Gathering Recap 8.14.2016

This week was our first week of our new series, Exiles, which is based out of 1 Peter. We spoke about the separation of the church and the world out of 1 Peter 1:1-2.  Here is a quick recap:

In the first two verses Peter refers to his audience as “exiles”. Here’s why that’s significant: Peter is not just writing this to them to simply point out they are people living in countries that may or not be their home country. He’s actually pointing to a much deeper spiritual reality: it’s not merely that this country is not your home, but this world is not your home. Here’s why this matters, The Bible gives us two broad categories for humanity; the church and the world.

Throughout history, Christians have failed to remember that life here is temporary instead of permanent. When this happens we have three typical responses:

Run

When we think this is our home we withdraw or attempt to hide from our culture. We seek to protect ourselves and our children from everything in the “big, bad world” and create a “home”.  This causes us to become distinct and separate. So, everything we do and everywhere we go has to have this “Christian” label in front of it.

Conform

When we think this is our home we feel the need to adapt. This looks like giving God a makeover by changing what he has said in order to water down the gospel.  The reality is the Gospel is offensive.  The statement you are a sinner that deserves Hell will always offend people.  The other way we conform is we don’t really take back what God has said, it’s just that we don’t live by it.

Fight

This is when we try and make this our home.  We attempt to gain power in the political or business worlds in an attempt to force the world to act like the church. The problem is it is generally the church that ends up looking like the world.

Proclaim

But all of these responses fall woefully short of what God actually intends for his church to be. We should understand that we are never intended to quite fit in, wherever we are. We should always be a bit different. We have different beliefs and values, different ways of approaching life that are distinct and unusual to those on the outside. We are not tourists. We are to function in society, know the language, and befriend our neighbors. We also don’t assimilate. We are not at home here. The church isn’t meant to run, fight, or conform… its meant to proclaim.

Songs:

Grace Alone by King's Kaleidoscope

All my Hope by Hillsong

All I have is Christ by Sovereign Grace

We Sing as One by Young Oceans

Gathering Recap 8.7.2016

This week was our final week of the Recovery series. Out of Philippians 3:1-16, we talked about what it looks like for us to continue to press into Recovery after the series ends.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s gathering:

Throughout this series we have started to open up about the sins we haven’t told ever anyone. It’s helped us take steps towards finding real healing and hope in the gospel and it is very possible that we have just scratched the surface. The truth is growth and healing take time. There often isn’t a quick fix but knowing Christ is sweeter than having it all together. So as we end this series, here are the three things you can do in order to pursue Recovery:

1. Confess and Repent quickly.
2. Pursue Joy.
3. Come back to the gospel daily.

Confess and Repent Quickly:

Stop dwelling on past failures. Stop dwelling on past sins. Stop dwelling on what is behind you. It’s been paid for and forgiven by God. Confess your sins and repent of them quickly. Don’t dwell on them in secret. We give more power to our sin when we hide and dwell on them than if we were to just bring them into the light and turn from them.

Pursue Joy:

You were made to enjoy God. Use the means God promises to use in our lives to grow our love for him and ask, what specific things most grow my love for God. These are the moments that develop a deep affection and appreciation for Christ. This looks different for everyone. For you it could be a morning alone, good music, or even looking at the stars at night; but whatever it is, do it.  Enjoy the Creator who loves you.  Obedience comes from love, love doesn’t come from obedience.

Come back to the gospel daily:

This is the real fight. Are we going to believe the gospel today? When we wake up in the morning and our insecurity, anxiety, or lust feels like its going to own us, are we going to believe that the gospel is true? Are we going to believe that we are forgiven, and that Jesus is better than whatever our sins promise?

We pray these past several weeks have begun to open the door for us to find the healing we need in Christ but Recovery is a marathon not a sprint. It’s not something we pursue for a few weeks in the summer, but something we press forward towards for the rest of our lives. We want to be a church about Recovery. A church that confesses, repents, finds true joy in Jesus, and comes back to the gospel over and over and over again until Christ returns.

Songs: 

Praise the Lord Ye Heaven Adore Him by Young Oceans 

Before the Throne by Shane and Shane

How Deep the Father's Love for us by Phillips, Craig, and Dean

Fix My Eyes by Kings Kaleidoscope

Oh God by Citizens

Gathering Recap 7.31.2016

This week was the 8th week of our Recovery series. We spoke on Lust out of 1 Corinthians 6. This is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

If you have a relationship with Christ you will start to understand that the “rules” of the Bible aren’t really rules at all, but more so undeserved opportunities to find life in God instead of death in our idols. If you view God as a needy God trying to control you, One who needs your worship so badly that He sets up all these rules to force you to love him then:

a) You literally couldn’t have a more opposite view of the God of the Bible.

b) None of this will convince you.

When God created us, He created us in His image. His plan was for us to find complete joy and satisfaction in having a relationship with Himself, and He freely gave it to us. Yet through our sin, we became separate from God. Our soul, which was once overflowing with love from our Father, was now empty. The reason so many of find ourselves in the pit of sexual sin, is because an intimate experience with an image bearer of God, even though it is a distant second, it’s similar enough to what our souls were created for that it becomes something very easy for us to worship.    

And this is exactly what our culture does, whether we realize it or not, we worship sex and sexual experiences.

How do we fight lust and sexual sin in our lives?

1.     We need to focus on Jesus.  

2.     Get some brothers/sisters in arms.

3.     Know your triggers.

4.     Put yourself in position to succeed.

5.     We need marriages that are full of rich sexual beauty.

Songs: 

Before The Throne by Shane and Shane

All I Have is Christ by Sovereign Grace  

Hallelujah What a Savior by Ascend the Hill 

Jesus Thank You by Sovereign Grace  

Gathering Recap 7.24.2016

This week was the 7th week of our Recovery series. We spoke on Apathy out of Revelation 3:14-16. This is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

In its most basic terms, Apathy is a lack of interest and concern. It’s a state of indifference. Maybe it’s a little of caring about the wrong things too much and caring about the right things too little. Or just not caring about anything at all. It’s coasting. And Jesus says this is a problem because it’s not what you’re made for. Apathy is a disconnect from our purpose. Apathy is a loss of vision of who God is and what our purpose is as Christians.

There are three main causes to Apathy:

Wealth

When life is comfortable, it can lull you to sleep. When you have all of your felt needs met, you can begin to believe that God isn’t necessary. It’s going to be harder to trust God, love God, and love others when you have a lot of stuff and this might sound counterintuitive - but when you have all that you want and need, what reason do you have to depend on God for anything? When you believe that you earned all that you have why would you bother to look out for those less fortunate than you? Trusting and following Him over your wealth will always be a struggle.

Fear of Failure

Another place apathy comes from is fear. When we’ve been hurt by others or maybe tried hard to follow God and failed the result can be tragic. So because things have happened, to protect ourselves, we’ve decided that saying “I don’t care” is easier to say than “I’m scared of what might happen again.”

Exhaustion

We get so busy, and life gets so full, that we just switch over into survival mode and the things of God just get squeezed out. We don’t even necessarily want to be apathetic, but what else are we supposed to do. So we try to justify it, and we become the type of people who are spiritually lured to sleep because we believe everything else must take priority.

Solution 

The grace of God saves us and motivates us to stop doing certain things and start doing others. To be self-controlled - meaning having the ability to choose to do things for our good and the good of others even when we don’t want to. It’s like going to the gym. You want to go to the gym for the first week you’re a member at the gym every other day it’s a chore. But, you do it because you know it’s good for you. The cross has put away all earning. Actively fighting against apathy, actively doing the opposite of what we feel like doing, isn’t legalism it’s exercise.

So here are some quick ways to exercise:

1.     Meditate on the Gospel

2.     Say Yes

3.     Pray Heavily For Someone

4.     Have someone over for dinner

Songs:

All Creatures by King's Kaleidoscope

We Sing As One by Young Oceans

Come Thou Fount by King's Kaleidoscope

God of Ages Past by Shane and Shane

Gathering Recap 7.17.2016

This week we took a break from our Recovery series to speak about the tragic events that have happened across our country this week.  We spoke out of Roman’s 12:10-21.  Here is a quick recap of the gathering:

So last week in America was terrible. After July 4th the nation saw another video of a black man’s death at the hands of police who were trying to detain him--Alton Sterling. This video was not the first of it’s kind--it came on the heels of many others that have happened in the past few years, along with some cases like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin that weren’t videotaped but were widely publicized. Then, the very next day another officer-involved shooting happened in MN, a black man named Philando Castile.

The next day, at a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, an ex-military black citizen ambushed the very police officers who were there to ensure that the protest happened peacefully and safely. This was an evil, despicable act of violence that injured 12 police officers and killed 5. Those officers left their families that morning and tragically never returned home.

Our goal today is for us all to walk out of here today more equipped to respond as Christians, with more understanding of the other side than we currently have. There is certainly some room for us to disagree on the particulars as Christians. What there isn’t room for is for us to have no interest in seeing why Christians of another race think differently then we do.

As Christians there seven ways we need to look at Racial Tension:

1.  Acknowledge that racial tension exists

This is simple, but absolutely cannot be skipped. Racial differences and tension exists, and to deny that would be to deny history. You cannot tell the story of America without telling the story of how African Americans were oppressed to make America what it is. You can’t look at the story of our country and not conclude that to varying degrees over time black lives haven’t mattered quite as much as white lives. To do so would be whitewashing history. The differences are getting smaller over time to be sure, but to say they are nonexistent would be dishonest.

2. Know that other people have different life experiences than you

When you see a video of something like a questionable police shooting. Your background and experiences have a huge effect on what you actually see. It becomes clear that people are watching the same thing but coming to different conclusions.

3. Empathy is essential to bearing one another’s burdens

In heated issues both sides want to be understood. We should stop desensitizing feelings we have never felt. Stop criticizing shoes in which you have never walked. Invite someone over for dinner, and seek to understand why they feel the way they feel and empathize with them.

4. Realize that history and majority provide certain advantages

We are not talking about individual privilege; we’re talking about societal level. If you are a white American, your ancestors built the economic and political systems that drive our world today. In other words, the people who run stuff often look like you. Anywhere you go you will feel like you fit in. You will likely never feel out of place. Many of the people in power who make decisions about who gets hired and what happens in our society look like you and therefore may be unknowingly more in favor of you than someone who doesn’t look like you. There was a study done recently where identical resumes were sent out using white sounding names and black sounding names, and the white sounding names were more likely to get an interview. That’s an invisible privilege. This is not something you should feel individual guilt over but it’s really helpful to acknowledge it.

5. The gospel frees us to look with suspicion at our own biases

We all have biases that are based on our backgrounds our experiences and even the particular news stations we watch and what angle they give us on any particular event. The good news of the gospel for Christians is that we can be wrong. Our bias needs to take a backseat to reality in any given situation. We should seek to be as objective as possible.

6. Leave room for nuance

The gospel gives Christians the freedom to not feel like we have to win the culture war, therefore we don’t have to pick one of the extreme sides, ignore the weaknesses in the particular side and fight like a gladiator. We just don’t have to anymore. We can point out the wayward points in both sides and the good in both sides. Jesus is an equal opportunity offender in any debate because he stands above the shouting matches. Having nuance means in a particular situation, two people can be wrong at the same time, to varying degrees. A person can be at fault and systems can be flawed at the same time. We can agree that a sinful response to sin is still sin.

7. Our primary loyalty is Jesus and church family, not our natural “team”

In any polarizing debate, there is a lot of pressure both internally and externally to think the same way that others like you think. There is pressure for you to “rep your team”, to turn your head at any weaknesses and be loyal at all costs. This gets us nowhere, and the way of Jesus is starkly different because he says we as the church are united by something deeper than any other worldly thing that unites us. Our goal is that we will see other Christians of any race as our primary family and primary allegiance.

Songs: 

Fix My Eyes by Kings Kaleidoscope

Be Thou My Vision by 4Him

All My Hope by Hillsong

Gathering Recap 7.10.2016

This week was our sixth week of the Recovery series. We talked about Resentment and Anger out of Ephesians 4.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s gathering:

The first question we have to answer is do we rage out or do we rage in?  In other words, is your anger active or passive? Is it internal or external? Because it’s one of the two. However, the idea that anger is always unhelpful is inaccurate. In many cases, anger is the correct response to the things that happen in our world. Anger is our response when reality as it is, because of what we love, is unacceptable.  This is something called righteous anger. Righteous anger is when we are angry because God’s will is not being done. On the other hand unrighteous anger is when we’re angry because my will is not being done.

So if you never get angry, you’re wrong. The real problem with our anger isn’t that we get angry, but that we get angry at the wrong things. So here are four ways we can deal with unrighteous anger or channel righteous anger.

1. Admit it

You have to admit to the people closest to you that you are angry. That’s not comfortable conversation. Sometimes this means, we’ve got to go to people with whom we’re angry and confess it and apologize. Maybe with  someone we’ve been harboring resentment or someone we’ve blown up on and confess to them the wrongfulness of our actions. Whatever it is, this is where it starts.

2. Analyze it

Determine the real root of your anger. Ask questions like: Is your anger righteous anger or unrighteous anger? What is your anger saying you love or are defending? Depending on how we answer these questions controls our next step.

3. Transform it

If our anger is unrighteous we have to remember that God is righteously angry over our sin. So angry, in fact, that he was willing to die for it. There was never a greater display of absorbing anger than on the cross. God came as man and we put him on a cross. We shouted, “Crucify him.” We rejected him. And he took it. While remembering the greater truth, that we wronged God and he responded with ultimate gentleness our unrighteous anger begins to shift. We will be free to respond well and our anger starts to wither. Grace, forgiveness and patience replace our wrath.

4. Pray it

When our anger is righteous, pray.  Because for however angry we may be, God knows far more than us. Talk to God, beg for his action and his justice. If possible, get involved in changing the situation. Be the hands and feet of Jesus, an agent of reconciliation in the world where God seeks to make everything new.

Songs:

Oh God by Citizens 

Forever Reign by Hillsong

You Have Searched me by Citizens and Saints 

Gathering Recap 6.26.16

Sermon: Guilt and Shame

This week was our fifth week of the Recovery series. Jon Ludovina led us through a sermon about Guilt and Shame from Genesis 1-3.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

Guilt is pretty straightforward.  I did something wrong. I’m guilty of a sin; a crime; a failure of some kind; I’ve broken a relational agreement. For Adam and Eve they ate the fruit. We weren’t supposed to. We did it. We’re guilty.  Shame’s a little more complex. It’s this feeling and this sense that I’m wrong. There’s something wrong with me. I feel dirty, I feel stained, I feel broken. There’s an internal and an external aspect of shame.

Guilt and shame naturally produce three sinful and unhelpful responses:

1. Guilt and Shame Lead us to Cover.

Covering is looking to something outside of yourself to try to compensate for what you feel is lacking inside of you.  Adam & Eve realized they were naked, and they clothed themselves with fig leaves to tried to cover up. And we do the same.

2. Guilt and Shame lead us into Hiding.

If you look at Adam and Eve’s relationship with God before the fall and after, they go from walking with him in a loving relationship to hiding from him in embarrassment. We often hide by simply refusing to allow people to know the truth about us. Trying to conceal what we really struggle with deep down.

 

3. Guilt and Shame Lead US to Defend Ourselves.

We get defensive. Adam & Eve get defensive where they blame shift. God lovingly confronts them, so that they might know the truth about themselves and that he might meet them with forgiveness. But instead of taking ownership, Adam points to Eve, Eve points to the serpent. This is what guilt and shame do to us. We cover; we hide; we defend ourselves.

How God responds to you in your Guilt and Shame:

1. God covers us.

2. God clothes us in Jesus’ righteousness.

3. Jesus defends us as our advocate..

So Now, We can bring our sin into the Light.

Songs

All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons and Daughters

Before the Throne by King's Kaleidoscope

Father You are All We Need by Citizens and Saints

In Christ Alone by Passion

Gathering Recap 6.19.2016

Sermon: Growing Together

This week was our fourth week of the Recovery series. Brandon Clements led us through a sermon about Growing Together from Psalms 139:23-24.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

As Christians, we are called to live in community. Joseph Hellerman put it this way “It is a simple but profound biblical reality that we both grow and thrive together, or we do not grow much at all.”  Community is one of the chief ways God searches our hearts and exposes our sin.

4 Ways to Grow Together

1. Start with a gospel-driven self-suspicion.

In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul tells us that he sees himself as the foremost sinner in the world. He knows the gospel means we are more wicked than we’ll ever know, but more loved than we’ll ever imagine. Gospel-driven self-suspicion is a gift that will contribute to your joy. There’s a whole lot of freedom that comes with not having to be defensive or right all the time.

2. Expose the full truth about yourself to Christian community.

God has designed our souls in such a way that we find vitality, relief, and healing through bearing our souls to others. James 5:16 tells us that there is a direct connection between confession and healing. Being in the light with community is a necessary part of going to war on our sin issues and pursuing healing from our scars.

3. Love people enough to tell them the truth.

We all have blind spots that are difficult for us to see in ourselves.  We are often deceived and tricked.  To combat this, we want to grow into a community that can lovingly speak into the things we see in each other’s lives. We want to love people enough to call out their sin.

4. Ask for input (and receive it with gospel-motivated humility)

In our culture it is very difficult for others to call us out in our sin, especially in the South.  So in order to help foster community, we want to invite people in and ask for their input.  When you combine the humility of one person who can’t see themselves clearly and the willingness to speak truth in love by another Christian--that’s the church and it’s beautiful.

Songs

Lord I need You by Chris Tomlin

Fix My Eyes by Kings Kaleidoscope

Rock of Ages by Chris Rice

All I Have Is Christ by Sovereign Grace Music

Gathering Recap 6.12.16

Sermon: Insanity Cycle

This week was our third week of Recovery. Brandon Clements led us through a sermon about the insanity cycle from Isaiah 55:1-3.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

Last week we talked about functional saviors.  Functional saviors are what you value above everything else, what you turn to when you are pressed, and what you worship. Every time you turn to a particular functional savior you are reinforcing the habit of turning to that functional savior. Every time you do something you are more likely to continue that behavior--this is how addiction works and is something we call the insanity cycle.

Insanity Cycle

1.     Trigger- Something sets you off--causes a sense of restlessness or discomfort or stress, and all of a sudden all you can think about is your functional savior, whatever it is and you have a desire for relief; for the feeling to go away.

2.     Temptation- Then you are presented with some kind of temptation.

3.     Think/Obsess- You begin to think and obsess about your functional savior. It starts to consume you.

4.     Act on Desires- Eventually this leads to acting on the desires, and once you’re acting on the desires, you think you might as well go all out and binge.

5.     Pain + Injuries- At some point it stops, and you realize you aren’t satisfied.

6.     Remorse + Sorrow-This is where the pain sinks in, you think, “I am so stupid. How did I fall for this again?” It didn’t work last time or the hundreds of times before that.

7.     Resolution/Promise-This is the end of the cycle and you say to yourself, “This is the last time I do that. The last time I fall for that lie. I’m making a promise to myself that I’m going to quit turning to that functional savior.” And your willpower and determination may last for a little while but at some point you will be triggered again. And the process will start all over again.

4 Tools to Help Break the Cycle

1. Repent in community

In order for you to get serious about pursuing joy in Christ, you will have to put this tool to work. You have to run to community and confess. If you are not using the gift of gospel-centered community in your spiritual growth, you’re probably not serious about your spiritual growth. In order to leave behind our old affections we must pursue new ones in Jesus.

2. Set up needed accountability

When trying to reduce or diminish your love for a functional savior, it’s helpful to restrict your access to it as much as possible. It is like building a fence around a bull, it will hopefully keep the bull still for a little while, giving you time to work on the real issue.

But the bull is eventually going to break out of the fence, because it’s a bull.

Accountability is the necessary systems to set in place to displace an old affection and give the space needed for a new affection to grow.

3. Pay attention to your triggers

When trying to uproot a problematic behavior, it helps massively to know why in particular you are turning to that problematic behavior. There’s always a reason why you are turning to a particular thing, and the same surface level sin issue can have very different reasons or motivations underneath it.

4. Focus on Jesus more than you focus on your sin

Instead of focusing on what you want to stop doing, spend more energy on things you should start doing to focus on Jesus. Prioritize the things that foster your love for Jesus and your spiritual health.

Songs:

Grace Alone by Kings Kaleidoscope

We Sing As One by Young Oceans

God of Ages Past by Shane and Shane

The One Who Saves by Hillsong

Gathering Recap 6.5.16

Sermon: Finding Functional Saviors

This week was our third week of Recovery. Michael Bailey led us through a sermon about finding our functional saviors from Mark 7:14-23.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

When it comes to our Recovery, our initial approach is to just treat whatever we feel the issue is at the surface level. So typically it’s whatever we perceive is having a tangible negative impact on my life. But, the Bible is going to tell us that our felt hurts, sins, and struggles are really just scratching the surface of what is actually going on. And if we’re going to find real recovery in the gospel, we’re going to have to dig a little deeper - We need to find the Problem behind the problem.

You see the real Problem behind the problem is a problematic heart.  So when we wrestle with sin we are really looking for fulfillment:

1.     When its Insecurity our heart believes that the opinions of others will satisfy me.

2.     When its Laziness we believe that doing what we want when we want it will satisfy.

3.     When its Lust we believe having what we want when we want it will satisfy.

Functional Saviors

When we turn to things that aren’t God we’re essentially trading him for something else.  We’re functionally changing gods and it’s a bad trade. It’s not just that our hearts want sinful things; it’s that our hearts believe that things are better than God.  We believe that whatever we turn to will save us.  It is our “functional savior”. A “functional savior” is anything you turn to fix you, to bring you comfort, to make you feel better, or whole.

So maybe you turn to your functional saviors for Approval, Respect, Control, Comfort, or Hope.  However in Christ we are given all of these things:

1.     Approval and Respect- in Christ, we are given an identity and a status as God’s children… heirs to his kingdom… there is no greater approval out there.

2.     Control - in Christ, we are assured that there is a God who is control in the worst circumstances so we don’t have to worry or have anxiety over ours.

3.     Comfort - that in Christ, we are far more loved than we ever thought possible. Loved to the point that He was willing to die for you.

4.     Hope - In Christ, you have the hope because death didn’t beat him, it won’t beat you.

Songs:

Lord I Need You by Chris Tomlin

All Glory Be Forever by Sovereign Grace Music

God of Ages Past by Shane and Shane

All My Hope by Hillsong

Gathering Recap 5.29.29

Sermon: The Need for Recovery

This week we started a new series based on our Recovery program. Michael Bailey led us through a sermon about our need for Recovery from 1 John 1:5-9 and Romans 7:14-8:1.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

In Roman 7:14-8:1 Paul is looking at his life and is bothered by what he sees. He has this desire to follow God and be about what God is about - a desire to be righteous - but an inability to actually do it. He sees that God’s commands are good and righteous and true but all he can see in himself is his failure to do them. Paul is conveying something very important about sin. Sin is enslaving. For Paul, the magnitude of his sinfulness feels insurmountable and it leads him to the conclusion that he is a wretched man → unable to be who God desires him to be… a “failure” of sorts.

Have you ever felt Paul's frustration over your inability to change certain things about yourself? Especially the things that you know aren’t good?  What we generally do is we learn to cope with these things. In our context, most of us have had to learn how to manage this brokenness we sense in ourselves with the rest of life. Life is too short to pretend we’re okay. We all need Recovery.

And this is what this whole journey through Recovery is going to be about. We want to press into these things. To help us take an honest assessment of our need for healing and hope… and press towards it together.

Your sins and struggles feel unbeatable, feel like they own you, and they feel like they define you… because they are and they do! But they don’t have to! Jesus says he’s come to bring freedom. And if he sets you free, you will in fact be free. His body was broken to heal your brokenness. He was raised and made whole so that in Him, you would be, too.

So Recovery is going to take three things:

1. Recovery takes honesty

2. Recovery takes repentance

3. Recovery takes time

Songs:

Come Ye Sinners by Sojourn Music

Man of Sorrows by Hillsong

We Sing As One by Young Oceans

Father You are All We Need by Citizens and Saints

Gathering Recap 5.22.2016

Sermon: Ordinary Work

This week was our final week of Ordinary is not Insignificant. Michael Bailey led us through a sermon about ordinary work from Genesis 2:15.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

In our culture work is often seen as something that we have to do in order to provide but it is not something that really goes along with our Christian Faith.  This narrative that work is a necessary evil or punishment couldn’t be further from the truth. Work is not keeping us from the good life. Work is a part of the good life! Work is not the result of God being mad at us. Rather, Work is one of God’s gifts to us.

1. Your Work is Significant Because it is a Part of God’s Work.

We have to get it through our heads that God is actually doing a lot more than just saving people and fighting injustice. He is doing those two things and he’s doing more than that. He’s bringing order. He’s providing for others. And your job joins him in that.  The latin word “vocare” - to call - is where we get our word vocation from. And this is what many of us need to see: Your work is a calling to you from God… to be his fingers providing and caring for the world.

2. Your Work is Significant Because it is Worship.

Colossians 2:23-24. tells us your work, whatever it may be, is an offering and a means to show off the greatness of Jesus. It’s a means to honor Him and reflect who He is to the world around you. Whether you’re a boss, or an employee, a caregiver, and everything in between.  When you work for the good of others, you reflect how he worked for the good of you and how he has already accomplished the hardest work of laying his life down on a cross so that you would be saved. That all of your sins would be forgiven and your life would be provided for eternally.

Songs

All Creatures by Kings Kaleidoscope

Come and Stand Amazed by Citizens 

We Sing As One by Young Oceans

Lord I Need You by Chris Tomlin 

Gathering Recap 5.15.2016

Ordinary Relationships

This week was our fourth week of Ordinary is not Insignificant. Brandon Clements led us through a sermon about ordinary relationships from Proverbs 27:10.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

Our relationships and the people we surround ourselves with have an incredible impact on us.  So let’s look at two ways that we can exemplify Christ in our Ordinary relationships:

 

1. Ordinary Relationships are a major part of how we grow in the gospel.

This is a theme throughout the Bible--God adopts us into His family (which also means He adopts us into relationship with other Christians). And He uses those relationships with other Christians to grow us in tremendous ways. This is often referred to as discipleship--one person being a part of training or forming another.   The reality is this isn’t just going to happen naturally.  In order for iron to sharpen iron and for us to grow through ordinary relationships, we have to prioritize relationship with one another. We have to create the relational space in order for growth to happen, no matter how difficult that is.

This is the major problem with thinking about time with other believers as ordinary or miss-able: you have no idea when God is going to use a simple conversation to change your life.

2.  Ordinary Relationships are a major part of how we spread the gospel

Our relationships are what God has chosen to use to spread the truth of His Gospel.  A quote by Phil Vischer illustrates this well:“I am growing increasingly convinced that if everyone of these kids burning with passion to write a hit Christian song or make that hit Christian movie or start that hit Christian ministry to change the world would instead focus their passion on walking with God on a daily basis, the world would change…. Because the world learns about God not by watching Christian movies, but by watching Christians.”

I think when many Christians think about spreading the gospel it feels super daunting. It feels like you have to do something big or drastic, but the reality is, you don’t. You just have to be a healthy Christian in front of other people. That’s it. You just have a to be a friend. Let people see how Jesus affects your life and your work and your family. Follow Jesus, open your life up to others relationally, and watch God work. Give them a model for what it looks like to follow Jesus in everyday, ordinary life. Welcoming others into our homes and into relationship with us is actually putting the gospel on display because that’s exactly what Christ did for us. Ephesians 2 says once we were not his people, we were alienated from Him, and we were strangers to His hope and His promises, but now we’ve been brought near by the blood of Christ. He welcomed us into His family--now we get to do the same for others by opening our lives and our homes and inviting them into relationship.

In Conclusion we have 3 practical challenges:

1.     Raise your commitment level with your LifeGroup.

2.     Raise your honesty level with your LifeGroup.

3.     Invite someone who is far from Jesus over for a meal.

Songs:

Kingdom Come by Elevation

Jesus! by Citizens

Grace Alone by Kings Kaleidoscope

In Tenderness by Citizens 

Gathering Recap 5.8.2016

Sermon: Ordinary Families 

This week we continued with our series Ordinary ≠ Insignificant. Brandon Clements taught how ordinary families are a major part of God’s extraordinary purposes from Deuteronomy 6:5-9.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s gathering:

In a culture that seems to state that our job as parents is to provide a couple decades of happiness, we want to look at what the gospel says our job is as parents.  We want to reclaim our families for Christ and train our children to be God loving disciples.  Here are four practical ways we can do that:

1.  Realize the small things are big things.

We know it seems like Tuesdays don’t really matter but who your kid becomes will be about 1/7th due to the reality of what you guys do on ordinary days like Tuesdays.  As God speaks to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6:5-9, our faith in Him ought to spill out of us as we live ordinary life with our families. The gospel should become a part of our everyday lives for our kids to see. As they learn how to be healthy adults through you, they also learn what it means to be a Christian.

2. Train your kids to live life under God.

In Ephesians 6:4, tells us discipline plays an important role in raising kids. There are two types of discipline: 1) formative discipline and 2) corrective discipline. Formative discipline is instruction. It’s intentional training on how to live life under God as a healthy human being. Corrective discipline is what happens when kids rebel against the formative discipline or instruction that you’ve already set. Corrective discipline happens best when we’ve already set the formative discipline--so we’re not unhelpfully disciplining our kids when we haven’t taught them yet.

3. Give them grace.

Our ultimate goal as Christian parents isn’t to have well-behaved children, but children who love Jesus and become disciples who go on to make other disciples. This means that in training them we aren’t just correcting their behavior, we also speak gospel truth to their hearts through our words and our actions. This means that while we are firm, direct and intentional about shaping them into healthy adults, we aren’t overly harsh with them. It also means that my discipline should have the end goal of restoring relationship through grace.

4. Give yourself grace, too.

Parenting is an incredibly daunting task. The weight of the responsibility that comes with raising little humans can be crushing. For any parents overwhelmed by the weight of parenting, I have good news for you--the gospel is not just good news for your salvation--it’s also good news for your parenting. Because of Jesus’s righteousness given to you, there’s no pressure to be a perfect parent. You are free to love your kids and serve them out of the grace Jesus has given you without feeling an ounce of pressure to be perfect.

Gathering Recap 5.1.2016

Sermon: Ordinary Spirituality

This week we continued with Ordinary Is Not Insignificant. Michael Bailey led us through a sermon about Ordinary Spirituality from Galatians 6:7-10.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

One of the biggest struggles in the Christian life is that we fail to understand this; that the everyday stuff of our lives matters - not only for what is accomplished in God’s Kingdom, but also for what’s accomplished in us.
There are points in time in our faith where we ask the question, “How did I get here? How did I get to this place where I haven’t thought about God in weeks? How did I get to a spot where I’m questioning what I believe? How did I get to this spot where sin is owning my life again? How did I get in this spot where I’m just coasting - and my life isn’t really being used for the Kingdom. How did I get here?”

The ordinary rhythms of your life are significant.  What we do today will decide where we are in ten years.  It’s not that we intentionally do things that pull us away from Jesus, but rather we opt not to do things that pull us closer to him, because we have other things that we believe we need to do

How to tell if you’re drifting:

1. What do you prioritize?

We all prioritize things in our lives. We don’t neglect sowing for the Spirit on accident. We choose other things ahead of it.  What you make time for is what you value. What you create space for or schedule is what is important.

2. Are you content with “ordinary sins”?

One of the biggest distinguishers of drifting is when you start to feel like our sin is not a big deal. Ordinary sins are the sins that you just write off in your mind because they don’t feel like a big deal anymore. We know we are drifting when we start thinking that there are certain sins in our life that don’t really need to be confessed… when we come into LG thinking we don’t have anything to talk about.

We Need to reclaim our Ordinary

Far too many of us have just locked into life as usual, and desperately need our ordinary to be disturbed. The trajectory of the Christian life is to get more of God. To glorify him and enjoy him. To grow further into grace and into our identity as his children. But that doesn’t just happen. We need a new ordinary that helps us get there.

3 Rhythms for Ordinary Spirituality

1.     Time with God’s Word & Prayer

2.     Living in Community

3.     Taking a Sabbath

Gathering Recap 4.24.16

Sermon: Ordinary does not mean Insignificant

This week was our first week of Ordinary Is Not Insignificant. Michael Bailey led us through a sermon about how normal people are a big part of the Kingdom of God from Matthew 5:13-16.  Here is a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

Our culture is obsessed with this idea that new is better.  That if you are not extraordinary you are irrelevant.  We’ve all either consciously or subconsciously decided something - that if something is ordinary it’s insignificant. We have a belief if it isn’t extraordinary it doesn’t matter all that much.

The problem is the vast majority of us really are just simply ordinary. Which leaves us feeling one of two ways:

1. Like we’re never quite doing enough. That we should be doing more. Trying harder. Doing better and bigger. That if I get sucked down into ordinary or routine, then I’m wrong.

2. Or we just accept the ordinary and resign ourselves to leave God’s work up to the paid professionals and people who can afford to live radically. Because we have focus on what’s in front of us, even if that means that we don’t get be a part of something “significant.”

2 Reasons Why Ordinary ≠ Insignificant

1. God’s Kingdom Doesn’t Work that Way

We often fall into conventional thinking that God’s big mission and purposes must demand big, extraordinary actions, but that’s not how things work. A quick survey of God’s involvement throughout human history will quickly show us that he’s always been making the ordinary significant.

For example, in the expanse of the galaxy, we’re here in this small solar system on a rather insignificant planet. On this planet, in the OT we see that God chooses Israel, the smallest and most ordinary, nondescript nation.

Jesus says this is how it works...  that in His kingdom, the “smallest of all seeds” will leave a lasting impact much larger than expected. And that “smallest of all seeds” actually includes you and your ordinariness. Everyone plays a part and In God’s Kingdom, the everyday stuff of life matters. This means your ordinary is significant.

2. The Gospel Frees Us to be Ordinary

Because Jesus died on the cross and rose again, he gives us his righteousness. There is no more ‘try harder’. There is no more ‘do better’. There is no more ‘do more’. There is only ‘it has already been done’. We no longer have to feel enslaved to the need to prove ourselves.

To be the light and salt of the world does not require one to do drastic things. The world does not need more Christians believing they have to go do some big and bold thing for the Kingdom - though those things are certainly good. Rather, real salt and light are the outcomes of ordinary lives lived in rich communion with God. Our world, and our community, desperately needs more of those.

Instead, you are free to be ordinary. You’re free to be ordinary to the glory of God.

Gathering Recap: 4.3.2016

Sermon: Covering Our Shame

This week, our Two Notch pastor, Ant Frederick, led us through a sermon regarding shame from Genesis 2 & 3. Here’s a quick recap of this week’s Gathering:

Shame is the belief and feeling that we are not acceptable the way we truly are, it is the idea that if people really knew us they couldn’t love us.  Ant explained that in the beginning Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed.  However, when Adam and Eve sinned shame became a part of human reality. Just like Adam and Eve covered their shame with fig leaves, we attempt to cover up our shame, too. In LifeGroup, shame leads us to partially confess instead of being fully honest to make things seem not as bad as they really are. Shame leads us to attempt to manage our appearance before others. We try to use things like success and accomplishment to hide our sense of inadequacy.  Shame was the reaction to the first sin and it is our reaction to all other sins.

3 things regarding shame exposed in Genesis 3 were:

• God pursues those who feel shame. When Adam and Eve felt shame God went looking for them in the garden.
• God agrees with us that we need to be covered. This idea that we are not good enough isn’t wrong. In our sin we need to be covered, we need a Savior.
• God provided a better covering. When God found Adam and Eve he covered them.  He gave them something better then fig leaves, he gave them animal skins.  When we sin a sacrifice, like the animal skins, is required for us which is why God sent his son to die on a cross.  God laid our iniquities on Jesus, to cover our shame. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”.

Here is the link: http://midtownlexington.com/sermons/covering-our-shame

Songs

Come Thou Fount by King’s Kaleidoscope
Fix My Eyes  by King’s Kaleidoscope
Lead me to the Cross by Hillsong
Father You Are All We Need by Citizens and Saints

Theology of Sex

There’s no shortage of oversimplified narratives about gender, sexuality, and marriage. These days it seems that everyone’s opinion is the right one and if you don’t share that opinion, you’re the enemy. But what is actually true? What do we do when confronted with difficult questions and even more difficult situations? How do we love our neighbor without compromising what is true? For something as complex as gender and sexuality, we need something far bigger. Far richer. Far more nuanced. We need a theology of sex. 

This series spends seven weeks unpacking God’s design for gender and sexuality in an effort to understand ourselves, love our neighbor, and live out our mission.

Week-by-Week

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Romance
January 17
As Americans we are convinced that the point of life is happiness. Through movies, advertising, and music our culture has told us that the primary avenue to happiness is romance. But what if happiness is too small of a goal? What do we do when both happiness and romance fail us? 

Gender, Bigfoot, & Leprechauns
January 24
The idea that gender is a made-up social construct is gaining widespread acceptance. But is that the most helpful conclusion? Does the idea of gender need be thrown out and left behind, or just seen with new lenses?

Do You Even Know How to Sports, Bro?
January 31
We all know the stereotype: the sports-loving, beer-drinking, thick-skinned man. But what about the rest of us? In a world where men are judged on whether or not they can throw a perfect spiral, what is masculinity actually about? What if being a man has little to do with how often you go hunting?

Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice?
February 7
Our culture puts an immense amount of pressure on women. So many women are crushed by the weight of having a perfect body, perfect kids, and perfect relationships. But is that really what it means to be a woman? What if femininity has nothing to do with wearing a dress?

American Marriage v. Covenant Marriage
February 14
Most people would say marriage is “an expression of love.” And for some people, it is. But it sure does feel like more than that. The emotional weight, the complexity, the permanence–is that proof that it stands for something more? 

Consumeristic Sexual Individualism
February 21
What is the purpose of sex? Should it be casual and convenient? Apocalyptic and ultimate? Or something different altogether? Is sex an appetite we satisfy, or a gift we enjoy?

Hate-Filled Bigots & Hospitality
February 28
The Church has gained a reputation over the years as being intolerant, closed-minded, and bigoted. And to be honest, some of it is probably deserved. But what if there was a way to believe faithfully while still loving extravagantly? What if Christians were better known for the openness of their homes than the slogans of their picket signs?

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Join us on Sundays

Join us for this series at one of our Sunday Gatherings. Find out more:

Listen to Sermons

        Listen to sermons from the series.                      

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Text in Your Questions

If you have any questions you'd like answered during the series, we'd love for you to text them in. We'll do live Q&A a couple times during the series using questions you submitted.

how to do it:

Just text our church's name (Lexington), followed by your question to 91011.

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Study Guide

To accompany this series, we've offered a weekly study guide to help facilitate discussion in your LifeGroup.