

*Remember - thriving in God and suffering are not two mutually exclusive conditions.

(Our greatest example is Christ on the cross - Isaiah 53).

Genesis 25:29-34 

Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom. ) Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

What was the birthright in that culture?

Esau despised his birthright from Isaac and ultimately God by trading it for temporary relief from his hunger.

We will all face times of hunger or want, when we feel like we will die if we do not have some natural need met - whether it be for provision, companionship, a sense of purpose or pleasure. 

Again, Esau sold his birthright to experience relief from his hunger.  

Will you?

Have you?

“The world is not composed of religious and non-religious people. It is composed rather of religious people who have differing ultimate concerns, different gods, and who respond to the Living God in different ways.”

“When any individual or collection of individuals acts in disobedience to the moral order, short-term gratification may be experienced; but such behavior produces an inevitable deterioration of the personality and leads to a long term loss of what is truly worthy.”

-Ronald H. Nash

What you give up for short-term pleasure can not be regained nor can the misplaced hunger  truly ever be satisfied.  

For what have you been willing to sell your birthright?

A relationship?

A one-night stand?

Selling out holiness for a sense of gratification on Instagram or a few extra likes on Tik-tok?

Do not let the temptation to live for immediate gratification have you forsake the inheritance of God. 

 Hebrews 12:14-17

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. 

You will never be able to do what God requires of you in the secret place because you live for the fickle and anemic accolades of men - whether in the workplace, in relationships or on social media.  

You will thrive when your heart learns to truly look to God for its reward.   

Matthew 6:1-6; 16-18

6 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 

16 “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

What has your walk with God been like this year when people have been separated and no one has been watching  you?

Has it been something that God would look to reward?

Or have you been willing to sell your birthright for momentary pleasures in the name of relief?

If you have sold your birthright, what do you do?

Repent and turn to Christ for redemption and his eternal inheritance.  

“Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged.”

-J.I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God

The Inheritance of Christ

Christ gives an Inheritance that is both satisfying and eternal.  

Hebrews 12:28-29 

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

When God is a consuming fire to us, he causes us to thrive in life despite challenge, loss or hunger.  

“God doesn’t want something from us. He simply wants us.”

-C.S. Lewis

I must remember that truly thriving means entering into the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.  

Because of his sinless life, I have a model to follow that will lead me to thrive in God’s eternal plan. 

John 5:21-24 

21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Because of Jesus’ substitutionary, sacrificial death on the cross, I can thrive in repentance from my sin.  

Because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, I don’t have to sell out my birthright for temporary pleasures, because I know in him I have eternal life and a never ending reward.  

Story of the Inheritance and the Son:

Years ago, there was a very wealthy man who, with his devoted young son, shared a passion for art collecting. Together they traveled around the world, adding only the finest art treasures to their collection. Priceless works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet and many others adorned the walls of the family estate. The widowed, elder man looked on with satisfaction as his only child became an experienced art collector. The son’s trained eye and sharp business mind caused his father to beam with pride as they dealt with art collectors around the world.

As winter approached, war engulfed the nation, and the young man left to serve his country. After only a few short weeks, his father received a telegram. His beloved son was missing in action. The art collector anxiously awaited more news, fearing he would never see his son again. Within days, his fears were confirmed. The young man had died while rushing a fellow soldier to a medic.

Distraught and lonely, the old man faced the upcoming Christmas holidays with anguish and sadness. The joy of the season, a season that he and his son had so looked forward to, would visit his house no longer. On Christmas morning, a knock on the door awakened the depressed old man. As he walked to the door, the masterpieces of art on the walls only reminded him that his son was not coming home.

As he opened the door, he was greeted by a soldier with a large package in his hand. He introduced himself to the man by saying, “I was a friend of your son. I was the one he was rescuing when he died. May I come in for a few moments? I have something to show you.” As the two began to talk, the soldier told of how the man’s son had told everyone of his, not to mention his father’s, love of fine art. “I’m an artist,” said the soldier, “and I want to give you this.” As the old man unwrapped the package, the paper gave way to reveal a portrait of the son.

Though the world would never consider it the work of a genius, the painting featured the young man’s face in striking detail. Overcome with emotion, the man thanked the soldier, promising to hang the picture over the fireplace. A few hours later, after the soldier had departed, the old man set about his task.

True to his word, the painting went well above the fireplace, pushing aside thousands of dollars of paintings. And then the man sat in his chair and spent Christmas gazing at the gift he had been given. During the days and weeks that followed, the man realized that even though his son was no longer with him, the boy’s life would live on because of those he had touched. He would soon learn that his son had rescued dozens of wounded soldiers before a bullet stilled his caring heart.

As the stories of his son’s gallantry continued to reach him, fatherly pride and satisfaction began to ease the grief. The painting of his son soon became his most prized possession, far eclipsing any interest in the pieces for which museums around the world clamored. He told his neighbors it was the greatest gift he had ever received.

The following spring, the old man became ill and passed away. The art world was in anticipation!

Unmindful of the story of the man’s only son, but in his honor, those paintings would be sold at an auction. According to the will of the old man, all of the art works would be auctioned on Christmas day, the day he had received his greatest gift. The day soon arrived and art collectors from around the world gathered to bid on some of the world’s most spectacular paintings. Dreams would be fulfilled this day; greatness would be achieved as many claim “I have the greatest collection.” The auction began with a painting that was not on any museum’s list. It was the painting of the man’s son. The auctioneer asked for an opening bid. The room was silent.

“Who will open the bidding with $100?” he asked. Minutes passed. No one spoke. From the back of the room came, “Who cares about that painting? It’s just a picture of his son. Let’s forget it and go on to the good stuff.”

More voices echoed in agreement. “No, we have to sell this one first,” replied the auctioneer. “Now, who will take the son?” Finally, a friend of the old man spoke, “Will you take ten dollars for the painting? That’s all I have. I knew the boy, so I’d like to have it.”

“I have ten dollars. Will anyone go higher?” called the auctioneer. After more silence, the auctioneer said, “Going once, going twice. Gone.” The gavel fell, cheers filled the room and someone exclaimed, “Now we can get on with it and we can bid on these treasures!”

The auctioneer looked at the audience and announced the auction was over. Stunned disbelief quieted the room. Someone spoke up and asked, “What do you mean it’s over? We didn’t come here for a picture of some old guy’s son. What about all of these paintings? There are millions of dollars of art here! I demand that you explain what’s going on here!” The auctioneer replied, “It’s very simple. According to the will of the father, whoever takes the son…gets it all.”

Let us therefore draw near to God at the cross through repentance and faith, to honor his Son, Jesus Christ, and thrive in every season as we look to our eternal inheritance in him.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Thrive: Finding Your Ride or Die

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Thrive: Finding Your Ride or Die

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: You will thrive when you allow God to be the author of your relationships.  

• To Whom You are Hitched

• Why It Matters

• Thriving in the Bonds of Christ

To Whom You are Hitched

*You will thrive in life when you allow God to be the Lord of your story.  

Genesis 24:1-9

Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. And the Lord  had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” The servant said to him, “Perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?” Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.” So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter.

*When you are actively walking with God and still think you are missing something, God is, in fact, protecting you.  

God was the one who inevitably said of Adam, “It is not good for Adam to be alone.”

This applies to marriage, but not only.  

There are some with the gift of celibacy so that they may be fully devoted to the Lord.  

Why It Matters

*To thrive, God wants to be involved in all of your most important and defining relationships in life.  

Genesis 24:42-51 

“I came today to the spring and said, ‘O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now you are prospering the way that I go, behold, I am standing by the spring of water. Let the virgin who comes out to draw water, to whom I shall say, “Please give me a little water from your jar to drink,” and who will say to me, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also,” let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master's son.’ “Before I had finished speaking in my heart, behold, Rebekah came out with her water jar on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew water. I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’ She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I will give your camels drink also.’ So I drank, and she gave the camels drink also. Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her arms. Then I bowed my head and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master's kinsman for his son. Now then, if you are going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.” Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, “The thing has come from the Lord; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord has spoken.”

Why does it matter to whom you are yoked?

*To whom you are yoked will either light a fire under you or attempt to smother the purposes of God in your life.

2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

What was a yoke in biblical times?

It was a wooden cross piece that was fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they were to pull.

It is a matter of common values and common worship of the one true God in Christ.  

God means for you to thrive as you are yoked to life-long partners in pursuit of Jesus.  

Think of the Lord saying, “For as long as you are single, I want you all to myself.  I want to use your life in ways that are undisturbed by common marital concerns.  At this time, worrying about how to please someone else will distract you and demand more of your attention than I want you to give.  I want no person before or above me in your life.  I love you and will use your life greatly as you wait.” (I Corinthians 7)

Regardless of marital status, the body of Christ, the family of God, is what God gives you to thrive in relationships.  

The purpose of God-given relationships is eternal.  

God forever has eternal gospel purposes and his Kingdom in mind.   

*How do your relationships reflect the pursuit of these things as their foundation and chief aim?

Tony Stark in Age of Ultron:

"We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that up there... that's the endgame.  How were you guys planning on beating that?”

Steve Rodgers:

“Together.”

You can not be fully satisfied in life without God-given, eternal Kingdom purpose.  

Your God-given relationships are meant to help you thrive by pulling these purposes out of you.  

2 Samuel 1:25-27 

“How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! “Jonathan lies slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. “How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished!”

Here, David is not speaking about homosexual relationship, but about a covenant bond that was powerful for propelling David into the purposes of the Lord and advancing the Kingdom of God.  

Thriving in the Bonds of Christ

*You will be able to thrive during challenging times when God has been the author of your story during the easier ones. 

 Genesis 24:62-67 

Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel and said to the servant, “Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

The relationships that God authors for you are for both good times and bad.

God helps you thrive in these bonds by giving you those with whom you enjoy life and those who were built to help you walk through loss or mourning.  

Do not compartmentalize your life into things you do with God’s influence and those you do without.  

True biblical fellowship allows you to thrive by giving you those with whom you share all of life.  

What should you be doing with those whom God has given you?: 

1. Rejoice with them in triumph.

2. Stand with and comfort them in pain.

3. Pursue greater depths of fellowship with them while provoking them to greater intimacy with God.

4. Fight to stand as witnesses for Jesus while making disciples together in the world around you (Matthew 28:18-20).

What God has done for you, incarnate for others.  

This is what Jesus did for us in his sinless life that he lived for us all the way to the cross.  

Once he bore our sins and burdens there, Jesus was resurrected to life eternal and offered it to those bound to him through repentance and faith.  

This invitation to eternal thriving is offered not only to us, but is to be offered through us to those who are harassed and helpless in the world without God.  

This applies to the rich or the poor, the seemingly successful or obviously destitute - all are in the same place before God without Jesus.  

How am I to treat those who stand opposed to God’s Word and the gospel of Christ?

“We are bound to be just and right towards all men as men, whatever their religious convictions, or irreligious notions. Injustice is no friend to truth. We must not fight God’s battles with the weapons of ill-will. For us to hate those who are in error or talk of them with contempt or wish them ill, or do them wrong, is not according to the Spirit of Christ. You cannot cast out Satan by Satan, nor correct error by violence, nor overcome hate by hate.  The conquering weapon of the Christian is love...”

-Charles Spurgeon

2 Timothy 2:22-26 

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Let’s meet Jesus afresh at the cross today and pray for others to join us there.  

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Thrive: Abraham’s Test

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Thrive: Thrive: Abraham’s Test 

(Abraham’s Treaty with Abimelech + Abraham’s Test Genesis 21:22-23:19)

God uses TREATIES and TESTS so that we can THRIVE.

Location

Beersheba: well of seven OR well of the oath.  The place Abraham and Abimelech settled their differences over a well. This well is where the man of faith made peace and became the southern border of Israel and today is Be’er Sheva.  It is Israel’s 8th most populous city and the center of it’s tech industry.  It’s also referred to as the capitol of the Negev region. 

Scripture

Genesis 21:22-34

https://my.bible.com/bible/59/GEN.21.22-34

“At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.” And Abraham said, “I will swear.” When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized, Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.” So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?” He said, “These seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well.” Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭21:22-34‬ ‭ESV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/59/gen.21.22-34.esv

- King Abimelech noticed the weening festival of Isaac and fear fell on him. 

- God will make even your enemies to be at peace with you, but this peace does not supplant the promise. 

- Abraham made peace, he thought. But then…

- Abraham paid Abimelech 7 ewe lambs for the well…even after he thought the land had been offered to him.  He did this not because God hadn’t promised to give him this land, but that Abimelech and others may know God’s promise. 

- The two men representing two kingdoms made a covenant of peace. Abimelech should have come under the faith and leadership of Abraham, not just coexist or tolerate God’s promise. 

- Beersheba means ‘well of seven’ or “well of the oath”. 

- Two of them came into agreement so the place got a new name they both knew and could relate to.

- A well and a tree.  A living reminder of God’s promise.  An everlasting God can always keep His promises.  

Genesis 22:1-19

https://my.bible.com/bible/59/GEN.22.1-19

'After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord , because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba. '

- The time of this test was a time of peace and prosperity. (A covenant was just made with Abimelech and Isaac was weened and growing.)

- Isaac is Abraham's special and unique son in whom God’s promise is to be fulfilled. 

- Mt. Moriah is where David stopped the plague with a sacrifice and where Solomon built the temple for worship. 

- The journey was a 3 day journey akin to the time Jesus was dead in the tomb.  To Abraham, because of his commitment to obey God, his son had already been dead for 3 days.

- Even in mourning Abraham speaks in faith that God can bring them both back.  Worship can raise the dead!

- Yet, Abraham was fully prepared to make a sacrifice by bringing the knife and fire.

- Isaac was strong enough to carry the wood, yet a struggle from being bound is not mentioned. 

The account repeats God calling “Abraham!” and Abraham responding immediately “Here I am!”  The second time God calls Abraham's name twice ,”Abraham! Abraham!”. 

*God will stop you if you are genuinely trying to follow him.  

Abraham obeyed they very next morning 

*Delayed obedience is disobedience.

Abraham says “Here I am!” At the call to go and “Here I am!” At the command to stop.

*Do you hear God’s voice so clearly and quickly that God could use you to save a life?  To share the gospel with the person beside you?

NOW God knew he could trust Abraham even though Abraham loved his son, the fulfillment of the promise.

Q: Does God still test people today?  Yes he does, because he wants you to thrive eternally. 

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1:2-4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/59/jas.1.2-4.esv

God tests us but does not tempt us. 

“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1:12-17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/59/jas.1.12-17.esv

Q: What has God promised you that he may be withholding because He can’t trust you with it yet?

We are not owners, just stewards of God’s resources.  The bigger the test of stewardship, the bigger the blessing for us and the whole world. 

Supporting Scripture

Hebrews 11:17-19

17 It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, 18 even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.”[c] 19 Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.

Your faith isn’t just about you.  Your faith is to be passed on so that the next generation might grow and continue in their faith as well.  Not just faith in Jesus, but faith to live by faith.  

Don’t eat the seed of faith. Plant the seed so that you, your generation, and future generations can thrive on God’s provision. 

““And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.””

Mark‬ ‭14:32-42‬ ‭ESV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/59/mrk.14.32-42.esv

The greatest test in “The Crushing Place”

- Jesus was in anguish the disciples were sleeping

- Jesus brought his three closest friends

- Supernatural strength for the test

- Only the son of God could have passed this test

Jesus Christ the descendant of Abraham of the flesh and son of God passed this test so that the world may be reconciled to God and thrive eternally.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Thrive: Free To Thrive

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July 4th 2021

Thrive: Free To Thrive

Happy July 4th!  Happy Independence Day!  Happy Freedom Day!

“For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.”

‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭2:15-17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/59/1pe.2.15-17.esv

*We must use our freedom for good, and the ultimate good is God’s purposes.  If we do not, we will lose it. 

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

Galatians 5:1-3

Quote 

“You won’t get more than you’re living for” 

- Alison Kraus, Too Late To Cry lyric

*Freedom is unto the purpose of righteous living.  Righteous living leads to a thriving life.  Freedom abused unto unrighteous living will actually destroy you, your family, your nation, and the whole earth. 

Last week Pastor Rollan shared about the miraculous birth of Isaac.  

We learned that “We will thrive in every season when we embrace the perfect timing of God”.

Focus:  God wants you FREE so that you can THRIVE

The Thrive Series Goal: 

• Receiving

• Becoming

• Doing

Receiving all that Christ purchased for us to become.

Becoming all that God created us to be.

Doing all that he tells (commands) us to do. 

Look into Genesis 21:8-21

*Through faith in God, Abraham was free to thrive.  

When we separate these three: Faith, Freedom, and Thriving we miss the blessing and goal God has for us.  The most work together for each of them to be complete.   

What we need to know as we read the scripture:

Time Period

This was about 14-16 years after Hagar ran away from Sarah due to abuse.  God told Hagar to go back and submit to Sarah.  God also promised to Hagar (that regardless of Sarah) 1) that he sees her and her situation 2) He will bless her Ishmael as she cooperates with God’s big picture plan. 

Definitions and Context

1. Isaac: “he laughs”. Important because the more we look at the situation concerning Isaacs birth and God’s promise to bless the world through him…it can seem a little absurd without the eyes of faith and cause us to ‘laugh’ or ‘mock’.

2. Weaned: Isaac is probably between 2-4 years old now. He has graduated from needing Sarah’s milk to eating food. Today we see this as a milestone. To the people of their time it was a cause of celebration. There was a high infant mortality rate and Isaac made it! Party time! Plus, all of Abraham’s and Sarah’s “eggs” were in this one “basket” with no other options for a lineage…than possibly Ishmael.

3. Ishmael: “God listens, God hears, or God obeys”. He was 14 - 16 years old when Isaac was born.

4. Hagar: She is the Egyptian slave of Sarah who upon duress from Sarah bore Ishmael to Abraham. Hagar dishonored Sarah. Sarah abused Hagar in return, so Hagar ran away. God told Hagar to return and submit to Sarah. Now, the next generation (Ishmael) is laughing in mockery at Sarah’s son Isaac, repeating the same offense.

5. Sarah: Her name was changed from Sarai to Sarah. Her name means “Princess”. Sarah is Abraham’s wife, Hagar’s boss and Isaac’s mom.

6. Mt Sinai: This is the location in the desert where the newly formed nation of Israel received the law of God through Moses. This is also where they tested God by crafting and worshipping a golden calf. The laws was meant to guide them and be pursued by faith…but ended up becoming death to them as the pursued it in pride or forsook it all together.

Scripture

Genesis 21:8-21

https://my.bible.com/bible/59/GEN.21.8-21

'And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. '

Isaac is weaned.

Ishmael mocks Isaac. (Generational sin duplicating his Mom Hagar)

Sarah is stirred up and tells Abraham to cast “the slave woman” out with her son. 

Sarah’s request displeases Abraham because of his son Ishmael.

God corrects Abraham saying obey Sarah and do not be displeased about Hagar (the slave woman) and Ishmael (the boy).

God calls Hagar the “slave woman” and not wife though Sarah had given her to Abraham as a wife.  God calls Ishmael ‘the boy’ rather than son.  

*God renews our mind by His word.  Every subtlety matters.  We can hang on His every word.

Abraham must have been confused about the promise of God, regarding where his descendants would come from.  But Sarah, his wife, knew God’s plan. 

Abraham knew God’s heart. 

*You can know the love of God, love God, and have saving faith…yet still be confused about God’s plan to bring about His promise.  

Abraham did know God’s heart of compassion though, just as he had interceded for Lot in Sodom. 

*You can intercede for others showing God’s compassion and always be correct.

HARD TRUTH: Just as the mocker was dismissed from the family of promise, so those today who mock Isaac’s descendant Jesus Christ will be cast out of God’s eternal family as well.   

Yet, God promised to prosper the slave woman’s son (the mocker) into a great nation simply because he was Abraham’s ‘offspring”.  This confirms to Abraham what God had already spoken to Hagar 14 or so years earlier about Ishmael.  

*Compassion is always a part of God’s plan.  This is why like Sarah we speak the truth, and like Abraham we do so in compassionate love. 

*Sometimes God will prosper your mistake, but that doesn’t mean that He is bringing about His promise through that prosperity. Do not be deceived. 

God brings about his promises despite our mistakes, not through our mistakes.  Jesus died because of sin.  Yet, He works all things out for good.  

We are to choose and act on his path to the promise, like Abraham did.

Q: What hard choices are you in the throws of  making right now?  Are they a path to prosperity but not the path to God’s promise of eternal life? (True prosperity and thriving)

Abraham obeyed God and Sarah by sending them away early the next morning.  Abraham sent them with bread and water. (Showing God’s compassion and playing a part in God’s ultimate plan for Ishmael and his descendants: showing them mercy until they one day come to Jesus Christ for eternal life.  This is God’s long game and must be our too when we are given mercy and give mercy)

Abraham had a history of 24 hour obedience.  This is why he the father of faith:  he acted quickly when God spoke.

*Delayed obedience is disobedience. 

Hagar and Ishmael wander aimlessly in the desert of Beersheba.

When the water ran out she put Ishmael (teenager) under a bush and went about 100 yards away to cry about the boys certain death.   Ishmael was about 16 years old and about to die of dehydration wondering in the dessert!

Q:  Parents, is your heart broken for your teenagers search for identity?  Their trials? Your teenager needs you!  Your prayers and intercession matter!  Ishmael was about 16 years old and about to die of dehydration wondering in the dessert!

Though Hagar cried, God listened to the voice of the boy.  

Q: Young people and teenagers: God is there for you!  He hears your cries!  He has a plan for your life…and your parents are a plan of bringing it about.  So listen to them!

God comforted the mother reminding her of His promise to make Ishmael a great nation.  Now she could go and encourage and comfort the boy.

God opened Hagar’s eyes to a whole well full of water!  He didn’t make a well, he showed her a well.  She was so despondent that she could not see the provision available with in eye shot until God encouraged her.

*God opened her eyes to what was already their and that He made available to bring about his plan for her family.  Parents, God has given you what you need.  Let him show you. 

You have to survive on God’s Word before you can thrive on God’s Word. 

God gave them enough bread and water through the compassion of Abraham to last them until intervened and gave them a well. 

From here she gave the boy water and found a way to help him settle in Paran and train as an archer.  She went back to her people in Egypt and found Ishmael a wife. 

 

Supporting Scripture 

*(We use the New Testament to interpret the OT)

Galatians 4:21-31 ESV

21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,

“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
    break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!  
For the children of the desolate one will be more
 than those of the one who has a husband.”

28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

To be free and to thrive, is to be free from sin and made alive by faith in Jesus Christ, who is Isaac’s descendant according to the flesh, and God’s son according to the promise.   Like Abraham, we must put all our eggs in the basket of the promise.

Romans 9:6-9 ESV

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”

Today, by faith, you can become a child of God through his promise to break the power of sin in your life, forgive you of sin now and when needed in the future, and give you eternal life through repentance and faith in his son Jesus.  

The Gospel is this:

Stop trusting in your self or anything else for thriving, for eternal life. 

Jesus, the Son of God, lived the perfect life for you.

Jesus died the death that your sin demanded of you; for you.

Jesus rose from dead by the power of God as a proof that his payment for your sin is complete and that he can fulfill his promise to give you eternal life. 

Pray with me today. 

*Don’t’ eat the seed that God gave you to plant and tend so that the next generation can thrive.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Thrive: In God’s Perfect Timing

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Thrive: In God’s Perfect Timing

Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

• Has the last year and a half been a waste, simply a bust?

• Have we lost a sense of the call of God?

• Is there a way to get back on track to once again thrive in the life and purposes of God? 

We’re going to answer these questions today as we look at the life of Abraham on the verge of receiving his son Isaac, digging into a few words that Jesus expressed about his Kingdom and the understanding it gave the Apostle Paul in regards to this Kingdom. 

Focus: We will thrive in every season when we embrace the perfect timing of God.

• Lost Time

• You Have Not Missed It

• The Perfect Timing of God

Lost Time

We will begin to thrive when we realize that time we thought lost was actually useful to God.

Abraham had a promise from God that he received at the age of seventy-five.  

Yet in between that promise being given and where we pick up in the story today, Abraham could have had moments of questioning God’s sovereignty. 

Despite his many detours, Abraham would come to find that God’s Word remained true that:

Romans 11:29 

“…the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

Genesis 21:1-7

The Lord  visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.

Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” 

Preparing to thrive begins with thanking God for what he has already given you rather than what you do not have.

Abraham was blessed financially and societally, but still lacked one of the deepest needs for the human soul to be fulfilled - the need to build a family.  

*God was letting Abraham know that to truly thrive God would give Abraham and Sarah a family that the Lord himself would build.

This same blessing continues today as God builds his spiritual household in Christ.

You are never wasting time when you are building God’s family in Christ.

Everyone who belongs to Jesus is a part of that family and a lineage that far proceeds and will far exceed them.

It is not that you can not survive without a strong attachment to family.  

It is that you will not thrive as Christ intends bereft of the fundamental need that God has given you for family (both naturally and spiritually) to define you, shape you, strengthen you and bring you into the multi-generational purposes of God.

Family is God given - both naturally and spiritually.  

What you feel like you are missing naturally, God will always exceedingly provide with spiritual family in Christ (Psalm 27:9,10 ; Matthew 19:27-30).

The first (natural family) is your base and has all the benefits and potential failings of Adam. 

The second (which should include the first) should be an expression of the second man, Christ, and be intentionally reflective of his redemptive gospel purposes.  

Isaac is the bridge between Abraham and Jacob - the link between hearing the promise of God and seeing its first-fruits (Christ).  

Isaac would represent the stage between taking the first steps of faith towards God’s promise and seeing the manifest momentum of that promise. 

For years, Abraham and Sarah were marked by the cultural stigma regarding what they did not have, rather than what they did.

God made them a promise with it’s foundation in his purposes to bring salvation to the world through Jesus Christ.  

Abraham received the promise to have Isaac at seventy-five years old (Genesis 12:4).  

Sarah, his wife, conceived at age ninety (Genesis 17:15-17) by the supernatural intervention of God.  

Isaac was finally born when Abraham was one hundred years old (Genesis 21:5).  

What this tells us is that whether a child of destiny like Isaac or feeling past your prime like Abraham and Sarah, you have a call in God to fulfill today!

What you are doing now matters. 

You are where you are, at the stage of life you are, doing what you are doing with whom you are doing it for God to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit through you!

Just as Isaac’s birth was a miraculous testimony to everyone who surrounded Abraham and Sarah, you are where you are in the stage of life you are to reach the people who surround you with the good news of Jesus Christ. 

As Isaac was born, we see that God’s promise to make Abraham a mighty nation through which all nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12) was evidence to Abraham that though many years of unfulfilled longing had passed, he had not missed the purposes of God.

With twenty-twenty hindsight, how can you see that God has been using time that you thought lost?

You Have Not Missed It

We will begin to thrive when we begin to recognize what God is doing in our period of waiting.

As you love Jesus and obey his commands, God is with you in the waiting.

What did Abraham and Sarah learn during their time of waiting?

1. The call of God on their lives was more than just about their personal comfort, fulfillment or dreams.

2. The promise of God in their lives was to reveal their son, and by lineage, God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to the nations.

3. The purpose of God’s delay in their lives was to demonstrate his miraculous power.

In our modern cultures, we are often too self-focused. 

Abraham’s life was lived in humble devotion as he worked his business, led his family and sought the face of God.  

Don’t miss the will of God because of a romanticized picture of your destiny.  

As Abraham intentionally walked with God, he did not miss the purposes of God for his life or family, though nothing visibly ostentatious came from it for seventy-five recorded years.

And you are not missing it where you are if you are faithfully seeking Jesus, loving your family, church and community, making disciples with the opportunities where you find yourself today. 

God used all of that time to prepare for the nation of Israel, the coming of the Messiah and eventually the birth of the church of Jesus Christ. 

God uses our waiting to develop the character, perseverance and strength of Christ in us.

If you are looking at what you don’t have, you will miss God’s program for utilizing what you do have.

***What you have the opportunity to do TODAY is the will of God.

****You are not missing life or your destiny if you are faithful to live a godly life, seek the Lord and make disciples today.

The opportunity that you have right now IS the place, will and call of God for you.

***How faithful you are with these daily opportunities determines the measure to which God opens up others for you. 

Do not forsake your future harvest by despising what God has given you to cultivate today.

Proverbs 28:19

Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty.

God here is referring to the land that you have today, not that which you hope to inherit at some point in the future.

The internet, boasting of social media and our entertainment fill us with fantasies, devoid of the posture of devotion to God, hard work and perseverance required to attain such things.  

That is what some of you feel like after this past year.

Whether it be in regards to marriage, parenting, your career or ministry calling, you have not missed anything God intended for you if you remain in step with him.

What God is doing in the waiting is building perseverance and strength to fulfill the call in his people.

“Behind every strong person is a story that gave them no other choice.”

-Anonymous 

Jesus as the Son of God would not begin his ministry until after thirty years of obscurity working faithfully in a tiny town of Nazareth in the small nation of Israel.

It is from this place and in the perfect timing of the Father, at a time that the world had been connected in new and significant ways through the Roman Empire, that Jesus would begin his worldwide discipleship campaign to save the nations.

Every fulfilled work of God begins with a seed.  

After years of barrenness, Abraham had to continue to sow seeds of faith with his wife Sarah for Isaac to be born.

That is where many of you are today - needing to learn to sow seeds of faith to see the first-fruits of the promises of God manifest. 

The priorities and focus of your life need to be that seed offered in sacrifice to God.

John 12:20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.

28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.

31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

Many times God is teaching us through circumstance that we need to die to ourselves and our selfishness before we can truly live.

Jesus clearly expressed over and over again that the Kingdom of God is the only thing that truly endures.

We begin to truly thrive when we anchor ourselves in eternal rather than temporary things.  

*Many of us need to rehabilitate from the social anxiety produced over this past year to relate in healthy manners with the world again.

Yet even as we do, we must acknowledge that what is constant is that circumstances change.

Life is finite. 

Loves will be lost as people inevitably age and pass away.

What God is trying to give you is eternal, that which can not be shaken, stolen or faded.

When we embrace the fact that God will lovingly use all things to press us into a healthy dependence on him and a focus on his eternal Kingdom, we will interpret our times correctly and continue to thrive.

The Perfect Timing of God

We will thrive in our lives when we acknowledge that God’s perfect timing is meant to reveal and form Christ in us.

Galatians 4:1-7

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

God is always perfect in his timing to accomplish his Kingdom purposes.

“God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which he must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves.”

A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

Just as Abraham and Sarah had to the reach the limits of their physical capacities’ to truly enter into the miracle life of God, so let us meet Jesus at the cross today, so that by repentance and faith in his God’s perfect timing, we might thrive as we submit to God’s greater Kingdom purposes in Christ.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

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 Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Forgiveness: Love Your Enemies

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Forgiveness: Love Your Enemies

Focus: We will prove to be disciples of Jesus Christ when we move beyond forgiving our enemies to loving our enemies. 

1. Love WHO?!

2. What’s in your lap?

3. Can the blind lead the blind?

What have we learned so far about forgiveness?

• We have already seen in Jesus’ encounter with the paralytic that he claims to be God, forgives sins, and heals us.  

• Forgiveness of sin is our foundational need and healing.  Sin cripples us. 

• We learned from the parable of the unmerciful servant that everyone needs forgiveness and God makes it available for everyone. 

• We learned that those who have been forgiven little love little, while those that have been forgiven much love much. 

God’s Word Luke 6:27-42

27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.  37 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” 39 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye

Love WHO!? (vs 27-36)

• When we learn to not only forgive like Jesus does, but love our enemies like He does, we prove ourselves as his disciples becoming useful in His mission of seeking and saving the lost.

• Jesus promised that his followers who obey his teaching will have enemies.  These enemies persecute them just because they obey Him.  

• The word “love” in Greek is ‘agape’.  It means to “unselfishly seek the best or higher good for” others.  God promises a great reward in heaven when we love our enemies.  This expectation of reward from God allows us to freely love our enemies here. 

• An enemy by definition is someone who hates you and actively seeks your harm through insults, slander, humiliation, theft, lawsuits, exclusion, and physical harm. 

• Love goes beyond a feeling.  It is doing good, speaking blessing, lending and praying for our enemies. (vs 35)

• When we love and show mercy to the ungrateful and wicked we are allowing the light of Christ to shine through us proving our identity as children of God. (vs 34-36)

What’s in your lap? (vs 37-38)

• The picture of a ‘full lap’ represents our heart and life. To have a heart full of God’s peace we must have first received forgiveness from Him and then freely given it to others.  We can not keep what we do not give. 

• The measure and standard we use in judging, condemning, and forgiving others will be that which is used toward us.  We must use God’s standard and not our self-righteous standard  to judge ourselves and others.

• God’s standard is holy perfection defined by himself.  Only one person has measured up: Jesus Christ.  

• If we know, live, and judge by God’s standard in Christ Jesus we will walk humbly, be holy, and show mercy to ourselves as well as our enemies. 

Can the blind lead the blind? (vs 39-42)

• A blind person walking alone is dangerous.   A blind guide leading a blind follower is foolish and prideful.

• All have sinned and fallen short of God’s holy standard, blinded by Satan and their own rebellion.  

• Jesus has come as the light in the darkness exposing Satan’s schemes and our hearts.  Only Jesus can heal our blindness, reveal our need for forgiveness, and remove the logs in our eyes so that we may lovingly help others find healing in Him.

Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the person should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere they can be cured.

- C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity

Second City Church - Pastor Cole Parleir 2021

Forgiveness: Self Awareness and the Cross

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Forgiveness: Self Awareness and the Cross

Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: We will finally have the freedom to love Jesus and others when we realize how much forgiveness is offered at the cross. 

• Comparisons

• Self Awareness and the Cross

• Forgiven Much to Love Much

Luke 7:36-50

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Comparisons

Comparisons can be good for godly motivation or destructive separation. 

Comparisons provide godly motivation when they propel you to a greater love for Jesus and others.  

Comparisons are destructive when they produce judgments towards others giving you a false sense of superiority, value or worth.  

Jesus was providing godly motivation for the Pharisees by comparing their love to the gratitude of the sinful woman.  

He allowed no mention of the woman’s sin being greater than that of the Pharisees’.  

Christ is our standard for righteousness. 

The only person to whom we should ever compare ourselves is Jesus, who will be our ultimate judge (John 5:22, 23).  

In this we are both humbled and liberated knowing that Christ has come to be our glorious Savior.  

This allows us to relate with those who were formerly natural enemies and covenant with those who have been likewise redeemed, living now under the Lordship of Christ. 

You are Closer than You Think

“The reason there are so many exhortations in the New Testament for Christians to love other Christians is because . . . the church itself is not made up of natural “friends.” It is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort. Christians come together not because they form a natural collocation, but because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance. In this light we are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake. That is the only reason why John 13:34–35 makes sense when Jesus says: “A new command I give you—Love one another as I have loved you.”’ . . . Christian love will stand out and bear witness to Jesus because it is a display, for Jesus’ sake, of mutual love among social incompatibles.“

-Don Carson

So again, it does not matter another’s income, education or achievement level - if you think yourself morally superior, then you’ve become their judge, and the poisoning of your relationship ultimately follows.

Beware the trap of the Pharisees. 

The Pharisees were religious, but their comparisons drove people away from God rather than towards him.  

So what can come against such a supernatural testimony and display to which Don Carson refers?

A lack of self awareness. 

Self-Awareness and the Cross

We all need a dose of self-awareness realizing that the cross of Christ is the great leveling agent of humanity.  

The self awareness that Jesus was bringing to the Pharisees was to result in a greater love for God and others on whom they would naturally place judgment. 

In the woman’s case above, Jesus was clearly placing a premium on humility, self-awareness and an indebted sense of devotion to God.  

We all need to have a greater awareness of our own sin. 

When we are truly walking in the revelation of the forgiveness of Jesus, an awareness of our own sin does not lead to further condemnation, but a greater sense of liberty and desire for obedience because of God’s grace towards us.  

As with the sinful woman, the kindness shown to us is what provokes us to love Jesus and others more out of great gratitude towards God.  

A greater awareness of our sin keeps the cross of Christ at the center of our thoughts and the joy of our salvation in our hearts.  

No one is too high and no one is too low to lack the need of the cross of Christ. 

Without an awareness of our common need for forgiveness, divisions abound in relationships and society at large. 

“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion—without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When one knows that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself . . . and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”

-Miroslav Volf

Don’t forget yourself. 

The opposite of humility is self-righteousness. 

Remembering others’ sin but not our own is pride.

Self-righteousness is a sin which sets your internal estimation of yourself in superiority to those who surround you.

It leads to a vitriolic condemnation of others and cuts off our ability to appeal to them on the basis of the gospel of Christ.  

Never exalt singular issues or agendas over the gospel of Christ (I Corinthians 15). 

The reality is that we live in a fallen world and people will sin.  

The hope for the nations is to change hearts and not just policies. 

Our job is to remain in Christ and in a posture to love sinners, build bridges and bring them home to God through repentance and faith in Jesus.  

The Pharisees' lack of self-awareness prevented them from doing so with the sinful woman.  

So again, beware the trap of the Pharisees. 

The Pharisees were religious, but their lack of self-awareness built divisions rather than bridges between themselves and others.    

Forgiven Much to Love Much

We will love Jesus and others fervently when we realize that God has treated us undeservedly.  

Luke 18:9-14

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

We are to fight the battles of the Lord, but realize that in any contest of ideas, both parties need to be taken to not only the judgment seat, but also the cross of Christ for an opportunity to find mercy through repentance. 

When I am emptied of self-righteousness, I can be filled with the love needed to lead others to such faith in Jesus.   

This love provides me the ability to speak the truth with Christ’s and others interests in mind, knowing that God will look out for and exalt me as I do so.  

I know that if I humble myself before God and in my treatment towards others, God himself will work on the behalf of righteousness in my situation.  

If I am godless or self-righteous in my treatment towards others, God will humble me and frustrate my cause.  

Proverbs 24:17-18

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.

Again, beware the trap of the Pharisees. 

The above Pharisee was religious, but his self-righteousness brought the displeasure of God rather than his approval.  

There is a difference between confidence and arrogance.  

We should have great strength produced from our confidence in God.  

However, we want to forever make our boasts in Christ alone (I Corinthians 1).  

The closer you get to God, his purity and his holiness, the greater awareness you have of your own shortcomings and sin.  

Self-righteousness is a tell-tale indicator of one’s true proximity to God.  

We have the ability to walk in the freedom of forgiveness even when we don’t see eye to eye with others.  

Living a life of forgiveness does not mean that you agree about everything, but that you learn to live graciously and lovingly towards one another. 

When God has clearly spoken in his word, he demands obedience. 

Where there is Biblical silence, there is room for discussion based on the character, ways and heart of God so that we might be led by the Holy Spirit and find the mind of Christ.  

The only agreement that is imperative is agreeing with God and his word.  

And in this word we are commanded to be reconciled with God and one another through the cross of Jesus Christ.  

Why?

Because as Martin Luther King wrote, 

“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power of love. . . .We can never say, ‘I will forgive you, but I won’t have anything further to do with you.’ Forgiveness means reconciliation, and coming together again.”

So let’s pursue love of both Christ and one another today being humbled by the cross and strengthened by God’s great forgiveness offered to us. 

 Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Forgiveness: The Healing of Paralysis

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Forgiveness: The Healing of Paralysis 

Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: We will be healed from that which cripples us when we experience and express the forgiveness of Christ. 

Sin that Cripples

Forgiveness as the Real Need

Jesus the True Friend
 

Mark 2:1-12 

And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. 

And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. 

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 

And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? 

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” —he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

Sin that Cripples

The importance of forgiveness:

“There were centuries and centuries . . . in which the Christian notion of forgiveness was not a part of anybody’s culture — the unconditional starting afresh, forgiving, forgetting, and how that practice ought to work. . . . But I think it’s the only way civil society really hangs together. If we continually deny people the opportunity to have an identity apart from their punish-identity, then you’re inviting them to . . . permanently inhabit that failure. 

In other words, not to change. And even if they do change because they are good-hearted, they will not be able to reconcile with anyone as long as they are presented with an identity that is attached to their failure.”

-The New York Times columnist Elizabeth Bruenig

Forgiveness as the Real Need

“Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer’s apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell.”

-Hannah Arendt, a Jewish political philosopher writing after the Holocaust

Who do you need to forgive today for your own healing?

Jesus the True Friend

Though these friends brought the paralytic to Jesus to be healed of his paralysis, Jesus is the true friend who brings us to the Heavenly Father to be absolved of our sin.

At the cross, Jesus tore a hole is the cosmic roof separating you from God.

The idolatry of self keeps us from moving forward in God.

When we are more consumed with our own estimations of ourselves than what God says about us, we are paralyzed with self-loathing, fear and despair.

It often comes down to esteeming an image of yourself greater than the one 

“When people say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important than God's.”

― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

You can be that type of friend to others, helping them come to the cross of Jesus to find healing from their sin and paralysis in life.

 Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Forgiveness: The Great Debtor Society

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Forgiveness: The Great Debtor Society

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: We will be expressions of the grace of God when we remember the great debt that Jesus Christ paid for us.

• The Great Debtor Society

• Who Has the Greater Debt?

• Fully Paid

Matthew 18:21-35  

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 

23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 

24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 

25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 

26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 

27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 

28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 

29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 

30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 

31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 

32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 

33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 

34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 

35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

The Great Debtor Society

We are all great debtors to whom others also owe debts.

When we think of debt, we think of it at something that we owe someone financially, or some  honor that they are due from us for good that they’ve loaned us to literally save or make our existence better, or to literally save them.

We are in debt to God when we sin against him by breaking his commands, mishandling the relationships, opportunities and resources that he’s give us to use for his glory.

We are in debt to others when we’ve sinned against them in some way.

Forgiveness is the mercy of God absolving us of the debt that we can never pay to make things right with him.

Our good works would continually fall short of his perfection and our motivations are like filthy rags used to clean our stains.

Who Has the Greater Debt?

We are rough with others when we forget our own debt before God. 

At the heart of the gospel, Jesus Christ, who alone was completely innocent, proactively pursued reconciliation, offering forgiveness and healing to those who would falsely accuse and murder him.

Without a Biblical orientation regarding forgiveness, cries for righteousness and justice turn into cycles of vindictiveness rather than healing. 

The damaging cycle of vindictiveness: 

“When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn’t become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there’s no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the inexorable law of diminishing returns. The mania for punishment will therefore get worse before it gets better.”

-Alan Jacobs

The results of such vindictiveness:

We’ve served in some way and others have not pulled their weight.

*The relationships that we so desperately need will be cut off if we are full of judgment and offense towards others. 

*This is a truth we must embrace:

If you continually hold people in your debt because of what they’ve done to you or how they’ve failed you, God will hold you accountable for the debt that you have before him (v. 31-35).  

*We are most irritable, isolated and lonely when we focus on other people’s sin rather than our own.  

*We are most healthy in relationships when we focus on the pity Christ expressed towards us and the great effort he made to reconcile great offenders to himself through the cross.  

Forgiveness will always begin with a choice followed by a feeling. 

Forgiveness begins with the humility to acknowledge that found in similar circumstances, but for the grace of God, we have done or might have done similar things to those who have sinned against us. 

Even if you can not fathom the sin of others, reflecting on your own debt before God makes you merciful towards others.  

We create our own prisons when we fail to forgive. 

There is no moving forward in relationships in life without forgiveness. 

Who do we need to pursue for reconciliation, forgiveness and healing?

Fully Paid

Because of Christ, your debts and the debts of those who owe you can be fully paid at the cross. 

Now we spend our lives working off that debt in love toward others showing them the same grace that God himself has shown us. 

When we look to the cross, we are able to treat others with the same grace that we ourselves hope to receive from Jesus. 

The Unifying Power of the Grace of Christ

“Our community with one another [in Christ] consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a human reality. In this it differs from all other communities.”

-Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Forgiveness does not mean you do not address sin. 

2 Timothy 2:19 

But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”

Yet there is a life altering difference between building your life on seeking forgiveness and building it on seeking revenge.  

There is a healing power in forgiveness, both for you and the recipient of your forgiveness. 

Supernatural examples of the grace of God through forgiveness:

• Shootings in Charleston, South Carolina June, 2015

• Shootings in the Amish community in Pennsylvania - 2006

Let’s meet Jesus at the cross today to both receive and be empowered to give such grace.  

 Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Looking For The Living Among The Dead

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Looking For The Living Among The Dead

Associate Pastor Cole Parleir 

Focus: When we stop ‘looking for the living among the dead’ we will encounter the resurrected Jesus.

• The Resurrection

• The Road

• The Return

Scripture (Luke 24:1-35)

'But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them,

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” 

 And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 

But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 

And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” 

So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. '

The Resurrection

Life is too short and eternity too long to look for the living among the dead.

Like the women mourning the crucified Jesus, we too should mourn the results of sin in our lives and the lives of others.  We must do this by going to the tombs made for that which was lost.  This is part of true repentance.  

Like the women mourning who brought prepared spices we, too should be willing to make amends and bring comfort to those we’ve sinned against.  This is part of true restitution.

But…the gospel does not stop at the crucifixion and tomb.  It’s only the valley on the way to resurrection.  

This is where the truth becomes perplexing to the human mind. Heaven must intervene to speak directly to our spirit.  Heaven’s messengers (The Holy Spirit, angels, and preachers of the gospel) do for us what the world cannot do: deliverer a message of eternal hope, full redemption, and indestructible life

Angels are sent by God to minister to those who are to inherit salvation.

“Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

Hebrews 1:7, 14 ESV

“WHY DO YOU SEEK THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD?”

We do this all the time.  We say we believe in God and yet, as a result of our unbelief in what He has said, we seek the living Jesus among the dead.

Where do we seek the living among the dead in our lives?  Here’s a few disappointing “tombs” I return to find my self searching for the living God:

• False Religion

• Ungodly Relationships

• Pleasing people for their benefit rather than God’s glory in Jesus

• Romantic Fantasy (yes, even in marraige)

• Success at work, sports, or things I put my energy into

• More security to insulate against hardship

When we realize these tombs are empty, we also realize our hearts are empty. Only when we experience this kind of disappointment is there room to hear what God is speaking.

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you….”

They remembered the prophecy that Jesus said this would happen.  Then they returned to the gathering of disciples and  witnessed to the forming church.

Life is too short and eternity too long to not investigate the gospel like Peter did by running the tomb.   The others did not believe…but Peter was inspired to investigate.

Life is too short and eternity too long to not marvel all the way home.

The Road (to Emmaus)

When our hope is in Christ, we are never walking alone.  He is with us. 

Cleopas and the other disciple  were talking about all these things that had happened…and then Jesus drew near. Yet they did not recognize Him.  

“What happened?  What things?”  - Jesus is the master of lead in questions! He doesn’t need your information, just your attention. 

Jesus broke the bread in communion fashion.  “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Their eyes were opened.  

(Acts 2:42)

Their hearts burned as they talked with Jesus not knowing it was Him. This the impact of the Spirit of Truths at work.

Q: Do you know who you’re talking to?  If Truth is being shared, God is talking to you whether you recognize Him or not.  Be humble.

The Return (of the wandering)

Do you see the empty tomb?  The human heart is empty like that tomb.  The fact the tomb was empty was that Jesus had risen leaving a void.   If your heart is empty like the tomb, this also means that Jesus is alive, and you were made for Him and to be communing with Him..  

They rose the same hour they recognized Jesus and returned to the community of worshippers.

• They invited Jesus to stay and prepared the meal…but the guest blessed it!!

• those on the road thought they were making progress, but when they realized what REALLY happened and who they were REALLY talking to, they turned around and began to make real progress by returning to Jesus Word and His Church.

“While they were perplexed…as they were frightened…remember how He told you…return from the tomb and tell the rest” - Luke 24:1-12

Psalm 84

“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. 

Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah 

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. 

They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah 

Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed! For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. 

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!”

Psalm 84:1-12 ESV

https://www.bible.com/59/psa.84.1-12.esv

Blessed are those who dwell in God’s house (The Gathered Church)

Blessed are those whose strength is in God and delight (highway of the heart) in Him and His people. 

The path to the house may include weeping (carrying your cross as a disciple of Christ doing what is not easy or normal), but He uses the tears accrued in this process to turn barren valleys into places of fruitfulness.   (The process will bless you and those around you)

Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them. 

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.””

Matthew 18:18-20 ESV

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (Among His people)

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

2 Corinthians 3:17 ESV

Take the next step. Go back to church. 

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

During life's trials we tend to think God is dead and we, like the disciples heading to Emmaus, are walking alone, or at best, with other people discussing life’s challenges.  Truth be told, in our hardest moments Jesus is with us and carrying us though we do not recognize him.  Jesus is alive. 

Footprints In The Sand Poem

One night I dreamed a dream.

As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.

Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.

For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,

One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,

I looked back at the footprints in the sand.

I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,

especially at the very lowest and saddest times,

there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.

"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,

You'd walk with me all the way.

But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,

there was only one set of footprints.

I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you

Never, ever, during your trials and testings.

When you saw only one set of footprints,

It was then that I carried you."

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Reemerge: A Return To Faithfulness

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Reemerge: A Return to Faithfulness

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher 

Focus: You will reemerge with Christ when you understand him as the God of all faithfulness. 

• A Cry for Faithfulness

• Our Need

• God’s Faithfulness

A Cry for Faithfulness

There is a desperate cry for faithful, Christ-centered relationships that will shape a generation for Jesus.  

2 Timothy 1:1-18 

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. 

But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. 

You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me— may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day!—and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.

Our Need

Our needs were exposed by our lack in this past year, yet Christ’s solution to that need remains the same.  

Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy speaks of a social recession and the health impacts of loneliness. 

Starbucks and the great human reconnection 

As more and more people are getting vaccinated and returning to post-pandemic life, we are all in a sort of social rehab for life outside the home.  

We are learning how to allow Christ to redefine the six basic needs that every human being has which are difficult to live without  - meaning, satisfaction, hope, identity, freedom and justice.  

Waiting for ideal circumstances to begin what you should is not God’s plan.  

We must begin addressing those needs in God now.  

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

- Chinese proverb

God’s Faithfulness

We are able to endure and reemerge after our trials because of God’s faithfulness to us.  

Psalm 138:1-8 

I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased. All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord, for they have heard the words of your mouth, and they shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord . For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me. The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

God’s love and faithfulness were most clearly expressed at the cross of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus faithfully lived the sinless life that we should have lived, and at the cross, died the sacrificial death that we should have died, in our place.  

In his faithfulness, God the Father was true to his word to raise Christ from the dead to give forgiveness of sins and new life to those who would turn to Jesus in a reciprocal faithfulness. 

God models faithfulness for us and expects us to emulate that faithfulness in relationship with others. 

Acts 2:42-47 

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Faithfulness is the foundation of all Christian devotion.  

In essence, we have a pact with Jesus, made at the cross. 

Yet any pact is a two way street. 

The pact that we have with Jesus is the vehicle through which we put selfish, self-centered living to death and by which God’s Kingdom advances.  

P.A.C.T.

*GOD’S COVENANT IS BASED ON: 

• THE PROMISES OF GOD TOWARDS HIS PEOPLE

• THE ALLEGIANCE WE PLEDGE BACK TO JESUS

• THE COMMITMENTS THAT WE MAKE TO ONE ANOTHER

• THE TIME, Talent and Treasure you devote to the person and cause of Christ.

I am most unfulfilled when I put the idea of worldly success above God-ordained relationships. 

At the end of the day, what remains will be those relationships - the one that I have with God and those to whom he unites me in Jesus.  

Come to the cross today in repentance from sin and faith in Jesus’ substitutionary work to experience God’s faithfulness towards you.  

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Reemerge: A Return to Vision

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Reemerge: A Return to Vision

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Proverbs 29:18 

Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.

Focus: You will reemerge with Christ when you allow him to realign you with his eternal vision. 

• Strangled Vision

• An Encounter With Jesus

• A New Vision

Strangled Vision

The trials through which we pass can strangle the vision and thus distort the image of God in our lives.  

Mark 5:1-20 

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

In what ways do we need to reemerge?

Many have experienced atrophied muscles socially, relationally and spiritually this past year, all of from which we need to reeemerge.  

The prolonged shutdown broke many spirits, smothering both personal and Kingdom ambitions. 

Just as there is a real God with angels who do his bidding, there is a real devil and demons who reflect Satan’s.  

One of the things demons look to do as we go through times of trial is drive us into isolation.   

It is in this place that demons look to strangle the image and vision of God in our lives. 

*If you lack healthy love and acceptance from God ordained sources, the temptation is to receive these things from the wrong voices that will distort the image of God in your life.  

How did the demons strangle the vision of the man with the unclean spirit?

1. They drove him into isolation 

2. They gave him a supernatural strength to resist those who would try to help him. 

3. They drove the man to inflict self-harm. 

The world has fundamentally changed.  

We all need to reengage atrophied muscles of loving interaction, faith and ministry to address the isolation, depression and fear that have marked our world. 

Coming out of the pandemic, we all need to learn to walk again through an encounter with Jesus.  

An Encounter With Jesus

Jesus comes to restore our God-given image and vision. 

The demons began to identify the man more than his remembrance of his own name or the image that he bore of God.  

* Do not defend that which God wants to heal.  

You may have become comfortable with the demonic forces with which you have been identified and tormented, but God has a different vision for your life.  

Jesus comes not to torment you, but to set you free through the change that he brings.  

The ultimate goal of the demons was to not only destroy the man’s vision, but his life.  

This was reflected in what the demons did to the pigs when they were driven out.  

In the world, those who usually thrive after periods of trial are those who have the vision, resiliency and ability to reinvent themselves. 

It is a wonderful time “to reinvent yourself” in Christ. 

You must know that when Jesus invades your situation, he does so speaking a word of peace to you.

Yet you must meet Jesus in death at the cross before you can truly experience his resurrection life.

Repentance and faith are God’s incubator for healing.

A New Vision

When you encounter Jesus, he gives you a new vision which includes testifying to his deliverance, healing and peace.  

The gospel demands that you come to realize what needs to die that you might truly live.

*Several times throughout life we are presented with scenarios that evoke existential crises pushing us to ask the big questions in life:

• What does it all mean?

• What am I here for?

• Why do things happen the way they do?

This is what the man could have undoubtedly questioned but knew that all great longings of the heart and soul could ultimately be satisfied as he was with Jesus who had healed him. 

Jesus gave him that peace and an even greater vision. 

The man would be a witness for the power, love and mercy of God that had transformed his life. 

The Scripture would later testify to a revival in the Decapolis that would break out when Jesus arrived for which this man’s testimony paved the way.  

May our lives be used in a similar fashion as we encounter Jesus and reemerge with Christ’s eternal vision for our lives!

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021

Reemerge: Returning What the Locusts Have Eaten

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Reemerge: Returning What the Locusts Have Eaten

 Lead Pastor: Rollan Fisher

Focus: We will reemerge with Christ when we understand him as the God of restoration. 

• What the Locusts Have Eaten

• Restored Years

• Restored Dreams

What the Locusts Have Eaten 

God wants to restore for his people what the locusts have eaten. 

Joel 2:18-27 

Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The Lord answered and said to his people, 

“Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. 

“I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, and his rear guard into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. 

“Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and vine give their full yield. 

“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. 

“The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. 

“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

At its core, restoration means:

• Turning pain into victory, loss into strength.

“The reality is, the modern church created an entire culture around Bible McNuggets and assumed they were nutritious.”

-Phillip Yancey

Restored Years 

God is able to turn years of loss into greater strength as we learn the lessons of the cross. 

Restoring the year(s) the locusts have eaten means:

• Returning to the health and fruitfulness that you had prior to the time of trial with greater strength and lessons learned.

If you are hearing this simply as a means to gratify the desire for personal blessing, you are off and have missed the message of the cross.

In Jesus, those who want to save their lives (in the mere pursuit of pleasure, wealth, worldly security, etc.) will lose them, while those who lose their lives for his sake and the gospel will find life.  

Mark 8:34-38 

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Restored Dreams

The dreams that the old men dream in the following passage are not self-centered, but God-centered dreams, and therefore re-emerge with the backing of Heaven. 

“There is nothing more irreligious than self-absorbed religion.”

-J.I. Packer, Knowing God

Joel 2:28-32 

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. 

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

This is all gospel language that the apostle Peter would reiterate on the day of Pentecost.

After Jesus’ suffering, burial and resurrection, he would exhort the church to re-emerge in the power of the Holy Spirit for the purposes of God.  

If God is so good and wants all people to come into this restoration, why won’t everyone be saved?

“If you were to force people to do something against their free choice, you would be dehumanizing them. The option of forcing everyone to go to heaven is immoral, because it's dehumanizing; it strips them of the dignity of making their own decision; it denies them their freedom of choice; and it treats them as a means to an end. When God allows people to say 'no' to him, he actually respects and dignifies them.”

-J.P. Moreland

Why the does the Scripture in Joel sound so familiar and what should we do with it? 

Acts 2:37-41 

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Come to Jesus for restoration.  

Through your repentance from self-absorbed living, let him restore the years of damaged relationships, health and provision that the locusts have eaten. 

Find resurrection life in the cross of Christ today and rejoin God’s people in the pursuit of his Kingdom purposes and blessing.

Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021