Your Context is Your Calling | Men of Valor | Pastor Stephen Francis

So something about me is, as a pastor here in New York City, a common

question that is asked of me is how do I figure out what my calling

is?

How do I figure out what my purpose is in life?

And that's a really big question.

And it's one that while it's hard to know specifically how it

works for everyone, I do believe God is kind enough to give

us clues on what our calling is.

And the thing is, your context is the key to your calling.

You are not here by accident, but you have been divinely put here

in this time in history, in this specific part of the world that

you're in, because God wants something to happen through your

life.

And the thing about that, especially as I think about everything

that is happening here at V1 Church over the years since I've

been able to work witness that, is that V1 has a very unique

and special place in the kingdom of God.

V1 Church exists between two realities.

The first reality is this is that we are living in the age of

anticulture.

It's not just chaos, it's beyond chaos.

We're living in an age sociologists say is the most reactive,

insecure, unwanted, hopeless and exhausted generation.

And recorded human history.

Depression, anxiety and suicide is at an all time high.

However, V1 also exists in another reality, which is that there

is a mighty move of God that is happening here and the people

that are dealing with hopelessness, anxiety, depression,

finding freedom in the name of Jesus through what is happening here

at this church.

I'm standing in a church that worshiped in Times Square.

Of all the things that you see that happen here in this city, here

in the world, you were the ones that got to lift up the name

of Jesus in that space.

And the question is, what do we do about that?

As we've been walking in this series, Men of Valor, I want to talk

to you.

And this is a message, yes, for men, but I think everyone could

take hold of it, of how we can be people of Kingdom culture in this

time.

Because God is doing powerful things here at V1 Church, but I believe

he's doing powerful things here at V1 Church so that we as the

church can go out and establish kingdom culture in all

of the spaces that we operate in.

So with that, I want to talk about how we can be people of Kingdom

culture.

And a kingdom culture will be built out of people of radical repentance.

And repentance is a very religious word, but it simply means

to change your mind, to go a different route.

So when I'm Talking about radical repentance.

I'm talking about people that see the way of the culture that's

currently existing and says, I'm not going this way, I'm going

a different way, and I'm going to bring people with me.

And we learn this from none other than a mighty man of God in

Scripture named King Josiah, that he's not a person you hear all

the time in services, but he's someone you might know, someone named

Josiah, but that's about it.

But let me give you some fast facts about King Josiah that I believe

you need to understand.

First and foremost, Josiah was born where there wasn't a move of

God for over 90 years.

His father and grandfather were some of the most evil kings

in Israel's history.

The temple of God was destroyed in Israel, and many people

were operating in the ruins of the temple, worshiping other pagan

gods.

And the prophets of that time said because of all the wickedness

that Israel did, that there was judgment from God that was coming.

Yet we see this here in the story of King Josiah, Second Chronicles

34.

Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned

in Jerusalem 31 years.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed the

ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to

the left.

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young,

he began to seek the God of his father.

Now, here's the thing.

David is not his father.

David is not related to him in any way.

Josiah comes from a grandfather who was so wicked that

God had to take him out.

And his father was also another person that was assassinated

by the people because he was such a threat to their safety.

So Josiah is not operating on any spirituality that's around him.

In fact, he says, if I live off the spirituality that I see here

around me, I'm not going to be able to operate.

I'm going to look back on my past and I'm going to gradually someone

who I can hold onto and learn from.

And I feel like that is so many of the people that are here

right now at B1 Church.

Many of you in here did not come from a Christian home.

Many of you in here might have come from a home that said that they

were Christian, but at the same time they didn't exemplify Christ

in a way that you wanted to follow.

And here you are in this space where you have said yes to Jesus,

or maybe you're still on your journey of getting to that yes to

Jesus, and you're Saying, I want to do something different.

I want to establish something different in my family, because what

I've seen, I cannot continue.

And you are saying to yourself, how do I lean into this?

How do I hold on from this?

And the way that many of us have leaned to the incredible leadership

here at this church, we can also learn as well the way that King

Josiah did when it came to David.

We know that David is not necessarily a perfect person, but

he established a lot of things that was an example of what to follow.

King David was a worshiping warrior.

He was a man full of emotions.

He was a leader to the people.

But most important about King David was that he built a culture

around the presence of God amongst the people.

He not only built a temple to God and had the Ark of the Covenant

in that temple, but he paid out of his own pocket for there to

be 247 worship happening in that temple each and every day, and

established the major highways of the city of Jerusalem.

So any neighboring nation, any country that came through there,

would walk past the temple and hear the worship that was happening

inside.

He prioritized the presence of God amongst the people and created

a culture.

And let me be clear, you are creating a culture in your own home.

There is a culture that is cultivated in your own heart, and

the culture is what you put at the center of your life and what

you allow to grow around it.

I live in New York City, like many of you here right now, and we

live in a culture of mammon.

We worship money out here in this city, but that doesn't have

to be our story.

And in Indiana and Jersey and in Miami and Long island, you have

your own things, too.

By the way, we are all praying that the Pacers take it in game seven.

Indiana, we are with you tonight.

But radical repentance, turning from the things of this world

and creating a culture, comes from reconstructing the center of

your life.

The first thing we see Josiah do in the name of this was he ripped

out the sins that live at the root.

Second Chronicles 34 under his direction, Josiah, the altars of

the bales were torn down.

He cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them and smashed

the Asherah poles and the idols.

These he broke to pieces and scattered over the graves of those

who had sacrificed to them.

He burned the bones of the priests on their altars.

And so he purged Judah and Jerusalem in the towns of Manasseh,

Ephraim and Simeon as far as Naphtali.

And in the ruins around them, he tore down the altars and the Asherah

poles and crushed the idols to powder and cut to pieces all the

incense altars throughout Israel.

Then he went back to Jerusalem.

Now, that was a lot there.

Let me summarize what's going on.

Josiah says, I am going to prioritize the presence of God amongst

the people.

And the temple of God that was originally established was torn down.

And there was a bunch of different idol worship that was happening

there.

And he did not just say, get the idols out, move them out the

way.

He said, no, destroy them all, burn it, put it to powder and throw

it all out so that no other generation, no other king that comes

out after me can find these things and worship those instead.

Let me summarize what he did in a way that we can understand.

You don't get what you want.

You get what you tolerate.

You do not get the vision that you want.

You get what you allow to grow around the center of your life.

And this is true in every facet of our culture, of our society.

Everything you like and don't like that is happening right now

in our country are things that we allowed to happen 20 plus years

ago.

There's no surprises.

I like the way John Wesley puts it.

He says it this way, what one generation tolerates, the next generation

will embrace.

And the same way that works in our culture, in our society, that

also works within our hearts.

And many of you know what it's like to be saved.

And you're following Jesus and you're doing all the right things

and you've gotten rid of all the other sins in your life.

But there seems to be some stubborn sins that stick around that

continue to come up and they cause for you to even reach the point

of exhaustion that just says, you know what it is, what it is,

this is just who I am.

This is just what I deal with.

I'm celebrating this year, May of this year, it just passed.

10 years married to my wife Jasmine.

I actually have a picture of us on our wedding day.

Incredible day.

Can't believe it's been 10 years.

I am more in love with this girl now than I was looking at her

in this picture.

It's quite a blessing.

But here's the thing about this picture, this image of us, this

day that we got married.

We were fresh out of Bible college.

We've been following Jesus for quite some time.

We were about to step into full time ministry and we knew that

we had some baggage on both sides of the family.

But we also had a sense that, listen, we love Jesus, we Have a

sense of call on our lives.

We're gonna show up into this thing and we're going to do something

different in our family line, no question.

And that lasted for probably about a week and a half, because

shortly into our marriage, all these type of things started coming

out of us.

There was secrecy that was happening.

There was manipulation that was happening.

There was all types of drama that was going on.

And it was like, we never really experienced anything like

this before, but it was as if, like, the pressure of marriage started

bringing this stuff up to the surface.

And it made me have to figure out what was going on in my family

line.

And I started getting into epigenetics.

And epigenetics.

I know many of you know it, but for the people that don't know

it, epigenetics is the study of how people inherit family trauma

and other things up to five to six generations.

They did one study on Holocaust survivors, and they saw

that Holocaust survivors, after studying their brain, had a

unique mental map that was different than everybody else because

of the that they experienced during the Holocaust.

But then they did the same study over their grandchildren, far

removed from anything that happened in the Holocaust.

And when they studied the brains of their grandchildren, they

had the same mental maps in their own head, despite never experiencing

the Holocaust at all.

There's a science to this.

And I remember going through my family line and I saw all the

types of stuff, secrets and manipulation that was happening in

my family.

Found out tragically, my grandfather, who was a highly respected

person in the church, also had a complete separate family that my

parents didn't know about.

And I had to be the person that says, these are the things that

are in my family, but it will not continue through me.

There is a new legacy being made.

I am establishing something new.

We are letting all those old things happen, die right here.

And there's going to be a wave of godly influence that moves forward.

And we did so many different things in order to unpack what was

going on.

We did spiritual, healthy, emotionally healthy spirituality.

Excuse me.

We did breakers.

We are breaker graduates.

Me and my wife shout out to the breakers in the room.

By the way, watching online, I learned the hard way.

I love the way Pete Scazzero says it, Jesus may live in your heart,

but grandpa lives in your bones.

And you gotta get Jesus into the innermost parts in you to find

that freedom.

And another thing that you can call this is not just epigenetics.

Sometimes it's spiritual curses, sometimes it's things that

have been put on you that you had no idea that you're walking with.

This is why I love B1 Church, by the way, because y' all preach

the whole Bible.

I don't have to.

I don't have to buffer anything.

We could just keep it 100% here.

I had a conversation with a great leader, John Mark Comer, and

he told me the story about how his wife was her whole life and her

whole time knowing him was battling with this degenerative disease.

She dealt with really bad illnesses that would come in waves.

She had it where half her face would go into spasms and different

things from time to time.

And she's just been living with this forever.

And it reached a point where in her early 30s, it looked like

she was about to die from this disease.

They went to every doctor, they suggested every medication and

every diet, but nothing was working.

And then eventually someone said, have you looked through her

family line to see if there might be a spiritual curse there?

And they looked through the family line and they found out her

great grandmother from Mexico was having an affair with another

man.

And the woman that was getting cheated on by her husband put a curse

on her great grandmother that said that the firstborn daughter

of her line would either get incredibly sick or die at an early

age.

And guess who she was?

A firstborn daughter in the line.

So they sat her down.

They got people to show up, pray over her, renounce it, rebuke

it.

And she said it felt like a veil came off of her head.

She aged 10 years younger, and she has been living free of all disease

ever since.

That was in 2018.

There's power to this, but it won't happen unless we say, I'm going

to look through my line, find the strongholds, and I'm not just

going to acknowledge it.

I'm going to destroy it so that God can do a new thing.

But that's not all.

The second thing that we learned from King Josiah was he restored

what had been lost.

2nd Chronicles 34, verse 8.

He says, in the 18th year of Josiah's reign, to purify the land

and the temple he set Shaphan son of Azaleah and Maaseiah the ruler

of the city, with Joah, son of Johaz the recorder, to repair the

temple of the Lord his God.

It was not enough just to get all of the wicked idols out.

They needed to make sure that they established the temple again

to be where the presence of God dwelled amongst the the people

the same way.

For us, it's not just good enough.

Just to get rid of the sins that you've been dealing with, especially

the deep rooted ones.

We need to create habits and practices that prioritizes God's

presence amongst us so that whether we're in the workspace, whether

we're in school, whether we're in the neighborhood, people can see

that there's a spirit that is amongst us that's different than

the world.

I love what Moses said one time, he said to God, listen, we

need your presence amongst us, us.

If your presence does not go with us, then we don't want to go.

How else will people know that we are different as a culture?

Think about that question.

There's so many ways I'm in this beautiful, diverse room full

of all type of different cultures represented here and watching

online, and there are so many ways you can distinct that.

The, the way that you dress, the celebrations you have, the food

that you have, the language that you speak.

Moses says, I don't care about any of that.

We want your presence to be the distinguishing factor in the

way that we live.

And here's the tension with that though.

We live in an age right now, no matter where you are in this country

where the primary goal of secular culture is to get you to

privatize your faith.

I've been living in New York City now for some time, and there

are definitely some people that are against the gospel and actively

work against it.

But for the most part, most people don't care what I believe

as long as I don't talk about it.

They could put whatever in my face, they can blast whatever in

my ears of what they believe and how things should go.

But the second I bring up Jesus, they're like, nah, fam, keep

that at home.

And we can end up adapting this narrative that says if we are

just simply nice enough, not vocal in our faith, but if we're

simply just really nice people, perhaps that might mean that

someone might come to us and be like, you're such a nice person.

Why are you so nice?

And that could be the opportunity for us to share Jesus

with them.

And I'm not saying that it's completely ineffective, but you know

what's an even better strategy?

Just bringing up Jesus to people.

This is why I'm so excited for Blitz the Block next week.

You guys are literally gonna be praying here and going throughout

this city proclaiming the name of Jesus so that they might be able

to know that there is hope in this world.

And when I think about the importance of this, I'm reminded

of a powerful quote See, this past week we just celebrated Juneteenth

here in our country, a great day of progress of racial equality.

And I do not take for granted that me, a black man in America and

preaching on this stage in front of this incredible diverse

crowd.

And I am legally able to do so, and there will be no harm to

my family for doing so.

That was not always the story.

In fact, I'm standing up here as an answered prayer of my ancestors.

And in the process of the journey for racial equality we always

remember the powerful impact of Martin Luther King.

And he said so many great wonderful things in his time before

he unfortunately lost his life.

But one thing that has always stuck with me was this one quote

he has from letters to a Birmingham jail.

He says this.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian

and Jewish brothers.

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been

gravely disappointed with the white moderate.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's

greatest stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not

the white citizens counselor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white

moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.

Now let me be clear.

Martin Luther King in this moment is talking about racial justice.

But can I just take you with me one moment?

What if the greatest obstacle to people that we know and care about

finding out about the name of Jesus and them saying yes to Jesus

is not some type of political oppression, maybe not even some demonic

force.

It's just our indifference in wanting to share our faith because

we want to be comfortable where we're at.

We need to be people that proclaim the name of Jesus and prioritize

his presence amongst us.

We do not just need nice people.

We need mighty men of God.

We need mighty women of God.

I'm actually a factor of change in this department.

I grew up in church and I was someone who despite the fact growing

up in church Jesus didn't really mean anything to me.

That was just my parents religion.

But what changed my life one day was when a 15 year old girl in

my high school named Hannah Anderson saw me and a bunch of guys

in my class goofing around.

And she was like, hey guys, do you have a moment for me to tell

you about Jesus?

And she stood there in front of us and began crying, tears pouring

down her face.

Told us about the love of Jesus.

Told us about he has plans and purposes for our lives.

Told us that if we would trust in him, he would be able to give

us freedom in the areas that we felt Trapped and bound.

And that he loved us so deeply and was willing for us to just surrender

to him and he would change our lives forever.

And I remember hearing her say all of that.

And I laid in my bed one night and I said, looking at the ceiling,

I said, lord Jesus, if this is true about you, then I will follow

you the days of my life.

All the days of my life.

I'm standing up here today because of what a high school student

said to me so long ago.

Let me put it in a different way.

Yes, that is worth the praise, by the way.

You have no question, you have no clue how powerful your words can

be.

You have no clue how powerful your testimony is.

A public faith is spiritual warfare.

In the secular age, the Holy Spirit makes all the difference.

But sometimes it's all about just being willing to be public about

your faith in a way that goes against the culture.

And I don't think you have to be crazy about it.

Consistency is being better than intensity.

And you can create methods of how you share the Gospel in every

way, shape and form around you.

Real quick, I'll share this story.

Our church is in lower Manhattan.

Shout out to the Manhattan campus.

And before we got that building, we didn't have anywhere

to do Bible study.

We're here in New York City.

Space is not that great for most people.

So we ended up doing Bible studies just around the neighborhood.

And we started doing a Bible study in a Whole Foods in the cafeteria.

And we didn't just show up to talk about Jesus, we showed up with

paper Bibles.

And if you ever want to see people go nuts, show up with a paper

Bible somewhere and have them, like, be like, I think that guy's

got a Bible.

What is going on?

We were doing that Bible study, and for three, four weeks,

there was a guy that was standing there, a security guard

that was standing there that was just staring at us the whole

time.

And I didn't know what this dude was up to.

I don't know if he.

If he liked it, if he didn't like it.

I don't know what his intention was.

But eventually, after the fourth week, he went on his break

and he was like, hey, I'm sorry to interrupt.

I just think you guys are talking about Jesus and I've always

wanted to hear about him.

My grandma used to talk about him.

Can I sit here and listen to you guys talk about Jesus?

And that young man gave his life to Jesus because of a Bible

study in a Whole Foods.

You have no clue what God can do.

I like the way Richard Niebuhr says it, the great Christian revolutions

come not by the discovery of something that was not known before.

They happen when someone radically takes something that was

always there.

There's third and final point that I believe King Josiah exemplifies

that we can learn from how to bring kingdom culture in the age

of anti culture is to rediscover and rebuild the pursuit

of God.

2nd Chronicles 34 While they were bringing out the money that

had been taken into the temple of the Lord Hilkiah, the priests

found the book of the law of the Lord that had been given through

Moses.

When the king heard the words of the law, he tore his robes.

Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the remnant of Israel

and Judah about what is written in this book that has been

found.

Great is the Lord's anger that is poured out on us because those

who have gone before us have not kept the word of the Lord.

They have not acted in accordance with all that was written

in the book.

He uprooted the idols and destroyed them.

He restored the temple to prioritize God's presence among the

people.

And then he invited all others to participate in celebrating God

for who he was.

Scripture later on says that about he got the entire people of

Israel to rediscover celebrating the Sabbath and Passover

again.

And in the midst of that worship they said it was unlike anything

that Israel had ever seen for 400 years.

Imagine if it was said that the worship that happened in V1 was

so powerful it is something that was not seen since 1625.

I believe that's powerful.

I believe that's a reality.

But the thing that King Josiah understood was that there was so

much on the line if he did not give God his best praise and did

not involve people.

If someone doesn't do something radical, nothing will change.

We are standing in a culture right now where over 50% of marriages

fail.

We are standing in a culture right now where 7 out of 10 children

imagine all the kids right now in Kids Church.

7 out of 10 children will leave the faith when they become

adults.

And we need to be people that say not on my watch, not on my time.

I'm not gonna rely on anything else other than the culture that

I established through the power of Jesus to be the difference

maker that causes for things that to turn around.

I believe that what God has done here is powerful.

But let it not just be a thing that happens as a moment in history,

but let this be a movement that changes history forever.

For the Kingdom of God.

Can I just share real quick as the band comes up?

The vision that I have for my life and I want to encourage all

of you in here.

Have a vision for your life, have a vision for what you want to

see God do and be able to write it down.

This is where I'm at right now in my life.

That Liberty Church New York City become a place of hunger for

God that creates awakening, revival and revolution to New York

City in a way that has not yet been seen.

That Jasmine and I will cultivate a thriving lifelong godly

marriage that is used by God to help 100 plus couples to have

thriving lifelong godly marriages.

That our three children will grow to love Jesus passionately and

follow him with all the days of their life.

And that every generational curse and destructive habit in the

Francis family line will be completely broken in my lifetime,

leaving a legacy of freedom and blessing for generations to come.

Your context is the key to your calling.

And you are in a time right now where things are dark, where

things do not look good every time you look, look on the news,

it only breeds more anxiety, it only brings more despair.

But here we are in this church where we've seen the mighty hand

of God move amongst us.

And let it be said that it did not just happen here in these spaces,

but that we took the power of God that was happening here and we

took it out there so that our families were changed, so that our

businesses were transformed, so that our neighborhoods were turned

upside down and that the name of Jesus was lifted up and glorified.

Here's the thing about King Josiah's story.

Is he, after he did all of that, the prophet said that because

of Josiah's radical change and transformation, the judgment that

was coming on Israel was paused during his lifetime.

Things can change, things can transform if we lift up the name

of Jesus not just in this room, but in our hearts and in our

culture.

And right now, I want to give this invitation.

Every head bowed, every eyes closed.

If you are hearing me right now, whether here online and you

say, I want to be a person that brings a kingdom culture, I

want to be a person that turns the direction from where my family

has been going, to where my businesses have been going, to where

the culture around me has been going, I'm going to be a light in

a dark place like never before.

I want you to stand up on your feet.

I want to know who I'm praying for in here.

Where are the King Josiahs amongst us?

Where are the life changers amongst us?

Lift up your hands right now in this place.

Jesus, we thank you.

Jesus, we love you.

See these here, your people.

See the people that says, here I am, Lord, send me here I am, God.

I don't want things to continue getting dark the way that

it has.

I want to be a difference maker.

I want to be a person that turns things around.

I want to be the person that sees your name glorified.

For if you are lifted up, every man, woman and child will come

unto you.

So do it in me.

Do it through me.

Do it in my family.

Do it in my business.

Do it in my history.

Do it here and now.

God, I make myself available to you.

I surrender to you.

I am the King Josiah.

I am the Queen Josiah of this age.

And to you, Lord, I say, thank you for what you've done in me.

And Lord, might you do it in my lifetime for so many others.

Let's worship the Lord together.

Church.