River City Church - Smyrna, GA
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
In today's service, Josh provides several updates on staff transitions and shares the new prayers of the season (P.O.T.S.) with which we are partnering. Additionally, Josh preaches about the story of Nicodemus who is confronted with the impossible thought of being born again, and we see that, in many ways, Nicodemus represents many of us as we walk our apprenticeship with Jesus. He invites us into things that seem impossible. And the good news is that Jesus is eager to walk with us every step of the way as we mature in our faith. The worship journey this week: "What is the invitation of Jesus today?" John 3:1-17; Philippians 3:10-21.
Josh shared this quote from Deborah J. Kapp: "God works hard for us and our faith. God conceives us as Christians and nurtures us in the wombs of our faith, safe and warm and secret. At some point, like any pregnant woman who is close to full term, God gets impatient with gestation and wants to get on with it; God wants to push that baby through the birth canal into greater maturity, into fullness of life, into a faith lived wholly in the world. That is what Jesus talks about in this text. Jesus thinks it is time Nicodemus came through that spiritual birth canal. Perhaps he thinks it is time for many others to be reborn too. God is ready to give us birth by water and Spirit. How many of our church members (or preachers) might be Nicodemuses in twenty-first-century garb? How many of our congregations might be organizational versions of him -- people and institutions with compartmentalized faiths that flourish behind the scenes, out of sight, away from the fray, essentially in private? How many of us are gestating Christians? Who among us has room to grow in our faith? The good news of this text is that God is prepared -- even eager -- to do the hard, messy, sweating labor that will bring us to maturity and new life."
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