Touré Roberts - 10 Days of Alignment

I want to bring us into alignment with something that I believe is happening in the world, and you’ve heard me talk about it. You know there are several calendars in existence right now. The most widespread calendar is called the Gregorian calendar, which is where we get January through December. A large part of the world is in alignment with that calendar, but did you know that it’s not the only calendar? There are other calendars based on cultures and faith. In fact, the biblical new year is not in January; it actually starts in just a couple of days. Our Jewish brothers and sisters call it Rosh Hashanah or the head, or the beginning, of the new year. What I have discovered in my own life is that the biblical calendar, the biblical new year, aligns more with my life and aligns more with the things that God has been doing, aligning more with breakthroughs and new beginnings than even our January through December calendar. I started thinking about that even as we look at this year. I don’t think anyone anticipated this year playing out the way it has. I know I didn’t, and many others didn’t either. But what if the new year is actually starting now? What if the new year is starting tomorrow, and it will go on? What if it aligns with the biblical new year? What if some of the breakthroughs we have been looking for and believing in are about to happen? What if we’re on the cusp of it? What if a new beginning is coming? Does anybody out there need a new beginning? Anyone watching me right now needs a new beginning? Has anyone been holding on to the promises of God? Did God speak something to you about this season, about this time, and you just need to see something powerful take place in your life? Well, I believe that will happen. I believe it’s going to occur. Sometimes it’s really crazy; sometimes I hadn’t even planned on commemorating Rosh Hashanah or the biblical or Hebrew new year. I just look at my life, and I see things in it, and it has never ceased to line up with what God is doing. I want to bring you into that, and I want to talk to you about it. I want us, as a church family, to align with it because it is a beautiful thing. So let me talk to you a little bit about what Rosh Hashanah is. As I mentioned, it’s the Jewish new year, and it is the Jewish civil new year. There is an ecclesiastical new year which begins with the feasts and starts with Passover, and that’s not what I’m discussing; that’s later. But Rosh Hashanah is the civil new year, and it commemorates the introduction of humanity into God’s world. It commemorates origins, and it’s a time for rededication. It’s a time where the people of God pause, reflect, repent, receive forgiveness, and realign themselves with what God has been desiring for them all along. I want to bring us into that. It’s interesting because the way the holiday goes, it starts off on the eve, tomorrow, the eve of tomorrow, Friday the 18th. It starts off and then goes for 10 days. It’s called the 10 Days of Awe, and at the conclusion of the 10 days, it’s Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. So, it’s almost as if the people of God take 10 days to reflect; they take ten days to consider their ways. They take ten days to think about who they are, who they’ve been, where they need to be, and where they need to go. It’s a time of praying, a time of fasting, a time of getting back to our first works. I believe that this is critical for the church because I believe the church is the answer to everything that is taking place in our world right now. I know that might sound like a cliché, but think about this: God’s only solution for the healing of nations is the church. It’s not in politics; it’s not in politicians. I encourage you all to vote and do all that kind of stuff, but let me tell you right now, it’s not there. God says, «Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.» In other words, those are two different things. Kingdom matters and political matters are two different things, and there is a great problem when those things become convoluted. It is a discredit to how high and lifted up God is to make Him a Republican or a Democrat. He is neither. God is high; He’s holy; He’s lifted up. He has one agenda, and that agenda is a kingdom agenda, fulfilled through kingdom representatives—through His church—and that is you and me. There is a passage of Scripture I want to reference. What I want to do tonight will be much different; I want to share a couple of thoughts with you, then we’re going to pray, and we will conclude with a time of worship. There’s a passage of Scripture that’s not unfamiliar; you know it. It’s in 2 Chronicles 7:14, and you’ve heard it said before, but I think it has to be the foundation for these 10 days that we’re entering into for the biblical new year—these 10 days that we’re going…