Grace for Atlanta City Church
Posted on February 9th, 2008 by Reformed Pope into the Uncategorized categoryI listened to a sermon by Rick Snow a little while ago (The Simplicity of Grace, November 25th 2007). He spoke on my favorite subject, grace, and there were two things that he said that stood out to me:
1. Rick said that he had allowed a religious spirit to creep into his life.
2. Rick mention that he doesn’t believe in generational curses.
The first comment struck me as being rather humble. Throughout his sermon, Rick did a good job of teaching the difference between Justification and Sanctification. His view on grace was good…honest…and Biblical. I haven’t listened to any other sermons in this series on grace, but message 1 was good. It certainly was a far cry from the 2 sermons I heard him speak at City Bible Church…
The second comment shocked me because I have always assumed that “generational curses” were deeply rooted in MFI theology…CBC has taught (and fought) “generation curses” for years. I was even taken on a weekend retreat once where the main focus was breaking generational curses off my life…quite honestly, I’m not even sure what curses have been passed down the Morton line from generation to generation (likely bitterness), but I went anyway.
It was very interesting to hear Rick Snow talk about how ridiculous the idea of a generation curse actually is. I hope it doesn’t keep him from being invited back to CBC this year…actually, his recent change from Legalism to Grace probably ruined that speaking engagement.
Anyway, good for you Rick, I enjoyed listening to your sermon…I love hearing about the grace of God and I’m sure your congregation has benefited from your teaching.
On a side note, during the sermon Rick played a video of someone, I believe from his church, telling a story about their son lying. I don’t know who this guy was, but he can really tell a great story. I absolutely loved it…and the story itself wasn’t all that entertaining. Anyone have any info on this guy…he should record books on audio…I’m a huge fan.
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February 9th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
The pastor in the video was Rob Bell.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Hi Reformed Pope,
I came across this blog a while back when searching for something. Grace is one of my favorite subjects too and I’m listening to those sermons you recommended. I’m not from America and so won’t comment on the City Bible Church. However, since you mentioned grace here, I’d like to recommend you the teachings of Joseph Prince of the Church I attend in Singapore (New Creation Church). I’ve never heard preaching on grace like I’ve heard from him. Cheers!
February 10th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Pope:
Although I don’t agree with the entire post (CBC/MFI stuff), for you to put your feelings toward MFI aside to actually listen to the message preached was awesome.
February 10th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
The current issue of Relevant Magazine has a great article on Rob Bell.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Ahh, yes! The generational curse! Always one of my favorites. I had a pretty rough go of it growing up and have a lot of members of my family that have some problems, so I’ll never forget all the prayer to “break” the generational curses off of my life.
I’d often get prayed over and the person(s) interceding on my behalf would inform me that God was breaking generational curses off of my life (because, of course, once one person knew about my history, oddly enough, everyone else did). Man, I got that prayed over me so many times that I eventually became utterly convinced that I was seriously cursed if it took God that long to break the generational curses off of my life, or that I was doing something wrong for people to always feel that God was trying to “break off the generational curses.” Little did I know it wasn’t so much “prophetic” as much as it was that everyone had found out through various channels about my past.
It’s pretty crazy to me, looking back, how easily and readily I’d throw out the most plausible explanation for everyone thinking I was under a “generational curse” in favor of one that makes the people you look up to seem even greater. Blindness, I suppose.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Look, everybody has problems, and everyone has some type of “generational curse”. Sin is a generational curse if you want to look at it that way.
The only difference is Pastors and other church leaders have the money and institutional structure to hide their “curses”. While you don’t.
But you know what, you’re better off than most of those people anyway. At least you recognize your families shortcomings, and now you are prepared to deal with them. While the church leaders are just living in denial.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Generational curses? Perhaps that’s just religious-speak for dysfunctional behavior?
Go back a couple generations in my family and you’ll find alcoholism and incest, behavior my grandparents and parents had to survive and learned to cope with through some healthy AND some dysfunctional behaviors.
My parents and grandparents essentially divorced my family of origin back a couple generations and raised me in an ofttimes overly protective household. Many times, at the first sign of unacceptable behavior in any of their other adult relationships, they cut off the relationship completely - which while it protected me and my sibs from being effected by the behavior of others, had the long-term effect of teaching me to resolve every relational conflict by disassociation / severance - and left me overly cautious in relationship - even isolationist.
Years later, enter the prophetic types who would have a ‘word’ for me which would sometimes be about a ‘generational’ curse - a few times I was labeled as ‘hard to receive’ or they’d simply pick up (by cold reading) some of my learned dysfunctional behaviors.
So is the solution some ‘cold reader’ giving me a ‘word’ concerning my personality quirks that they pick up on, through body language or my reaction to them, or, am I simply to work through my issues by counseling and responding to honest feedback from friends with my commitment to be a better friend / dad / husband?
The “breaking off” thing always kind of bugged me - as if to suggest that God will miraculously fix whatever is wrong with a person, thereby suggesting no one ever has to do any work to improve themselves … I have a few long-term friends who are into the “breaking off” thing who are relatively unchanged over the years - God has allegedly “broken off” the same thing from them again and again and again … now IF He were really breaking something off of a person, don’tcha think it would stay broken off?
Wish that the people claiming to give words would rely less on a person’s body language, rumor and innuendo and would get a real word from the Spirit. Would be funny to take those “prophets” and put a blindfold on them so they can’t see / know the person they’re giving a word for, and watch how those words change from picking at the visible splinter in someones eye - to the more generic kinds of words we’ve all heard … “God is going to cause you to open up - to blossom like a flower”; “God is going to prosper you with 10 fold blessing in return for your gifts to him” … blah …
February 11th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I just did a quick word search in the NT on “curse”, and the only one mentioned is the curse of the Law, which we are free from. (alas, my grammar) To think that Christ’s death and resurrection are inadequate when dealing with some alleged generational curse is putting God in a rather tiny box. Didn’t Jesus say, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”?
February 11th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Awesome!
February 11th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Oddly enough, while I was at CBC that was the one scripture we used to quote back and forth to eachother over and over again while attempting to break those damn curses…It just goes to show you how much faith CBC’ers really have in the Word of God.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:28 am
So that explains it…
-joebib
February 12th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Yeah - it’s a case of “I’m my own grandpa”, I guess … so what’s yer excuse, JoeBob?
‘Scrupe
February 12th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I didn’t hear Mr. Snow’s sermon, so I won’t comment on it. But about generational curses:
CBC’s official stance is that there is no such thing. I’ve heard SPFD say that from the pulpit. However…
Because it is popular among deliverance-type counseling, I have heard it discussed as a valid consideration. I kind of stand in the middle on the subject.
Family problems DO seem to run through generations — probably as learned behavior, or maybe even genetic predisposition. I don’t know that it’s a curse so much as just an observation that “the sins of the fathers” seem to be repeated by the children.
When we come to the cross, we get a fresh start! Yay! But those learned behaviors are going to have to be changed. Is the “curse” still in effect if you find yourself lying because your whole family consists of compulsive liars and it’s just ingrained behavior? No.
But like it says in Colossians, we need to learn to “take off” the old behavior in the same way a person takes off a coat. And “put on” Christ.
Sometimes a behavior or thought pattern is so familiar that we don’t even recognize it as nonbiblical. Another person may be able to recognize it, and maybe that’s where the “generational curse” accusation comes from: “Aha!! You’re just like your mother…!”
Anyway, sin is sin even if it wears a fancy name. And sin is taken care of the same way: through confession, cleansing through the Cross, repentance (changing of thinking) and righteousness (changing of behavior).
Lecture over.
February 14th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
The whole institutional structure seems to be just that; a way of insulation from the harsher realities of life. It’s nothing more than a new spin on the American dream - if I follow all of these rules, pray enough, and read my Bible enough, then I can control god and, therefore, control my own destiny.
In reality, some sense of security in a hectic world - the end they desire - isn’t wrong in itself. It’s just the means of obtaining those ends that makes what they do wrong. Everyone wants to find some way to attach meaning to what happens to them and to find a reason for the troubles that plague them, but to hold to such a black-and-white view that bad things only happen to “bad” people and good things happen solely to “good” people simply isn’t a proper assessment of the way life works and puts them incredibly out of touch with reality.
Very true. But things that are looked upon as positives in our society which noone would call “the sins of the fathers,” ie. intelligence, athleticism, and social adeptness also seem to run in families. I think that it’s most likely a combination of genetic predisposition and behavior learned from the environment that creates the whole “apples don’t falling far from the tree” condition. I know people who have never met their fathers, yet are constantly told that they act just like him (ie. “You’re just as stubborn as your father”), and I know people who were adopted and have taken on many of the traits of their non-biological parents. So it seems like it’d have to be a combination of the two, and I really don’t think that it’s a “curse.”
Calling something a curse makes it seem like it’s inevitable. I tend to disagree with this mentality. It just seems to be one of those ways to shift the blame: “Jimmy is very bitter and unforgiving just like his father was, so he must be cursed with his father’s bitterness,” - which no longer makes it seem like a character flaw Jimmy needs to work on, but instead an inevitable and forgone conclusion that Jimmy is going to be bitter, like his father.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Actually, my sons name is Aiden.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Wow, a discussion of grace at ACC.
If you were to listen closely to the entire 8 or 9, or whatever number it is now, sermons on grace you will see a very subtle change in the sermons.
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I left the service and on the way home made the same comment. That being, we had never heard a more prideful message of grace. By that it seems that the sermons are becomming more and more about how certain people are seeing and sharing grace. So my question to you all, and especially you rerformed pope, and I am being very serious, is; If the message of grace seems to be adulterated with a prideful twist, is it really a message of grace? I cannot genuinely speak for the grace that rick snow shows in his daily life, so I am not going to throw him under the bus, but I have noticed the increasing trend in self exaltation in the means of grace.
Please take a listen to the sermons online and see if I am the only one that is getting this. It is important to listen to them in order, in order to follow this train of thought. It is possible that the sermons I am sitting through on Sunday AM are not the ones that make it to the website, so there is a possibility of different takes, and I understand that, however, the trend seems clear to me and my beautiful brown eyed wife and mother to be.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I can only speak for the one sermon I listened to, and it that sermon I felt Rick did a good job teaching Grace. If you have heard them all and see a change in the teaching that would be unfortunate.
I probably will not take the time to listen to all of this series, I will say this though…any time spent teaching on grace is time well spent.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Right on. Most of the problems that we all talk about in this online community stem from the fact that these pastors don’t get grace. They think grace is the beginning, the 123 or ABC of Christianity. They preach that it’s good for getting saved, but after that you have to move onto spiritual disciplines to become more fervent for Christ. Well the reality is that Christianity starts and ends with grace. Its the beginning and the end; it’s the A to the Z. There is nothing else to Christianity but GRACE. I know I’m preaching to the choir but maybe someone who is just starting to understand it all will read this.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I believe that we all are under a “generational curse” it came from our father Adam. And Jesus has broken that! That’s where the grace and forgiveness comes in!
May 9th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
“The second comment shocked me because I have always assumed that “generational curses” were deeply rooted in MFI theology”
It is deeply rooted and in some MFI churches pastors are moving away from it..which is good. I have been raised under such teaching and came to the biblical conclusion that it is a bunch of…well you understand what I am trying to say. Generation curses is a way to explain why people do not change. Fact is repentance, renewing the mind, taking off the old man and putting on the new. If we are new creations how can we be under a curse?
May 10th, 2008 at 9:19 am
My take:
Jesus became a curse on our behalf so we could escape the curse of the law.
This generation has become a curse on the behalf of legalistic Christians so they might wake up and escape the curse of the law that they so lovingly cling to.
Christians who have received a SPIRIT OF STUPOR by choosing to ignorantly and pridefully cling to a false doctrine of rules and dead-horse-beating.
The victory and battle has been completely won by Jesus — we just have to claim the victory. No fine print.
Would you like to be married to a slave-driver or compassionate, empathetic, patient, gentle, soft-spoken, humble lover?
I am forever unified with the latter. Anyone who knows the real Jesus Christ knows exactly what i’m talking about.
Aren’t people ever suspicious to why certain pastors have to try SOOOO hard by screaming and freaking out at their congregation?
Did it ever occur to them that real, unblemished truth SELLS ITSELF!?!
This generation is sadly a reflection on how your harsh, man-made religiosity TEARS PEOPLE DOWN and makes it IMPOSSIBLE to find Jesus Christ.
AND PEOPLE WANT TONS AND TONS OF MONEY FOR THAT?!?
Many love it because they are sick with the disease of control and power.
It’s quite simple — once you point people in the direction of Jesus Christ, you lose your man-made control over lives.
For a power hungry man, this would be their worst nightmare.
The reason that reasoning with them doesn’t work is because they have literally received a spirit of stupidity when it comes to the truth, love, liberty, and freedom that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord.
They are cling to the ways of the world with their foolish religion.
All the while those who are alive in Christ are focused on a loving, beautiful relationship with their TRUE master.
A RELATIONSHIP NOT A RELIGION.
Romans 11:5-10
5 Even so then, at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.
6 And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace. It is not now by works, etc… If salvation were to come by works, done by nature, without faith and grace, salvation would not be a grace or favour, but a debt; but such dead works are indeed of no value in the sight of God towards salvation. It is not the same with regard to works done with, and by, God’s grace; for to such works as these, he has promised eternal salvation.
7 What then? That which Israel sought, he hath not obtained: but the election hath obtained it. And the rest have been blinded.
8 As it is written: God hath given them the spirit of insensibility; eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, until this present day. God hath given them, etc… Not by his working or acting in them; but by his permission, and by withdrawing his grace in punishment of their obstinacy.
9 And David saith: Let their table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense unto them.
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see: and bow down their back always.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:31 am
grace = mercy; clemency; pardon
“its ok that you screwed up royally again today — I love you and know that the REAL you does not desire to do those things”
eventually, that kind of love is going to wake ANY sinner up.
So many claim “faith!, faith!, faith!” but can’t even practice it.
And if you did practice this, you would be able to stop manipulating people with cheap, laughable tactics to get their money — promise.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
As for generational curses, its not just a MFI thing, I’ve heard of it in other circles. It seems to be more of a charismatic thing. Here’s my opinion.
The very idea of ‘generational curse’ sounds very pagan. However, it may happen. Generational curses are loosely used to explain things like:
1, why a person doesn’t change..
2, depression that seems to run in families. A friend had family members since the late 1870’s suffer from depression and suicide. It could be genetic as in a actual mental illness. Its real. It could also be spiritual. Or it could be a learned behavior.
We can get into the psychology, theology and reasoning behind it. Either way, whether genetic, spiritual or learned. It’s all a reflection of the brokeness of humanity under the curse of original sin.
That puts it into perspective. Some of the things I discussed are a reflection of that original sin.
Now, how should one approach the subject of ‘generational curses’? In my opinion, it’s not necessarily wrong if a person prays for another person for the Lord to break the generational curse.
All I’m saying is we shouldn’t get too caught up with the extra-biblical things. The extra-biblical things may be true or may not. I don’t think the bible explicitly mentions or denies the existence of it, so we should approach it the same way. Pray but trust God’s power and the Holy Spirit to take care of what’s behind the scenes. Don’t get too caught up with extra-biblical stuff like ‘generational curses’ or ’soul-ties’.
Personally, I dont like to loosely call everything a generational curse. We may not really know and when someone told me my family issues were a generational curse, it made me confused. It can be distracting or confusing to people.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I’m with most everyone here…more focus on “generational GRACE” and less on “generational curses.”
Although…one thought always runs around my brain from time to time. I’m curious what everyone here thinks about our sinful nature actually being part of our DNA?
Could be why certain people are predisposed to the same issues their parents had (alcoholism, anger, etc.) in the same way they have the same eye color as a parent? Just thinking out loud.