Memory Verse: 'The last enemy to be destroyed is death. '

1 Corinthians 15:26

Sermon Sentence: The resurrection is not something that can be right for some people and wrong for others.

Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-34

A good point in a discussion needs to have some weight behind it.  In this chapter, Paul’s approach takes on some weight to it.  He moves away from his traditional way of just teaching a point and then expecting them to just learn from it, to a way of discussing something that looks like he is on the defensive and shutting down some sort of argument against the idea.  We understand that Paul has been questioned about the validity of the resurrection.  So his goal here is to defend that teaching, but then show how it is a core teaching that can’t be compromised.  There is way too much at stake for that!

He starts with explaining to them that this is the gospel.  It is not part of the gospel…this IS the gospel.  If you take this part of the teaching away, you lose too much!  He reminds them that this is the very thing he preached to them.  After he preached it, they received it.  They agreed with him in this way of teaching.  Notice that he does not allow room for them to be a part of this whole church thing without this piece. Maybe it is easier said this way: there is no following Jesus with the resurrection.  He also tells them the resurrection determines where they stand currently.  If you have been saved, then you are saved right now.  But you have to accept the resurrection part for right now.  The last thing he states is that the resurrection is what will be saving them in the future.  To sum it all up, Paul makes the argument that if you are saved, are being saved, and will be saved in the future, you have to believe in the resurrection.

Why do you think this is a core part of the teaching of the Gospel?

Based on what you are seeing here, how would life be more difficult without the belief that the dead can rise?

How do these verses comfort you today?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 15:35-58

As spring approaches, you should really try growing something this year.  It doesn’t have to have a purpose or a point to it, just do it for the joy of life.  There are few things better than just starting each day caring for and searching for new life.  I think it is so fulfilling just to bury a seed and wait and watch for it to poke through the soil and start to turn into some sort of plant.  As you are waiting to see that first sprout, your mind wonders what in the world is happening under the soil.  It is something that is worth the time and effort it takes as you meditate on the incredible way that God has designed life.

That is the analogy that Paul filters everything about life and death through here.  He talks about the death of a seed as it is buried in the ground and the miracle of what we don’t understand begins to happen in a way that we could not explain.  The reason that I think that you should do this as a practice for yourself is because of the incredible chance to spend time meditating on this truth and discovering what it means about you and your life.  There is certainly a mystery that we fear called death and the fear is rooted in the fact that we do not understand or know what we feel we should know and understand.  The thought goes like this: the resurrection would be easier to believe in if we just understood how it works. Give me the blueprint so that I know what to expect.  This is the beginnings of the struggle of faith.  Faith is the belief in something that you have can’t fully know with facts, but you trust with all of your weight.  Think about that for a while, all of this good living and right doing really matters nothing if this is all that there is in life.  Sure, it is good for humanity, but if humanity is temporary and you are temporary, then who really cares?  Get what you deserve and gather all you can!  But that is not the promise of the life that we live.  We have faith in something far greater than this life and what happens right now. 

How do you think that you would live differently if you believed this world was all that there was?

Imagine someone asked you the question that Paul seems to be answering in this passage: How would you explain the life after death thing to them?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Ezekiel 37:1-14

If you have reached a time for a midlife crisis, then you will probably remember when Blockbuster went out of business.  There was a day that we had to drive to the video store and there would be this large wall of newly released movies, which is why we were there most of the time.  We wanted to catch a copy of the new movie being released.  The wall always had movie covers so that you could see the graphics and descriptions of the movies, and then back behind these were the clear, plastic, blank cases that would contain a copy available to be rented.  If there was no copy behind the original case, that meant the movie was not available to rent.  Sometimes you could get lucky and ask if anyone had dropped off a rented copy at the front desk and they just had not had time to set it out.  

When Blockbuster went out, I remember wondering how in the world we would be able to see movies now.  It seemed that the era of movies was over and gone.  Looking back on that now, it seems pretty silly to imagine that as an idea that we needed, in light of how many different ways there are to watch a movie now, but then also how that was even a viable idea considering all things from today’s perspective.  

Ezekiel is seeing a lot of dead, dry bones in this passage.  Although he may have known some of the people that had passed on, that is not what he seems to be struggling with in this passage.  Ezekiel is struggling with the death of the whole “house of Israel’ or an entire people group.  It didn’t seem there was a way something like that could end, and then when it did, it didn’t seem there was any hope at all.  But God had a plan and an idea…therefore giving a hope.  It was the word of God that was going to go forward and bring back life.  Death and defeat could not stop the words of God.  There was a proclaimer left and his name was Ezekiel.  And since death had not and could not end what God was about to say, then Ezekiel delivering the message of God was going to work a pretty crazy miracle!

Many popular Christians songs have referenced this story in the last five years.  Does this story apply to you and if so, how?

In verse 14, the Hebrew word for “Spirit” is “ruah”.  It is the same word we saw in Genesis 1 when God breathed on the formed human and he became animated.  As you understand the work of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2 from last week, how does this idea carry over to what we experience now with the Holy Spirit?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Daniel 12

We know about the passages in the New Testament that point to the resurrection of Jesus.  This gives way to some teachings that then use that truth to tell us of our own resurrection from the dead through the work of Jesus.  But many people are not aware of the references in the Old Testament that Jesus points to in Matthew, Mark, and other places.  Also, John uses a few references from the Old Testament in Revelation as well. The passage you just read can be found in Revelation 12:4 and other places in the book as well.  When you think about it, it makes sense that references are made to the Messiah raising from the dead, even though we probably could not call those from memory.  But like this passage in Daniel, the Old Testament followers of God would have also had a belief in the idea of resurrection of the followers of God.  It may not have been as obvious, but think about the incredible faith it would take to believe in this and not have the testimony of Jesus own death, burial and resurrection like we do now.  

What do you think the original readers would have thought about what Daniel was saying when they did not have anything to expound on this teaching other than this text?

Do you think it would have been harder to believe in a resurrection of the believers in Daniel’s day, without Jesus' example?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read John 11:1-45

This is a great story.  I could spend a lot of time writing about this story and the application of it.  But I encourage you to sit and spend some time with these truths.  Easter is over.  That was last week.  And it would be foolish to leave it as “last week" and think about things that we associate with mattering today at the expense of moving past the idea of the resurrection.  Here is my suggestion:

After reading this passage, go to Youtube and look up the song “Come Out Lazarus” by Steven McWhirter. Maybe listen to it a few times.  Then spend some time in prayer.

https://youtu.be/hw5T2NvbSnI?si=k0nHTE7dkGfsknOO

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  ' Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. '

Psalm 51:10

Sermon Sentence: One of the most incredible truths about God is that He desires to reveal everything to us and does not long to keep anything from us.

Read 1 Corinthians 1:10-31
The people in Corinth had been trained a certain way by the culture they lived in.  There is no way to really get around this, there is only hope to minimize it as much as possible.  The problems that it creates looks different in each of the places that you see it.  For Paul and the church at Corinth, it looked somewhat similar to hero worship.  Everyone had a favorite teacher or preacher.  Apollos was known for his ability to meticulously and intelligently lay out the lesson in front of a crowd.  He shows up for the first time in Acts 18:24 and it mentions his intelligence and gift with the word of God.  That is a really fantastic gift to have in a church.

The problem is not the gift, it is what people turned it into.  Paul did not see himself in that way or with that gift.  He was pretty clear about what he thought his mission in ministry should be.  The problem is that Paul is respected as Paul and Apollos is respected as Apollos, until people start to discuss their preferences. For Paul (and we don’t get Apollos’ view on this), the goal was simple, preaching and teaching the gospel.  For the people at Corinth, they had turned it into a version of entertainment making it about themselves more than about the gospel.  When preferences take the place of goals, there will always be the result of divisions.  Don’t be fooled into thinking it is as easy to navigate as that formula lays out.  Because there will always be flowery language that will be good at hiding the true intentions.  The argument in Corinth was not Paul or Apollos, it was way more complicated than that, but when it was boiled down to its root, that’s all that was at the heart of it.  

How do you see other versions of this show up in the church in America?  (preferences over goal)

What exactly do you see Paul as thinking his role in the church is?

How can you know specifically what your call in the body of Christ is?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Ephesians 1
I know that Paul makes the argument against his ability to wow a crowd with words in 1 Corinthians, but this chapter is pretty amazing when you spend some time thinking about it!  Again in this letter, he starts out with declaring his calling and his confidence in that.  I appreciate that Paul was a guy that knew who he was.  When he arrived at that idea, it was not a generic, cookie-cutter answer that the rest of culture would give, he was very clear about his specific call and purpose.  From my perspective, again, I would say that I struggle understanding what Paul is saying as a good way to minister to people, but I certainly do think that he has an overwhelming amount of proof on his side!

Notice how he shifts from his purpose and call to, starting in verse 15, declaring that this is why he wants the church at Corinth to know and understand their purpose and call.  Paul is using his assurance and gifts to lead others to seeing their value and place in the body of Christ.  Did you notice what the greatest part of that revelation is to Paul?  It’s the gift of the Spirit to be able to understand that call and your place in the body of Christ.  

How have you seen the gift of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in your life over the last year?

What do you think it looks like to have the “eyes of your heart enlightened?”

What is Paul talking about when he mentions the “riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints?”

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 2:1-16
I was watching a video on Youtube the other day about something that I was interested in.  I have always been interested in this topic and I have spent a bit of time researching and learning the topic.  This video featured two people.  One was a tour guide that had the job of taking someone through the prepared ideas that were learned in their training.  The other person was an engineer that was involved in building the place that was being toured.  The tour guide was helpful and had a great presentation, but the engineer knew a lot more and was way more interested, invested, and passionate about what was being presented.  Have you ever spent time with an expert and tried to learn from them? 

That is what this passage makes me think about.  I watched another video of a Universalist Unitarian that “pastored” a church of that certain belief.  If you don’t know, they basically believe that everyone gets to a heaven or a place that is like that through all the religions.  So they basically take all of the good parts of the different ideas and spend time talking about that in their “worship” service.  That sounds dumb.  That sounds shallow.  There has to be more of an answer than just “Everyone is right!”  Paul describes a wisdom that can reveal to us the mind of God!  And you and I have access to this understanding.  This wisdom has access to God’s thoughts and desires to share those thoughts with us.  Paul is describing the work of the Holy Spirit, who reveals to us the mind of God.  Can you process that!? God doesn’t want to hide His thoughts, will, and plans from you…but wants them to be known.  So much so that He gave us access to His thoughts in the work of the Holy Spirit.  

Why do you think that churches do not talk about this work of the Holy Spirit very much?

How have you experienced being shown the mind of God recently?

What does it look like to share this wisdom with other people in your life according to verse 13?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Philippians 2:1-11
This week we are talking about our access to the mind of God through the work of the Holy Spirit.  That’s a really incredible thought.  I hope you have enjoyed spending time even thinking about that.  But when it comes to real life application, that thought needs another step.  Most of us are not wrestling with what the Creator of the world is thinking about, but rather how in the world we can deal with the situation right in front of us.  It would be really nice if we had some access to how to live out the very thing facing us in this moment.  

If we go back to our expert idea for yesterday, I have another example to think through this.  Recently, I was doing a side job.  This side job had some dangerous aspects to it and I had learned by watching a video and reading a document explaining the job.  It was great information and certainly helpful with all of the videos and pictures that were provided to go along with the words.  It was even helpful to know that these instructions were written by someone that was considered an expert in the field.  But I was still a bit concerned about safety issues when it came to me actually gambling my life on the line.  So I called an expert of my own and asked him to meet me at a site and walk me through the dangerous parts, showing me in person what was actually dangerous and what wasn’t.  It was way more reassuring and comforting to experience that with someone than just reading something or watching someone.  

That’s a great example of what it means to follow Jesus.  God does not just write us how to do it, or even tell us a story about someone else that did it, but rather Jesus lived like we did, tempted in all ways as we are, and yet without sin.  He is the expert with all of the knowledge, understanding, and best of all, example.

How does it help you to know that Jesus had this mind and lived the example of what it looks like to have this mind?

When you explain this upside down way of approaching life, it doesn’t appear to make since in the world’s logic.  How do you argue against that logic to share the real benefit in living like this?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Psalm 139

One of the points from the sermon on Sunday was “that the Spirit searches everything.”  Included in the “everything” idea is the inclusion of everyone.  I don’t necessarily need to continue the math formula as if you don’t already get it, but included in everyone is me.  One of the works of the Spirit is a searching of the innermost being of my thoughts and intents.  That is a scary thought for some people.  But I think it does better as a comforting thought.  

Have you ever heard an opinion of someone that you didn’t really agree with?  What I mean is that someone that doesn’t really know a person shares a thought about that person, but you happen to know them better and you are aware that what is being told to you in that moment is not entirely accurate.  That person is misunderstood or the situation is more nuanced than it was just presented.  This is the part that I glean from the idea of the Spirit being able to search the very thoughts and intents of my heart.  I know that many times those thoughts and intents go astray and get out of focus, but there is a layer in there somewhere that is at least needing to be considered in the context of everything.  

This is a helpful truth.  God knows you.  Not just kind of knows you and not just sometimes gets you, I mean He truly and more fully than anyone else, knows you.  He searches the very depths and intricate parts of who you are and understands you.  This means He won’t get it wrong, as if anything has surprised Him or changed His understanding of you.  God, through the work of the Spirit in you, truly KNOWS you.

Why do you think this idea frightens some people?

How would you tell someone who feared this idea how it could be encouraging?

Look at verse 5 and spend some time meditating/thinking about what this means.

How does this become your prayer today?

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12 

The Master Plan of Evangelism
Chapter 3: Consecration

In what ways did God speak you this week?

Was there anything in these chapters that stood out to you or you struggled with?

What did you take away from Chapter 3 of The Master Plan of Evangelism? 

But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

 John 4:14 

The Master Plan of Evangelism
Chapter 2: Association

In what way did God speak to you this week?

What stood out to you in these chapters of John?

What are a few things that you took away from Chapter 2 of The Master Plan of Evangelism?

A struggle that I personally have, that keeps a distance between God and I is… 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

The Master Plan of Evangelism
Chapter 1: Selection

In what way did God speak to you this week?

 What stood out to you in these chapters of John?

What are a few things that you took away from Chapter 1 of The Master Plan of Evangelism?

What are you personally trying to accomplish through this group?

Memory Verse:  ' Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. '

Psalm 51:10

Sermon Sentence: You have a calling on your life and you are equipped for that calling by God.

Pastor Nate:  For me personally, when I started being a part of D-Groups, it frustrated me that they were so successful and that the people attending them were raving so much about how they had helped them.  When I asked Brandon Miller, the coordinator of D-Groups, why they seemed so much more impactful than our regular groups that I had just spent years trying to get people to attend, he had a theory.  He said, “In Groups, we come to the table and hope to get something.  In D-Groups, we are preparing all week and show up at that table with something to give also.”  I think that statement is the key to taking Keystone Church to where it needs to be to make disciples effectively for generations to come.

One of the keys to the differences in D-Groups is how we read the Bible.  Brandon’s system of assigned reading has us reading only 3 chapters a week.  Each chapter is read three times in one day. So Monday would be chapter 1, but three times, Tuesday would be chapter 2, but three times, and Wednesday would be chapter 3, but three times.  Then on Thursday through Saturday, we would read chapters 1, 2, and 3 once.   I have heard many people talk about the benefit that this brings to being able to understand a passage.  For me, the first time gets my mind to wake up to what I am reading and I don’t get much out of the first pass.  The second time, I slow down and process it a bit better.  Then the third time, I seem to find things I didn’t see any of the other times I read it.  

I want to show you how beneficial this system of reading is as we kick off this sermon series in 1 Corinthians.  So this week, we will be reading the first 3 chapters of 1 Corinthians in this method.  We will return to the format we usually use next week, but this is a way I can introduce you to what it is like to be a part of D-Groups.  This is just one of the reasons these groups have helped so many people recently!

Read 1 Corinthians 1 three times.

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 2 three times.

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 3 three times.

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 1-3 one time.

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 1-3 one time.

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  ' Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. '

Psalm 51:10

Sermon Sentence: The local church is God’s plan A for His disciples and there is no plan B.

Read 1 Corinthians 1:1-17

Paul had an interesting role with churches that he was a part of.  He had a respect that commanded attention and a friendship that allowed many different types of approaches to be accepted.  I am sure he had many friends in the churches, and you can reach that conclusion by reading the letters that he wrote to the churches.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul is addressing a specific problem, the church.  Not just some of the church, he doesn’t seem pleased with a lot of the church.  He calls out certain people and does not seem to shy away from giving praise where it is due and criticism where it is needed.  

This week, I want to open our new series of sermons up with a journey through the idea of how Paul addressed churches.  We will do this by reading the opening chapter of 5 different letters that he wrote.  Some of them were letters meant to be good and encouraging in their approach.  Galatians and 1 Corinthians do not seem to be easy letters of pleasantries, but rather strong direct rebukes of very important things.  

Try to pretend that you are there that Sunday that your pastor opens up the letter that Paul has sent to the church.  Try to imagine what it was like to respect this man and his teachings, but then also know that this could go either really good or really bad.  Try to imagine that you are there hearing this read out loud to the congregation.  See if you can tell where he is going by the way that he starts the letter.

If the church at Corinth had so many bad problems, why do you think Paul starts the letter out like this?

How would you have approached a dysfunctional church if you were tasked with calling them out for the debauchery and disunity?

What do you think the backstory is about Chloe and her people?

What do you take away for your life personally in this opening?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Galatians 1:1-24
 Corinth was wrought with problems of people that were sexually distorted in life and way off base with the actions of unity in the church, setting up a hierarchy of preference for more well off people.  The problems seem to stink to high heavens!  Galatia was a different animal altogether.  It was a seemingly well-behaved orderly church, but they were messing up some key things in their teachings.  They were accused of changing the gospel. 

If I were to read verse 6 without the reference of where it came from, I would bet you anything it was written to the church at Corinth to answer their problems.  But it wasn’t.  It was written to Galatia to handle its issues.  The strong language makes you realize that Paul is pretty serious about doctrine and the specifics of the gospel.  That doesn’t mean he is light on behavior…but that misbehavior needs a different approach than bad doctrine.  

Notice that Paul starts with getting right to the problem at hand and then he explains to them his authority to be able to address such a thing.  In 1 Corinthians, it was the opposite: He addressed the authority he had to speak to what they needed to hear, then he addressed the issues after encouraging them in who they are.  This letter seems to be more direct and angry in its first approach.

Why do you think Paul was adamantly harping on his testimony and call to these churches in Galatia?  Do you think they were questioning his place there, that he felt they didn’t know, or some other reason?

In the other to the church at Corinth, it seems like they would have an idea of what was coming.  Do you think this letter surprised people more than the one to Corinth, when it was read out loud?

How do you see the dangers Paul addressed here around you?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Ephesians 1:1-23
Now you surely get the many different tones that Paul can take, right?  He comes in so lovingly and soft in this letter, encouraging the readers with an over abundance of teaching and explaining the Gospel.  Maybe they were not as established as the other churches, or maybe they just didn’t have as many problems sitting out in the open that needed to be addressed.  Either way, this is certainly a different tone and feeling to start this letter.  

How does this become your prayer today?

Read 2 Corinthians 1:1-24

The next time that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, it felt a lot different.  It almost feels like he is checking in with them.  Reading verse 8 makes me think that there were a few things that started to get around and people were hearing that Paul had found himself going through some difficult persecutions and legal troubles.  So he was writing them to let them know why he had not shown up like he said he would before and what has been going on.  

That is an interesting thing to consider: he wanted to visit them.  After the first letter (as you will see in studying it further in this series) it doesn’t seem like it would be the type of place that Paul would want to visit, let alone feel overly welcome in a visit!  Maybe the word has gotten back to Paul that things were looking better and some changes had happened, maybe Paul was too distracted by what he had going on to be too tough on them?  

You will also notice that his writing partner from 1 Corinthians, Sosethenes, is not there this time.  He uses plural group words to talk about himself and those with him, but in the introduction, we do not get much about who these people are.  As I am reading this introduction, I notice that if Paul is going through a tough time and has experienced persecution and great trouble, he does not use it as a chance to merit himself some sympathy, but rather as leverage to share the gospel again, and to encourage the readers using himself as an example.

When you go through difficult times, do you tend to use it as a moment to talk about what you have going on, or as a chance to encourage and lift others up?

What would this sort of thing look like in your life right now?

What are some relationships that you could encourage the other person through your circumstances?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Philippians 1:1-30
Paul and Timothy team up to write this letter to the church at Philippi.  If you don’t know, Timothy was a seemingly younger pastor that Paul was training in ministry and in many different places.  We have a couple of letters that would later be written by Paul to Timothy that we get to read as well.  In this letter, Paul starts out thanking the people of Philippi for being partners in ministry with him.  Paul seemed to have a specific view of those that had become established in the churches that he worked with as being partners on the same mission as himself.  He invited them into the family that would be needed to make all of this stuff work.  

Here again, Paul is writing to do what looks like an update about the stories that were starting to circulate about the difficult circumstances that he was finding himself in.  The ministry was going well in all of the places that he had gone, but he was also going to address the fact that they had probably heard about some pretty difficult situations that he was in.  As for all of that, they were to just realize that those struggles are for the purpose of advancing the gospel.  

That really is an interesting take, is it not?  Paul had been arrested in quite a few situations that merited a false judgement and although hindsight leaves us with the 30,000 ft. view, it was probably pretty hard, in real time, to distinguish what was the good flowing out of Paul’s work. Paul was constantly reminding his readers of the reality that his struggles and hard times were not what had set back and derailed what he was called to do, but rather, much like Jesus' crucifixion, were being used to God’s advantage and not the way they looked in real time. 

If you were writing a letter to the church at Philippi, and wanted to give a similar report about how God is using your struggles to advance the gospel, what would you say?

Why do we spend more time complaining about what has happened to us rather than how God has used what has happened to us to further the gospel?

How do you make the change to Paul’s perspective in life?

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 2 Corinthians 6:17

Sermon Sentence: Spiritual benefits flow from a Christ increased mindset.

Living From Your Resurrection Identity

Scripture: Colossians 3:1–2a
“Since then you have been raised with Christ… set your minds on things that are above…”

Paul begins with a powerful word: since. He does not say try to be raised with Christ, but you have been raised. The Christian life starts not with striving, but with identity.

Many believers still live as if their past defines them — past failures, regrets, wounds, or labels placed on them by others. But Paul teaches that when Christ increases in your thinking, your identity shifts from what happened to you to what Christ has done for you.

A mind settled on Christ stabilizes the heart. When your identity comes from resurrection truth, your emotions no longer swing with circumstances or opinions. You live from who you already are in Him.

Christ-Increased Living means:
You don’t fight for identity — you live from it.

Reflection Questions

What do I most often use to define myself — my past, my performance, or Christ?

Where do I feel spiritually unstable right now? Could it be tied to identity confusion?

What would change this week if I truly believed I was raised with Christ?

Prayer Focus:
Lord, settle my mind on who I am in You, not on what I’ve been through.

Freedom From Earthly Control

Scripture: Colossians 3:2b
“…not on things that are on earth.”

Paul is not saying earthly life is irrelevant. He’s saying earthly things must not rule your heart.

Earthly control shows up in subtle ways:

Living for approval

Measuring worth by productivity

Seeking security in money or success

Letting hardship dictate your peace

When Christ increases in your focus, these forces lose their grip. You still work, plan, and live responsibly — but they no longer define your emotional state.

Christ-centered thinking loosens the chains of pressure. What once felt ultimate becomes temporary. What once felt threatening becomes manageable.

Christ-Increased Living means: Earthly realities inform you — they don’t rule you.

Reflection Questions

What earthly pressure most affects my peace right now?

Do I react more strongly to people’s opinions or Christ’s truth?

What would emotional freedom look like in this season?

Prayer Focus:
Jesus, help me live on earth without letting earth live inside my heart.

Hidden but Secure

Scripture: Colossians 3:3
“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

This is one of the deepest security statements in Scripture.

Your life is:

Hidden — protected from ultimate harm

With Christ — inseparable from Him

In God — secured in the highest authority

This means your true life cannot be stolen by failure, criticism, illness, loss, or obscurity.

When Christ increases in your mind:

Anxiety loosens

Performance pressure fades

Fear of outcomes weakens

Security doesn’t come from controlling life — it comes from trusting where your life is kept.

Christ-Increased Living means: You stop trying to secure what God already holds.

Reflection Questions

Where do I feel most insecure right now?

Am I trying to control something God is asking me to trust Him with?

What would change if I truly believed my life is hidden in Christ?

Prayer Focus:
Father, remind me today that my life is safe in You.

Purpose That Shapes Daily Decisions

Scripture: Colossians 3:1
“Seek the things that are above, where Christ is…”

When your mind is fixed on Christ, purpose becomes clearer.

Instead of asking: 

“What do I feel like doing?” “What benefits me most?” 

You begin asking:

“What reflects Christ’s reign?” “What aligns with eternity?”

This transforms ordinary life:

Conversations become opportunities for grace, work becomes service to Christ. Choices become worship

Purpose stops being something you chase and becomes something you live.

Christ-Increased Living means: You don’t just make decisions — you reflect a King.

Reflection Questions

What decision in my life right now needs Christ-centered clarity?

Do my daily priorities reflect eternal values or temporary urgency?

How would today look different if I consciously lived under Christ’s reign?

Prayer Focus:
Lord, guide my decisions so my life reflects Your rule.

Anchored in Future Glory

Scripture: Colossians 3:4
“When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

Paul lifts our eyes to the finish line.

Your present life may feel: Hidden, ordinary, hard, or unnoticed

But this is not the final chapter.

Christ will appear.
Your glory is certain.
Your hidden life will be revealed.

Hope rooted in Christ produces:

Endurance in suffering

Faithfulness in obscurity

Courage in hardship

A Christ-centered mind remembers: God is writing a bigger story than I can see today.

Christ-Increased Living means:
You live today strengthened by tomorrow’s certainty.

Reflection Questions

Where do I feel tempted to lose heart?

How would remembering Christ’s return change my perspective on this trial?

What does it mean practically that Christ is my life, not just part of it?

Prayer Focus:
Jesus, anchor my heart in the certainty of Your coming glory.

Memory Verse: 'Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, '

2 Corinthians 6:17

Sermon Sentence: God is drawing you closer to Him and the best decision you can make today is moving towards Him.

Read Genesis 35:1-15

Jacob lived at home and it was there that he destroyed all of the relationships and opportunities in his family.  When he left there, it seemed that there was disarray of all sorts.  His parents were surely not on good terms.  His brother Esau was certainly not on good terms with his parents.  So he moved to where Laban lived, his father-in-law.  He gets married…more than once, and therefore there seems to be disarray that is left there as well.  He struggles with his father-in-law and their family for years and leaves it in disarray.  Now he has changed.  Remember that.  

When God meets up with him in this current situation, Jacob is in a different place.  I think it is safe to say a much better place. So God says he is to go to Bethel.  Move there.  Get in the U-Haul and move everything and everyone there.  Bethel means the house of God and it is the place that God has already met with Jacob once and as you will see in a later devotion, where God has met with Abraham as well.  The point is in the image, so don’t pass it by quickly.  Jacob needed to move to the place of God.  Jacob and his whole family needed to not just go visit Bethel, but set up their lives there.  It would be one thing to just go visit Bethel and another thing to have a vacation home in Bethel, but what Jacob needed was to move to the place of God and make that the very depth of everything he did. I think that is an image worth spending some time looking at.  

Do you think there is an image that you should see as a metaphor in this text and how would you express what is being said?

How does this apply to your life and what is the takeaway in your life right now?

How does this thought process affect those around you that may not have had the same revelation from God’s word as you?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read  Genesis 35:1-4; Genesis 12:1-8; Joshua 24:19-27

This may seem like a strange mix of reading, but I really do hope that you caught the connection that links these stories together.  You need to have a little bit of knowledge of how the events of the Old Testament happened to follow along, but let me offer some insight here. It all started with Abraham, who was called to leave his home and go where God would show him.  This was the beginning of the faith that trusted God and was used to explain what salvation was.  We see this covenant happening between God and Abraham, under a certain tree that is mentioned and therefore marked as significant in this story.  

By the time we come to the story of Jacob and the change that happened in his life, we get this retelling or revisiting the story in chapter 35 and it is told from the setting that Abraham also started from, that same tree.  Here Jacob buries the household gods that have polluted his home and marks his new life in God by taking his family to a place called Bethel and setting up an altar there, near the tree.  

Eventually, Joshua is entering into that promised land and therefore is taking the people gathered there that day back through the covenant that they need to remember from old.  Wouldn’t you know that the place that happens seems to be an old altar, an old monument, a type of a building that is there and it is known by the Old Oak or Terebinth tree that is right outside of it.  It is the same place that Abraham and Jacob had decided to follow God.  The language of the two moments are strikingly similar.  

(Judges 9 also seems to mention this tree and tell a story, but it is a bit more complicated than the time allotted for this devotion.)

Is there a place that is special for your relationship with God that is solidified in your memory?

What are the pieces of these stories that seem to show up in all three connections that you noticed?

Think back on your legacy of faith in your family, do you see a pattern in the faiths that have followed Jesus lie in these stories?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Ephesians 5:1-21

Walking wisely is a good thing to think about.  It is not an exact thing, or a formulaic type of thing, but it is found in the meditations and mulling over of the teachings in the Bible.  Unwise walking leads to foolish actions.  That seems to be the perspective that Paul is laying out here in this section.  He uses a lot of the Bible’s chosen imagery in this text: fruit, light, wise walking, etc.  You work through this text and see what you find.

What does Paul mean when he encourages us to not be deceived by “empty words” in verse 6?

How is Paul’s definition of “walking in love” different from our culture’s definition of the same idea?

What are five things that you are thankful for today that you have not thanked God for recently?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read 2 Peter 1:1-15

We are talking about making a lasting and total change in our lives this week.  That is what Jacob did and it is what Peter seems to be explaining in this text here.  This is one of the hundreds of places that we could point to and show that the follower of Jesus lives and thinks differently.  The goal is to bring our hearts and our minds in full accord with our calling and decision to follow Jesus.  

Peter goes through some practical ideas and says that anyone that lacks these qualities, is actually near sighted and missing the whole picture.  Maybe you have experienced vision problems and the adjustments that you make in life when you can not see clearly enough.  Soon, after getting glasses or some sort of other corrective work for your vision, the things that you see become much, much more clear.  You actually don’t fully get the idea of what you have been missing because you have accommodated the handicap in your vision in so many ways.  When it is finally seen, it changes the context of so many things.  That is the idea that Peter seems to be playing off of here.  

How would you explain “spiritual near sightedness” and its effects on a life to someone else?

How have you experienced this and had to course correct this week?

What are the parts of these verses that stand out to you the most?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 34:1-31

Danger!  There is not really a moral compass looking to give you direction in this story.  In other words, if you are looking for someone to be like in this story, I am afraid you will be disappointed.  I think everyone seems to be presented in a poor light.  Dinah, the daughter of the one that felt unloved, after meeting the long lost uncle Esau that notoriously ran out to find women that his parents knew were bad news, seems to be on a sort of Rumspringa.  Am I saying this was her fault?  Nice try, but I am only sorting through the logic of the story in front of me!  Hamor was clearly not a good character to hang our moral compass from.  The brothers that step in and do this crazy reaction, although they are heroes from being brothers that stand up for their sister, also leave a lot of innocent deaths in their wake.  That doesn’t seem good.  Then you have Jacob, who does not seem to act as the father that needed to protect his daughter.  The bottom line is that this is a weird story.  It is just here and no one knows what to do with it really.  The closing question does not even get answered and we really don’t know what else happens.  

That tracks with how life seems to go sometimes.  Not everything makes sense and is a picture perfect story that ties up all the loose ends and delivers to us the ever after ending we hoped for.  Sometimes we are left with messes upon messes and no one comes away looking good or wholesome.  Here is my conclusion on the matter: This story is for the rest of the Bible.  It is a piece of context clue that you will need later on when you are reading about the Hivittes and the Canaanites and wondering why in the world there was all of this bad blood and poor relationships.  The goal is not to tell you who’s fault it is, but to remind you of how we get to where we are going.  

What are the reactions that you see in this story from each of the characters that you want to call out?  Why are they right or wrong?

What do you think the point of this story is?  What is the teaching?


How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse: 'Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, '

2 Corinthians 6:17

Sermon Sentence: Jacob’s acceptance that he had enough, led him to give away what he was trying to get his whole life.  

Read Genesis 33:1-20

When we first met Jacob, the way the story was told in Genesis, he was clamoring for more from birth.  That narrative is important to build up to this point of the story.  Some would argue that Jacob was a guy that just wanted his fair share.  Some would argue that Jacob was seemingly always out to take all he could from everyone he could.  There does not seem to be a character that Jacob comes across that he did not want to take something from them for himself.  

This Jacob looks remarkably different and sounds incredibly contrary to his old self.  “I have enough.” (verse 11)  Do you wonder what it takes to get to that point in life?!  We all dream of it, especially here in America.  We are geared to always be working in hopes of stockpiling enough for the needs that are maybe coming.  The repeated problem seems to be that we spend so much time stockpiling that we wear out and never get to use what we intended for “one day.”  But to live in a way that we don’t pay attention to the future seems careless in its own rights as well!  We have all of the best intentions for life and helping others, but we see little execution on those ideas.  If we could just know where the line of “enough” is.  Jacob didn’t measure “enough” by an amount, it was a change of heart that happened to him.

What do you see as enough?

How do you get enough?

Why do we struggle daily with if there will be enough for us?

How do we balance God’s teachings on this?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Timothy 6:1-10

The argument that Paul is making here has the tendency to move around quite a bit.  In the sermon, we lifted verses 6-8 to discuss contentment with godliness.  The context of the verse is greater than that, although it is not thought that those verses alone don’t do well to make a point by themselves.  So let’s consider the context.  Paul is writing about the behavior of those who follow Jesus.  His argument is always that this changes every part of life, not just church life.  So in this section, he is talking about a follower of Jesus that works for another follower of Jesus.  In verse 2, he makes the argument that the fact that you are both followers of Jesus means that you serve that boss in a way that is even more considerate of your relationship with Jesus.  There is more responsibility to live above bar with those that believe like you do. 

Then he begins to tell the story of a type of person that uses their godliness as a means to gain from other people.  Have you met anyone like this?  They do it in manipulation and arguments of small language changes and so on.  The result is a life that is lived nothing like it seems that Jesus was calling us to.  Usually this is covered up with the assumption that there is an obligation not to oust a person for these things because it would do great damage to the cause of Christ.  Paul is telling us this is foolish.  Godliness with contentment is a great gain.  Those that try to make godly things a way to manipulate people and gain things in life, are to be avoided.  This is a devotion, so I will stop this reflection here, because we could certainly go for a long time on this!

How have you seen someone struggling with a version of what Paul is describing here?

How do you handle a situation like this in a church or in the Christian life in general?

Where have you struggled with this in your life?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read James 4:1-10

I feel this part of James could have been pretty helpful to Jacob at some point in his life.  Maybe James could have met up with him right after he ran away from home to escape his brother Esau, and had a cup of coffee with him to explain this to him.  Or maybe it would have been a good conversation to have after the birth of a few kids when his wives were vying for position and attention.  Or maybe when the relationship with Laban finally fell apart, there would have been enough background to fully paint the picture of the fact that everywhere he went, there seemed to be conflict compounding in all directions.  Have you ever met someone like that?  It just feels like every relationship in their life is marked by conflict and struggle, but they don’t seem to see the common thread.

Seeing our hidden motives deep down inside our good intentions is really a tough thing to do, because it takes the most amount of humility to get there first.  There are people that read their Bibles and go to church, but they never seem to get it.  It is not because they can’t understand it or are too stupid, please don’t fall into that way of seeing them. It is because there is no way to truly reflect without being incredibly vulnerable, and that is uncomfortable and we will approach it kicking and screaming until we are ready to be broken by what God reveals.  True repentance happens when we finally see what is actually happening when the lies we have believed are set aside and the truth shines the real light on our hearts.  

Where do you see this passage speaking to you today?

How do you want to respond to what God is revealing and how do you choose to respond?

What are ways you have asked God for something but deep down the intention was to spend it on yourself?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Romans 14:1-10

'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. '

Again, when we brought this up in the sermon, we lifted it from its context.  So the goal here will be to take it back to its context so that we can better and more fully understand what is being said.  In the sermon, we looked at it as a reminder that our lives are not something we can selfishly keep as for ourselves and about only ourselves.  There is no way to follow Jesus and live like that.  Jesus did not live like that for Himself, but rather lived his life as a sacrifice for other people.  His intention was not preservation above all else, but rather it was to bring about salvation for everyone who would come to Him.  In this section, Paul is making that point as you continue to read.  His reason for pointing this out is more about enduring the struggles of the weaker, more immature followers of Jesus.  He is not excusing blatant and rampant sin, but he is allowing room for a person that is still learning and working through what the teachings of Jesus are.  He encourages people to endure the struggle of having different beliefs such as what day should be holy and what foods should be eaten in a religious argument.  The way you approach this is by not engaging in the argument, not stepping into the traps that could land the relationship into nothing more than a constant battle over words and ideas, but rather to live in a way that you serve each other, even with the disagreements.  

In many other places in the Bible, we are encouraged to correct false teaching and to rebuke false teachers.  This section, therefore, sets up a tough text to interpret and work through that should be reflected on.  The teaching that we are to live in service to everyone because of the gospel, is a very strong and sure teaching that Paul offers up.  The question of the details of what other people believe that is different from us, that becomes a difficult thing to navigate that should not be taken lightly.  The overall teaching is that the motivation for the way we treat others is found in the example of Jesus.  
How does this become part of your prayer today?

Do you have an example of when you wrestled with a belief that was different from yours and how to approach the person that believed that?

Many, many times, when we are interpreting something like this, we will air on the side of what we declare is loving.  But please remember, there are many things in the culture that we live in that are argued as not really clear in the Bible because of “interpretation” but really are very clear when you actually read it.  Can you think of some examples of this?

The Bible says that if we ask for wisdom, God has plenty to go around. It is strongly encouraged that you actually search the Bible and not just listen to YouTubers or popular heads that share their opinions.  Search the Bible yourself and actually read what is written there.  Take the time to wrestle with the tough things in the Bible.  Sit with people you really respect as Bible teachers and readers and listen to them, rather than trusting a document or a video because it is popular.  

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Psalm  34

Let me work myself out of a bit of criticism about something meaningless.  I struggle with appreciating the Christian music world for a few reasons.  Uh-oh…but before you struggle with me, let me explain.  There is a lot of music out there.  Especially in this modern time, there seems to be an over abundant amount of ability and mediums for making music and putting it out in the world.  But there seems to be a lack of originality in that hurried and crowded process.  The way I see it, there is a phrase or an idea that someone will put in the lyrics of a song, and within a year or two there are 5-6 more songs recycling that same idea over and over again.  Another way to say it is that I struggle with the lack of depth in the lyrics today.  

Now that I have said that, let me explain what that says about me.  I struggle with my lack of creativity in expressing praise to God as well.  I feel that I get caught in one dimensional thoughts that are repetitive and not truly worked through or dwelled on.  When I go to the Psalms and read, I get this conviction about the depth that David (who wrote most of these Psalms) clearly had when he meditated on the attributes of God.  I feel my time with Youtube videos and busyness so much that I never let my mind dwell on the expanding goodness of God and who He is.  Worship is built in the heart through the true thankfulness that is drawn out of dwelling on who God is and what He has done.  Stop for a little bit and really get detailed about why God is good.

In this Psalm, what stands out to you in your current situation?

Name some ways that God has been good.

Work out some attributes of God that are hardly ever talked about that you notice from this last week.  

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  'Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” '
Joshua 1:9

Sermon Sentence: You can see the face of God.

Read Genesis 33:1-20

Here is the trap that I find myself in often. I want the conclusion of the story.  Are you the type of person that reads the pages near the end, so that you can get a glimpse of where this book is going?  I have been guilty of that.  The problem becomes that when I do that, I lose interest in the journey and give up on the book.  It annoys me to know what I desire so much, to know the ending!  Now that is totally messed up, I get it.  But at the end of this story, the Jacob story, I really hope you don’t just check out.  This is how it ends, but please keep wrestling with it.  There is SO much value in this 33rd chapter that we will be here for a couple of weeks.  You will read it many times in the devotions. If you are at the Manner on Wednesday night (as a man), you will hear it again.  The reason for that is because I hope you draw something more than just the first pass from it.  

When Jacob wrestled with Jesus, he had his name changed.  That meant something very important and that moment was a big moment.  But that moment was not only about that moment.  That was not the ride off into the sunset moment.  There was still more story to be told.  Now that Jacob has been changed, what will that change look like when he faces his demons from the past and the conflicts he has always run from?  How will Israel live differently with Esau than Jacob did?  Jacob could claim to be Israel for as long as he wanted to, but what really mattered was how he showed the rest of the world how he was Israel now.

What do you think that Jacob means in verse 10 when he says that seeing Esau’s face is like seeing the face of God?

How do you think that Matthew 5:8 also speaks to this idea?

How have you seen the face of God in this metaphorical sense?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Luke 15:11-32
Jesus is the best teacher of the Old Testament I have ever read about.  I love to listen to and unpack teachings from the Bible and spend most of my days doing that in the privilege that I have in being a pastor.  I think I would probably even say that when it comes to creative consideration, I enjoy the Old Testaments story telling, metaphor hidden, approach to truth rather than the New Testaments approach of just saying the thing.  That is nothing more than a statement about how I prefer to be taught and how I learn.  I study both.  I read both…and daily.  Therefore, I am aware that Jesus is in the New Testament. So there is no need to correct what I said in the first line here.  Jesus was in the New Testament and he also was fully aware of what we call the Old Testament.  He was a Masterful teacher of the Old Testament and you will find yourself aiming at an endless goal if you were to try and pin down all of the many places that Jesus tries to teach us something in the Old Testament.  

This story contains a hidden gem of that variety.  There is really no denying that He is drawing from our story in Genesis 33 when He tells this story.  His is a story about a sibling rivalry.  His is a story about a brother that leaves in a very dishonorable way.  His is a story of that same brother scared to return to what he left behind.  His is a story of the brother returning to see the face of his father, who clearly plays the part of God.  This has all of the same flavors and elements of the Jacob story.  Then you have to unpack the exact phrase that Jesus used when both parties returning home, “Runs, falls on their neck, and kisses..” the other party.  This language is on purpose.  It is a story about returning to a broken relationship.  That is compared to a story about returning to the father.  Love God…love other people.  This is what Jesus said sums up the whole Bible.  

Why do you think it is valuable to compare these two stories?  Or why not?

Do you see the connection the Bible makes between being reconciled with those we have wronged and our relationship with God?  

What is the point of Jesus adding the part about the disgruntled brother that was always home in His story?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 2 Corinthians 5:11-21
One of the most appealing arguments for living out the truths of God is the one made over and over again that goes like this:

1. Do this thing.
2. Jesus did this greater thing.
3. Therefore you should live like this.

That is the formula of attack in this passage here.  Paul is writing to the church at Corinth and calling for their lives to be a certain way.  He is calling for their relationships to be a certain way.  Basically, he is saying, bring people close.  Paul seems to feel the reader flinch at those words, so he pivots by telling them about the time that we were hostile to God and as He brought us closer, we were won over by His love and compassion when it was not deserved.  He then uses that to launch into an explanation of our lives that includes a call to be ministers of reconciliation.  Or sharers of the ministry of reconciliation.  To reconcile means to bring back together.  The gospel is about hostile people that are brought into love to experience a reconciliation.  In order to be that, you have to become new.  That is what happened to Jacob.  It is what happened to us. And since it happened to us, we are now ambassadors of that idea.  

What does verse 21 mean in the way you would explain it to a person new to the Bible?

How do you see yourself as a carrier of the ministry of reconciliation?

What does it mean to be “a new creation” according to what Paul is teaching here?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Exodus 33:12-23

Moses just needed to get away from everyone.  He had that place just outside of the camp that he would escape to and meet with God.  It was on the outskirts and it was away from everything.  The mountain was crazy.  The town was chaotic.  The tent of meeting was still.  Besides, he had just spent some time raging through the streets of the people rebuking and angry at their complete stupidity and carelessness.  He wanted to be done with them, but he also was willing to save them.  It had to be a strange feeling for sure!  But for now…things were just still and calm in his time with God.  That is when God rejected Moses' offer to die for the people.  That is not how God is going to go forward in this.  So now what?  What WAS God going to do in this situation?  Moses was surely reluctant to poke the situation anymore in that tense moment.  

God’s response finally came after a few moments of worship and prayer.  “It is time for the people to pick up camp and leave.”  That is exactly what Moses was afraid of!  What exactly did God mean?  Why exactly did God say this?  Was there no way back from this sin for the people?  God did not accept Moses’ sacrifice of his own life for the people, so God must be done with them!  Is His back finally turned?  “Lord, if we go…you HAVE to go with us!  I don’t want to go without you….we can’t go without you!”  God’s response was humbling: “I am going with you.”  What kind of a God was this?! Moses wanted to see His face…to see what kind of an expression there was.  But he was only offered to see His glory.  And that…that was the most incredible thing Moses had ever seen!

What do you think Moses saw and felt in that moment?  What actually happened here the way you are reading it?

What is the “glory” of God?  

How would your life change if you got to see a new part of God’s glory today?  

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Revelation 22:1-5

There is a promise of seeing the face of God right now.  That is what we have been working through and trying to understand.  God has this way of communicating in His word that we should try to get our hearts around, because it is a constant theme.  The kingdom of God IS here!  The Kingdom of God is coming soon.  Both of these statements are true.  As a follower of Jesus, you are declared righteous right now (Romans 8:1)!   As a follower of Jesus, you are becoming righteous through sanctification.  These dichotomies feels like they can’t both be true, but they are presented as truth. 

You can see the face of God now!  You will one day see the face of God.  The Bible ends on the highest note possible, the reconciliation in complete and total fullness of the very sense of all of the words, of God and His people.  There is not happier ending than the one that is promised, sealed, and guaranteed to us as believers in Jesus!  One day, we WILL FULLY see God face to face, and by all indications and shadows revealed in His word, He will be running toward us with arms wide open!

How does this passage encourage your day today?

Who are two people that need to hear about this message from you this week?  How will you share it with them?

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

Sermon Sentence: When Christ increases in us, we do not become less—we become who we were always meant to be.

Read: John 3:30; Colossians 1:18


John the Baptist’s statement begins with clarity: “He must increase.” This is not a personal preference but a recognition of divine order. Christ’s increase is not dependent on our success or failure—it is woven into God’s redemptive plan. John understood that history bends toward Jesus being preeminent in all things.

When we resist this order, we often feel anxious, competitive, or threatened. When we embrace it, we find rest. Life becomes less about preserving our influence and more about aligning with God’s purposes.

Ask yourself today: Where am I trying to increase myself instead of allowing Christ to increase in me?

What is a step that can be taken to move toward deeper commitment to put Him first?

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, You are worthy of first place in all things. Help me with the help of the Holy Spirit and the truth of Your word to reorder my heart where my desires compete with Your glory. Let my life align with Your divine design. Amen.

Read: John 3:26–29; Proverbs 27:2


John’s disciples were troubled by Jesus’ growing popularity, but John was not. Why? Because his identity was secure. He knew he was a voice, not the Word. Comparison did not unsettle him because calling anchored him.

Insecurity always needs affirmation; security can celebrate replacement. John rejoiced when his role diminished because he trusted God’s plan more than his position.

Today, consider where comparison steals your joy. Contentment grows when we trust that God assigns roles—and changes them—perfectly.

Think about the most recent time you witnessed someone receiving a blessing you believe you deserved? What were your thoughts? How did you respond?


Prayer:
Father, free me from the trap of comparison. Anchor my identity in You, not in visibility or affirmation. Teach me to rejoice when others are elevated for Your glory. Amen.

Read: John 3:29; Philippians 2:17


John says something surprising: “This joy of mine is now complete.” Joy came not from prominence, but from fulfillment. His joy was rooted in obedience, not outcome.

Biblical joy does not depend on staying center stage. It flows from knowing we have faithfully completed what God entrusted to us. Decrease, when embraced in obedience, becomes worship.

Do I equate joy with recognition, or with faithfulness?

Why is faithfulness important?

What might be some reasons recognition feels important?


Prayer:
God, redefine joy in my heart. Help me find contentment not in being seen, but in being faithful. Let obedience, not applause, complete my joy. Amen.

Read: Matthew 6:1–4; Psalm 75:6–7

Decrease often looks like obscurity. John’s ministry did not end—it simply moved out of the spotlight. God frequently deepens us in unseen places, where faith is purified and motives are revealed.

We live in a culture that equates value with visibility. Scripture teaches the opposite: God exalts in His time, and often after seasons of hiddenness.

Today, embrace whatever quiet obedience God has placed before you. He sees it all.


Look for ways to develop contentment without being in the spotlight.

Prayer:
Lord, help me trust You in hidden seasons. When no one notices my faithfulness, remind me that You do. Shape my character in obscurity and teach me patience. Amen.

Read: Galatians 2:20; John 15:4

True decrease is not self-erasure—it is Christ focus. When Christ lives in us, striving lessens and peace grows. Decrease becomes a natural fruit of abiding, not a forced discipline.

As Christ increases within, our need for control, recognition, and self-protection diminishes. We do not become less—we become more aligned with who God designed us to be.

End this week asking not, “How can I decrease?” but “How can I abide more deeply in Christ?”

Take note of the changes you begin to notice in yourself when this is practiced in your daily life.

Prayer:
Jesus, live Your life through me. Let my striving fade as Your presence grows. Increase in my thoughts, my reactions, and my desires. May others see You more clearly because of my life. Amen.

Memory Verse:  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

Sermon Sentence: Have your daily habits influenced your instinctive response so that those around you know who your Savior is?

Read Matthew 21:28-32

It is the parable that all parents can relate to.  The struggle between being told “hold on” or “I will…” after telling the child to do something, then watching to see if they really ever do follow through is a classic parenting annoyance.  How many times do we have to explain to children that “I forgot…” although it may be true, is not an excuse for why it was ok to forget something.  The goal is to stop the forgetting and replace it with some action.  

There is also the struggle with actual commitment to something.  But that is not so much about parenting, because it hits a bit closer to home for everyone.  How many times do we find ourselves treating God the same way when we say that we need to do something, ought to do something, or even that we thought about doing something?  That problem is not that we can not get enough responses, but that there seems to be a lack of actual action behind our beliefs. All good parenting lessons also help reflect our own spiritual struggles back in the mirror.  The reason parenting is referred to as one of the greatest places to learn how to be a disciple is because we are often humbled by the reality of how we are when we are leading other people through how they are. This parable plays the part of revealing to us something that we should search our hearts for.

How have you played the part of the son that said he would do something but didn’t?

How have you played the part of the son who said that he would not do something, but then did?

How does this parable teach you about obedience to God’s call?


How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 2 Timothy 2:1-13
 This will be the year that you hear more about discipleship than you ever have, if you are at Keystone Church.  You will hear about D-Groups and probably have heard more about them than you care.  We do not want you to miss the point that we are doubling down on: Following Jesus IS discipleship.  Salvation is just as much about where you are going as it is where you came from.  Here is how John Petroy summed it up recently: “When Jesus said, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me…’ I don’t think he was saying he was some sort of messenger that gets our prayers to God.  By saying ‘through me’ He also meant to live like the Son lived, do what the Son did, and follow what the Son said, this brings you to the Father.”

The problem is that we have fallen into a trap of defining two different things here: we get saved, but then we could possibly, at another time, decide to follow Jesus. Jesus doesn’t ever seem to call anyone to be saved and then not also be inviting them to follow Him with their lives.  Paul writes to Timothy in this chapter, on these basic ideas.  For Paul, a good practical example can be found in three roles in life: The farmer, the soldier, and the athlete.  These three roles serve a great illustration that helps us understand what it looks like to be following Jesus.

How does the image of the athlete illustrate Paul’s point and how is that practical for your life?

How does the image of the farmer illustrate Paul’s point and how is that practical for your life?

How does the image of the soldier help illustrate Paul’s point and how is that practical for your life?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 2 Timothy 2:14-26
If you will remember, 1 and 2 Timothy are letters written to a young pastor from Paul, as a mentor.  His instructions in these letters are a good base foundation that could be considered for all newer churches, or even newer followers of Jesus.  One of the hardest things to do in leading a church, is to speak in a way that addresses every single person on all of the different levels of spiritual maturity.  Not everyone is a brand new follower of Jesus and not everyone is coming into the conversation with all of the deep foundations that some people are.  Therefore the goal becomes to keep the church together in unity.  So Paul’s approach here may seem a bit strange for a general audience of the whole church, but it is very strategic.  It seems that he is saying that a really good idea the whole church should latch on to is the danger of the false teachings that steer people in a direction that is not the same as following Jesus.  

But take notice of the change.  Paul is not fighting people that are just so far out of left field that they are attacking the church’s foundations with a different religion altogether.  He is warning them about the people that are teaching most of the truth, then changing a small bit.  They do not deny the resurrection, but rather change the small point of disarming the power of the resurrection by saying that it has already happened.  Had it happened? Or was this just a teaching that was far out of bounds?  Of course a resurrection had happened!  Jesus rose from the dead and that is what started this whole thing.  So was it wrong to say that it had happened?  Not really.  But yes.  Much like the Garden of Eden, when the snake barely twisted the words of God, it happens again here and Paul warns against it.  Why major on that?  Because a small change in the words of God has a dramatic change in the behavior of God’s people. That is why he ends this section like he does.  He encourages the church together in unity of teaching knowing that will bring them together in unity of action.  

How have you seen this strategy of the enemy used around you: twist a small part of God’s word and it will bring about disunity?

How do you think that we, as individuals, should combat this sort of trap?

According to this text, what do you see as “youthful passions” and why is it important to “flee’ those?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read John 17:1-23

We end each day with prayer as a family.  There is nothing groundbreaking or creative about it, really.  In fact, my prayer for my family is pretty much the exact same every single night.  I would bet you that my family could rehearse it to you right now if you were to ask them to.  It is important to me to have those specific things that I ask for and pray about over my family.  So I do not have a problem with that being a repeated thing over and over again. But as I was reading this prayer by Jesus, I slowed down to process what He was doing here.  

Notice how conversational this prayer is.  He is not working out truths that He doesn’t know or even informing God of things He just learned.  He is repeating what He knows and going back over the really valuable truths that He has clearly already established in His life, but need to be called up in this moment because of the situation that is unfolding.  That is the part I am wanting to dial into this year.  The patterns in my prayer are good and the specifics of repetition are valuable, but also valuable are the inner wrestlings and remindings of the things that I know to be true, spoken in a moment so that those around me know I am holding on to them, but also to do the work of reminding myself of what it is that I believe.  Moments will change that and situations will move that.  My prayers are a reminder of me staying focused on what the Holy Spirit has already reminded me of and saying that back to God.  Not because God needs to hear it, but because it does me good to be reminded of it.  

For instance, I am fully aware that God is the Provider of all that is needed.  I know that.  I have that locked away.  But it will be helpful to remind God that I believe that when I feel the squeeze of life’s scarcity. Not because God needs to hear it, but because I need to be called up to what I believe.  

What part of Jesus' prayer here sticks out to you the most?

Why do you think Jesus prayed to God and informed Him that He has sent out the disciples for the same mission that Jesus was on?


How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Romans 2:12-29

This is a really difficult passage from a really difficult book.  I have always had to slow down my reading pace and increase my passes over sentences when I get to this letter of Paul to the Romans.  I did not grow up in a world that he seems to be writing to.  There is certainly a cultural difference in the audience and myself.  That does not mean the work through this passage is not beneficial.  I encourage you to understand it.  If you didn’t get it that first time, repetition will be helpful. 

THe Jewish people had the Law.  Or in other words, they were known as the people of the Law. The assumption would then go that the moral code of the Law was for the Jewish people.  But Paul is arguing against that idea.  He brings up that all of human nature seems to point to the idea of a basic understanding of right and wrong, of good and bad, and of clean and unclean.  He is not saying that everyone had the exact same ideas here, but rather that there definitely seems to be a universal moral idea.  Therefore, it becomes difficult to assume morality in your version of belief without applying the whole of what you believe to every single person.  You are not morally superior to everyone around you because you think your moral code (the pieces you have picked and chosen about what is really important) make a person the most Holy, like yourself.  But rather, you are in the same moral problem as every other person and in need of the universal moral ideas the Law stands for.  You don’t need some of it and therefore others around you need the some of it that you have.  But everyone needs all of it, because it is about all of us and Holiness is contained in the whole of it, not your part of it.  

What is the point that Paul seems to be making about those that teach the Law and their actions?

How do you explain verse 13 to people that do not understand the Bible?

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  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 1:17

Sermon Sentence: The greatest fight for your life will lead you to realize that you can not keep what you think is your life.

Read Genesis 32:1-21
I am just a classic, world class avoider.  A challenge is better ignored and a tough situation is better put off.  When I read about Jacob, I am aware of that broken relationship in his background that no one wants to talk about.  Especially not Jacob.  As long as that is all in the past, it seems better there.  Then comes the reckoning day.  The day he eventually has to face the consequences of the part about himself that he surely despised…his ability to push people away from him.  Jacob has a family. Jacob has a life.  Jacob has money.  But for some reason, Jacob feels that desire to return to his past.  Maybe he is driven by that desire to make it right.  Maybe he is driven by that ago old issue of the siren call to return to home.  Maybe he feels his conversation with God that one time made it clear he had to go back.  We don’t really get the full answer.

Most of us reading this have experienced some version of reckoning with the past.  It is a strong work of the enemy to keep us distracted from our wrongs and keep moving forward to what we think is our future.  Never looking back is more difficult than the look back tends to be.  Almost always, our story takes us right into the reality of our past and we have to do something with what we have done, with what we have become.  How will our story end?  Will we just always be the way that we are, or is there hope that we can change and be different?  The real beauty in this story is the picture of how that was wrestled with in Jacob’s life. 

How have you had a moment in your life that was similar to this story in Jacob’s?

How is verse 11 a really good picture of what it means to surrender your life to God?

What are the promises of God that draw you to the life He offers to you?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 32:22-32
What a weird story!  Many people have wondered who in the world it is that Jacob is wrestling with here.  Hosea 12 tells us that it was an “angel” that Jacob wrestled with.  Genesis 32 tells us that it was a “man” and then uses the word “elohim” in the Hebrew later, which simply referred to a spiritual being of some sort.  Jacob seemed to think that he had seen God face to face.  All of this considered together leads me to lean towards the idea that this was God in the flesh…or maybe better understood as Jesus.  

That makes the story so much more bizarre.  Because Jacob, the farmer dude, surely doesn’t have the ability to best God in all of His infinite power.  So we have to keep wrestling with the story in our own understanding.  I think it’s safe to say that God threw this match.  It was fixed.  He held back and allowed Himself to be out wrestled.  That seems like the only logical conclusion, does it not?  This is not a picture of the abilities of God that we are to draw from to form an image of Him.  It is a picture of the character of God, that allows Himself to be beaten by a far inferior being, a man, for the sake of bringing about a new identity for that man!  That is the beauty of the story of the cross, which is an absurd story of how men were able to crucify the King of Kings, while everyone knew without a doubt that Jesus could have brought down an unnamed amount of angels and power to rescue Him and undo the wrong happening to Him.  But He did not.  He stayed and He died.  He did it all for one purpose and for one reason, to save the ones He was dying for, to give US life!

What is a time that you “wrestled” with God and what was the result of that moment?

How have you seen someone else wrestle with God recently?

When you think about Jacob’s name being changed to Israel, how does that fit into your story and what do you think the significance is?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Acts 9
Saul was sent out on the most extreme and highest of the religious endeavors that he could have been launched out on in his flavor of religion.  He was a Pharisee, the way he tells the story he was one of the most zealous of them as well.  So it is significant that it was on the road to this mission that Saul was met by Jesus and questioned about his work.  For the sake of our study this week, I think it is safe to say that Saul was, in essence, wrestling with Jesus.  He was out to stop Him when he was, in turn, changed by him and brought to surrender to Him.  You will also notice that in this story, like our story of Jacob, Saul’s name was changed to Paul.  This is the repeated theme of the Bible that is worth paying attention to: there is a struggle between God and mankind.  That struggle leads to a moment where something needs to give. If the one struggling with God surrenders to His call, there is a great change that happens in their lives and the lives of those around them.  

How do you see your story of deciding to follow Jesus in this same light?

Why do you think there is almost always a name change that happens after someone surrenders to God?

What other stories in the Bible do you see where the name of the character is changed at a significant moment?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Colossians 3:1-17

I do not tend to be a big style person.  Most of my outfits are chosen in the dark and the rest are chosen out of colorblindness.  Therefore, you will not find me looking over many fashions and wondering how I get the latest and greatest from wherever people buy clothes these days.  Most of the changes in my wardrobe are brought about by changes in my body.  If it quits fitting, it’s time to replace it! With that being said, Paul is approaching these verses from a wardrobe change experience that he likens to following Jesus.  His point is simple, you were not automatically following Jesus, so you have to change to follow Him now.  That is a subtle realization but one that is vital.  

Look the part, not because you saw the catalogue and wanted to look appealing to everyone else, like the models in the pictures, but rather because you are different than you were.  Have you been somewhere wearing the outfit from where you came from and it didn’t work with where you were now?  It is that sort of an idea. You came from the world, but now you are a part of a different Kingdom.  Paul likes this analogy and uses it in other places as well, but for today, think about this idea.

Why do you think that we have to be told this idea and that there is the struggle of not putting away the old ways in our following Jesus?

How do you explain to people the idea that there is the battle between the old and the new in following Jesus?

How are you battling with this idea right now in your life personally?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 32:1-21; Genesis 4:3-16;  Genesis 43:11-31

For today’s devotion, I want to challenge you in a bit of a Bible study method.  Often, we will count Bible study as the reading of a verse or three and then the reading of some commentary that tells us what it all means.  This is a good tool, but much like any good tool, it can take from you the primitive skills that are good for working out the Bible study rather than being handed it.  I am not against commentaries and studies, but I am very much aware that the Christian Bible study world has created a culture of lazy Googlers and readers that are not doing the work of really meditating on God’s word.  One of my goals in 2026 will be to combat this and encourage everyone to work on becoming Bible “studiers” themselves. 

All of that to say that I am aware this is a lot of reading for today.  I was looking at our key story in Genesis 32 and wondered about the gift that Jacob prepared to give to Esau.  Mainly I was interested in verse 13, it just felt like there should be more significance to the way that verse was worded.  Especially that “present” word (In the ESV).  So I went to www.blueletterbible.org, a fantastic resource for studying the Bible, and searched for that word in the Hebrew.  I was amazed to find that it shows up three times in Genesis.  You may say, “It is just the word ‘present’, that is not THAT amazing!” But hold on.  Look closer.  It is used three times, in three different brother stories; Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and Jospeh and his brothers.  All three times it is used for the idea of appeasing an offense.  That leads me to sit and think about this for a while.

Do you see a significance in linking these three stories?

What do you think is a good lesson and thought to take away from this idea?

How do you link that idea to other ideas in the Bible- maybe some of the New Testament?

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  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 1:17

Sermon Sentence: "Rock bottom" is not the only place to be compelled to find and follow Jesus.

Read Genesis 30:25-43

Question of the day:  What in the world is going on in this story?

Let’s start our week of study in the weird parts of this story.  The goal today will not be for you to walk away with a really helpful application from the text for your life.  You may get that, but it will not be on purpose!  The goal for today will be to walk in an exercise of understanding what the Bible says and how people drive at different conclusions in that process.  The plan of this devotion is not to give you the answer to a discussion that has gone on for many years, but to show you how to think through that.

Jacob is doing some weird farming here.  For as long as I can remember, I have only ever heard this discussed in one singular way: there is a weird farming technique that seems like an old wives tale that Jacob is using here.  He is cutting stripes into the sticks and when the animal sees those and breed, it impacts what happens at birth.  Is that what is happening here?  Maybe.  The reasoning for that comes from verses 38-39.  It does not say this logic exactly, but it is what we assume when we read it.  From all I ever read or studied, this is the only logic that was offered up.

I was not aware there are differences of opinions here.  The difference of opinion that could be argued is rooted in the fact that those verses may seem to assume that logic, but that is not what it actually says.  Nor is there a cultural context that seems to lead us to read it that way.  In other words, in the ancient documents of sheep herding, there is nothing that points to this being a common way of thinking or even a superstitious way of thinking.  This way of thinking simply comes from what we think we are hearing this text say.  

Another opinion would come from the practices of sheep farming over the years.  This logic would say that Jacob is simply making decoys that trick the sheep into mating with sticks.  If that seems strange, it is, but the language of the Hebrew does actually say the sheep bred “on the sticks.”  The idea is that the sheep would mate when they came to the water troughs, so Jacob was tricking them. 

Are you ready for another layer?  There are actual medical journals that also talk about the benefit of these types of trees (almond and poplar) in the breeding of animals!  So some even argue that there were actual science-like things going on here!

The reason that it is ok to entertain all of these theories and even disagree on what is happening here, is because that is not the point of the text.  Regardless of what you decide you believe the text is saying, no one can deny that the text is saying that these were cheap tricks and the reality is they merited nothing really worth declaring that they are the full proof method for growing large herds of sheep!  What is really going on in this text is that God is blessing and doing things that are being passed off as some sort of manipulation or trickery on Laban or Jacob’s part!  Let the old farmers argue about methods and science, that is not the real story here.  The real story here is how God blesses in spite of good or bad methods!

Which theory seems like what the text is teaching to you?

Why do you think the author left all of this vague discussion in here?

What do you see about your life from this text?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 30:25-43

Question of the day:  What if you do get everything that you spend your whole life laboring and fighting for?

Yesterday, you would have read this section for the purpose of chasing out the specifics of what is happening in the story.  Today, we want to approach it from a different thought.  Go back in your mind through the story of Jacob.  We have landed in this place of him being a conniving character that seems willing to run over everyone in his way to get what he wants.  I would like to think that you know someone like that.  Most of the time, those people end up falling on their faces and getting a lesson in hard knocks in life.  

Well…think about that for a little while again.  Do they get that most of the time?  One of the common struggles for all of humanity and for the writers of the Bible, was the struggle of processing why good things happen to bad people.  It is a fair question that has been asked for many, many generations.  I wonder if we would not say that not enough people have found themselves falling on their faces in a way that allows them to think through life.  

Most of the time, that crisis moment that is helpful for a person happens at the bottom.  Rarely do you have a person that will really consider their life from the place of victory and success. A person will not really struggle with their life choices as long as those life choices seem to be working well enough.  

That is the place that I want to tease out this question of the day for us.  What if it all works and we do get it all?  What if we were to accomplish all of our dreams and reach all of our goals?  Or even most of them?  At the end of life, what does it matter?  I challenge you to spend time thinking about that from Jacob’s story, which is a story of a man that set out to make a blessing happen, and good, bad, or not even a result of his work, he got it.  So what?  What’s the point of even a successful life?

How would you, as a friend to Jacob, talk to him about this and bring him to the truths of the Bible?

When was the last time that you wrestled with the deeper and more fulfilling meaning of your life?  What did you come up with?

How have you had to change priorities and dreams in order to do things God’s way recently?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 31:1-21

Question of the day: How many times do you need to be told there is more going on than meets the eye?

When I am reading this story, this is where it starts to get a bit confusing on the specific events.  Jacob tells his wives about a dream that he had, but the dream is not talked about in this story.  So either we are not given information when the dream happened, or Jacob is referencing the dream from a while back at Bethel with the whole ladder to Heaven thing.  Or Jacob is just telling his wives that God said something to get them to move away from their father.  Regardless of what you think about Jacob at this point, he is not totally cured of his trickery ways.  He is still implementing all of those ways of being.  You may say that is because he has to!  Laban is making him act like that!  And I think that is the tension you should be feeling in the storytelling. 

No matter where you landed with your interpretation of Jacob’s sheep herding methods or even Laban’s methods to sabotage Jacob’s methods, this is one of the first times we get Jacob really landing on the truth that there is a far greater force working in the background of his life than just his really good ideas.

I often find myself liking my own ideas.  You know what I mean!  You too think that your ideas are good ideas, that is why you let them escape from your mind.  So I also find it really easy to blame my success on my good ideas more often than not.  I wonder how much is happening in the background of our lives, that God is doing, that we do not get to see or even know?  I want to make it a point to stop and think about that reality and thank God, in a moment of worship, for how He works things for my good when I do not even realize it.

When was the last time you found something in your life that you overlooked and turned out to be a blessing for you?

How have you stopped and thanked God for that work in your life?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Genesis 31:22-35

Question of the day: Who can take from you what God has intended for you to have?

I hope after reading this part of the story, you are bothered by the injustice that sits unresolved.  By that, I mean, I hope that you find a twisted strange comfort in the story ending that way.  Laban’s part of this story is coming to a close and nothing in his family is resolved.  He is losing contact with all of his kids, grandkids, and so much more.  He has spent 20 years tricking Jacob and the end result is that they agreed to just forget about it and go on.  

Where is the comfort in that?  The strange comfort in that is the ability to relate to it.  Maybe you don’t call it injustice when you think about it, but isn’t that what happens when a family dynamic just changes and never gets resolved?  Kids move away, families grow, life keeps moving and the past is forgotten, except those odd moments that we are forced to process what happened to us or was taken from us so long ago.  

It is a strange comfort, because this story shows us that injustice does happen.  It happens all the time, in fact.  In a country where we pride ourselves on people being brought to justice and having a great system to bring about justice, there are sometimes that justice is not what happens.  And in those moments, we are just wronged and experience being sinned against.  So then what?  God promises justice.  So that is and will be coming soon, but in the meantime, the comfort we can find is that what happened to us did not take from us what God felt that we needed to have.  In fact, if God wants me to have it, there is no one that can take it from me.  If I am following God, I will have all that I need to accomplish the task of following Him!

How have you experienced injustice in a relationship in your life that was left unresolved?

How have you tried to resolve that before?

How does Jacob’s story help you with the injustices that you have had to experience?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 31:36-55

It is like listening to a conversation that you have all of the inside information for, but the truth just doesn’t seem to be coming out. Rachel gets away with what she had stolen.  Jacob gets away with what he had stolen.  Laban gets away with what he had stolen.  No one seems to have won between the tricking contest that everyone played along.  The way it concludes is that they just agree to disagree and just stop being after each other the whole time.  

I don’t know how I would expect it to end, that would be better, but it doesn’t seem good the way it is.  Or maybe not fair.  

Can you imagine living in that relationship with Laban for 2 years where you knew he was cheating you the whole time and had every intent on just to continue doing that? Can you imagine being Laban and having the knowledge that Jacob, somehow, some way, was really good for business and the more he was around, the more wealthy he got, but also knowing that Jacob was trying to make everything fall apart and was being selfish?

Then there is Rachel.  The story was told of Jacob stealing the birthright and the blessing from his family, running away from them and then having a long list of children.  Now, Rachel is running away, after a story of so many animals being born to them, and she steals the household gods, which were far more than statues, but rather were much like the livelihood of the family and were related to wealth…like the birthright and the blessing.  This story just has so many twists and turns…and it's not done yet.

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  'If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. '
Galatians 5:25

Sermon Sentence: There is not a force of chaos that is capable of stopping the message of the Gospel.  

Read Genesis 29:31-35

Today, let's think about Leah.

That is not a lot of reading.  You probably brushed it off in a matter of seconds, but my goodness there are a lot of feelings in that section!  Why not do it the justice the story deserves and just sit thinking about it all for a while.  Read it again.  Read it three times.  She is not a crazy lady that just can’t get it together.  Hear her story from her perspective and your heart should shatter.  I truly found myself tearing up reading this and trying to do the same thing.  Leah felt hated.  She seemed to grow up her whole life in that comparison with her sister.  

When she finally felt like she had experienced what she thought she needed to not feel hated, rather than accepting that blessing from the hand of God, she turned it around and hoped that she could get the affection she desired from her husband.  The husband that didn’t want her.  Can you imagine what she is carrying?  Have you not seen children (or even the grown ups) that long for the love from the person that just does not seem to love them?  They are incapable of seeing the love that is coming their way, the love of God.  And even when they get it, they use that gift as a prop to garnish the love that they think they need more than anything.  Imagine, she received the love of God and turned it to try to get a smaller version of the very thing God gave her.  This is so sad and breaks my heart to imagine. 

Look at the names of each kid and what it means.  What do you learn about what Leah is feeling with each birth?

How have you experienced something in your life like this?

How have you walked with someone else that was struggling with feeling loved?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 30:1-8

Today, let's think about Rachel.

Rachel’s is a jealousy that seems to stink more than Leah’s.  I am not saying one is the hero and the other is the villain, real life just never seems to be that cut and dry.  One day I wake up as the villain and one day I wake up as a version of a hero.  But Rachel is the favored woman that at least has what the other women seem to long for.  That is too simple for this story, but you get what I mean?  She is not struggling for her husband’s attention, so it is so much easier for Leah to look at her and live in frustration at what she just doesn’t seem to understand.  If you followed me in that logic, you fell into the trap.  Rachel had what Leah wanted, but Rachel did not have all that she wanted.   The struggle of barrenness is a theme that runs in the Bible at a ridiculous repetition.  As we talked about in the sermon, that struggle goes back to the Genesis 3 story of the fall in the Garden.  

Feelings are strange things to sort through.  When we don’t have what we want and we can’t do anything about it, there is an anger that rises up.  It is hurt, but it feels so much like anger because it has nowhere to go.  So the sadness, the hurt, bursts out of our hearts and it burns somewhere.  Rachel was hurting.  She was jealous.  And as the temperature grew and grew on that, the only logical thing she could come up with was to blame her husband.  That is not logical, but you do understand that hurt and sadness has a way of growing its own logic?  Jacob, as we will discuss more tomorrow, protects himself from the faulty logic with anger.  That is the problem, the sadness in Rachel still needs to go somewhere, because she is not going to be able to process it.  The distorted logic grows a new limb and the ideas start to get really weird.  Maybe if Jacob has a child with the servant, we can count the point as a salve for Rachel’s pain?  Left turns never seem to solve chaotic reality.

Have you ever experienced barrenness as a wife or even a husband walking with a wife through the struggle?  What was that like and where did you see versions of these feelings in that situation?

How have you experienced sadness that landed in misplaced anger as a way to deal with what you were feeling?

How do you see this in your life today and how can you walk through it?
 
How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 30:1-8

Today let’s think about Jacob.

By the time we get to this part of the story, who really wants to empathize with Jacob?  He seems to be the villain and whatever comes to him he has earned. Even in these stories of this unhealthy battle between two sisters vying for his attention and meaning in life, he goes along with a stupid plan that just involves him being a selfish man that seems to take advantage of his own desires.  I won’t go into detail in this devotion, but I think we could all agree a marriage that is open and structured like this is definitely nowhere near healthy.  If you take the approach of thinking that each person has to make the decision in their situations of what is good in a marriage and what is not, I would challenge your wisdom or your understanding of how humanity is.  Bottomline, this is stupid and full of unhealth.  

That’s one side, and I dare not lean back the other direction in an attempt to justify Jacob’s choices that he clearly still had, but the feelings are something I have been near.  Rachel, the love of his life, the woman that he worked 14 years just to be with, is hurting deeply because she can’t have children.  And hurt people react.  Most of the time when that reaction comes out, it is aimed in the wrong direction, because they don’t quite know how to feel.  Did Rachel want a child desperately?  Why would I argue otherwise?  Did Jacob, even in the selfish way that he was, also not feel the debilitating pain of the woman he loves and wrestle with the feelings of not being able to provide would could make her happy?  Surely.  That is what love does.  You can’t love and not feel.  So when she turns on him in blame, that hits  a place of hurt unlike anything else.  Rachel, unable to know what to do with her feelings, lashes out at Jacob.  Jacob hurting deeply for his wife and then finding himself attacked by her, lashes out in anger as well.  Maybe the confusion in the hurt is what helps drive him to the foolishness of the set up.  Either way, chaos has descended in everyone involved in this family.

Have you ever felt the attack of someone that was hurting and then turned in on you?

How did you react in that situation and how should you have reacted?

What do you learn from Jacob in this part of the story?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Genesis 30:9-23

Today, let’s think about Zilpah and Bilhah.

So far, we have seen how Leah was the victim.  Then we talked about how Rachel was the victim also, while victimizing others as well.  Then we looked at how Jacob was a victim, even though it pains us to look at that.  But today, we will consider the real victims in this situation.  They are the casualties that don’t even have a real place in the story other than just being stepped on and tossed around.  They are the ones that are used.  

I think it is a valuable lesson to learn that chaos always has victims.  The victims are us and them, but they are also way more than that.  Until we realize the far reaching power and destruction of sin, which we have called chaos, the choices and the moves of the unwise, or that which did not come from the mouth of God, we will not be able to see the full impact of the stories happening around us.  That's the sad reality of our lives and foolish choices, we probably don’t ever get the full picture of where the ripples went out.  I have sat and talked to many, many children that have grown up in situations that had nothing to do with them, but rather were that of their parents or another relative, but now, years later they are sitting in the rocking boat of the waters that were poured from that chaos.  The Bible gives a piece of the rest of the story of these ripples, but I have to wonder just how deep and life altering this pan played out for these two women who are mentioned only as sidebars in this story, Zilpah and Bilhah.

How have you been a victim in a chaos that you did not participate in or have a part in?

Why do you think the Bible does not talk more about the story of these two women?

How do you think God feels about all of this and where do you get that?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 29:31-30:23

Today, let’s think about God’s perspective on this whole thing.

Let’s start with two statements that are completely true:  1. This is not God’s plan.  2. This is the avenue that God chooses to use to bring about the Gospel message to the world.  Both of those can be true.  In other words, God can use this situation without endorsing this situation.  To me, that is the best news of this gut-wrenching and heartbreaking story. I would encourage you to notice that God has not given any instructions at all.  The last time God spoke in this story was back in Bethel when Jacob was asleep.  Since then, we have no reason to believe that God is encouraging or orchestrating any of this.  So where is God in all of this?  Now that is the incredible thing to realize!

He is not once encouraging any of the behavior, but He is hearing all of the hurt.  This story is SO far removed from God’s will and ways, but God’s ear is not far away from it.  He hears Leah when she feels hated, and He answers.  He hears Rachel when she is pained, and He answers.  God answering in these situations is not the same as God endorsing these situations. God’s answers are in the area of His blessings.  Remember what the blessing is shown as?  Life!  So God blessed this family that is bent on destruction and chaos with more life.  Is that really the best thing for them?  Who would want to bring a baby into a chaotic, stupid mess like this?  I get what you are saying and I am feeling the same things, but I also know the end of the story!  I know that this plan, as strange as it is and as little as I can possibly explain it all, it ends in life…FOR EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES!  So what is the lesson for those of us that are in chaos and wondering how all of this will come out?  Trust God hears you.  Trust God has a plan.  Turn away from the chaos and turn towards Him!  On the other side of trusting God is life!

How does this idea help you with where you are in your life today?  

What is the big takeaway for you in this section of the story?

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  'If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. '

Galatians 5:25

Sermon Sentence: All of our worldly desires leave us empty and disappointed in the light of the morning.

Read Genesis 29:1-14

I introduced my kids to one of  my favorite movies the other day, “The Princess Bride.”  It is one of my favorites because of how funny it is and how it poses to be a good love story.  I don’t do too well with the other kinds of love stories that are serious and have the goal of making you feel a lot of emotions.  I recently discovered the band Ludo which is famous for their rock love ballads.  They write non-serious lyrics to be presented in a non-serious way, but have a great amount of depth to them.  It could be fun to look up the band, or watch the movie, but that is not what I am trying to say here.  My point is that this is not a “good” love story.  It is a love story, but almost presented with a few comical and seemingly exaggerated points that are meant to take you on a ride of working it all out in your mind. Chapter 29 starts with an important line…this is about Jacob’s journey east.  Don’t forget where our study has landed us in understanding that the eastward direction is meant the same as a downward spiral.  It is not a good thing.  It is also important to consider this in contrast to Esau’s “love” story(ies) where he seemed to be marrying everything that moved and made his parents mad. 

Love stories are comical.  We have a tendency to tell them in flowery language and embellished details with happy endings.  That leaves us longing for the fairy tales of our own kind and also with the constant disappointments that come when we don’t get what we dreamed of.  Jacob is setting the stage for that.  This story won’t go well…so enjoy it while it is sugar-coated and don’t try to figure out all of the specifics, but rather figure out what the writer wants you to hear.

Why do you think this part of the story is worth telling in the grand scheme of where the story seems to be going? Why not just skip this part and say they met and then tell the next story?

How many stories can you name in the Bible with the “love found by a well” theme?

What parts of this story are confusing to you and don’t seem to make sense?

Read Genesis 29:15-30
Part of me wants to cheer at this section in the story.  Jacob finally gets a piece of what he deserves!  But then I also realize that is a pretty unfair sentence and I start to feel like Laban is the worst Jacob.  That is all ok to feel in this story, the best that I can tell.  We are “east” of Jacob’s family, which was “east” of God’s ideas. So we are pretty far from God’s plans and the things which He smiles on.  Maybe a good lesson from this story is that there is no good advice for father-in-laws, marriage, or anything like that.  These are bad stories, not stories of model citizens that we want to be like.  This sort of chaos is just what happens “east” of God’s presence. 

In the sermon, we presented the idea of verse 25 as much deeper than just about this event.  This event is the caricature that allows us to process the teaching of the text.  All of life’s promises that we spend all of our time, money, and efforts chasing, hoping they will bring us some sort of happiness or joy or acceptance, in the light of morning, are revealed to be nothing more than a deception that we gave way more than we wanted to!  The story seems to leave many questions as we try to figure out how Laban could be that crooked, how the room could have been that dark, and how much alcohol could lead to those sort of results…but that is the point.  That is what we are finding over and over again in our lives.

What event from your life does this story bring to your mind, maybe where you spent more than you should have or tried harder than it ended up being worth?

What lesson do you learn from this story?

How else does the Bible teach this lesson in another section of the scripture?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Isaiah 44:9-20
The next couple of days, I have some fairly comical writings in the Bible that mock the idols of false religions.  They can be funny, but they are not funny.  Idols are dangerous.  I mean, sort of.  And that is the point that the Bible keeps going back to over and over again.  It is absurd on a strangely comical level to have gods that are not the One True God.  That is why the Bible makes fun of them.  They can be not funny when people start to find themselves trapped in the worship that leads to death and darkness, like the child sacrifices to Baal. But the danger is not in the god itself, which is really not powerful at all. The danger is in the deception that people can fall for. It is the deception that can lead to death, or any variation of that idea.  The comedy can draw us in because we laugh at people for being so delusional and easily miffed, but then the warning is allowed to land in our hearts:  that is what we are doing as we spend our resources, make our sacrifices, and choose to give the attention to those things that are not exactly idols, but really seem to be playing the part.  

God’s words are important in light of this.  They are the anchor points that remind us of the truth and draw us back out of the confusion.  We are not to be worshipping them.  Who are “they?”  Anything or anyone that is not God Almighty that wants our attention or our hearts!

How does this section help you see the idea of idols around your life?

What is God laying on your heart to pay attention to right now?

Why is it important to know that idols are not real or have no real power?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Exodus 32:1-20
I often laugh at this story.  Maybe it is one of those awkward laughs that seem to be at the wrong time, but nonetheless I laugh.  Here is the part that gets me: Aaron was left in charge while Moses went to get the Law from God’s own hands.  While Moses was up on the mountain setting in stone the relationship and covenant for the people and God, Aaron decided to make his great step up to the plate of leadership move.  Fast forward and everyone is naked and dancing around a golden calf, talking about how it is kind of like the god that delivered them from Egypt.  That is funny because of how far left of center that scene plays out.  I have lots of questions that I wonder about, but most of them would just lead to even more questions.  I don’t think the point of this story is the comedic take on it, but the absurdity lends itself to some comedy.

The story is another one that, under all of its layers, is really just a picture of what I struggle with all the time.  Israel seems bent on the pattern of making promises to God and then missing the mark of those promises.  That is what I find in my life so often.  How could Aaron get so far off the mark of leadership here?  Probably the same way I find myself constantly giving in to moments that leave me questioning what I was really thinking there.  

How do you think the wheels fell off the whole situation with Aaron?  What events could have led to something like this?

What do you notice about Moses’ response in standing up for the people?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Exodus 32:21-35
I am over here laughing at this story again.  I know, it is still awkward, but listen to this story!  Moses finally confronts Aaron about how things got so far out of control and Aaron tells him he doesn’t have a clue.  He just told everyone to give some jewelry and out jumped this golden calf!  It was a miracle.  Sure Aaron, and a lie.  It is absurd to me that he thinks that the real story is so far out there, that this one has to be closer to believable!  

Moses steps in between the people and asks for the punishment they deserve to be on him.  He is willing to sacrifice himself for the people.  Aaron is willing to lie to get out of trouble and throw the people under the bus, while Moses is willing to give himself up for them.  Which one do you think looks more like the good leader in this story?  God does not accept the life of Moses for the sins of the people.  It would not work like that, they would be responsible for their own sins.  This pattern would continue until one day a far better Moses would lay His life down for the people

How is Jesus shown as a better Moses in the New Testament?

What does this story teach you about repentance?

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:  'If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. '
Galatians 5:25

Sermon Sentence: God’s offer in the middle of our brokenness is the call to follow Him to real life.

Read Genesis 28:1-9

My whole life, I read the Bible using the Bible-like language in my head.  That matters because the voice in your head is what makes you interpret the story in a certain way.  I read the stories in a mono-tone dry inflection with the assumption that all of these characters are really good dudes with really good stories.  That was so boring.  It is why I was never really interested in the Bible.  Now I allow the storyteller to tell the stories, and not my assumed approach.  That is why I get so captured in stories like Jacob’s.  It is so dramatic and absurd and he is such a bad character.  The Bible has this weird struggle of trying to portray the perfect goodness of God in the stories of the worst sorts of people.  

When you leave chapter 27, you are wondering how this whole thing that was started through Abraham, the revelation of God’s good plan of blessing all the world, is going to continue through this seemingly scoundrel-ridden generation.  If the plan of God is going to get fumbled anywhere, it is here.  Did you notice that the WHOLE story of 26 and 27 was told without God even being involved?

How do you think Jacob is doing at this moment?  Does he think he has it together and feels he is on a good path, or do you imagine him struggling with all that just unfolded?

Jacob leaves home (forced out) without anything.  Don’t forget that.  He has an idea and a thought, but there is no actual thing yet.  He has the “birthright” and the “blessing”, but those are just ideas at this point and nothing more.  Do you think he really thinks he has anything or that he is still in a tight spot and with no real value in life?

Do your best to make the case for why Esau is like he is.  Argue his perspective for him and explain what you think he needs at this moment.

How does this become part of your prayer?

Read Genesis 28:10-22
“Jacob’s life had reached a moment unlike what he had expected.”

This is the part of the story that my imagination starts to play off.  To me, this section of this story reads like a country song and the images that go through my head are that which you would see in a music video. I see a really, really cheap and shady hotel.  After spending what he has, Jacob is given his room key on a  large plastic key chain and he makes his way to the door of his room where he is crashing for the night.  He is exhausted and the paint is peeling off the door as he arrives and tries to jam the key into the rusty keyhole.  Inside the hotel, which does not have good lighting at all, and therefore a strange yellow tint to the lighting, he finds the bed that is far from clean.  He is wondering how in the world his life ended up here as he lays down, trying not to think about what he is in danger of in this place.  Racing through his mind is the struggle and realization of what the last few days have made his life and wondering if he would ever get to see his family again, or if his brother would come looking for him.  He has nothing.  He plans to simply travel far east to an unknown place in hopes of finding family he has never met and getting help. Life is not good.  Not at all.  Slowly, exhaustion starts to take over and he drifts off to sleep.  And then….God introduces Himself….

This was my dramatic retelling of the way I imagine the story.  How can you relate to where Jacob is and how have you experienced a moment like this?

How has God randomly shown up in your life in an attempt to get your attention before?

What did you learn from that moment that you often think about today?
 
How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 28:10-22 (again)
“God was trying to get Jacob’s attention.”

When you read this story, I wonder what you think about the silence of God up until this chapter?  We often say things that we experience are God trying to get our attention.  For instance, a car accident happens and we say that one of the reasons for it is that God was trying to get our attention.  The reason that I have often struggled with that is because it almost sounds like we are saying that God ran that car off the road and not that the driver was inebriated and that is why they wrecked.  The logic is simple, if I was in the car and I was trying to get the drivers attention with a wreck, then I would grab the steering wheel and land it into a ditch.  So it sounds like we are saying that is what God is doing.  But God’s attention-getting methods are far more versatile than that.  They can leave intact the fact that the driver was inebriated and that God was trying to get the attention of that person.  That doesn’t mean he grabbed the wheel and ran them into the ditch.  

Have you ever thought about God’s uninvolvement and silence being a way of getting our attention?  I imagine Jacob’s life as one that is careening toward this really bad direction and after a few warnings to pay attention, God steps back and says, “You are going to wreck the car, but you won’t listen to me telling you to stop.  So go ahead, I will catch you at the crash site…then we will talk.”   Jacob has crashed.  God met him at the lowest point, the whole time desiring to get his attention, and now He has it.  I feel that story is familiar enough to experiences in my life as well.

Do you see a time in your life that God was uninvolved and silent and that was Him trying to get your attention? 

Why do we have to “crash” to hear better?

How do we avoid getting to those crash sites and making a deliberate effort to hear God before we lose control of our lives?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Ephesians 4:17-32

“God gave Jacob a glimpse of his life from God’s own perspective.”

In our story of Jacob from Genesis 28, we have been following this incredible scene where Jacob has a dream and God reveals Himself to him.  If you would have taken the events of chapter 28 and put them before 27, it would not have been as big of a deal.  The real surprise comes when God starts to tell Jacob what it is that He wants to do for Jacob.  When I read it, I notice that everything that Jacob just finished wrecking his whole family over and deceiving everyone close to him, are the very things God promises to give him.  You could read that story in one of two ways: you could read it as if Jacob won the birthright in his plan of trickery and he also secured the blessing in his plan of deception, so that is why he is getting it.  When I read the story like that, it sounds like God gets played the whole time and falls into Jacob’s trap.  I just don’t feel that God is like that, or even vulnerable to that.  That means the only other way to read this story is that God truly does desire to give Jacob this.  Not that He has been tricked into it or that Jacob had earned it.  God just wanted to give it to him.  So Jacob does all of the tricking and even though he reads like the villain of the story, God still loves him and desires this level of good for him.  

God wants good life for me.  That is a struggle of my every single day.  I don’t think that Jacob deserves it, but then that leaves the door open for me to also realize that I don’t deserve it either. He doesn’t just desire good for me, but it’s even deeper than that.  He desires me to be good, so He makes me good with His death, burial, and resurrection.  This is what the Bible means about me having a New Life.

There are two halves to these verses.  The first half describes the way you must “no longer walk.”  The second is the way you walk now.  How do these two ideas describe your past versus your present?

How does this passage explain how belief changes behavior?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Psalm 84
“Jacob responds by putting God on hold.”

Spoiler alert- but Jacob goes right back to living the life of tricking people even in his new home.  It would seem that this story of his dream about God leads him to big change in life.  He is a follower of God now, right!?  No.  That all ended with Jacob turning the deal back to God.  “IF, you do all of these things,  then I will follow you.”  That’s not a conversion.  That is not following God.  That is simply expressing interest in the idea of what God is talking about.  The problem is that many confessions and decisions amount to little more than that same thing.  God is not interested or needing to be put on trial.  He has been proven over and over again.  He is not the faithless one.

Being interested in God is not as good as being in the presence of God.  Seeing a picture of God is not as good as seeing God.  I am not saying these things are what actually happened, but that these are a great way of seeing what is happening in this story.  There is not a greater place to be than in the presence of God, dwelling in his courts and before his throne.  That is where real life flows from.  That is a statement that is about far more than proximity, but also about a spiritual truth we need to understand.  

What verse stands out to you in this Psalm the most and why?

How can you make this about your life today?


How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:
'If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. '

Galatians 5:25

Sermon Sentence: Even the darkest of intentions can be veiled by the words that spin things to seem innocent.  

Read 1 Timothy 6:1-10

In the last little while, we have really attacked the idea of our desires for things that we don’t have, fueled by the thought that we deserve them, need them, or have earned them.  Over and over again we are wrestling with the idea of asking if there is enough for us.  We do it each and every day.  Or at the very least, we are forced to live in response to what we think about that question.  This week, we will return to our texts in Genesis and study out the story from the sermon, but let’s start here.  Are you content in life?  What does that mean?  It would appear at first glance, that these passages are for the extreme love of money and possessions, and not for the simple struggle of whether or not we feel we are a version of blessed in life.  The questions that we wrestle through in life each day are rarely on the extremes, but the root of it all is the same.  Exactly how little can I have and still experience contentment?  That is the type of question that should involve a lot of time in reflection.

Why do you think Paul could connect the two ideas of conceit and covetousness?  How are they connected?

What does Paul mean that if we “have food and clothing” we can be content?  Do you think he really meant that?

How have you felt the snare of discontentment lately in your life?

How does this become part of your prayer?

Read Genesis 3
In the sermon, we presented this chapter as an important one.  I know that you have read it a few times, but please keep reading it.  It is the archetype story of all of the other stories in the Bible.  The way we presented the story of Jacob in Genesis 27, was that it was a more detailed version of this story.  Like a play is an acted out version of a story, so these two are closely related.  Not only these two, but so many others in the Bible.  That is why there will always be extreme value in spending a lot of time meditating on this story. Even after reading it hundreds of times over the years, I still find myself discovering and understanding it in new ways over and over again.  
Read it through once and try to understand where Adam was in the whole process and how he was working through each stage.  He gets full responsibility for his actions, and he should, but Eve and the snake play against him through the whole story, making it feel like he was forced into a decision.  Once again, he was not…but the storyteller is telling it all this was for a reason.

What sticks out to you this time when you are reading this account?

What do you notice about this story that parallels the story of Jacob we read in the sermon?

What does this offer to you in your life at this point?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 26:6-35
My goal in the sermons is to tell the story of Jacob from the perspective of the life he spent chasing a blessing.  We will not cover all of the stories in between in the sermons.  The devotions are a good place to read between the lines and become more and more familiar with the story.  In our sermon from Sunday, we talked about Genesis 27.  Obviously, this is the story before that.  It is the story of the early years of Isaac’s life and how God was involved in that.  When I first read it, I don’t get a whole lot of obvious application.  It doesn’t flow well out of the overall story that we have been looking at, but we can gain some insight into how the writer wants us to follow along in his story telling. Isaac has the blessing from the hand of God.  Remember, we are using the narrative to view it as an object that is being passed down, and currently, it is in Isaac’s hand.  So the question becomes “Can Isaac trust God to bless him?”  

It seems the storyteller wants us to believe that, but it also seems like Isaac doesn’t fully believe it.  He lies to make the situation work in his favor, to protect what he needs to protect. I don’t even know that I fully get the point of the lie, but it is obviously a lie.  When it is discovered that Rebekah is really his wife, this Abimelech is even upset at him for lying.  Even Abimelech believed that he was going to be blessed while Isaac was struggling with it!

How do you struggle reminding yourself that God will provide?

Describe a time that you struggled waiting on God’s provision and rather decided to get out ahead of Him.

How would you do this differently now?

How does this become your prayer today?

(Today’s devotion written by Pastor Tom Jones)
Read Genesis 27:1-14

Family dysfunction has existed since the fall of Adam of Eve in the Garden of Eden. There was a sibling murder in the original family. In Genesis chapter 27, we see the continuation of dysfunction. One reads stories such as our reading today and is left wondering how families get themselves into such messes.
The main characters in this story are Isaac (dad), Rebekah (mom), and Esau and Jacob (twin brothers). This is a story of deception and greed, not unlike what we see in many cases today. Reading further will show some of the consequences of the actions…and there always are consequences.

What do you believe happened to Rebekah when she heard Isaac talking to Esau about a blessing?

Why was Esau the brother who was going to receive the blessing (hint: consider the birth order)?

What choices could both Rebekah and Jacob have made during this time?

What might have been the reason Rebekah was displaying such favoritism toward Jacob?

What do you take away from this story?

How does this become part of your prayer?

(Today’s devotion written by Pastor Tom Jones)
Read Genesis 27:15-46

In today’s reading, we begin to see the consequences of Rebekah’s plan and how individuals are hurt. When Rebekah heard Isaac’s plan to bless their firstborn (by only minutes) son, she began to devise a plan in which Jacob would be blessed. What might have seemed to be a good idea at the time, would prove to have serious consequences. 
It can be easy to become critical of Rebekah and have thoughts that we would NEVER do such a thing. Her actions seem inconceivable to most people. EXACTLY why Rebekah took such actions is left to speculation (for those so inclined, ask ChatGPT why Rebekah favored Isaac for some interesting thoughts).
We also see that Isaac loved Esau because of the food Esau supplied, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Favoritism seemed to be a family trait. 

How have you experienced favoritism in your life?

How might you be expressing favoritism to those around you?

What were some of the consequences we see in this story?

Do you think the reward was worth the effort and risks?

What do you take away from this story?

How does this become part of your prayer?

Memory Verse:

'If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. '

Galatians 5:25

Read 2 Timothy 3:10-17
When you build anything, there has to be a foundation.  There has to be a base and a solid ground that everything is stable on.  There is no difference for the church.  Not the building, obviously that is true,  but the church is more than a building.  The foundation that the church has to be settled on is God’s word.  If that is the source, than we are all under the same teachings and considerations.  

Here, Paul is doing the work of settling that to Timothy, one of the young pastors that he was raising up. For Paul, the only teachings worth being given so much credibility is that which came from God’s breathed words.  They are good for many things and you should spend some time looking at those things and thinking through them.  It would do us all good to refresh our minds on the teachings that we have, as it talked about in Acts 2, “devoted ourselves to.”

What does verses 16 and 17 tell us God’s words are good for?

What do you think Paul was referring to when he talked about the “sacred writings”?  How do you know this and why is that important?

What do you think it means to be “breathed by God?”

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
This section has always read weird to me.  When I think of the Lord’s Supper, I am thinking about the juice and the bread that we get in super small portions, as part of the worship service.  The point is not really a meal.  The point is more of a symbol that reminds me of Jesus sacrifice for me.  That is the same thing here, it just doesn’t have all of the elements that are present in my mind.  In fact, it seems like maybe there is more here than what is in my mind.  That is where the confusion sets in.  Is this about the Lord’s Supper, or not?  Well it is.  The church at Corinth just did things in a bit of a different method than we do.  The Lord’s Supper to them was an actual supper.  It still had the elements that we think of, but Paul is talking about a fellowship dinner that has seemed to get out of control in this church.  People were eating more than their fair share and some were being sent home without.  Maybe this was done out of convenience because of the times that everyone arrived, or maybe there was another idea here.  

The real point of this text is to explain the work of the church, the fellowship of the church, but through the lens of a supper.  Paul is explaining how many different people from many different walks of life can share a table. That was unheard of in this day and age.  But it was a Christian staple.  The Jesus people did that.  And the reason that they did it, was because of the very idea that Jesus brought into their midst through their salvation.

What do you think was happening in this church that was causing this issue?

How does the gospel help address the problems they had at this supper?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Acts 4:23-37
One of the core values we should hold in the church is that of prayer.  This story shows us a great picture of how the early church prayed.  This prayer appears to be a corporate prayer, or one that was prayed in a group of people and showed that they were united in their hearts by calling out for the same thing.  When we pray corporately like this, we are sharing the desires of our hearts and also calling out before God what we desire as a collection of people.  

What are the things we would pray for as a church at Keystone?

How have these things become the things that you have also prayed for?

Why would you pray for boldness in your life today?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Acts 5:17-42
I think this story greatly illustrates the priority of teaching in the early church.  It was even at the expense of threats against their lives that they were willing to keep doing what they were told not to do.  Teaching was such a core doctrine in the early church that they did not let go of it in the face of persecution.  Without the teaching of God’s word, they would not have seen the church grow, so it was a must for their ministry.  It even seems to be the very thing that the church was known for, because it is what the authorities came after them about. 

It makes me wonder if the church is known for that as much as it was then?  Do our events and our outreaches come from the desire to get attention or be known, or do they come from the desire to be able to share the gospel through the teachings of Jesus?

Do you think that the church places the same priority on teaching?

How could we reach people with teaching God’s word today?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Acts 6:1-7

In the sermon from Sunday, we talked about a core value at Keystone of serving those around us.  The very heart of the gospel is the idea of Jesus the great Server that gave up His life for us.  This idea is summed up in the word “ministry.”  It carries the idea of caring for those that need cared for.  In our story here in Acts, we can see that they too saw an abundance of people that needed help.  There were so many people that needed help that it appears that it started to conflict with teaching and praying.   The leaders did not think this was the best way to approach the call of the church.  I don’t think that the point was that there should be people that only taught and prayed and there should be people that only served.  The idea was that there was a need to share the ministry to other people. The solution was that they designated certain people to focus on the ministry to other people and that allowed the teachers to be able to also do what they were called to do better.  This led to the church growing.  

I think it is valuable to notice that the early church, although it was built off of many people that knew and followed Jesus, it was not everyone’s goal teach the people about Jesus' teachings.  There were some that needed to do that, but the majority of people, or disciples, were to serve those in need.  That was the work of the greater number of people.  The teachings, as it states in Ephesians 4, was for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.

How do you know of ways you can serve people through the ministry of Keystone Church?

Who do you think should serve people through the ministry of the church?

How are you involved in serving people around you?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Memory Verse:

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.

James 1:12

Sermon Sentence: At the root of all of our struggles seems to be the choice of where we get blessings in that moment.

Read Genesis 25:19-34

The Bible has all sorts of different kinds of writings in it.  There is poetry, history, letters, and even songs.  I like that and some are more relatable to me than others. Have you ever been told a good story just for the sake of hearing a good story?  Parents do this with their kids all the time!  I know I have told stories about my kids that have probably left people wondering why I was even telling them.  The Bible doesn’t have stories like that.  The stories are there because they matter.  When i run across a story that seems a bit strange, I remind myself that a strange story points to a greater meaning and I might want to take some extra time to unpack this one. 

I don’t think the story of Jacob and Esau is just a cute baby story that carries no real significance.  I think it is the opening story to a narrative that carries weight in character flaws and story arches that really need to be paid attention to.  This is going to matter. In our reading here, it seems like in the first half of what we read Jacob and Esau are at birth.  The very next story they seem to be older showing that they hunt and make soup.  When I read about the negotiations in this section, I have to understand that the birthright is no small piece of inheritance.  This was a significant transaction that was being made over a bowl of stew.  The drama is high!

Why do you think Esau was so ready to make this deal when the stakes on each side seem pretty lopsided?

What do you think, after you have read these two stories, you should be thinking about what kind of a guy Jacob was?

Why do you think Jacob was looking to secure the birthright at this point in the story?  How did the plot go in his head?

What do you take away from this story?

How does this become part of your prayer?

Read James 4:1-12
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?”  Well James…that’s a loaded question for sure!  What are we NOT fighting about seems to be the easier question to ask.  Every single time I ask that question of my kids, there is a different answer.  “They did this, so I did this!”  While that is probably true most of the time, James is not expecting us to look up from our current fights and answer what caused it.  Most of the time we want to blame others.  I am doing what I am doing because you did something to me! So I figure, if you are going to do that, then I am going to do this!  

James is aiming much deeper than this.  James is looking for the root of ALL of the fights, not just this one.  Sure the answer will be the same, but it will also be much, much bigger.  James is asking, “Why do you struggle with other people?”  Because we are selfish people.  You are instantly wanting to push back at me and declare that this fight is not that and it would be unfair to look at it like that.  You may be right.  But somewhere in that struggle, when you strip away all of the other things that are clouding opinions and clear sight, you will find the desire of someone else over the desire of the other.  Or maybe one desire at the expense of the other.  When we don’t have what we want, we ask for it.  James talks about it being in prayer. The problem is that what we want is mostly for our own comfort and benefit, and that is why we think we deserve it.  The problem with that takes us right back to the struggle of our selfish desires.

How have you experienced a fight or quarrel this week that was the result of selfish desires?

Are we supposed to take from this that God does not want us to have anything for our own desires but only to serve other people?  Why or why not?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Genesis 4
You read this story just recently.  Genesis is such a neat book because it tells parables within its stories.  The question then becomes whether or not the stories are meant to be true or just a lesson.  I think that is a bad question.  It can be both true and also a lesson.  Especially these stories in the early parts of Genesis, you get big picture stories that are meant to be the vehicles of meaning and purpose.  This one is the story of the first murder.  The point of the story is not to explain murder, but the human problem that exists in the heart of all humans.  It is almost like this story is saying to us, “This is what it is all like.”  What happens when humans don’t get what they think they deserve?  That is a real question that is worth sitting and thinking about.  I think it is the same question that is being asked in the Jacob and Esau story.  Jacob wanted something that was not due to him.  He was the type of person that was going to try and take it.  Cain’s version of the story is meant to pull us all into the table for the discussion, making us realize that this is the very thing that we all deal with all the time.  What do I do when I don’t get what I want, declaring that I deserve it?  What if I was not noticed like I hoped or expected to be?  Have you not had that very same struggle even this week?  That is the weight that this story is carrying.  It is not just about one of those families from sooo many years ago. It is about every single person, every single day.

Why do you think Cain became so angry?

Is there any indication in this story that Cain gave the wrong kind of gift?  Then why do you think God didn’t “regard” it like Abel’s?  Does that matter in this story?

How does this become your prayer today?

Read Genesis 1

You may not be the type of person that really enjoys a good story with a deep meaning.  You may be the type of person that is too quick to the Bible to sit and process what is the point and the meaning of it all.  This type of person comes to the Bible looking for a formula or a sign that will be easy to scoop up and move on.  Or, like I tend to find myself, you may just be so easily distracted by anything and everything that when you sit with something too long you find yourself sitting with so many other thoughts and randomness.  If you are that type of person, it may bug you that I come to these passages so much and reread what seems like easy stuff that you are certainly familiar with.  Sure, God created Adam and Eve and all of the world, got it…next?  But there is more than that!  There is SO much more than that here!  

I want to challenge you to think about the philosophy of human existence in light of this chapter.  If you say that you believe this, like I do, then there are so many incredible truths that show up in your every single day of life.  If this is the foundation that you build off of, then the implications are incredibly valuable.

This is the very first mention of “blessing” in the Bible.  Based on that, what can you figure is the meaning of the word “bless?”  

Here is a big one to think about, why are we (humans) here?  Assume this is the only part of the Bible that you have read when you try to answer that. 

Why is it important to see that blessing first comes from God?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Proverbs 3:13-35

One of my goals, in the sermon from Sunday, was to take back the idea of what a blessing is.  I think that the church culture has done a really poor job of cheapening this word and making it nothing more than something that can magically be spoken over someone and amounts to little more than a good feeling.  In my opinion, the word blessing is used in the Bible as a centering theological idea of what it is that God desires from life. When we describe life, we are little more than talking about a physiological occurrence of a heartbeat and breath.  But in the Bible’s definitions, you can have a heartbeat and breath and be dead.  Again, that is not a scientific difference, that is just that the point is far greater than scientific.  For the Bible, life is defined as the presence of breath and a heartbeat, but also flourishing and living out God’s purpose.  

It would be good to carry over those ideas into the reading of Proverbs as we wrestle with “what is life all about?” The understanding of all of these things in the context of God as Creator is the idea of wisdom.  Wisdom is more than knowledge.  Knowledge is just knowing things.  Wisdom is more than knowing while also understanding and applying.  In the sermon, we emphasized the idea of where blessing came from when God spoke.  In Genesis 1:28 we read that for the beginning of humanity, “God blessed them and said to them…”  After God’s word was the blessing of what life is. In other words, God’s word is wisdom and wisdom brings about life.  With that in mind, we run into Proverbs 3 seeing what we can gather.

What do you learn from this section of scripture?

How does this reading impact your day today?

How do you connect the idea of Proverbs 3:18 back to Genesis 1 and how is that helpful?

How does this become your prayer today?

Memory Verse:

' 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. '

James 1:12


Sermon Sentence: Beware the desire to not be led and submit your life to instructions and teachings.

Read Genesis 4:1-16
The goal of these devotions is to make us more familiar with the context of the sermon topics in the greater view of the whole Bible.  Oftentimes we will look at themes that come up in verses we read, or we will even look up stories referenced.  This week, in our text of Luke 11:37-54, Jesus uses two names to make a point, referring to them as “prophets.”  A closer look at these two names let’s us see what Jesus was really trying to say.  He brings Abel first.  I am betting that when we are naming prophets in the Bible, that is not a name that comes up often or even one we would choose out of a list.  But Jesus did.  The story of Cain and Abel, the two brothers that had a story on the doorstep of the Garden of Eden, right after their parents were sent out eastward from the Garden, is one that probably has not made much significance in your life.  Maybe the lesson is just don’t be murdering your brother.  That is a good lesson and certainly an application that we should take up, but then again, the story seems to be given a bit more weight than that seemingly obvious application.  

Many of you have Bibles on your phone or computer.  In those Bible apps or programs, you can change the version and read it in a different version.  Try that out.  Choose a reputable version (New International Version, New King James Version, New Living Translation, or English Standard Version, etc.)  What do you notice that is different and is that valuable in thinking about this story?

Why do you think Jesus used this story to make His point in Luke 11:35-54?

Maybe you are just totally confused about this story.  What questions would you ask to understand more and who should you take those questions to?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 2 Chronicles 24:1-22
In Jesus' closing points in Luke 11:37-54 at the Great Dinner Tirade at the Pharisee’s house, Jesus invokes two names that he refers to as Prophets.  At this time, the known and accepted scripture was what is now known as the TaNaK.  There is not enough space here to explain the depths of this, but it was like an acronym.  The “Ta” stood for the Torah, or first five books of the Bible as we know them, the “Na” referred to the collection of the prophetic writings and there were twelve scrolls in that collection.  The eleventh scroll, was by a prophet named Zechariah.  Yesterday we looked at the idea of the declared prophet Abel, who was from the beginning of the Genesis scroll, right after the Garden of Eden story.  This is then one of the last prophets mentioned in the book of the prophets teachings.  Jesus was painting a picture of what he was trying to communicate.  Zecharaiah’s story is told in 2 Chronicles in a historical fashion, but his teachings are contained in the scroll by his name.  Jesus also talks about how Zechariah was killed “between the altar and the sanctuary.”  Clearly, that story's scene is being used as a meaningful picture for Jesus.  The story that you are reading in 2 Chronicles is giving you context for that picture.  

Zechariah is seen here delivering the message that God sent Him to deliver.  When he does deliver it, it is not received well.  In fact, it is taken as threatening and therefore Zecharaiah has to pay for it with his life.  The symbolic idea of him standing in the place that God’s words should be held up and received is the place he loses his life because of God’s word.  The connection to the Abel story is an incredible display of capturing the whole story of the whole Bible in a thought out way.  Abel too was murdered right outside of the place that God’s word should have been accepted, in the Garden of Eden…for doing what God’s word calls for.  Jesus was a masterful teacher!

What connections between these two stories do you see that help make Jesus’ point in using them in Luke 11?

What do you think the message is that you should walk away from looking at this story with?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Luke 19:1-10
Zacchaeus was a man that was not of the best reputation.  He spent his days robbing people from a position of authority and in a system that he knew could work in his favor.  This is the story of the time he met Jesus.  The story is not very long, so to get any backstory would simply be assuming something from the story.  I guess it is a safe bet to assume that he had heard about Jesus and was certainly wanting to make something like this meeting happen.  When I am reading this story, it kind of frustrates me the lack of details that I find here.  What did Zacchaeus do?  He didn’t really do much except make a pledge to make some things that he had done wrong, kind of right.  He was rich, and he was willing to give up all the ill-gotten wealth to continue this meeting with Jesus.  It was at that place that his salvation was declared.  It seems pretty basic and simple, and I know that salvation is supposed to be like that, but what about the rest of the story?  Surely we are not to believe that this man’s only real sinful section in his life was in the area of finances, and he had but to only give up the wealth to be saved?  I have wrestled with far more of my life that needed to be changed than that simple one part response.  

I think the point of this story is pretty basic.  Zacchaeus was a man that stole from people and cooked the books for his own good and that is how he became rich. Jesus met him one day, and Zacchaeus knew that he wanted to go with Jesus.  In order to do that, he had to repent.  Of what?  His sin.  What did that mean?  Well, his testimony was that Jesus changed who he was…a rich man that robbed others and needed to stop.  That is what it looked like for him to follow Jesus.  There was more, but that was a great way of telling his story.  

What does your story of repentance look like?

Why do you think that Luke recorded this story like this and didn’t include more details?

How does this help you understand what repentance looks like?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Matthew 6:1-15

Jesus often used the example of the Pharisees to teach lessons to His disciples.  They were to be different.  Not just different for the sake of being different, but unlike them in the way they lived and processed their faith. I wonder if Jesus, speaking here of the “hypocrites”, is not giving a small head nudge toward the Pharisees.  That was a word that He used to describe them often.  The Pharisees were known for their flashy lives.  For Jesus, His disciples were almost told to do everything in private, out fo the view of others.  They were to give like that.  They were to pray like that.  It is almost like Jesus was creating a lifestyle for them to hide their faith and not show it out.  That is one way that we could interpret this teaching.  But if we take that literally, then we also have to take the prayer itself literally and pray that back to Jesus. I know.  Many people have done that.  My point in all of this is to show that we are not meant to take all of this and create a robot life that never prays out loud and never gives unless it is anonymous. 

Jesus point is that we should be people that are not doing these things for the attention and focus of other people.  We are to do it from genuine hearts that are true.  It is not a show and it is not for other people.  

What do you learn about giving in this passage?

What do you learn about how you should pray here?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Luke 12:1-12
Five sermons worth is quite a lot of material for this series on just the few verses in Luke 11:37-45.  Maybe I took too much time and maybe the idea was a bit much to consider through the whole summer?  For me personally, I have found it extremely helpful.  I need to be reminding myself how enticing the flavor of the Pharisees is.  I like to believe that I am not very much exactly like them, but I do hate the fact that I really start to smell like them a bit too often.  What was the hardest thing to do through this series, was break down the exact point of what I was trying to say, or what the text means.  I can read it fast and I get the overall idea, but the details are important enough to merit some reflection. 

So after I have done that, what should I know?  That is why I am ending the series with this passage here.  It is almost like Luke got that thought and so he closed it out on a reminder of what we should be focused on in light of what we just saw.  We could start an organization that fought against the Pharisaical ideologies that are harming the modern day church, and maybe that would have been helpful.  We could realize that a big bear was poked and see that this story is spiraling toward the killing of Jesus and therefore any of these ideas that he broke up this dinner party with are loaded up and full of danger.  For you reading this, it may feel too far away for that feeling.  This was a long time ago.  So what should you say, or how should you respond?  That is a good thing to wrestle with.

What do you think this passage has to do with the story at the end of Luke 11?

What does this passage say to you in light of what you have just read from this series of sermons?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Memory Verse:

' 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. '

James 1:12


Sermon Sentence: Beware the desire to not disciple others and find everyone else’s faults.

Read John 3:1-21

A friend and I were talking about this encounter recently. He asked me why I thought that it was significant that Nicodemus came at night.  He had recently read that the significance was not so much that Nicodemus was moving by the cover of night, but that it is also showed a sign of respect for Jesus by bringing the encounter at night, in private, as opposed to in the daytime in the public.  If you read the other encounters of Jesus and the Pharisees, they are all very public and very blatant. I like this story and I can see how it would have been more beneficial to Nicodemus because of the way he approaches it.  

In contrast to that is the encounter that we have been studying about in this series of sermons in Luke 11:37-44.  That confrontation happened at a very public dinner and was an attempt at conflict.  I think we learn from this that not all of the Pharisees were Pharisaical, or at the very least, they didn’t want to be that way if they were.  Paul describes his past as being steeped in that label of Pharisee and here we see Nicodemus really appears to be trying to learn from Jesus.  

In the sermon, we learned that the legalism of the Pharisees was that they were actually making the righteousness of the Law too obtainable, rather than too far out of reach.  Where do you see this in the way Nicodemus reveals his thoughts and feelings to us in this encounter?

How do you understand what it is that Jesus is actually saying and how is that different from what you have heard before, seen in other places, or even were taught in other places?

Jesus states that whoever does not believe in Him, is already condemned (verse 18).  What does that mean and how would you explain that to Nicodemus?


How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Matthew 11:25-30

When I was younger, I was interested in what my max weightlifting capacities were.  That was how we measured how strong you are.  You would brag about your bench press max weight lift.  The funny thing was that it wasn’t really useful information.  Sure, I could lift that if I was laying on a similar bench and the weight was in the shape of a bar and set up like that, but the real value was not in what the max I could lift was.  Because if I could just lift it once or three times, that was not how life worked.

Weight is heavier the longer you carry it.  I know that doesn’t work scientifically and exactly like that, but you get what I am saying, right?  I can hold out a 10lb bucket with my arm extended, but the longer I hold it out there the heavier it seems to get.  When I read this passage, that attempt to carry a weight for a long time is what I imagine.  Jesus uses the example of a yoke.  The yoke is not really all that heavy at first, but the longer you have it on and the longer you fight against it all, that is when the real value of the struggle comes into perspective.  

Jesus was appealing to that idea the Pharisees lived under.  They kept adding weight and spent their whole lives dragging along the weight that they could reach an end if they just kept plugging along.  Surely there will be a moment when all of my deeds and righteousness come to significance and good.  But Jesus had a better method.  He offered to them his yoke, which was a yoke that had taken all of the weight on our behalf and offers to us rest.  Real….true…rest.

How have you experienced this weight that Jesus wants to save people from?

How do you experience the peace of Jesus in your life right now?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

(Today’s devotion written by Autumn Gildroy)

Read Ezekiel 34 

This passage paints a painful but hopeful picture for us. God confronts the leaders of Israel, who were meant to be shepherds, and sees how they’ve failed their sheep. Instead of protecting their flock, they fed themselves. Instead of seeking the lost, they let them wander. The flock was left vulnerable to predators, hungry for food and scattered across the earth. 

Unlike the leaders of Israel, God doesn’t selfishly shrug His shoulders and walk away. He makes a beautiful promise, “I myself will search for my sheep.” The Creator of the universe steps in personally, tenderly and lovingly. He binds up the injured. He strengthens the weak. He rescues the lost. He doesn’t just promise a search, but a rescue. 

This isn’t just a promise to Israel from a long time ago, but a promise that still stands true today for you. In moments when life feels heavy, when anxiety clouds your mind, or when you feel too weak to take the next step, your Shepherd is near. He doesn’t stand far away waiting for you to come to Him—He lovingly comes to meet you right where you are. 

We see fulfillment of this in Jesus. In John 10, He says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The God who promised in Ezekiel 34 became flesh to keep His word. On the cross, the Shepherd gave His life to save His flock. 

1. In what areas of your life do you feel most in need of a Shepherd right now?
2. How have you experienced God “coming after you” in seasons when you felt lost or weak?
3. Which description of God’s care in Ezekiel 34 (gathering, binding up, strengthening, protecting) speaks to you the most today? Why?

(Today’s devotion written by Autumn Gildroy)
Read Ezekiel 34

The leaders we read about in Israel abused their position. Instead of feeding the sheep, they fed themselves. Instead of protecting the flock, they left them vulnerable. God was grieved because His people were suffering under selfish leadership. 

Sometimes we find ourselves falling into the same pattern. We come to church to open our Bibles asking, “What can I get out of this?” We want to be fed— and that’s not wrong, because we often need nourishment from God’s Word. But if we stop there, we become like those bad shepherds, unwillingly to share. Always receiving but never giving. 

God’s design is different. He fills us so we can pour into others. He comforts us so we can comfort others. He feeds us so we can feed others, not with bread, but with encouragement, truth, love, and hope. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 

So, the question is: am I only seeking to be fed, or am I also feeding others? 

1. When you think about your spiritual life, do you tend to focus more on receiving or giving? Why do you think that is?
2. Can you think of a time when someone “fed” you spiritually, with encouragement, prayer, or wisdom? How did it impact you?
3. How does remembering Jesus as the Good Shepherd challenge and inspire you to care for others? 

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Matthew 5:17-48

I have often wondered about the proper way to describe following Jesus.  Is it easy?  Yeah, it is as simple as surrendering your life to Him, which is a singular step with many aspects.  So even in describing the part that is easy, it gets difficult.  Even Jesus said that the yoke that He offers is easy and the burden light.  Then, I read the things I find in the Sermon on the Mount here, and it just seems a bit difficult.  I have not murdered anyone in my life.  The life that I have chosen to live, that is not that surprising.  I haven't even really been close or had to be talked out of it in a vulnerable moment.  I am not trying to brag and shame all of you that have murdered people out there, I am just following an example in this text.  

For the Pharisees and those of us like them, that was a pretty humble brag point.  “The Law is easy!” we would like to say.  “Just do good things and be good.”  Then we would go away and just do the things that we could think of that were considered good. Once in a while, we would run into a grey area and the best thing to do was to hide that and expect everyone else to live exactly like we do. That is a condensed, super simple way of how the Pharisees (and us) got to be like we were.  Jesus comes along and blows that whole idea up when he ties the heart of anger to the heart of murder.  The thing that I was not, I now become, because it is from the same flavors.  So is it easy or difficult to follow Jesus?  I think the Bible would give us the answer of “yes.”

How is murder and anger in the same category and how does that help you understand the problem of sin?

How does a person who has enemies, go about loving those enemies?

If you were explaining retaliation to a grown adult, not a child (because that is easy!), how would you incorporate what Jesus says here in verses 38-42?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Memory Verse:

' 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. '

James 1:12

Sermon Sentence:

Read 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
My family likes to watch the show “Alone.”  If you are not familiar with that show, I don’t think I should take the whole devotion to sell you on its incredible value.  Suffice it to say that it is a contest where people are dropped into the middle of nowhere with only 10 items they have chosen and a camera kit to record things.  Most of the people that break on this show and end up giving up, give up because loneliness gets to them in a way they never imagined no human contact for 45+ days would get to them.  Also, a lot of these wilderness type people just start out weird.  They will catch a fish and then thank the fish and cry over its life.  They will pray to all sorts of entities like weather and so on.  In those moments, when I am trying to empathize with some of the weirdness, I realize that the stories on the Bible make a bit more sense when it talks about gods of weather, love, and farming all being false gods.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t understand the idea of bowing to a god of the fish because I am not going 8 days without eating anything, finally catching fish, and then going 8 more days without a fish.  I guess you appreciate the fish far more in that situation.  Either way, there is no real fish god.  Paul starts this chapter out by talking about how the reader was probably an idol worshipper before, and there was no real power in that idol.  But they were led astray thinking they had some sort of power.  As a follower of Jesus, we believe that all provision and all power comes from God, along with every good gift.  That is why it doesn’t seem to make sense that we hold up the people with the more prominent gift in ministry above others. The gifts, whatever they may be, are all from God.  God would not be divided against Himself or in competition with Himself, that seems silly.

What are some spiritual gifts that you notice at Keystone Church and how are they used?

What do you feel your spiritual gifts are and how would they be useful in a church?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
This Sunday was Volunteer Appreciation Sunday.  It was nothing more than a time for us to reflect on the incredible team that we have at Keystone giving us the ability to accomplish the goals we feel we are called to.  Paul is doing something similar in 1 Corinthians, but he is having to approach that idea at a point when things had become a bit out of hand. The lines had been drawn and the favor was being given.  James talks about that idea in the church and how it is sinful in his book.  In the gospel, people are not given status off of their callings or gifts.  That doesn’t mean they do not have titles, it just means that titles don’t elevate people.  With that understanding is also the understanding that, like we talked about yesterday, spiritual gifts are all from God.  They are gifts by the Holy Spirit, who has the mind of God, and as Paul already said in chapter 2, gives us the mind of God.  So if we all have the same mind, and we are all gifted in that mindset, and we are all together as a community, it seems easy to reason that there will not be any division in that.  That is how Paul arrives at his analogy of the body with many members, or parts.    

Let's make this easy to reflect on.  IF you are a part of the body of Christ (aka: a disciple of Jesus), then you have been given a gift.  If you have been given a gift, you have no claim in that gift for selfish purposes.  Your gift is for you and the rest of the body's growth.  

What part of this reading really matters to you today?

How have you felt not part of the body of Christ in a church?

How have you felt a part of the body of Christ in a church?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read 1 Corinthians 13
We are at the famous love chapter!  It was read in my wedding and I have seen it read in countless other weddings as well.  It's almost as if that is what it is about, marriage.  But it is not.  It is about unity in the church!  Remember, you have read the context in chapter 2 and Paul is dealing with divisions in the church over the abuse of spiritual gifts.  Then he lands that point home with this chapter here.  That does not mean that it is not a good place to find advice for a marriage, it surely has the same.  The main point is that love is important and it is the very thing that we should operate out of.  The reason that God gave his only son for us, is because of love…for us.  If the church is an expression of that or even compelled on mission by that truth, it goes to reason that the people of the church will find that the very thing that gave them life after sin, will sustain their life in unity with those in the family of God.  

In direct contrast to this idea is the cultural struggle of selfishness, or as James puts it, bitter jealousy and selfish ambition…and then he calls it demonic.  This is why we say that church is not about you.  Will you and should you grow in a church?  Yes!  But you will grow and be gifted and that gift is for the service of those around you as well as for you.  This is the heart behind volunteering and serving in the church.  If the mission is on point, we should be in the thick of it all, steeped in love, sharing love with everyone around us, in hopes that they get what we have.  

Spend time walking through the list of what Paul says love is.  How would each of those be needed in the church today?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Psalm 101
David wrote this Psalm, by the evidence we have.  As king, he had a lot of expectations of him and a lot on his plate.  This is pretty self reflective for a man of that position, and that is why it is so intriguing for me to read.  I would encourage you to really think about what he is saying here and think about what it would mean for him and those around him.  Here is a way to do that: (it may be a bit different in other versions, I am using the ESV) make a list of all of the statements that start with “I will…”  Then think about what it would mean for you to make those same commitments in your life today.  

How many “I will…” statements do you see here?

What are some “I will…” statements that you should make for your life today?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Colossians 4
In a few of his letters, Paul would include in the ending a list of people that he wanted to greet or mention for some reason.  Paul was traveling all the time and had many friends that he had met along the way.  He was also all about setting up the local church so that it could function without him and that involved moving many people into positions of help and influence in the churches.  In order to do this, I would imagine that Paul spent a lot of time with these people and had some really special friendships.  I can also imagine that he spent many days packing up his things, getting ready to move to the next spot, longing to spend more time with the people and hating to say good-bye so often.  I have always found that people that you minister with are in a different friend category than other people.  Being friends with a spiritual purpose is a pretty incredible thing.  That is what I hope we create at Keystone over and over again.  

Pretend that you are Paul and writing this letter.  I know there is not a lot of information given about some of these people, but imagine what they are like and why they get the greeting they get.  Some of them you may recognize from other places in the Bible, and some you may only hear of here.  

What can you deduce from these small amount of words about each of these people?

If you were away, and writing a letter back to Keystone, who would you greet and what would you say about them?

What would other people write about you as a greeting if they were sending a letter to the rest of us?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Memory Verse:

 'Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. '

James 3:13

Sermon Sentence: Beware the desire to follow God to impress others.

Read Luke 11:37-53
I was thinking the other day and it would seem to me that one of the hardest things to correct is a critical spirit.  By that I mean it is difficult to diagnose ourselves.  It is not difficult to criticize a critical spirit in someone else, but that almost sounds like an oxymoron by its very definition.  I think it is difficult to criticize ourselves because we are oftentimes too busy pointing criticism at other people to have time to aim it at a purpose of self reflection.  It is, at its very core, not about ourselves.  The person that is able to see it in themselves must first be very good and open and honest at seeing themselves.  All of this is why I learn from Jesus' approach here that the best way to make a critical spirit reflect on itself is to get it to see its own extreme in someone else.  It is the extreme of a position that is almost comical to see, until, in humility, we see a version of the comedic caricature in ourselves.  I can laugh at an extremely angry person that is way over the top in their screaming and yelling in public, and it is at that moment that I can also see how silly my smaller version of that anger is in my home…because in reality, I am being a little like that person I was laughing at. 

The same thing is done with the way of the Pharisees. They are the caricatures that we can laugh at.  But Jesus' point doesn’t seem to just be the exposure of the Pharisees to pick on a group.  He seems to be highlighting what has gotten way out of control in them and also rears its ugly head in me.  In a much smaller version for sure, but a version none the less.  The beginning of humility seems to be when I can notice in some scale in myself, what I see as despicable in so many others. 

How are you like the Pharisees in this passage?

What do you see as the danger of your small version of this attitude and what it can become?

How do you deal with this behavior so that it doesn’t become the same thing the Pharisees became?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Matthew 23:1-12
I wonder how we would have handled the Pharisees?  It feels like we would have gathered many horror stories of how people have been hurt by their fakeness and then made a video exposing how dangerous these types of people are.  We would have put a few layers of mental yellow tape around everything that they did and were a part of and call for the canceling of their ministries, casting shame on anyone that would have even gone anywhere near what they did.  Maybe that would be a somewhat good approach to them.  Maybe not.  It certainly was not the approach that Jesus took.  Jesus even said here that their teachings were something to listen to.
 
Does that mean they were good or even the best type of teaching?  No.  I think it just means that Jesus was saying they were getting their teaching, for the most part, from the Bible.  If you know the Bible, you can discern what parts of their teaching is not matching their actions.  It would be difficult to sit on this passage and give the lines for the things that we put up with in a teacher and the things that make us shut the door on them.  Truth comes from God, not a teacher or a writer.  Truth has come out of the mouths of some really bad sources and been very helpful in its use by God.  That does not mean that all good teachings must come from good teachers.  It does mean that we should be careful.  And, we can be careful.  If it is heresy and fully against God and His character, reject it and walk away from the teacher.  If it is not exactly what you think the Bible is saying, and certainly not the way the person is living, learn from the truth and not the actions.  

How have you experienced good teaching from a source that did not line up with what they believed?

How do you feel about that person's teachings after their actions were revealed?

We are all teachers to someone at some point…so how does this reality inform how you live and what you need to change in your life?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read James 3
The desire to be a sort of teacher in the Gospel way, is an incredibly rewarding thing, but it is also an incredibly cautionary thing.  James is talking to the teachers of God’s word in this chapter and when the general population is able to understand this teaching from a normal, non-teachers perspective, it should certainly not be lost on those that are teaching.  God’s most powerful force is His word, because that is what He used to bring about all of existence.  We were created in His image and a part of that is the power of language unlike anything that is wielded by any other of the creatures on earth.  That was the long way of getting to the simple saying, “Words matter.”

The role of a parent or of a friend or even of a fellow worker, carries a weight not too much unlike this.  If words matter, then they have to matter in all contexts.  If we are disciple-making disciples that are always leading and always being followed, then surely there is no struggle to understand the importance we too should notice in the weight that our words carry.  We must learn to be responsible for how we talk, what we say, and why we say it.  We may not be steering large ships as the analogy that James uses here, but we are steering smaller vessels with less people onboard, but no less of the responsibility.  

How have you found yourself hung up in the realization or the responsibility for your words lately?

How have you done with this responsibility?

How do you do better going forward?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read James 2:1-12

Jesus had a real problem with how the Pharisees wanted to be viewed by other people.  Just as most teachings in the Bible go, the idea was not just for them.  In Jesus’ kingdom, things would be different for everyone.  People shared a common bond and that was to be the starting point of the dignity they should receive.  That common bond was that they were created by God.  Job, financial standings, race, family, titles, nor anything else changed that dynamic for anyone.  For James, this meant that when people walked into the worship space that was focused on Jesus, then that was the principle everyone was to be met by.  For James, it was not just an issue that made the culture better, but rather it was an issue of something he called the “sin of partiality.”  

When you think about it carefully, it makes sense, doesn’t it?  Jesus did not come to heal and help the rich, but rather to save the broken, sick, abandoned and alone.  Those that our society has not given very much attention or care for.  For Jesus, this was the mission that He also passed down to us.  We are supposed to be like Him in this respect.  

How would you describe to someone that is new to the Bible, the ideas of this passage?

Why do you think this is a vital part of the gospel of Jesus?

How have you struggled with a version of the “sin of partiality” in your life?

How does this become part of your prayer today?

Read Matthew 18:1-14

Pharisees that are always trying to be seen and heard are not hard for us to imagine.  I am sure that you are thinking, even right now, of someone that you know that is like this.  They are easy to spot, because they are already loud and out front, wanting the attention. From our obscure positions, it is easy to see their faults and whisper about them.  But I find it very interesting and probably, if I am being honest, I am a bit surprised to see the disciples wrestling with this same idea this late into the book of Matthew.  How can you be so close to Jesus and so blind to the obvious truths He is trying to get across?!

Everyone loves a stage of some sort at some point.  I am not saying everyone is the type of person that is always loving to be in front of people, but I am saying that we all at some point feel this tension. Some stages are smaller and get less eyes, even a few select eyes that we care about. We live in America and are trained from the very beginning to be the best and make it to the top, so surely we exist with some sort of flavor or desire to be seen and heard by the right people and to be appreciated by them.  

What do you think Jesus meant about being like a little child in this sense?

What does it look like for you to be more humble in your life this week?

Why do you think that humility is a virtue in the Kingdom of God?

How does this become part of your prayer today?