Reclaimed: Resetting The Table Series

Reclaimed Part 1, by Pastor Rob Ketterling

Well, I am so glad that you decided to join us for our series here, Reclaimed, and I want to just take a moment to welcome all the campuses that are watching. Of course we have our Apple Valley campus, Faribault, Savage, Minnetrista, Edina Area and Eagan, all in Minnesota, and then Swaziland and Valencia, as they are participating in this series with us. And at all of our campuses and at Apple Valley, let's just thank God for what he is doing in multisite. Let's give a hand clap and say hi to all the other campuses and do that.

We are currently praying for two more campuses for next year, strategically looking at two locations. And I can't tell you where they are, but I can tell you to join us in prayer and be praying. We are just looking to expand wherever God opens the door. And it's just neat to see how technology is being used.

In this series, Reclaimed, we are going to reclaim the table. We are going to reclaim the table; the table that God has designed for us to come together for a lot of different functions. And one of the things we are going to ask that you do in this series is to use that hash tag. It is this, #Reclaimthetable. This is important for a couple of reasons. This will be a way for you to reach more people. It will be a way for you to be able to get that out. It is like an arrow pointing people to this sermon series.

If you use it on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, it will also make you eligible to win a custom made table. If you saw the table in the intro video, we are going to give away a custom table valued at thousands of dollars, and it will be picked from somebody that does the #Reclaimthetable. So you are eligible to win, except for staff. All right? So they are not eligible. So my wife can stop tweeting. She wants one of those tables.

I'm excited. There are so many things we are doing in this series. You will see. There are so many tools for you to take advantage of this series and to take it to another level in your growth and spiritual growth. And one of the things we are launching today is something in cooperation with the YouVersion Bible app. So if you have a smartphone or an iPad or something like that, you can actually follow along. If you go to YouVersion Bible, if you tap Live, then search River Valley Church, you will find this sermon and you will find each time now the sermon in that app. You will see that you'll have the scriptures, the sermon points and you can follow along. You can actually take notes in that app, email it to yourself so you can put it into Evernote or anything like that, so we are utilizing that technology, and it launches with this series. And we're very excited. There is also surveys you can take, interactive things that you can be doing while the sermon is going on. You are like, "Wow, this is really exciting!" Don't get too distracted, all right? Stay with me.

But reclaim the table. We are going to reclaim the table because I believe that the time around the table God has given to us is so important. There is time for discipleship. There is time for outreach. There is time to live healthier lives. There is time to remember how good God has been to us. There is time to be thankful. So we are going to reclaim the table. This sermon today, if you will, is like the appetizer for the three course meal that is coming in the next three weeks. This is just the appetizer. Eventually we get to Deuteronomy, Chapter 6. But we are going to have a lot of setup and a lot of things that will help us to interact with this sermon series.

Now, we are going to look at meals and eating and spending time together. And I don't know if you realize this, but the Bible actually starts pretty soon right after creation God talks about eating. Did you know that? God talks about eating. He says, "I created all this for you. You can eat anything you want, except that one. You can eat anything. It is all really good, except that one." How many know that Adam and Eve went right for the "except that one." And ever since then, how many know we've been making bad food choices? Lot of bad choices in general.

But the Bible talks about eating. It opens up with eating, and then it actually talks about eating meals in the Old Testament. And in Week 3 of this series we are going to look at how the food actually becomes the narrative; it actually speaks to you. That the Jewish people have meals that they celebrate that help them to understand the theology, their understanding of God.