This is the final part of Andrew Shearman's teaching on The 42nd Generation.
It's about a generation that changes the world. With Andrew and a tribe
that is forming, I've committed my life to arousing and serving that
generation.
The condition of the world does
not mean that Christ cannot conquer it. We
can cross the Jordan if we have Christ formed in us. Where are the men and
women who say we are here to change the world and we will enlarge our
world? The valley of dry bones in
Ezekiel turned into a vast army.
It's time for purity. The private character of Jesus led to his
public commendation by God. At 30 years
of age, suddenly his life changed. He
declared, "I am the Christ." The Bible
says as a man thinks in his heart, so he is.
He who rules his own spirit is stronger than he who takes a city. Out of
the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
We need a pure heart.
We limp because we are dealing
with things that we have never dealt with before. We are talking about motives, about integrity
and righteousness. My awareness of my
own death gives life to my hearers. The
qualification for God to use you is weakness.
For example, God brought Gideon's army down to 300. God can use my strengths as long as I
renounce my confidence in it.
Don't deal
with my heart - deal
with your own. Deut. 11, says that obedience leads to rain.
Disobedience leads to no rain. Fight your enemy! Every weapon Satan
uses
against us is a pretend weapon. The
Bible calls them pretensions. Take every
thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.
It's time for maturity. Which part of "grow up" don't you
understand? To grow means to increase or
develop. II Peter 1 calls us to put away
childish things. We are called to
endure, to make contributions, to be givers not takers, to be producers not
consumers. You aren't going to expect
somebody to do it for you. Let's grow
up. You say, "I don't like the way he
spoke to me." Well at least he spoke to
you!
It's time to
risk coming out of
obscurity in the home, in the office, in your everyday affairs. Put
your anointing on the line. What do they know you for at work? That is
maturity.
Mathew 11:12 says, "The kingdom
of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it." We are called to go and take dominion, go and
rule the land. In their inheritance
there were giants and milk and honey. They
had to fight to get it. Sanctification
prepares us for our inheritance.
Those of us who reach maturity
are going to be warriors. The battle
is the Lord's - Jesus is the commander of the army. We join him.
Have you joined in him as a member of the 42nd generation? Come
to faith in the Christ in you and what he is doing on the earth and you will!
Many of the Israelites did not
believe God and so they died in the wilderness.
They preferred the comfort zone of the wilderness to the risk of growing
up and getting an inheritance. The
wilderness had no great stresses; they had survival on their minds, not
inheritance. Churches, people, and
nations need to decide to wander more or go to inheritance. The winter is over and we need to believe
it.
God is calling some of us to take
our inheritance seriously. To be a
Christian is more than having your sins forgiven and going to heaven. To be a Christian is the greatest calling in the
world. Isaiah 9 talks about the increase
of his government and his peace. There
will be no end. That's our
inheritance. Daniel 2:44 says, "In the
time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be
destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those
kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever." It's an
inheritance that God gives the 42nd generation - the generation that
purposes to cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land.
In the past this hasn't
happened. The world has not seen a 42nd
generation. David set a high standard,
but Saul made it decline. The generation
of Christ, the 42nd generation, will establish his kingdom and will
literally be multi-generations of Christ. This is not some kind of nebulous
dream. It is going to happen.
Christ wants to form a body in
this world to rule and reign in this life.
The glory of the Lord will cover the earth.
The condition of the world does
not mean that Christ cannot conquer it.
God's days begin in night and end in day. We can go across the Jordan if we are willing
to have Christ formed in us. The 42nd
generation is the one that
goes from Jesus, Son of Man, to Jesus Son of God, the Christ. I believe
that generation is alive on the earth today. Are you a part of it?
Last week I began a series on Andrew Shearman's signature teaching: The 42nd Generation. It's about a generation that comes into its greatness by leaving its wilderness-thinking behind. Here's the continuation:
99%
of humanity dies in the wilderness, never celebrating the Feast of
Tabernacles. It's an unmitigated tragedy. You can live and breathe as a
Christian and never get your inheritance. Most Christians live with
wilderness, comfort zone thinking. They are saved and have the promise
of heaven ahead. They have no enemy to fight and they don't face any
danger. They are on a journey with 41 stops to nowhere.
Heaven is a
blessing to all Christians, but it is not the destination we should run
after while on earth. How many of us live in those 41 wilderness
cities? You'll bleach your bones disinherited as long as you live in
these places. We need to get to the Feast of the Tabernacles.
We need to let
our past go and decide, "I am not going to live in this nonsense any
longer. I am wasting my life. I am not going to resist getting my feet
wet to cross the river Jordan." 1 Corinthians 9:26-27 says, "Therefore
do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man
beating the air. No I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I
have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the
prize." We must be validated by the Christ formed in us.
Joshua
circumcised the entire nation. He gives them the mark of God. They were
miracle babies because they had enjoyed all the blessings, but they had
not been circumcised. They were happy living in the wilderness with
daily miracles. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant of God's people
that they would get the benefits of a child of God. It was usually done
on the 8th day after a male baby was born.
You will not
get into the Promised Land looking like an Egyptian. God wants to
circumcise our hearts so that we can get healed. Through circumcising
our heart, God wants to take us from a place where we are content with
Jesus simply as our savior to start making us become productive for the
kingdom of God.
It is
interesting to note that the day after the Israelites ate food from the
land, the manna stopped. We need to know what it means to survive in
the Promised Land, with all its demands, if nobody gives us any help.
We need to know how to get our own stuff, to know how to study the
Bible on our own, to know how to let God teach us himself. We should
not just be getting our own stuff, but have enough that we can teach
others. It's a mature attitude to come to church with that and say,
"I'm here to give, not to take." It is a heart that has met with God
before you come to church so that you can truly worship God whether
everyone else there is worshiping Him or not, whether you are alone or
in a crowd, the worship comes from your heart, not from your
surroundings.
God will give
us our inheritance when we can self-feed, and success will not spoil
us. It is then that God will trust us with a lot. If you are
negotiating and blame-shifting, you are not ready to repent. We must
admit and accept responsibility for our sins. We cannot blame our sins
on our friends, our parents, our race, our education or anything else.
Generally speaking, most people let life pass them by while they are waiting for life to begin. What you have now is
life. This is it! It isn't going to suddenly get good one day. You will
never get there; this is it. Enjoying the journey is the "destination."
If you chose not to enjoy the journey and stay focused on yourself,
then you will die in the wilderness. Self-preservation, trying to
promote ourselves and not God keeps us staggering around in the
wilderness, never getting to the river Jordan. God is humbling us and
testing us so that we are ready and can get the inheritance.
Do you believe
in an ever-increasing kingdom? Is what we are going through an end or a
beginning? Are we at hanging on and making it through another year?
That's wilderness-thinking. It's time for us to risk coming out of
obscurity. We need to get out of the wilderness survivalistic mindset
where there is not too much risk and not too much pain and get to
maturity and inheritance. We need to stop talking and start walking.
The 42nd generation is the one that is prepared to leave the past behind and move into inheritance.
God has stockpiled treasures for
you - not the kind of material abundance that the prosperity gospel wackos
would have you believe, but a great inheritance in the form of kingdom
fruit. To learn more about how you get
it, we study the children of Israel, who after 42 stops in the desert, crossed
over the Jordan.
As described in Numbers 33, the
Israelites are about to go to their inheritance. They are about to run the
family business. They are about to be
adopted. And their leader is Joshua.
Joshua is the Jesus-type figure
of the Old Testament. Joshua couldn't do
it in the flesh. He had to meet the
Christ. We have here what is called a
christophany, a manifestation of Christ in the flesh before his
incarnation. Christ appears as the Lord
of Hosts.
Joshua has to
have an
understanding of Christ before he can get across the river. So Christ
has to be formed. Joshua is on his face worshiping Christ. Joshua was
asked to take his sandals off.
Ruth 4:7 says,
"Now in earlier
times in Israel,
for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party
took off
his sandal and gave it to the other." This was the method of legalizing
transactions
in Israel. By giving the other person
your shoe, you were giving up all rights to the land, legally and
forever. God
wants to take off your shoes and give you the land of your heart. He
wants totally surrender so that he can bless you with inheritance.
There are three main feasts:
Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles or Harvest. The Passover feast was about salvation,
deliverance, and the blood. The angel of
death passed over their houses because they killed a lamb and put the blood
over the door post.
The Pentecost feast was all about
the manifested presence of God. It was
about mountains shaking and God speaking.
It was about the having the oil of God on his children.
The Feast of
the Tabernacle was
about the harvest that God provided year after year. It was also called
an inheritance feast. The children of Israel could not celebrate this
feast
in the wilderness because they had no harvest.
The amazing thing is that they had no need for a harvest. Day after
Day, God would provide all the food
they needed from the sky. There were
three parts to this celebration. First,
they would blow trumpets as a way of saying to God's chosen people,
"Get
ready." Second, there was a day of
atonement. Then, they had the Feast of
Tabernacles itself.
One of the things we, as the body
of Christ, need to learn to do to prepare for the inheritance is to learn how
to celebrate. Celebrating has to do with
being enraptured, totally head over heels in love with Jesus. It is an attitude of not caring what people
around you think as you put your heart and soul into worshiping the king. God calls us to celebrate not just as
individuals, but we need to celebrate corporately.
The sound in the earth of the
people of the 42nd generation is people who know how to shout. It's the sound of the abundance of rain. All kingdoms are established with a shout,
never a whisper. If you're a member of
the 42nd generation, the one that is going to get its inheritance
and come into its destiny, you're going to have learn how to shout.
This teaching on the 42nd
generation is life-changing, so I hope you stick with it. Here is part 4.
As
we move toward our destiny, we can feel the
children of Israel. They set out on a
40-year journey to go to the Promised Land.
They made stops in 41 cities (recounted in Numbers 33). They are
imaginary wilderness cities named after how the Israelites were feeling
at the time. The meaning of the name of each city
represents an issue in the lives of the Israelites that they needed to
deal
with to get to the Promised Land. And we too, en route to our destiny
must move beyond our feelings en route to our destiny.
Their fourth stop along their
journey was Marah. "Marah" means
bitterness. They complained because the
water was very bitter. It may be true
that you have good reasons to be bitter, you probably do. But holding on to our bitterness cripples our
personality. We have got to let it
go. If you still insist on being bitter,
there is nothing anyone can do for you. God calls all of us to be ministers of
salvation, givers of life. We cannot do
that if we stay in our bitterness.
The 12th stop
that the Israelites
made on their journey was the city of Kibroth Hattaavah. The name of
this city means "grains of lust." Lust is not just about sex. It could
be a car you want. If I lust that
means I want something that is not righteously mine to have. God wants
us to have everything that is
righteously ours. God wants us to enjoy
life.
The 20th stop along
the journey is a city with a name that means "fear." We have a fear of the future. The devil you know is better than the devil
you don't know. We were born to fight the enemy, not fear him. We know that no weapon formed against us will
prosper. We have not been given a spirit
of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind.
The 22nd stop along
the way was a place that means "depression." As the children of Israel traveled through the wilderness
they experienced depression. They needed
to put on the garment of praise to fight the depression and so do we. God desires wants us to put on the garment of
praise and shout joyfully to him.
The 23rd stop on their
journey was Terah. That means "delay"
and "slow, rolling disappointment." The
Israelites encountered many disappointments along the way and God wanted them
to get over their spirit of disappointment.
We will have disappointments in our lives, but we can choose to get
healed of them and move on to maturity.
The 35th stop along
their journey was a city that meant "distraction." One of the rules of warfare is not to get
distracted. You will be attacked! Take the blows; take the wounds and keep
going!!
Stop number 36 was Oboth. That mean "familial spirit." God wants to get us past the little horoscope
type deals. He wants us to know for sure
the sound of his voice. Stop number 38
meant "weeping and pining". The
Israelites wept and pined about their time in Egypt. "You brought us out here to die. We would have been better off there as
slaves."
They finally arrived at the 42nd
stop, crossing over the Jordan and moving into destiny. Joshua was their leader. They were surrounded by miracles for 40
years. God provided manna for their
food, water from a rock, and day of rest every week. But their hearts were still
uncircumcised.
And
such were some of us. God has taken us on a long journey through
hardship and complaining en route to our destiny. Looking back, we see
the places where we stumbled and wanted to camp, but destiny came as we
pressed on, moving beyond the temptation to wallow in our problems and
moving toward our true identity and inheritance. If we will just
persevere, God will lead us across the Jordan and into a land of
promise.
I have been reading Seth Barnes blog for almost 2 years now, and he has recently been posting a series of blogs about the 42nd Generation, teachings from Andrew Shearman. Both of these men have been used in a profound way to influence my life for what will last a lifetime not simply the last year. Seth has sat with me as I divulge the desires of my heart for ministry, the poor, and a life that will make a difference. Andrew has cried with me over the places I have been and the places I am going on faith. Today I would like to give you the opportunity to hear more about the 42nd Generation that Andrew teaches. It has made a dramatic impact on my life...
Andrew Shearman has this message he preaches called "The 42nd Generation." I first heard him share it in Brownsville, Texas
about 14 years ago. The point of it is that there is a generation that will
come to faith and cross over the Jordan.
Adam lost his birthright - the title to stewardship of this world. But God had a plan for getting it back. He
had a second Adam. As the New Testament
opens up in Matthew 1, we see it. In
apparently boring detail we see there were 42 generations from Abraham to
Christ. Why does God begin telling the story like this?
As Andrew explains,
the secret is that Jesus the Christ was the 42nd generation - the generation
that gets the Promised Land. And so, in
our day we can align ourselves with that generation - a generation coming to
faith. Here is the first part of the talk in its essence:
Numbers in the
Bible do have some
significance. And the number 42 has
generally been considered to represent the coming of Christ. Take a
look at Mathew, chapter one. It tells the genealogy of Jesus. Verse 17
says "Thus there were 14 generations
from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14
from the exile to
Christ."
The problem is if you count up
all the generations, they only add up to 41. We know that the Bible does
not lie, so what's up? Either the Holy Spirit made
a mistake, or there's a mystery we need to try to understand. There are only 13 generations
from the exile to Jesus. But the
text says "to the Christ." Matthew 1:16 says, "Mary of whom was born
Jesus, who is called Christ." The 42nd
generation is between Jesus and Christ.
Jesus came to earth, undressing all the way to enter his humanity. Jesus was the
man part of God and Christ is the God-part.
Yes, they are one and the same, but they are also different. The 42nd generation that this text
is talking about not only was Christ himself, but also is us, the body of Christ. And to that extent, the 42nd generation will come about when Christ is formed in us as the body of
Christ.
Mathew 16:13 says, "When Jesus
came to the region of Caesarea Philippi; he asked his disciples, "Who do people
say the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the
Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
"But what about you?" He
asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Simon Answered, "You are the
Christ, the son of the Living God."
"Who is the Son of Man?" Jesus asks, narrowing it down. Jesus always narrows it down, "What about
you, Peter, rock (church)?"
And the Church
has locked itself
down very often in a sinful simplistic acceptance of the wonderful
Jesus as
savior. It has refused to grow up into
Christ. That's why Paul said, "I labor
until Christ is found in you." The whole
point of the Church is to get Christ formed in us. We must get past
elementary things. We must move beyond the need more inner healing and
deliverance. If you do, get it
and let's go. Get healed. Get over it. Let's get out of the bed. We
need the bed. We have got plenty of beds, but churches are more than
hospitals. You can stay in
the hospital while you get healed, but you need to walk in health.
And we are going to labor, and we
are going to preach it and we are going to try to live it until Christ is found
in it and then we get the prize. We might just be the 42nd
generation.
Near, Far, Wherever you are….I believe that my heart will go on!
Just kidding…
So, apparently the year has come to an end without my noticing. Can you believe it? Where does the time go? Tomorrow, I get on a plane with my family of 20 World Racers to fly back to the United States, indefinitely! For the last 2 weeks, I have been so excited to see everyone at home that I forgot that the World Race is actually ending. The United States will not just be another place where we spend four weeks, it is an indefinite location! This has been one of the hardest and greatest chapters of my life so far, and I wouldn't trade it for the world….no pun intended!
This last week has been spent extraordinarily well! I have been living 100% in the moment with the most incredible people on the planet. We have been accompanied in the process of re-entry by our debriefers, the Pitts, Days, Barnes, Shearman's, and Jimmy McCarty, a former World Racer. We have had sessions in re-entering life previous to the World Race, life planning/evaluating, debriefing the year, etc… They have been more helpful than I could have imagined. Putting parameters on a year of your life that has been so full could never have been done without a week like this and without people who invest themselves completely into our lives.
Tonight we had our final dinner together where we received awards, photo books, watched a video from the year, and reminisced. It was the perfect night. You may be interested to know that my award was….(drum roll please)…
"Most likely to support her ministry in the 3rd world by working as a personal shopper"
What can I say the international cultural markets around the world call my name and I can bargain like no one you have ever seen…my teammates now enlist me to help them in all their shopping needs!
For the record, this will not be my last blog. I will continue to write for a while as the Lord continues to unfold the next steps. Really…this is only the beginning! I simply want to let you know I will be coming home to America on April 30th. The first stop will be to Boston with my sister thru May 11th, followed by a visit to the OKC/Shawnee area, and eventually heading to Springfield around May 20th. More than anything I am excited to share the year with you whenever we meet. Once again…I can't thank you all enough for your faithful prayers, your support, and your attention to how the Lord is moving around the world and in my own life.
The Whole Crew....looking good!
My Buddy Brady and I
Antigua Crew on the Last Night
Casey and I freaking out about leaving one another!
Currently team Phoenix and team Lego are living in Panajachel, Guatemala around El Lago Atitlan. We are serving alongside Lloyd and Melanie Monroe the owners of Salomon's Porch, a local Christian coffee shop reaching out to the travelers and locals in Guatemala. Solomon's Porch is relocating, so we are mainly doing construction on the new building for our last week of ministry on the World Race. We have spent long days painting, tiling, cleaning, sorting, etc...
Yesterday for a little adventure our new Guatemalan friend, Elena took us to her village. We spent time praying for some of her friends, visiting their homes, taking them some food, amongst other entertaining festivities. Here are some pictures from our day in the village!
Soooo....maybe I forgot to mention the entertaining festivities included Elena, her sisters, and mother dressing us in their traditional Guatemalan clothing. Needless to say it was a priceless experience. Now I know to NEVER where such clothing again as it is the least flattering apparel for anyone over 100 pounds. We all looked pretty ridiculous, but it was fun nonetheless. Enjoy!
Casey felt a little left out, but we did our best to lift his spirits!
If you want to read his perspective of the day....click below!
The condition of the world does
not mean that Christ cannot conquer it. We
can cross the Jordan if we have Christ formed in us. Where are the men and
women who say we are here to change the world and we will enlarge our
world? The valley of dry bones in
Ezekiel turned into a vast army.
Many of the Israelites did not
believe God and so they died in the wilderness.
They preferred the comfort zone of the wilderness to the risk of growing
up and getting an inheritance. The
wilderness had no great stresses; they had survival on their minds, not
inheritance. Churches, people, and
nations need to decide to wander more or go to inheritance. The winter is over and we need to believe
it.
99%
of humanity dies in the wilderness, never celebrating the Feast of
Tabernacles. It's an unmitigated tragedy. You can live and breathe as a
Christian and never get your inheritance. Most Christians live with
wilderness, comfort zone thinking. They are saved and have the promise
of heaven ahead. They have no enemy to fight and they don't face any
danger. They are on a journey with 41 stops to nowhere.
As
we move toward our destiny, we can feel the
children of Israel. They set out on a
40-year journey to go to the Promised Land.
They made stops in 41 cities (recounted in Numbers 33). They are
imaginary wilderness cities named after how the Israelites were feeling
at the time. The meaning of the name of each city
represents an issue in the lives of the Israelites that they needed to
deal
with to get to the Promised Land. And we too, en route to our destiny
must move beyond our feelings en route to our destiny.
Near, Far, Wherever you are….I believe that my heart will go on!
Tonight we had our final dinner together where we received awards, photo books, watched a video from the year, and reminisced. It was the perfect night. You may be interested to know that my award was….(drum roll please)…
