Speaker 1Genesis chapter 39, verse 1. Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Speaker 2And would you stay standing for one more moment? We family, you know me. Now may we be good hearers of the word and faithful doers. May we love Jesus deeply. May we trust what Jesus says. And may we follow Jesus well. You may be seated. I found that there is nothing like the promises of God. Amen? There's nothing like the promises of God. See, moments where he speaks into a hurting story or world and promises good. Like how scripture promises a day is coming when they will beat their. They're swords into plowshares. Nation will take up sword. Will no longer take up sword against nation. Does that not sound like good news? But then we read the headlines, right? In June, NPR reported that conflicts around the globe have hit their highest level since World War II. Now scripture promises a day when everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree and no one will make them afraid. Yet this year, the U.N. named that two-thirds of the world's hunger is concentrated in 10 countries torn apart by conflict. Scripture names a day where people will build houses and dwell in them. But just last month, here in our city in Portland, renters stood up at a city council forum to share how hard it is just to keep a roof over their heads. One of our fellow Portlanders had been homeless three times already at this meeting. See, for every one of the promises God seems to make or that scripture holds, it often looks like the real world and our real lives contradict it. Have you ever felt that? Non-matorically, have you ever felt that? See, then if you have, you might understand the question that Genesis 39 is holding. Is God's promise of flourishing for the world still alive? Now, from the beginning, humanity listened to a deceiver and was exiled from Eden. But God promised Abram to restore it, saying all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your family. Now, generations go by. Joseph is the beloved son with the special garment and the dreams from God. And it looks like he may be the one that the promise will run through. Then this promise-looking child is thrown into the pit and sold as a slave. The promise says one thing, and the headline says, verse one, now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian, who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. Now notice, three times in two verses, we hear his location. It keeps coming up. He is in Egypt. He's been taken out of the land, down into the world's most powerful, empire, and none of it was his choice. The next verse tells us that Joseph prospered. And then, verse six, Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care. With Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food that he ate. Things are starting to look up in the story. And then we're told what Joseph looks like. Verse six, now Joseph was well, well-built and handsome. Feels unnecessary. Anyone have a Kindle? You know, like, I have a Kindle, and I, like, every day when I open my Kindle, it has these, like, weird, unnecessary, muscly, romantic comedy, or rom-com, like, rom ads. I'm like, this feels so unnecessary. This is one of those Bible moments where you're like, why are you giving us these details of what he looks like? Why tell us this? See, well, in Hebrew stories, a man's beauty often marks him as chosen or royal. Think of Saul, David, Absalom, Daniel, and his friends. They're all in some way or shape described as attractive or handsome. But Joseph here, he's more literally beautiful in form and appearance. Beautiful in form and beautiful to look at. He would win the Bible magazine's most attractive man, you know? Now, if you think about it, this is actually the phrase that was used of his mother, Rachel, who had a lovely figure in, who was beautiful, Genesis 29. Joseph is beautiful like his mom. Now, beauty like sex is God's good gift. But in Genesis, pleasing to the eye or desirable is often a moment where someone decides to take that gift for themselves. If you remember the first time that we heard that, it was a tree in Eden. Joseph may be the next thing someone sees, wants, and tries to take. Verse seven. For a while, his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me." Verse eight. But he refused. Now, why, right? Like, how does this Bible-telling that's attractive, 20-something, whose life had fallen apart, why does he make this choice? See, Joseph had reasons. Verse eight. My master does not concern himself with anything in the house. Everything he owns, he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. See, Joseph here isn't saying I might get caught. He's saying this would be wrong even if no one ever knew about it. His first reason is that he's been trusted and wants to be trustworthy. He wants to be faithful. He says, my master has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. Now, remember verse six, when we talked about the food that he ate. He withheld nothing from Joseph. But the food he ate. Well, some early Jewish readers heard that as a polite way of saying his wife. So his second reason here is that he wants to live morally by honoring Potiphar's marriage. And then his last reason is, how then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? Sin against God. If Joseph slept with Potiphar's wife, it would be a sin against God called adultery. Now, adultery, like every form of sexual misalignment, wrongs people made in God's image. God is brilliant. Amen? - Yes. - Yeah? We agree. You know, followers of Jesus, we agree on that. It's like a good starting point for like reading scripture. God is brilliant. - Amen. - Now God, he made sex and it is a good gift. - Good. - Yeah, no shame. It's a good thing to amen about. It's such a good gift that God gave it a container to flourish in. Now, sex outside that design is a misalignment. And misalignment harms God's creation even when I don't see it or when it's between two consenting adults. It's sin. And every sin against an image of God is a sin against God himself. That's why David, confessing what he did to Bathsheba, can pray against you and you only have I sinned. Psalm 51:4. Now, David is not denied. He's not denying his sin against Bathsheba. He's not like spiritually bypassing it or something. He's saying that because she bears God's image, sin against her is ultimately a sin against God. Are you following? You with me? Now, there's something that's easy to miss at the end of Psalm 51 that I actually wanna pay attention to because I think it blows the whole Joseph story wide open. Come with me. Now, David's confession ends like this. "It is you to prosper Zion, "to build up the walls of Jerusalem." Psalm 51:18. Now, that's kind of odd because Jerusalem's walls weren't destroyed till hundreds of years later when Babylon burned the city and carried God's people into exile. So how is that in the Psalm that David prayed? Well, many scholars think that those lines were added by exiles praying the Psalm later after Jerusalem fell, which means David's confession of adultery then became theirs because they too had been unfaithful. See, exile is likely when much of the Old Testament was gathered and shaped by people asking what these stories, as they meditated on them, what do these stories mean to God's people here and now? Some of the first people to read Genesis in its final form were exiles in an empire just like Joseph. Now, can you imagine with me like them unrolling the scroll and hearing about the seed of Jacob, which they were, far from home, which they were, in an empire tempted with adultery, asking, how could I do such a wicked thing against God? People holding the question and wondering, is God's promise of flourishing for the world still alive? What do you think they heard? See, they would hear through Joseph's life and story the very sin that they had committed, the one Joseph refused, adultery. They had been unfaithful. See, this is a relational, a marital word that the prophets often used on purpose. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel, they all named one of Israel's great sins as adultery. Even Ezekiel, he says where it all started. Ezekiel 23, they became prostitutes in Egypt, the very place that Joseph refused. Now God, he loves his bride, but she keeps fooling around. So he hands her over into the hands of other lovers. Again, that's Ezekiel 23. Ezekiel 23. The biblical word for that is exile. See, exile simply means three things. They lost land, they lost king, and they lost temple. They lost land, king, and temple. Land, king, and temple. Now, as we meditate on these very same scriptures, we are not in exile like them, but we do live in empire like they did. See, empire is close to what the New Testament calls the world. It's the cultural, societal, and national pulls to live out of alignment with God and his kingdom. It's the voices we listen to. Sometimes it can sound like government and politics, nationalism on the right, political identity on the left. Sometimes it's the way media, books, movies, podcasts, and shows, they subtly shape our beliefs. Sometimes it's how we use money or how we treat our enemies or what we do with our lives. Sometimes it's how we use money or how we treat our enemies or what we do with our bodies. It's the kingdom without the king, the flourishing God promises without the rule of God, or simply put, empire is any power that quietly asks for love and faithfulness that belong to God. Empire is any power that quietly asks for the love and faithfulness that belong to God. Now, to answer your question, do you feel the pull of empire in your life each day? I know I do. In the stores I shop at, in the places I go, in the movies I watch. And even this morning, I was driving in thinking about this teaching, and I caught myself thinking about one part of it and just like kind of ruminating and spiraling. And then it was like, all of a sudden, I felt like, oh my gosh, these thoughts I'm ruminating on, these aren't my thoughts. This sounds more like the world than Jesus. Finding like empire, it suddenly can even get into my own psyche. See, that's why the, early church instructs on living in empire so consistently. Revelation, it pictures empire as Babylon, the prostitute, and says, come out of her, my people. That doesn't mean just leaving your home. It actually means staying faithful to Jesus in it. James, who is disrespectful sometimes, he put it bluntly, you adulterous people, which that's how you want to start your morning devos, right? You adulterous people. Don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity with God? James four. Or how a second century Christian letter describes believers living inside the Roman empire as every foreign land is to them as their native country and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. Every foreign land is to them as their native country and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. Why else would Jesus intercede? My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. John 17. See, life in the world, life in empire is full of pressure. Somebody say pressure. Say it one more time like you're not afraid. Pressure. See, and that pressure is often subtle because empire rarely overtly shouts, worship me. It says what Potiphar's wife quietly whispered, come to bed with me. Verse seven, be close to me. Be close to me intimately. Be satisfied with, by me and with me. See, the temptation of empire can be subtle. So consider your last week. Like what did you offer your attention? What did you attune to? What did you offer your affection? Not just romance, but emotional energy, the things that affected you, your devotion, the things that you gave your consistency and your time. What about your possessions, your body, your actual stuff? What have you offered your attention? Your affection, your devotion, your possessions? See, for those maturing in our discipleship, maybe the question is like, what are the things that, or what are the moments where we're keeping what we have for ourselves? We're spending unnecessarily on those like little pleasures or gossip or avoidance instead of talking it out with the right person or unforgiveness we've learned to accept or pride that puts my thoughts and my feelings and myself at the center of everything. You know, it's like, main character energy. It's the cynicism that's always critiquing everything I see and everything around me just always has a comment. It's the apathy that stops expecting God to move or the prayerlessness that stops holding our lives before God. See, these, my family, my friends, these are the ways of empire. They work against flourishing and they pull our love and our faithfulness away from God. See, empire is always after our love and our faithfulness. All the time, we face individually and corporately their moments of love for God, adoration for God, affection, attention for God, or love and allegiance and faithfulness towards empire, which makes sense of James K. Smith's wisdom. Not all sins are decisions. Overcoming them requires more than just knowledge. It requires a rehabituation, a reformation of our loves. See, not all sins are decisions. Overcoming them requires a reformation of our loves. See, empire is any power that quietly asks for the love and the faithfulness that belong to God. Verse 10, though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. See, where the NIV translates refuse, the Hebrew literally says that he didn't shema, he didn't listen, it's the same word in Israel's daily prayer rhythm in Deuteronomy chapter 4, the shema. Shema Israel, hear, O Israel, Yahweh your God, Yahweh alone. Love Yahweh with all of your heart, with all of your strength, with all of your soul. Give everything to him. It all starts with shema, and notice that shema, it puts listening right before loving, because what we listen to will eventually shape what we love. Which, isn't that how Eden was lost in the first place? Like, Adam Eve listened to a deceiver. Here, though, Joseph doesn't listen. Now, do you see it? This is a war about love. See, in this war, it keeps coming back day after day after day. She keeps coming back to Joseph. Even think about Jesus in Luke chapter 4, when the devil had finished all his tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Even Jesus would be tempted again. See, temptation is what we're hearing in the litany of scripture is not just a one and done. Verse 11. One day, he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, come to bed with me. But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. Good job, Joe. Now, earlier, Joseph refuses and gives reasons for his conviction. But when the temptation kept coming, he stopped reasoning. He stopped just trusting his conviction or his will, and he just runs. Verse 13. When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called to her household servants. Look, she said to them, this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us. It's actually Hebrew, the like Isaac word, to laugh at us, to play with us. He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. Now, I can't help but notice that there are socioeconomic and ethnic layers here in her story. This person uses political power and a deceitful story to rally a people against the ethnic outsider. Listen to what she says to her husband. Verse 16. She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story. That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. Now, notice who she blames. To the servant here, it's this Hebrew. To her husband, he's that Hebrew you brought us, which sounds like this woman you gave me. It's Genesis 3 again. She saw, wanted, tried to take, and now she blames. Verse 19. When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, this is how your slave treated me, he burned with anger. Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. Now here's part of the story that I don't like. See, Joseph in this moment was faithful to God amidst strong temptation, and that faithfulness put him not in the palace, but in the prison and in the pit. In other words, faithfulness to God does not guarantee a pit-free life. Let me say that again. Faithfulness to God does not guarantee a pit-free life. Does not guarantee a pit-free life. And y'all, that sucks. Right? That sucks. I want my faithfulness to God to promise me that everything is going to go up, but faithfulness to God does not guarantee a pit-free life. Here, Joseph fled, and he did the right thing, but only trouble came out of it. See, it's when you follow Jesus and reconcile, but the relationship falls apart. It's when you name the pattern, but the person doesn't stop. When you forgive, but the wound is still there. It's when you give sacrificially, but the budget is still tight. Or you build a business, or you work ethically, but the business falls apart. It's where you honor God with your body, but the desires don't get easier, because sometimes following the narrow way only seems to lead to a narrower, more confined space. See, Joseph's faithfulness did not seem to stop the empire, and the promise looks more dead than before. So here's my question. What do you do? When God's promise is in the pit. What do you do when God's promise is in the pit? Now, the most important voice, and I believe this, anytime we gather, is not a person with a microphone. It's the spirit of the living God. It's Jesus's voice, through his spirit, speaking to us, his bride. And so I want to, like, pause from my speaking for a moment and just offer another invitation and moment for King Jesus to speak. And so I'd encourage you, family, to put yourself into a posture that you can pay attention to Jesus's voice. For many, it's like sitting with feet flat on the floor and back straight. For some, it's hands open and eyes closed. For some, it might be eyes open. But put yourself in a posture of openness, and maybe take a deep breath in. Let it out. Hey, spirit, what are you saying to us? See, where in our world does God's promise to bring flourishing look hopeless or dead? What might our corporate fidelity to God as the church amidst the empires of our day look like? What teaching of Jesus feels particularly hard for me to trust and be faithful to in this season? Holy Spirit, what are you saying to us? Let's just listen. And if you feel distracted, or maybe it just feels like silence, that's okay. Take that as an opportunity to initiate conversation with God. Here's what I'm carrying. Here's what I'm feeling. I encourage you to journal or write whatever's coming to mind down. Just take 30 more seconds. Just a few more seconds. When you're ready, you can open your eyes. If you're still dialoguing with God, that's more important. Just focus in on that. Here's my question to us again. Is God's promise of flourishing still alive in the world? Now, I know that the right churchy, preachy, Christian-y answer is supposed to be yes, right? But how do we know? Like, actually, how do we know? Because I don't know if you've been outside lately, but things look bad. Like, things look bleak and hopeless and tough. Reading the news in the morning, I'm like, oh, God. Help. Please. See, for Joseph, a good dream became a bad story, became a nightmare. For God's people who were supposed to bring about flourishing for the world, they were now in exile. The promise is in the pit. And it's when the promise looks dead that the real question and the real pain begin to surface. See, it's the question that the exiles prayed. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? The question that honors us. God honestly feels too tender to pray sometimes. Where is God? My God, right here and right now, where are you? Have you ever asked that? Have you ever held that? Have you prayed that honestly? God, where the heck are you? I've had to. Because often, my life and our world feel more pit than promise. So how do I know that God's promise of flourishing is still alive? How do I know that God's promise of flourishing for the world is still alive? Verse 20. But while Joseph was there in prison, hear me, the Lord was with him. While Joseph was there in prison, the Lord was with him. Actually, let's read that together. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him. Look back through chapter 39 and you'll see it again and again. In verse 2, the Lord was with Joseph, so he prospered. In verse 3, his master saw it. In verse 23, even the prison warden saw it too. This is the chorus of Joseph's life. God was with Joseph. God was with Joseph. God was with Joseph. God was with Joseph. To which we can say, amen. Y'all, amen, it actually means, may that be so. It's a way of us communally responding to the proclamation. It's the way that we participate. It's the way that we bear witness to the truth and say, this is real. This is true. May this be so. Be so. God was with Joseph. Amen. How do you know God's promise is still alive and flourishing in the world? That the promise of flourishing is still able to come to pass. That God's promise for flourishing in the world is not dead. God was with him. See, and whenever Joseph went, wherever he went, things began to flourish. The scripture says, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. That's Genesis 12 in miniature. People blessed. All peoples beginning to be blessed through. Abraham's family. God's promise. It's alive and well in the Egyptian house and even in an Egyptian pit. Verse 21. Then the Lord was with him and he showed him his chesed. If you remember that word, Joy taught it to us this summer. Chesed, it's God's covenant loyal love. Joseph here is faithful to God and gets chesed. But notice, the exiles were unfaithful and they still get chesed. See, God says to the exiles, I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice. In chesed and compassion, I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord. Hosea chapter 2. So even the unfaithful to God, they get chesed. See, Genesis, I think this story, we've been in this since last summer. And I think as I paid attention to it, it's trying to shove a truth deep into our being that God's promises do not depend on our faithfulness. God's promises depend on his chesed. They depend on him. God's promise is still alive because God is with his people, even in empire and even in the pit. Do you hear me? See, regardless of what it looks like, God's promise to bring about flourishing is never dead. It's never dead. And nowhere do we see that more than in the promise that we long for. Jacob's true seed, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. He is the promise in the pit. He's the beloved son, betrayed, condemned, murdered by empire, and then laid in the pit of the grave. Nowhere in the human story has the promise of flourishing looked more real. more dead than Emmanuel's pit. But it's actually right there, right in that pit that God's promise begins to flip the world upside down. In Jesus's death, he disarmed the rulers and the powers of the age. And when the sun rose on the third day, resurrection and new creation began to burst forth into human story, a flourishing for all humanity that not even the pit of death can snuff out. And y'all, it gets better. After Jesus was snatched out of the pit, he ascended to the throne and he sent his spirit to all people so that we can live faithfully and with assurance amidst the empires of our day. Do you remember what the exile took? King, land, and temple. Look at what God restores. The king, Jesus, has been enthroned as king of all, exalted to the right hand of God, which is good news to the captives and to the poor. Because there is a day coming when the kings of the earth will throw down their crowns before him and the government will be on his shoulders. See, the temple to the church in empire, Paul says, don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in your midst? We have become God's temple, the heaven and earth spot. You looking for heaven somewhere, you're looking for the presence of God. We have become the access point of God's presence in the earth. Oh, what access point? What access do we have to all of the riches of heaven with us in every moment of every day? You are the temple. We are the temple. And then lastly, the land, it gets filled. To the people living under Babylon's boot, Habakkuk declares, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So the presence that fills us as God's temple will one day fill the entire earth. In other words, humanity's exile is over. Oh, what great lengths has God not gone to to be with his people? And y'all, that is not just in the cosmic sense, in the big sense, in the universal sense. That couldn't be more personal for you and me and our stories today. So y'all, if I could preach something to us, to my own soul, for the things I'm walking through, I am struggling and fighting and clawing on to remember this simple truth that God is with me in every part of my life. Family, God is with you. In every part of your life. There is no part of your life that is unseen or untouched or out of the view of God. When the spiritual practices aren't going the way that you hope, God is with you. When you're in the story that you're still unpacking, God is with you. In the unexpected turns of your life that you're facing, in the grieves that you're carrying, in the spaces that you feel stuck or you're not in control, in the situation and pain and problems and unanswered prayer, God is with you. In our city, in our nation, in our time, in our world, God is with you. When things feel hopeless, God is with you. God is with you. God is with you. His promises, they're no more dead than Emmanuel. So do not let the enemy of your soul rob you of this treasure based on what you see. He's with you. See, the promise is alive and well, even in the pit. Now, here is what is interesting about Genesis 39. Four times, the scripture tells us that the Lord was with Joseph. The Lord was with Joseph. But it's only the narrator who ever says it. Joseph never does, which means he may not have been able to see it. We don't know. So if you can't see God with you right now, family, that's okay. It's okay for you to not be able to see God with you. We must be the kind of people who hold onto God. Actually, I'll say it differently. We must be the kind of people who know deep within our psyche that God is holding onto us, even when we can't see him and even when things don't go the way that we want. Now, God being with us does not resolve everything in this moment or this age. All of our stories will not wrap up like Joseph's did on top. But the God who is with Joseph in the pit, y'all, he is with you, he's with me in ours. So until Christ returns to make all things new, he is with us by his spirit, who, quote, intercedes for us through wordless groans. So we groan. And hear me, that same spirit of God, that same spirit is God's seal of ownership on us, a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, 2 Corinthians 1. The spirit is our guarantee that God will bring about, but he has promised. It's like that
Speaker 3hymn, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, but a foretaste of glory divine, heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood.
Speaker 2This is our story. This is our story, y'all. So how do we respond to God's faithfulness and live in the moments where God's promise of flourishing for the world looks dead? What do we do when life looks more pit than promise? Well, I think we quietly join his work by living faithfully together for the flourishing of the world, starting with the places we're presently in. See, that's exactly what God told his people in Babylon through Jeremiah. Build houses, plant gardens, seek the peace and prosperity of the city that I've carried you into exile, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. In exile, God says, I know the plans I have for you. It's not vague. It's not abstract. It's not just like wall calligraphy. In the middle of exile, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future, and they hope. So that promise was spoken to a people with decades of exile still ahead of them. So we don't give in to empire and its ways. We don't flee or escape. We learn to live as people who belong to another kingdom right where we are. It's the narrow way of faithful presence because every time we live faithfully to King Jesus, we announce to the empires of this age that their rule is coming to an end and Christ's. Every time you choose to live faithfully with hope instead of despair, with the fruit of the spirit, with love, joy, peace, patience, like when we live by the fruit of the spirit, when we live by the teachings of Jesus, every time we live faithfully to King Jesus, we announce to the empires of this age that their rule is coming to an end and Christ has begun. Sometimes that means we refuse the temptations of empire. In other moments, we run from the temptations of empire. Again, we run from temptation, not from the world. It repeatedly then means we confess and repent when we sin or listen to empire, knowing God is loyal and love. Then we work with God to rewrite the patterns we come from. You know, Jacob, he deceived his father with a garment and then his son, his sons deceived him too. Then a garment got used to lie about Joseph. I mean, that's a hot mess. That'll do something in your psyche. Generations of that pattern, just with clothing. We all get family patterns. And that's why our Bridgetown communities are continuing the genogram because we need to get into our stories. But here's the thing. We get into our stories knowing that even there, we'll find God with us too. Even as you go into the dark places of your life, the scripture says, the dark is not dark to him. The night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to him because you know me, God. Then from there, we remain faithful. We give our love, and our faithfulness to Jesus alone. And lastly, we remember God's story that we're a part of. Hear me, family. God is with us. God is with us. God is with us. As King Jesus said, look, I am with you every single day to the very end of the age. He is faithful to his people. He is faithful to his world, and he is faithful to his promise.
Speaker 4Hello, Bridgetown. I'm Tyler here with my great friend, Pete Hughes from KXC, No Stranger to Bridgetown Church. And I'm so happy to share with you that he, alongside his wife, Bea, will be joining us for our ninth annual Holy Spirit Conference on February 26 and 27 in downtown Portland.
Speaker 5We cannot wait to be with you to spend time unpacking this epic story in John's Gospel, looking at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus turns water into wine. And some of what we're seeing in our content which is super exciting is that there's been a shaking of secularism, and there's an incredible spiritual openness. The Spirit is doing a new thing. We do perceive it. We can't wait to share stories and build faith that God is moving in a fresh way in the Western world. So we can't wait to be with you.
Speaker 4We've already been praying toward the weekend, and I'm going to be teaching this year alongside Pete and Bea. All three of us will be hosting workshops, set apart time to wait on the Spirit and hear God's voice. We'll be led in worship by our own Bridgetown Music team, which we're so excited about. You can register right now on our website. We hope to see you there.
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