Mark 1:11 “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Hebrews 11:11 “And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.” John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

The other day I picked up one of my old film cameras and immediately took a little journey back in time. All the great memories, the satisfying click and the feel of nostalgia in my hands. If I could only jump back in time for just a day. I had entered the trap... Nostalgia is a tricky thing, it pretends to be our friend but left unchecked it will steal your future. How often do you see old pictures of yourself and get caught up thinking of the good old days. Or perhaps you see an old friend and think about how much better things were back then. How many of us have witnessed this in our churches? I grew up in charismatic circles and have a generally fond memory of the early 90s. It was new, fresh and there was some excellent things going on. It felt like it was only ever going to get better, more revivals, more outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it was all headed up. You see moments of nostalgia help us remember the good, but are pretty good at making us forget all that was not so great. I held my camera, snapped a few shots and quickly remembered just how much work shooting film was. While it is satisfying, exciting, and feels cool, I am glad I can plug my digital camera to my computer and print a picture I just took. As we walk out or faith we must make sure we are not getting stuck on what was, or the last great move of God in our nations. We must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and moving towards what He has for us not just now but also in the future. In Hebrews 12 we see the writer talking about sin that so easily ensnares us. Can nostalgia also ensnare us, trip us up and get us stuck? Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Those of you familiar with photography will know that your aperture is essential to establish your depth of field, in other words how much of your image is in focus. Low aperture gives you lots of light but a shallow depth of field and high aperture gives you a lot less light to work with but a much wider depth of field. But you are not here for a photography lesson so what exactly am I getting at? Well if we stay at a shallow understanding of the word and our walk with God we will end up with a lot of light but not much depth of understanding. It is essential that as believers we don't stay at a surface understanding or we miss the whole picture. The writer of Hebrews addresses exactly this. Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. -Hebrews 6:1-6 NKJV You see as we encounter more of Holy Spirit it should draw us deeper and deeper, it should be what informs our conversations, desires and actions. Encounter also draws us deeper into scripture, placing a hunger for the deeper mysteries of God inside of us. Now it is time to grab those pictures. Take a look at the one you took of yourself this week and take a look at the depth of field. Is it shallow or is it deep? Now look at some of the pictures of your youth. Do you see the same depth or has it grown? Ask Holy Spirit what are the areas that are still out of focus or lacking in understanding. Let Him shine a little more light in so you can open up that aperture.

I want you to take a snapshot of yourself, not literally but figuratively. Now you will need to hold on to that picture for the week as it will become a reference for what we are going to talk about. There are many ways to self assess, you probably hear about them all the time. Sayings like "look in the mirror" or "take a look at yourself" or one we are all familiar with found in Matthew: How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? -Matthew 7:4 NKJV However this week we will be using a different saying. It is always good to have some introspection in your life, moments of looking in the mirror and digging a little into what makes us who we are. Yet the moment we depart from the mirror we often forget what exactly we were looking at and I don't think anyone remembers what they saw in the mirror years ago. So that is why this week we are going to "Take a picture it lasts longer". It might be helpful to grab a couple old pictures from that shoe box under the bed as well. You see pictures are often more than a memory, they have to ability to act as memorial stones in our lives. They remind us of more than what we used to look like, they stir up memories of what we were like in past seasons of life. They remind us how we used to think, how we used to act and even most importantly they can remind us of our walk with the Lord and how far He has brought us. They can stir up our faith and remind us of where we came from and where we are going. So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

It begins with Christ, the promised Seed. Galatians 3:16 tells us that the Seed promised to Abraham is Christ. Jesus then describes His own death using the picture of a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that it can “produce much grain” (John 12:24). But the seed story doesn't stop with Jesus. Ask yourself, “What fruit is God wanting to produce through me where He has planted me?”