Romans 12:1-2 is our anchor...The Message version: “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him." Your pain has purpose. God is your refuge. Your worship can and will sustain you.

Worship is a posture of your heart and an overflow of the relationship you are cultivating with God. At the heart of worship is the posture of Heneni - Here am I, ALL of me. It is an awareness of God - who He is and what He has done - and then a whole life response to God. In order to live a life of worship, we need to understand that we were actually created TO worship.

AW Tozer said, “The purpose of nature is to lead us to the Creator and to worship Him. The purpose of man’s feelings and emotions is to lead to the One who implanted those within the heart of man, to the Creator. Everything in all of creation is to point to the Creator and evoke within adoring wonder and admiration and worship. Wherever we go, we can worship."

Harvest is when we realize, it’s not about us. It’s not about how much we have or don’t have. It’s when we realize that to have a harvest, we gotta become sowers. We got to invest into others, to scatter seeds, to tend to the soil, and see what God might do through our efforts.

Today we’re going to hear some stories of people that have been trying their best to embrace it, and to not only examine their own soil, but to begin scattering seeds and see their own harvest in their lives.

You might remember the story of the Prodigal Son, the son had made a mess of his life. His harvest was ruin. He wants to make a change and he goes back to his Father whom he’d insulted and disowned. 

The harvest is the Father running after the son. The Feast is getting to be home together. Your harvest might begin with getting up and running towards something new, someone new. We invite you to join in our stories of harvest. Jesus told us, there’s so much and we need you in this with us. Let’s harvest together.

"You will be with me - in the Garden." : Where - What - Who?

What is our awareness of the everlasting presence of God? The thing we are looking for IS 'Jesus'. You can be with Him now and here.

God doesn’t need your eloquence, He wants your faithfulness. Trying to be eloquent in your faith can become a barrier to truly knowing God. The Kingdom doesn't need more "good Christians" but faithful followers of Jesus. What does "faithfulness" really mean? 'Faithful' isn't what God asked of me, and now He’s doing what I expected of Him. 'Faithful' is our ability to stand firm with God, whether the outcome is what we thought or not.

Esther spent a lifetime doing what she was told and letting others dictate what she did and didn't do. Then the moment came where she was called to shape not only her own destiny but the destiny of a generation. There was every reason for her to say 'No', but she trusted God's timing, His positioning, and His faithfulness and changed the course of her entire people. Who are you in your story?

God consistently chooses people the world would overlook. This story is as much about God as it is about Gideon. I want to communicate that God is our ultimate equipper and while we might disqualify ourselves, He is the one who gives us what we would need in purpose and ability. 

In this story we see three characters: Jesus, Zaccheus and the crowd. In our lives we will have the opportunity to be any of these three. Will we be like Zaccheus, trying to experience Jesus but from afar, where it's safe? Will we be like the crowd, that can't see past a mistake and can't accept that Jesus would be with someone "like that?" Will we be like Jesus, and take a step closer to those others despise and offer a second chance.

Jesus chose a sinful, outcast, half-breed, lowly woman to be the first person to reveal he was the messiah. God values us enough to actively seek out connection with us, right where we are. Right now.

Even if folks don't know if they have been through the rigors of the wall, or that inward journey, we can still talk through the things that we learn from the wall that leads us to grace.  What would it look like if we as a church were honest and vulnerable about the ego that drives us - surrender that ego and walk  with a Jesus given compassion and grace for all people.