National Community Church Audio Podcast

As the people of God, we live COUNTERCULTURE. When we love our enemies, heaven invades earth. When we pray for those who persecute us, heaven invades earth. When we bless those who curse us, heaven invades earth. How? GRACE and PEACE. Paul begins each of his thirteen epistles with those two words, and they pack a one-two punch. We have a vaccine against cancel culture—the grace of God. We have a vaccine against political polarization and racial discord—the peace of God. We are grace givers and peacemakers.

Living UNSHAKEN is refusing to compromise your convictions, even if it costs you a fiery furnace or lands you in a lion’s den. It’s speaking truth to power. It’s showing grace in a cancel culture. It’s confronting the brutal facts with unwavering faith. Why? God’s got this. God’s got you. Don’t lose faith in the end of the story! Administrations come and go. Nations and rise and fall. The kingdom of God is forever. We find our identity, we pledge our loyalty, to the King and His Kingdom. And He’s coming again!

Daniel 11 is written like prophecy but it reads like history. While the people of God are coming to the end of exile and will be able to return to their land, Daniel is told that things will get worse before they get better. Israel will be sandwiched between two warring kingdoms, and the people of God will face a crisis of identity, a crisis of faith, and a crisis of hope. In order to find the right perspective and posture, they must be the kind of people who do not accept the current crisis as the end of the story. They must be the kind of people who do not put their trust in a current leader or ideology but recognize that God will outlive and outlast any earthly leader. They must be the kind of people who put their trust in the story and their trust in the author. As we stand in times of crisis, may we be people who stand in faithfulness, who walk in patience, who cling to hope.

Have you ever had your eyes opened to something that was always there, but you just hadn’t noticed before? Our text today will leave you with your eyes wide open! We continue in our series on the book of Daniel, and today walkthrough chapter 10. After seeking God through fasting and prayer for 3 weeks, God gives Daniel a vision and opens his eyes to see the realm of the unseen. The heavenly realm, in which there is good and evil clashing behind the scenes. Believe it or not, there is a spiritual battle happening. And when we lean into God in prayer, he will give us both a revelation of what is happening and affirmation of who we are, to press forward. As God opens up Daniel’s eyes, chapter 10 is just the beginning of the prophetic vision of what is to come. Join us as we engage in a text will challenge us as well as take us underneath the surface of the challenges all around us.

With all that is happening in our 2020 world, a conversation about eschatology seems apropos! What does the Bible say about the end times? Are there any hints that can help us navigate the crisis we find ourselves in? What can I do to get ready for what’s next? Those are some of the questions we’ll explore this week, and a few answers may surprise you! The good news? God’s got this. Don’t lose faith in the end of the story!

In the 1980s, the Transformers toy and animation series debuted with a phrase, "more than meets the eye," which was simply about perspective. They were not what they seemed to be on the surface. Daniel 8, which on the surface seems weird and is difficult to grasp on the surface, is also about perspective. The vision that Daniel has is about the future and the struggle against good and evil. Daniel and his contemporaries see themselves in crisis, as the power of nations struggle against one another. But despite the struggle and suffering on the surface, God is still in control.

We think forwards, but God is working backwards. God begins with the end in mind. Occasionally, he pulls back the curtain of time and reveals His plans and His purposes to His prophets. The goal of prophecy isn’t figuring out timelines. It's a reminder that GOD'S GOT THIS. It's a reminder not to lose hope, not to lose heart. It's a reminder to GET READY for the part God wants you to play!

As the whole world shakes, instant and constant access to the Most High God is our greatest asset and deepest hope.

It’s never too little. It’s never too late. If you’re still breathing, God has a plan and purpose for your life. In Christ, you are never past your prime! We overestimate what we can do in a year or two, but we underestimate what God can do in ten or twenty or seventy years. We think right here, right now. God is thinking nations and generations. Don’t lose faith in the end of the story! God’s got this. God’s got you.

One of the greatest gifts God can give us is letting us get to the end of our rope! That’s often when and where and how we discover that there is a God. And just as important, I am not Him! Playing God is impossible! The good news? God is still on His throne! Don’t lose faith in the end of the story! Virtue signaling won’t get us where we need to go as a nation. Neither will hashtags. What we need is revival sparked by repentance. God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble! The Spirit of God can’t fill you if you’re full of yourself, but if you’ll empty yourself of pride, God will fill the void with His love, His power, His grace.

Our choices reflect both our priorities and values. Who we are and what we believe is a culmination of our choices. In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, contemporaries of Daniel, are government officials appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar. They are faced with a situation where they have to choose between submitting to God or a gentile king. It is seemingly a no-win situation. Should they compromise to save themselves? Who will know? We may never be in a life or death situation like this. But our choices are a direct indication of who God is to us and whether He is the priority in our lives.

God trusted Daniel with insider knowledge of the future. What kind of person does God trust with the future? God trusted Daniel to stand before kings. What kind of person does God place as his representative before kings? It’s the people who boldly declare that the impossible is possible when God is in the equation. It’s the people who dare to believe that God is still at work when the world seems to be falling apart around us. It’s the people who live unshaken in the knowledge that God will make a way.

Unshaken is confronting the brutal facts with unwavering faith, even when you’re taken captive by enemy armies. Unshaken is refusing to compromise your convictions, even when the rest of the world is bowing to a 90-foot statue. Unshaken is living countercultural, even if it costs you a fiery furnace. Unshaken is letting your conscience be your guide, even if it lands you in a lion’s den. God is not nervous. God is victorious. Simply put, God’s got this!

This is a teachable moment for us as a nation. God is WAKING us up. God is SHAKING us up. If we are humble enough to repent of racism and bold enough to believe for reconciliation, God will shake generational sins and break generational curses.

This weekend we venture into the final valley in this series, the Valley of Breakthrough. Breakthrough happens in lots of different ways. It’s small steps of faith. It’s long obedience in the same direction. It’s forgiving those who have hurt us. The common denominator? Zechariah 4:6 says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.” In the midst of tremendous uncertainty, one thing is certain. God is able. In fact, God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us! This weekend we believe God for the breakthrough, individually and corporately.

The Valley of Opposition calls us to pray bold, faith-soaked, creative prayers that are rooted in a theology of the greatness of God, a record of the goodness of God, and a practice of the presence of God. If we want to see a move of God today, we have to put a magnifying glass on the miracles He did yesterday. If we want to stand on the promises of God today, we have to anchor ourselves in the promises He fulfilled yesterday. If we want the presence of God to shift our world today, we have to seek His presence every day.

God is in the business of healing broken hearts. Heartbreak is incredibly painful, but it has a pruning effect in our lives. It unseats the idols in our lives, and helps us empathize with others. There is no hurt that God cannot heal, in time or eternity. In fact, He can turn the Valley of Heartbreak into the Door of Hope.

The Valley of Dry Bones is the place where God’s resurrection power is revealed. It’s the place where we discover our authority as Christ-followers. There comes a moment when you need to stop talking to God about your problems, and start talking to your problems about God. You have to prophesy to the mountain, prophesy to the storm, prophesy to the dry bones. What do we speak? Life. Love. Truth. We echo, “Let there be light.” We echo, “Peace, be still.” We echo, “Hear the word of the Lord.”

Have you ever gone through a season of life that has broken you? A season that drained your energy, that tested your resolve, that wore you out? Today, we want to talk about a place called “Baka.” It literally means weeping. It was a point on the journey of pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the ancient middle east. We’ll unpack Psalm 84:5-7 to learn how to not just go TO Baka, but to go THROUGH it. We have something to learn in that place. We have strength to gain. We have something to give. Don’t discount God’s purposes at work, even in the hard places!

If you want to REPEAT HISTORY, keep doing it the way it’s always been done. If you want to CHANGE HISTORY, dare to be different. What you perceive to be your biggest disadvantage may prove to be your greatest advantage. In Christ, you are nobody’s underdog! Your brave is someone else’s breakthrough.