Without a future we can believe in, we try to make our way through the fog of life, often walking in circles, covering the same ground, not getting where we want to go. This promise for a better future comes to us - and it gives us direction and hope.

We want to live into the promise - with eager anticipation, with strength to live like it is true, to imagine a world of generosity, of trust, of goodness. We need this promise to get down deep inside of us, to believe that this promise - and the God behind it - is more true than the fog created by our family turmoil, our tense political climate, our uncertainty about tomorrow.

Micah is the spiritual physician called in to diagnose a problem that his patients didn’t even see - infection, by the disease of more.

With this disease, our anxiety tells us we don’t have enough, therefore we aren’t enough. So we seek more, no matter what it costs others, and we feel ok about what we are doing because there are spiritual leaders willing to tell us whatever we want to hear.

For those infected, God brings his disruptive grace, urging us to see, "what you need is not more, but Me." And then he transforms us to make us willing to say no to more for ourselves so we can say yes to others.

Micah came on to the religious scene during a time dominated by leaders very much like ours; they could tell you all about what was wrong in the world but very little about what was wrong inside of them.

But Micah invites us to a different approach: instead of anger at the world, we can lament how we are not yet what we ought to be in the world and for the world. Lament opens us to the possibility of transformation because lament opens us to meet God.

Using this well-known parable as a mirror for our own hearts and lives, we are challenged to see the mains in which we don’t really know ourselves or know the Father.

Though we are inconsistent, the one constant is the love of the Father. Can you hear His love for you today, calling you to come celebrate with Him?

If we want transformation in ourselves and in the world - we’ve got to look to the right place. We need nothing less than the overflowing grace of God.

In this passage, grace is displayed in the transformation of Paul, grace is offered to the world, and grace is celebrated as the life source for those who know they need it.

We won’t be satisfied as a church if we are keeping God’s grace for ourselves. Instead, we can extend God’s love and grace into the world - giving people a place to belong, and making life a little bit easier when things are hard.

Some really important things can be true, but hidden. Our guilt and our fear and our shame have a way of hiding what is true about who we are in Christ. As a church, we want to see people come together to encounter God on Sunday mornings and live in community in order to discover that we are the beloved of God in Christ.

The Bible tells a story of transformation - from a polluted garden to a perfected city. It feels like we are a long way from life in the garden, but it also feels like we’re a long way from a perfected city. But the rest of the Bible tells us: there’s a plan in place for the transformation still to be done. It’s a plan that invites us to get involved today.

The polluted garden is being transformed to a perfected city, so we are called to seek transformation in ourselves and in the world.

Moment by moment, we face the choice to turn to one of our screens, or to engage face to face. Companies with lots of money are thinking hard about keeping us on our screens as much as possible. So we’ve got to think hard about what they’re doing to us and about how to leverage them for the purposes of faith, hope and love.

Apocalyptic living happens when we see behind the curtain, when we see how things really are. Behind the curtain, we see the truth of our condition, a painful reminder that things are not all right. But we also find Jesus behind the curtain, and in Him we find a hope that is greater than our pain.