Beginning May 5th, we are diving into a new sermon series on the Holy Spirit. I am both excited and apprehensive. Excited because the Bible (and Jesus) put a huge emphasis on the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world. Apprehensive because how can any human being teach in a way that honors every facet of the Holy Spirit.

This series has been in the making for a few years now. Beginning about three years ago I began receiving a request nearly every Sunday morning—and usually it was an older person making the request—for me to preach a series on the Holy Spirit. It usually went something like this, “Josh, will you please preach a sermon series on the Holy Spirit one day, because I no longer believe what I was taught about the Holy Spirit growing up, but I’m not sure what to replace it with.” One thing is certain if you take the Bible seriously, spiritual growth, development, and maturity cannot happen without the Spirit. It’s not that it can possibly happen. It can’t happen.

Justin Ardrey and I had numerous conversations about what to call this series. We had a list of twelve that we narrowed down to four. He asked some great questions about what we are trying to communicate through titles, words, and images. After numerous conversations, we settled on Forgotten God. It might sound extreme, but I couldn’t find another title which embodied the current state of the function, acknowledgement, and understanding of the Holy Spirit in churches in the Western world.

Forgotten God was a book Francis Chan wrote a few years ago on the Holy Spirit. It was a good book. It was a great title! There will be truths and stories I will tell from Chan’s book throughout this series, but in no way am I preaching his book as the primary foundation for this series. I’ve read numerous books in preparation for this study, but most importantly, I’ve spent countless hours in Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and 1 Thessalonians; just to name a few.

Please join me as we embark in what may be the most important studies in our spiritual journey together. Below you will find an outline with passages I will preach on throughout this series. Spend time with these verses. Get to know them. Let them get inside of you. Most importantly, let’s learn to pray as the early church did, that our hearts and lives will be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

May 5 Introduction—(Chris Seidman from Farmers Branch Church)

May 12 (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:1-8)
Focus: “Clothed with the power from on high”

May 19 (Galatians 5:16-26, Senior Sunday—Jim Hinkle)
Focus: Fruit of the Spirit

May 26 (John 14-15)
Focus: Jesus’ promises about the coming Holy Spirit

June 2 (Mac and Mary Owen—Guest Speakers)

June 9 (John 16)
Focus: Jesus’ promises about the coming Holy Spirit (continued)

June 16 (Acts 2)
Focus: More than history. Does Pentecost still happen?

June 23 (Acts 4-8)
Focus: Highlight the Spirit as message spreads in Judea/Samaria

June 30 (Acts 13-20)
Focus: Highlight the Spirit moving throughout the world (Paul)

July 7 (Acts 5 & Matthew 12:31-32)
Focus: Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

July 14 (Mike Cope—Guest Speaker)

July 21 (Romans 8—Eric Wilson)
Focus: Spirit ushers us into LIFE & freedom

July 28 (Romans 8)
Focus: Intercedes and helps us in weakness

Aug 4 (Mission Celebration Sunday—Luke 10:17-21)

Aug 11 (Ephesians 4:21-5:1 & 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22)
Focus: Grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit

Aug 18 (Galatians 3:1-5 & 6:1)
Focus: Living as people who have been supplied with the Spirit

Aug 25 (1 Corinthians 2)
Focus: Demonstrations of the Spirit’s power matter
The Spirit searches everything

Sept 1 (1 Corinthians 12-14)
Focus: The Gifts of the Spirit

Sept 8 (1 Corinthians 12-14)
Focus: The Gifts of the Spirit—Part 2

Sept 15 (Romans 14:17 & 1 Thessalonians 1:6)
Focus: The Joy of the Spirit

ARE YOU SCARRED? Tired of platitudes that don’t heal your brokenness? Have you wondered if you’re allowed to say things like, “God, this doesn’t make any sense. Where are you?” Are you looking for the balance between honesty and faithfulness? This book is for you.

Josh Ross lets you in on his own journey of grief as he discovers that faith is about experience, movement, and process. It is about adventure, adventure that demands honesty. God honors that. He is big enough and even willing enough to handle your questions, no matter how hard they are.

Suffering can be ignored, or suffering can force us to reimagine a world where we are participants in Jesus’ story of restoration. God is raising up people eager to run into the brokenness of the world to experience healing and new life. Are you willing to follow God into these places?

To purchase your copy online, Click Here. You can also preorder your copy by signing the list on the pod.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the link to a previous blog entry Returning to Life, or to our Restore link on our website, I’d encourage you to do so before reading any further. It will give you insight into how God has led the Sycamore View family into a vision that affirms the past and embraces the promised future with such passion that we will pursue it.

Here were a few “ask’s” that I gave to the church on our Vision Celebration day, January 13, 2013. With any vision or initiative, people are often left wondering, “Ok, so what are you asking of me?” Well, here you go:

1) Pray for restoration. I am asking you to commit to regularly praying prayers of restoration over your heart, family, our church, and the communities around us. God not only wants us to care about His life entering into the broken places in our world, he also wants us to become the answer to our prayer.

2) Read the documents. There is valuable information found in the vision documents you have been given.

A) One contains the beauty and power of restoration: Restore Booklet

B) The other includes information and ways to get involved in our first initiative, which focuses on Equip: Equip Card

3) Connect with Sycamore View through social media. Find us on Facebook or on Twitter. You can also follow the youth ministry on Twitter. 

4) Consider with God what restoration (a return to life) looks like in your own life. We will be providing spiritual assessments later on in 2013 to gauge the health of your heart with God. In no way is this to be viewed as homework or a test, but as a healthy way to inspire us to go deeper with Jesus.

5) Commit to the life of the Sycamore View family. Plug into a bible class, Wednesday night class, or ask about discipleship groups that you could join. At Sycamore View, Life Groups are one of the best ways to get connected to vision, people, and spiritual growth. Commitment isn’t meant to pull you away from your neighborhood or relationships with people outside of the Sycamore View Church, but rather to engage the world as more mature people who thrive with God. Here is a list of our Restore classes.

6) Keep your hand connected to your check. God-given visions must be funded, because the dreams of God can be expensive. God talks a lot about stewardship, generosity, and money. At Sycamore View, we ask that your hand remain connected to your generosity so that we may remain obedient to God’s plan to connect with others in life-changing ways.

In conjunction with our Vision launch, I have started a new sermon series called CORNERSTONE: Discovering the Names of Jesus. From now through Easter Sunday, March 31st, we are going to study the names of Jesus. The names, images, and descriptions given to Jesus function in a way that promotes life to all the world. Below is an outline of the sermon series so you can pray with me and keep up with the series.

Cornerstone: Discover the Names of Jesus

Jan 13 — Cornerstone

Jan 20 — Teacher/Rabbi

Jan 27 — Son of God

Feb 03 — Son of Man

Feb 10 — Judge of the Living and the Dead

Feb 17 — Bridegroom/Husband/Friend

Feb 24 — I am the Bread of Life

Mar 03 — I am Light of the World

Mar 10 — I am Gate & I am the Good Shepherd

Mar 17 — I am Way, the truth and the Life

Mar 24 — I am the Vine

Mar 31 — I am the Resurrection and the Life

Like most Sunday mornings, I was at the church by 5:45am. For some reason, as I prayed and looked over my notes, I felt like I was in a funk. It wasn’t the feeling of being under the weather; it was something disturbing in my heart, and I couldn’t put a finger on it.

Around 7:45, I texted Kayci. We usually chat on Sunday mornings about that time. I texted her to see how she was doing getting the boys ready, and if they would make it to early service. I feel for my wife on Sunday mornings. She’s basically a single mom. I’m little help. I asked her to pray for me, because something just didn’t feel right. She said she would, but she also dug deeper. I’m grateful to have a wife who is very sensitive to the Lord. If she believes she has a word from God, she doesn’t hesitate to speak it. She prodded with this question, “Do you think there’s something you’re about to say in your message that God may not want you to say? Pray through your notes again.”

So, I prayerfully studied over my notes with that in mind, and then it hit me. It was as clear as day. I didn’t hear the audible voice of God, but there was clarity in my heart. It wasn’t that I was about to speak a word that wasn’t pleasing to God’s heart. It was something else. The word was this, “You are about to preach a message about Immanuel—with us is God. I need you to believe this message more in your heart.”

That was it. I need the message of the abiding presence of God to carry me through life in deeper ways. Though I sometimes run from, or ignore, the abiding presence of God, it continues to find me, to hunt me down, and to have its way with me.

The “God-with-us-promise” needs to be rekindled in my own heart, and in yours.

This series, ADVENTure, comes from the word Advent. Advent celebrates that something happened—God became flesh. And Jesus will come again to make all things new. 

Let’s live in the Adventure.

Restore:
Restore literally means to return to life. It is an ancient word that is rooted in the heart of God. As the story of Scripture unfolds, the heart of God is revealed as working toward future redemption, but also for the restoration of the past. The future would bring Jesus, God-in-flesh, who through the death, burial, and resurrection would restore all things. The past wasn’t swept under the rug. God functioned with Genesis 1-2 in mind. Having created human beings as image-bearers, the result of rebellion meant that the divine imprint upon human life must be restored.

We live in this ongoing narrative in which there is always a need to return to life. The restoration of God isn’t something that is done to you for the condition of your personal, individual soul. It’s bigger than that. The restoration of God is an invitation into a way of life. It’s the Jesus-way. It is God’s never-ending passion to restore all things. It’s full allegiance. It is past, future, and now.

Restoration Movement:
“Restore” is at the core of our movement’s history. Churches of Christ were born out of the Restoration Movement. God gathered a group of people early in the 19thcentury and they became passionate about restoration. This movement wasn’t out of denial that the Reformation Movement was of God, but because division and fragmentation was running rampant, so they attempted to restore a focus on the mission of the early church. This move wasn’t an attempt to restore 1stcentury living conditions or worship styles, but to restore the mission of Jesus and the Kingdom of God as the primary components of personal and communal life. It was a call to return to life. A vision driven by the theme of “restore” is true to the gospel of Jesus and our history.

The Need for Restoration, Today:
Every human is born as one who bears the image of God. There is something holy and sacred about being human. However, the story of Scripture teaches us that when we make decisions to step outside of the parameters that God has set up to protect the sanctity of life, we disconnect ourselves from God’s purposes. Jesus came to both rescue and restore. He came to rescue us from our brokenness and separation from God’s created intent, and he longs to restore us as people who will live as those who have been created in God’s own image.

This means that we have been saved from something, but also into something. To say we have been saved from hell and into heaven doesn’t paint an accurate picture of Jesus. It’s true, but it isn’t the entire story. A more defined understanding is that we have been saved from sin, separation from God, and isolation from God’s purposes, and into a grace-oriented life where we participate in God’s coming kingdom. This means that we have become active participants in God’s ongoing acts of restoration.

Restoration is why we exist. It is our calling. It is being true to our baptism and confession that Jesus is Lord and nothing else is.

—Josh Ross (Preaching Minister)

Praying this prayer that Jesus taught us to pray should force us to consider what it means to citizens of this kingdom. Beginning on April 15th, we're going to be in a 12-week series called Citizens of The Kingdom. Over the next few months we're going to explore what it means to be fully immersed with kingdom-citizenship. We'll examine the identity of the early church. Why were they called things like: believers, new creation, disciples, children, adopted, the way, saints, aliens & strangers, royal priesthood, aroma, jars of clay, friends, and ambassadors. What do these names, labels, and identities mean for us today? Join us as we ask God to peel off the layers that keep us from living as people who have been created in the Image of God.

“Your Kingdom Come” is a prayer that shouts from the hearts of humanity for God to sendforth deposits of heaven on earth. With God, it’s not just a matter of getting people into heaven, but it’s also about getting heaven into people. Little by little, God is bringing the future into the present.

These three words usher us into citizenship that is defined by Jesus and Jesus alone. It is especially true in an election season to pray this prayer, because it keeps us rooted in the kingdom of Jesus which transcends all borders, social status, and nationalities. This prayer reminds us that the future of the Kingdom of God never depends on the outcome of an election. The future of the Kingdom of God belongs to God. So we pray accordingly, "Your Kingdom Come."

— Josh Ross (Preaching Minister)

A few years ago, Mother Antonio was back in California visiting her family, and while she was gone a prison riot broke loose. Some of the inmates killed a couple of guards and took their weapons. It got so bad that the warden had to evacuate the guards and turn off the power to the prison. When Mother Antonio heard she came back immediately and asked to be allowed in the prison to talk to “her boys.” But the warden refused. He told her of the danger of going in there, and how the Mexican federal law had surrounded the whole prison, about to attack.

So, if you are the warden, do you send in the troops, or do you send in the old nun?

But Mother Antonio knew something that the warden didn’t. That love never fails. And eventually she wore the warden down. He let her in the prison.

She walked into a prison that was totally blacked out, and began to plead with the inmates to put down the guns before anyone else got hurt. After a few minutes they came out and one inmate told her, “As soon as we heard your voice we threw our guns out the window, Mother.”

She resolved the situation by placing herself firmly in the middle of the danger.

Is it not what God did? From heaven to earth. Even worse, from heaven to Bethlehem—a town known for taking care of sheep.

The story of God is that He takes a dive into the depths of the world: born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.

Scripture teaches that God stoops low. Stoop can mean to descend from one’s level of dignity or it can mean to condescend. But it can also mean to bend or to lean over. This is the good news about Jesus. God bends. God stoops. God gets low. Because the movement of God’s deliverance isn’t to reach down and to pull up, but to get down and to push people up.

Remember the story about Mother Antonio and how she was able to resolve the situation by placing herself firmly in the middle of danger.

The real reason that Mother Antonio is so effective, is because every day, after she finishes praying with the inmates and taking their confessions. When she’s done with the counseling and the teaching, she doesn’t go home to her nice comfortable suburban house in Tijuana. Instead, every day Mother Antonio walks down the hallway and lays her head down on the 8×10 cell that she has lived in for 30 years.

That’s why they love her so much. She lives among them.

That’s what it looks like to take the Christmas story seriously. Because love chooses to live among us.

(The Mother Antonio story came from my good friend, Jonathan Storment)