REFOCUS Questions - Who Am I?

This past Sunday Pastor Jeremy Hawkins spoke with us about Kingdom Values. At the end of his sermon he asked us to ask ourselves two questions:

"Who Am I?" and "What Breaks My Heart?"

We received seventy-five responses from the one hundred and twelve in worship.
Their responses are as follows:

WHO AM I?

30 - Child of God
19 - Used various adjectives to describe themselves (hungry, seeking, thirsty, etc.)
7 - Christian
7 - Believer
3 - Follower of Christ
3 - Wife/mother
2 - Husband/father
2 - Used their actual name...
1 - Unbeliever
1 - ??? (unknown)

WHAT BREAKS MY HEART?

20 - Child abuse
13 - The Lost (those w/o salvation)
11 - Injustices (poverty,addiction, racism, etc.)
7 - People have a lack of hope
6 - Families/marriage/divorce
5 - Discipleship
4 - State of the nation & world/our leaders
4 - Animal abuse
3 - Unloved children
1 - Those with mental illness
1 - Unforgiveness

Recently the Welborn Baptist Foundation conducted numerous surveys and research groups aimed at evaluating the health of the community here in Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky. Among those findings are the facts that we have a 6% more single parent homes than the national average; 5% fewer husband-wife families(a); 45% more teen mothers than national average(b); and a nearly 200% higher child abuse rate than the national average(c). Add the fact that the tri-state area has twice as many adult binge drinkers than the national average, and we begin to see that the hearts of New Hope are in tune with the challenges of our community.

This month at New Hope we have been trying to REFOCUS our view of the Kingdom of God. We have to understand what the Kingdom is and what the King wants from his Kingdom. We begin with the first questions of What Is The Kingdom?

• The kingdom of God is any place over which God has operative dominion.

• The kingdom is life as God intended it (in all its facets).  

God outlines a perfect kingdom in Isaiah 65. There he describes a land where...

• There is joy—v.19
• There is absence of weeping and crying (v.19)
• There is no infant mortality (v.20)
• People live out their full lives (v.20)
• People will build houses and live in them (v.21, 22)
• People will sow and reap (v.21, 22)
• There is fulfilling work (v.22)
• There is confidence that their children will face a better life (v.23)
• People will experience the blessing of God (v.23)
• People will have inter-generational family support (v.23)
• There will be rapid answers to prayer (v.24)
• There will be an absence of violence (v.25)

As citizens of The Kingdom, we need to pray that the King will give us clear direction on what is shaping his heart and how we can join along side him to implement the benefits of His kingdom. Knowing who we are and having a heart that breaks for the things that breaks His heart is a start. Now we must set a course of action to carry out the values of the King!






(a) Single parent data & Husband-Wife Families are both from the Census Bureau through the American Community Survey. 
(b) Teen Mothers data is from the Center for Disease Control, Department of Health & Human Services
(c) The Child Abuse/Neglect data is reported in KIDS Count, but also from the Department of Health & Human Services