02-28-21 “What kind of man is this?”

Scripture   Luke 8:22-25, Mark 4:35-41. Matthew 8:18-27

SYNOPTIC STORY COMPARISON

L -     One day, 
Mk - That day when evening came,
Mt -   (No comment on the day or time)
 
L -     Jesus said to his disciples, "Let's go over to the other side of the lake."
Mk - he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."
Mt -   When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.
Luke and Mark continue with them getting in the boat, however, Matthew (the eye witness) adds more to the story: Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
          Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."
          Others wanted to follow, but Jesus knew there was a cost to following him (he knew they were about to go right into a raging storm) and if they were to follow, they needed to know this was not going to be a picnic with the pastor, rather a storm with the savior. We are not given their response and Matthew, like Luke and Mark, continues the story.
 
L -     So they got into a boat and set out.
Mk - Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
Mt -   Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him.
 

L -     A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.
Mk - A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.
Mt -   Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat.
 
L -     The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Master, Master, we're going to drown!"
Mk - Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"
Mt -   But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!"
L -     He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples.
Mk - He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
Mt -   Notice that Matthew (the eye witness) speaks to them while the storm is still raging, then he shows them his power to calm the storm, by faith.  He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
 

L -     In fear and amazement they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."
Mk - They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
Mt -   I believe what Matthew (the eye witness) records next, is the point to the whole story: The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
          Notice he left out that they were terrified or fearful because their amazement is what was important. The question they asked was paramount, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
 
WHAT KIND OF MAN IS THIS?
          They had witnessed healings and other miracles, but this one caught their attention. Why? They were present when he turned water into wine and when he fed the 5000. Some of them were in this same boat on this same sea when Jesus gave them a miracle catch of fish. What was so different about this one that caused them to wonder ‘what kind of man Jesus was?’
          First, the other miracles were more passive. They were also miracles that all used something that already existed – stone jars of water, a little boy’s lunch, and fish in the sea. Like we learned last week that God created the first matter out of nothing by speaking it into existence, so this MAN was able to control an out of control nature by having faith to speak a word; and what he spoke…was accomplished. They had not seen this kind of miracle – nor this kind of man – that is because the man they were seeing was none other than the redeemer God of the Old Testament who was in their boat…sleeping.
          What God did in creation, they witnessed first-hand.
 
          Now look at this from Jesus’ perspective. When he got in the boat he was exhausted from a lot of walking, and teaching, and healing. You can imagine how good that cushion looked in the back of the boat. After all, he was in a boat with professional fisherman who spent as much time sailing this very body of water as they did walking on dry ground. What could possibly go wrong?
          In fact, something did go wrong. A storm, squall, tempest, eruption of wind and waves were crashing over the boat. How exhausted was Jesus? He didn’t wake up. These men were used to pop-up storms and you can bet they did everything they knew how to do before waking up Jesus. Have you ever been on a boat in Lake Eire when a storm popped up out of nowhere and it was so bad you were afraid you might die? Let me ask that of my wife and children?
 
TELL THE BOATING STORIES
          I was like these fishermen – except, they came to a point where they were certain they would capsize in the middle of the sea too far to swim to shore; and they screamed at Jesus – Get up and help!
          They had forgotten the things Jesus had done and more importantly, who Jesus was. Thousands of years prior, this same Jesus said let there be light and there was. LISTEN: John 1:10 He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
 
          In that boat on that day Jesus didn’t care who was the smartest, the best looking, the most wealthy, or even the best sailor. He allowed the storm so they could see for themselves that they did not have the ONE THING he wanted them to have – FAITH. Not faith to calm the storm – but faith that he could calm the storm. When you are in the storms of life, do you rely on your power and wisdom, or do you have faith that God will see you through. It is easy to have faith when things are going well, but what about when you find yourself not in the eye but in the furious part of the storm? That is when you will know whether you have faith or not?
          Forget the personal losses we have all experienced due to this storm called COVID, as a church and as a pastor, I have to wonder if Jesus is asleep in the boat, or do I/WE have faith that God will not only see us through but will also accomplish even greater things in us than ever before?
          How important is our faith in Jesus right now? Hebrews 11:6  Without faith it is impossible to please God. The disciples were amazed at who Jesus was. The bible shows that Jesus has power over all creation, specifically over all nature, all sicknesses, all evil spirits, even over death.  The ONLY part of creation that has ever dared disobey Jesus – is US! The wind and waves that day had to choose – they had to obey his word. God has given us a free-choice, to obey his word, or to lack faith and be disobedient.
          When we become like the rest of nature and freely choose to put our faith in Jesus, we will then live a life – not in fear, rather in faith. The wind and the waves had no fear that day – they also had no choice but to obey. How will you choose to live?
          Is it right to compare human response to that of nature’s elements? Yes, but if not, why would the very next story be a parallel story in each of the 3 gospels, only involving humans instead of nature? The storm calmed and the boat set sail again and landed in the land of the Gerasene’s and a man, or two as one gospel writer reports, are possessed by a legion of demons that have caused a storm of epic proportions within them and through them in the community. The people around them, like the disciples in the boat, were terrified, until the demon possessed came face to face with Jesus and at his word, the demons departed and went into a herd of pigs, ran over the edge of the hill, into the water and drown. Once the demons were gone, or the internal storm had been stilled, the men who had been demon possessed were now at peace like the sea of Galilee. They put their faith in Jesus and went throughout the area proclaiming that new found faith in Jesus whose word, had calmed their storm.
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

02-21-21 Redemption: From the beginning!

Scripture      Genesis 50:20-21

HIStory

The Famous One

(and the not so famous ones)

Redemption, from the beginning!

Romans 8:18-28
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
          We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
          In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
          And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

          In all of creation there is suffering and struggle. Looking through the window of scripture – particularly the book of Genesis, we see that the character of God, in the midst of creation’s suffering and struggle, is his desire and ability to redeem all things. We see bad things as bad, God sees bad things as an opportunity for redemption – bringing good out of bad. - in all things God works for the good of those who love him.
Even those outside Christianity understand this principle – Consider this Zen Parable
Once upon a time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
 
          We see how bad this pandemic is, God sees endless opportunities for redemption. Our God is a redeeming God. I was going to begin HIStory; the famous One and the not so famous ones by looking at creation and instead realized we need to see who God is by looking at the entire book of Genesis in one message, as a way to see that the 66 books of the bible reveal that God is a redeemer – that a major quality of who God is…has to do with his desire to redeem and his power of redemption. In the next 20 minutes, let us look through the window of Genesis and see God the redeemer.
 
Genesis comes from a Hebrew word pronounced Bereisheet which means “beginnings”.
The book is designed to follow two main parts.
Chapters 1-11 tell the story of God in the whole world. (like through a telescope)
Chapters 12-50 tell the story about God and one family - Abraham’s family, and how these two parts relate. (like through a microscope)
 

CREATION
SING “Let’s start at the beginning, it’s a very good place to start.” The first part of Genesis begins with the Creation Story where God creates everything.
To quickly explain creation I will borrow an idea from the philosopher Aristotle and add my own simple understanding to it. Let me begin by asking a few questions:
Where is a person heading from the moment they are born? Toward death.
Where is a star headed from the moment it first exists? Burn out – or Death.
Where is all matter headed from the moment it first exists? Extinction – or Death.
One more question.
          Does matter come into existence on its own, or does it come from the existence of other matter? ie a big piece of matter blows up and we then have many little pieces of matter or many small pieces of matter come together to create a larger piece of matter. That means that all matter has a beginning and an end. No physical matter is eternal. Since no physical matter is eternal – it all had to come form some previous material –
Where did the first matter come from? There is only one answer, it had to be created from something that already existed and that thing that already existed had to exist before there was any matter, and how did that thing come into being unless that thing were eternal? Something had to exist before anything else existed, and if there was nothing to create the first thing, than it stands to reason that first thing is GOD!
God has always existed before there was anything else. The book of Genesis begins at the moment when the eternal God decided to bring matter into being out of nothing.
John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
Day1: God created water then spoke into existence “light”
Day 2: Atmosphere
Day 3: Dry ground and plants
Day 4: Sun, Moon, and Stars
Day 5: Birds and Sea Animals
Day 6: Land animals and Humans (Adam & Eve)
Day 7: Sabbath Rest
 

ADAM & EVE
That all sounds nice. It was, and 6 times God says of all that he has made that it is good. When Adam (from the ground) and Eve (from Adam’s rib) God created us form previous matter he had already made; God said that was VERY GOOD. --- “Maybe”!!!
 They are both individual characters but they also representative. Adam is a Hebrew word for Humanity and Eve is the Hebrew word for life and God creates them in His image. In other words, humanity is meant to reflect the creativity, the goodness and character of the Creator out into the world that He has made. They are supposed to reproduce and make cultures and neighborhoods and art and gardens and everything else, but God gives them a moral choice about how they are going to go about building this world and this is what the tree of good and evil is all about and he tells them don’t eat of the fruit of this tree or you will die.
What’s that all about? So up to now God has been the one defining and providing what is good so God is the one with the knowledge of good and evil. Now this tree represents a choice. Will the humans trust God’s definition of good and evil or are they going to seize the opportunity and define good and evil for themselves?...Adam and Eve eat the fruit?
This is the core Biblical explanation for the concept of sin, that desire to call the shots myself. It’s the inward turn of the human heart to do what’s good for me and my tribe even if it’s at the expense of you and your tribe and the problem is humans are horrible at defining good and evil without God and now that humanity has made this choice, things get really, really bad. So Genesis 3 thru 11 is about tracing this downward spiral of all humanity so Adam and Eve can’t trust each other anymore. There’s a little story about how they were naked and felt fine about it beforehand but now they feel shameful because all of a sudden Adam’s definition of good and evil might be different than Eve’s and so they hide from each other.

CAIN & ABLE
Then there’s another story of temptation where Cain is jealous of his brother Abel and he gives in and kills him.
There’s a story right after Cain (great great great grandson) named Lamech who has multiple wives and sings songs about how he’s a more violent, vengeful person than Cain ever was and he’s proud of it. Things get so bad with the human race that we God decides to just wipe us out.

THE FLOOD
We typically think of the flood story as about God being angry, but it actually begins with God’s sadness and grief about the state of his world and so out of his passion to redeem the goodness of his world, he washes it clean, but there is a glimmer of hope. He chooses Noah and his whole family, and he redeems OR saves them (and the animals) on this boat/ark. So Noah and his family are going to reboot all of humanity, they are going to show what it looks like to be a people redeemed by God.
So, Noah gets off the boat and he plants a vineyard and he gets totally plastered and then something sketchy happens in his tent with his son. It’s a tragic story and from here humanity grows again to be as bad as before which leads into the next story…
 

THE TOWER OF BABEL
In this story you have all of the nation’s uniting together to use this new technology they have. The brick. And they want to make a name for themselves and build this big city with a huge tower that will reach up to the gods, but God knows that this city will be a nightmare and so in his mercy, he scatters the people, and all of these stories are underlining the same idea. When humans seek autonomy from God and they define good and evil for themselves, it results in a world of tragedy and death. And this leaves you wondering, is there any hope for humanity?
Yes, there is. It’s the very next story that answers that question. It’s the beginning of God’s mission to rescue, restore, and redeem His creation.
 
TRANSITION TO PART 2 OF GENESIS AND THE STORY OF REDEMPTION
The second part of Genesis (chapters 12-50, zooms in and focuses on just one family and right in the middle is this story that links the two parts of Genesis together and helps us understand what the whole book is all about.

ABRAHAM
After the scattering at Babel there is this genealogy and it follows one of the tribes all the way down to this one guy named Abram. You probably know him as Abraham. And God starts making all these promises to Abraham like he is going to bless him and give him a ton of kids and he says that through him and his family, all the nations of the Earth are now going to find God’s blessing. So basically God is now redeeming humanity back to the goodness of the garden into his original intentions for the world. It’s like his rescue plan for humanity. That’s why the whole second half of Genesis is about this one family.
So you have Abraham, and he has a son Isaac, who has a son Jacob, and then Jacob has 12 sons, and, in each generation, God renews his promise to bless them and all nations through them. Because of this promise to use this family as a way to redeem the world, it’s pretty easy to read these stories as examples of how to be a good person. But actually, for the most part, this family is totally dysfunctional. So for example, let’s go back to Abraham. This whole story is about God giving him and his wife Sarah a family. But two different times, he basically gives Sarah away to other men by denying that she is even his wife. Then Sarah gets impatient about even having a son, so she makes Abraham sleep with her servant girl which then causes all of these other problems in the family.

ISAAC, JACOB & ESAU
So they get really old and you begin to think that there is no way they are going to have a kid of their own but then miraculously they do and Isaac is born. Isaac has two sons, Esau and Jacob and it seems like things are going pretty well. But Jacob, the younger brother wants the family’s inheritance which belongs to Esau the older brother, so he devises a plan to steal it from his father Isaac who at this point of the story is now old and blind. Who does this horrible stealing from your blind father? And then he just takes off.

JOSEPH
So Jacob goes on from there to have 12 sons, a big family, but Jacob loves his 11^th son, Joseph, way more than all the others so he gives him this special technicolor dreamcoat and his brothers, because of this, come to hate him so much so that they plan on killing him (which seems bad – maybe) but they don’t. They just sell him as a slave down in Egypt. (which seems bad – maybe)
Now while in Egypt, through this crazy series of events, Joseph goes from being in a prison cell to becoming the second in command there. So later on the whole middle east falls into this lack of food security and Joseph’s brothers come down to Egypt looking for food. When they get there, who should they find as the ruler of the whole land, it is Joseph, that brother they sold into slavery. But he actually saves them from starving to death. (God redeems them physically)
So here you have it, Abraham’s great grandchildren who have done this heinous act to their brother, but God has transformed their evil into something good. And that’s exactly what Joseph says in the last paragraph in the entire book where he forgives them of their sin (God redeems them spiritually) Genesis 50:20-21
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
These words conclude the book because they actually summarize the message of the whole story so far. Humans keep choosing evil and we think they are messing up God’s plan, but he keeps turning their evil back into good and somehow, he is going to use this family to redeem humanity back to the garden. Later, in Egypt, God’s people will become slaves and this is going to be tragic…maybe!
Genesis 3:15 God talks directly to the serpent (the devil) and says, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” When Satan strikes Jesus’ feet and nails them to the cross, God will crush Satan on the head and bring eternal redemption to His people by raising from the dead!
 
All of creation; every story in Genesis, the entire bible is a window in which we can see that, for your sake and mine, God is a God of redemption. In whatever situation or condition you find yourself right now, God is ready, willing and able to redeem you.

02-14-21 2021 Theme Introduction "HIStory" The Famous one (and the not so famous ones)

 Scripture  Isaiah 46:9-10a

HIStory

The Famous One

(and the not so famous ones)

VIDEO: The History of Mankind (Found on right now media)

Isaiah 46:9-10a     Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.                                                                                             NIV

 

There is no biblical Hebrew word for our English word “history”. History was not important to the Jews, but remembrance was extremely important. The only reason to look back was to keep you looking forward. You remember what God has done to remind you what God can do. (If our text did use the word history it might read like the translation from the MESSAGE:

 
Isaiah 46:9-10a     Remember your history, your long and rich history. I am God, the only God you've had or ever will have — incomparable, irreplaceable —  From the very beginning telling you what the ending will be, All along letting you in on what is going to happen.                                                                                                                       THE MESSAGE
 
          Where do you store your History? Your Remembrances? Your Memories? In your data filled brain. To understand what that looks like, let’s consider a computer’s brain or how we consider memory in technology terms.
ILLUSTRATION
"The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in a USB flash drive. (my flash dives are 1, 16 and 128 gigabytes – modern computers often have at least a Terabyte, like my external hard drive) Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage."
APPLICATION
Even with all this great brain potential we are repeatedly told in the Bible to "remember" or "nor forget" the Lord. Minds today are so filled with images, music and unceasing entertainment that they have little time left for Jesus and His-Story. But God has made sure that there is plenty of 'brain space' left for those who dedicate even a fraction of their amazing brain power to Christ.
"Don't let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, 'Life is not pleasant anymore'" (Ecclesiastes 12:1).
          Instead – look at HIStory like this:
Psalm 119:18   Open my eyes to see the wonderful things in your word.
 
Hab 2:1  Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that whoever hears it may run with it.”
 
2 Tim 3:14-15
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
 
2021 Theme

HIStory: The Famous One (and the not so famous ones)
The famous Bible stories from scripture and church history that show more of God’s story with humanity and point to Jesus who is “The Famous One”
 
Ever present absence vs. Ever present presence
A parent’s life investment is always there, yet the person is forever absent.
God’s past investment is always there, yet He remains ever present as His story and ours continues to be written.
 
 
The biblical narrative is one that is still going on to this day. The biblical narrative tells the story of God and how he reveals himself to us. God reveals himself through formative stories in the bible such as Creation, Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man, The Flood, God’s Covenant with Noah, and the Tower of Babel. From the very beginning of the biblical narrative we see that God relates to us on a personal level. He created us, he formed us, he created the world in which we live, and he has been an active participant in the narrative since before it began.
 
Window vs. Mirror
One author wrote, Rather than being confronted by the overarching story of God’s redemption, we bend the text into the shape of our own lives and make the Bible to be a story more about us—our fulfillment, our sanctification, our hopes and dreams. Absorbing individual verses of the Bible while failing to understand them with the larger narrative of Scripture in mind runs the risk of distorting the Bible’s teachings into the shape or image of the reader, rather than the image of the Author – God!
 
Because the subject of the Bible is God, we need to ask, how does Scripture, then, apply to us? Alasdair MacIntyre argued, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story do I find myself a part?’” Rather than thinking about how God’s reality might fit into my own—stuffing God’s big story into my small story—it is best to think about how my life’s narrative is taken up into that of God’s. My story now must be reconfigured within God’s story of redemption if my life or my actions are to make any sense at all. Seeing my life’s story and purpose as set within God’s overarching story transforms how I understand my past (the ultimate beginning is creation) and my future (the ultimate end is God’s eschatological redemption of all things). Re-inscribed within this new storyline, I come to understand my actions, attitudes, goals, and desires as reordered by a new and larger (and much more compelling) purpose now narrated by Scripture.
 
So if you’re going to read the Bible as a book of heroes and rules and advice, at least get it straight: it’s a story of one Hero who came to rescue us after we had broken the rules and rejected his advice. The message of the Bible is not, “Here are some practical tools that can fix your life.” It is, “Fix your eyes on Jesus. On the redemptive love story of God” On this Valentine’s Day understand it is the greatest love letter ever written!
 
·         Because we’re storytelling people. In his book The Power of Story, Jim Loehr says, “Telling ourselves stories helps us navigate our way through life because they provide structure and direction … Stories impose meaning on the chaos; they organize and give context to our sensory experiences, which otherwise might seem like no more than a fairly colorless sequence of facts. Facts are meaningless until you create a story around them.” The quickest way to change someone is to change the story that they’re telling themselves. This is why we need God’s story.
·         We need to spot false stories. Here are some examples of false stories: You’re here by accident. All paths lead to God. All you need to get to heaven is to be a good person. The purpose of life is to be happy and to feel good about yourself. All these are really popular and attractive stories, but they’re not accurate stories.
So the Bible isn’t just an ancient book. It’s God’s story, and it gives us an accurate picture of what’s going on in the world. It helps us avoid false stories, and it’s a story that culminates in Jesus.
We read to see Jesus as the culmination of the story. But then we read to learn our roles in the ongoing story that’s unfolding in this world.
We live in the in-between. Some people have compared it to a play with many acts. We know the acts that have gone before us, and we know how the play is going to end, but we’re still in the middle of the play. Since we’re in the middle of the play, we’d better work hard at understanding the rest of the play so that we know how to play our role here and now.
 
The mirror
Who we are in Christ as seen in HIStory through the scriptures:
ILLUSTRATION
There was once a flock of pelicans that happily fished off the coast of California.  One day, a fishing company began cleaning their catch at a nearby dock, where it was convenient for them to cast the discarded fish scraps into the water.  The pelicans, drawn to the daily ritual, soon gave up fishing for themselves and settled into a more domesticated existence.  Life was pretty good for these pelicans, at least until the fishermen discovered that there was a market for fish scraps.  Abruptly, the free meals ceased.  
Despite this regrettable change of fortune, the pelicans continued to show up every day at meal-time, only to go away with empty stomachs.  It wasn’t long before the lack of sustenance began to take its toll.  The unsightly appearance of the emaciated birds eventually drew the public’s attention, and experts were called in to investigate the cause of their plight.  For some unknown reason, the pelicans no longer seemed able to access the abundance of food that teemed just below them in the sea.  After a thorough investigation, it was concluded that the pelicans were starving to death because they’d forgotten how to fish! Pelicans were made to fish, but they had forgotten who they were and what they were made to do.
          When we are so focused on our own little story, our own comfort, our own way of living and forget why we were created and more importantly, forget the one who created us, it is time again to look at HIStory, and our story will once again be written with words of hope and life!
 
Isaiah 46:9-10a     Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.
 
Hebrews 12:2-3     Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.                                                                          

01-31-21 Raise the white flag; I Surrender!

Scripture  Hebrews 10:19-25
The church was a virtual impossibility to continue once Jesus left this earth. For the most part, the church was a group of common laborers at a time when travel and communication were difficult. Most travel was on foot, some on donkeys, camels, or horses for the military. Or by boat for long-distance.. That was it. No planes trains and automobiles! A ragtag group of fishermen, businessmen in the fishing trade, a zealot (who engaged in politics and anarchy, attempting to overthrow the Roman government. Let that one settle in for a moment. He may have been a politician or a revolutionary. HOWEVER, when he joined Jesus, he remained zealous, but with allegiance to Jesus rather than political revolution.), a tax collector and a tentmaker.
All of this was in the midst of two very diverse religious worlds around them – the Jewish world which the first disciples were all a part of and – the Gentile world which contained various false deities or none at all. It could have been very easy for Christianity to simply become a sect of Judaism except that the Jews didn’t want them and neither did the Gentile world.
Therefore we have a group of very ordinary people, with very few means of communicating their message in a world where religious ideas were as common as weeds in a garden.
Today the church is primarily a group of very ordinary people, with so many means of communication that the problem is similar (how do we best communicate the message) in a world where religious ideas are still as common as weeds in a garden.
Just as the church was a virtual impossibility to continue once Jesus left this earth. Today, the growth and influence of the church is a virtual impossibility to continue until Jesus returns to this earth.
So raise the white flag – I surrender – I give up!
Since March of this year, Barna has been closely tracking the well-being of pastors and their people as well as Americans’ perceptions of church. Over the past nine months, data show that pastors’ mental and emotional well-being has suffered greatly as they worked to guide their people through the pandemic and an election year fraught with tension. Researchers also discovered that Christians’ relationships with churches are changing, with church attendance at a low even as new online and hybrid options spring up. Among practicing Christians, weekly church attendance dropped by 28 percentage points from 2019 to 2020, and roughly one in five churched adults (22%) has abandoned attending church altogether.
While Francis Chan acknowledges that these numbers may be discouraging, he urges pastors to prioritize authentic faith over attendance metrics—because that’s what Jesus did. “Christ has always just been interested in those whose faith is going to survive anything because their faith really is born of the Holy Spirit.”
Chan suggests that this time of “pruning” may lead to more fruitful faith in the long run: Empty seats may be hard to see, but they may be part of God’s work.
One person wrote about the church, “We bicker and fight and split. We divorce and cheat like everyone else. We are often hateful. We fail to live out the high ideals we claim as our own.
I don’t think we need to be asking “What is your hope for the Church?” Rather, is there good reason to have hope for the Church?
I say yes: And here are 7 reasons why:
1. Cultural Christianity is melting. In the U.S., it is no longer expected that you know the Bible or go to church or give a rip about religion. This opens space for authentic Christians to live in a way that shows what it looks like to follow Jesus. It’s like a do-over, allowing us to consider our forms of worship, service, and living as disciples. Said another way, It allows us to look seriously and in a fresh way at our Believing, Belonging and Becoming.
2. The Bible is back. Ok, so it never really left. But in this season of re-assessing how we’re living out our faith, we are looking for a standard by which to make decisions. A renewed commitment to the Bible and theological grounding is undergirding growing churches in the U.S. Some would say “how stupid to follow an ancient writing by a bunch of different people written over thousands of years” and yet every word still speaks truth today.
3. Our nation is reeling. From 9/11 to the 2008 Great Recession, to a worldwide pandemic, to an even greater political divide, we are not all as confident as we used to be. We have seen in a new way that we are vulnerable, not always well-liked, and may not be on an eternal upward climb of prosperity. So there is an enormous space in culture for the church to be creative and compassionate offering care and hope to our neighbors, schools, and businesses.
4. We don’t have to do it all.  According to Paul Borthwick, sometime in the mid-to late-1980s, the center of the gravity of the Church shifted from the West to the East and South. Our sisters and brothers abroad are rising up with vibrant faith. We North Americans need to learn from Christians in other lands..
5. The big one. I have a final, big, and good reason to have hope for the Church—Jesus. He loves the Church with the intense care of a groom for his bride. He’s the King of kings, and he has overcome. In the building of his kingdom, he’s accomplishing his purposes and is working for our good and the good of the world.
Hebrews 10:19-25 is a PRELUDE to Hebrews 11 which concludes with Hebrews 12:1-2
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Raise the white flag; I Surrender! I surrender to Christ – I give up my will and my way to His!

01-17-21 RECON

Reconciliation & Reconnaissance
Scripture  2 Corinthians 5:16-21

2 Corinthians 5:16-21
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Along with Martin Luther King Jr., let us pray, VIDEO: MLK reconciliation PRAYER

          I want people to know (meaning to experience) the joy that I know – the joy that I experience from having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I realize that joy has a precondition – RECONCILIATION. I needed to reconcile my previous beliefs with those of the bible. I needed to reconcile my inability to overcome sin in my life without help from someone else. I had to come to a point of reconciliation between myself and God.
          I was born, like Adam and Eve “Imago Dei” in the image of God. Like Adam and Eve, I also willfully, knowingly, broke away from that image. God designed us to live in communion with Him and God did not walk away from a relationship with us, we walked…NO, we ran away from HIM & hid from Him (Gen 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden). Don’t wonder why there is evil in the world till you recognize that you are the one who ran away and hid from ultimate goodness. And because Adam and Eve, and You and I have done that, God removed the ability to live forever in our current state. He kicked us out of Eden so we could not eat from the tree of life and live forever.
          If we were ever going to have access to that tree again, God would have to provide a way for us to be reconciled to Him…Thousands of years later he made a way through another tree cut down and fashioned into the shape of a cross. Now that we have experienced forgiveness and new life through the one who died on that cross and have been reconciled to God, we are to become reconcilers.
If we are to win the world for Christ, we must begin by reconciling ourselves with the people of this world. Political divides are the easiest example where we are unwilling to reconcile with others. Reconciliation does not mean being in agreement – it means being in community even with those whom I disagree with.
RECONCILIATION:
1.     the restoration of friendly relations.
2.     the action of making one view or belief compatible with another.
Opposite of Reconciliation:  estrangement, alienation, feud, incompatibility
Reconciliation is not simple: (4 personal examples – 2 without R. and 2 with R.)
MISSED OPPORTUINITY: The guy with a gas can.
UNWILLINGNESS TO RECONCILE Jeff & Lisa (tried shaking hands on Xmas Eve).
AGREEING TO DISAGREE: Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
MISUNDERSTANDING CLEARED UP: Mike Redman (Heather kicked out)
          The goal of personal reconciliation is similar to the goal of spiritual reconciliation. To restore friendly relations between you and another person and the other between you and God. And we must do all we can to seek that reconciliation. Spiritually it brings about our New Birth and personally Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way in his message titled “Birth of a New Nation”: VIDEO: MLK reconciliation

Martin Luther King Jr.
“Let us fight passionately and unrelentingly for the goals of justice and peace. But let's be sure that our hands are clean in this struggle. Let us never fight with falsehood and violence and hate and malice, but always fight with love, so that when the day comes that the walls of segregation have completely crumbled in Montgomery, that we will be able to live with people as their brothers and sisters. Oh, my friends, our aim must be not to defeat Mr. Engelhardt, not to defeat Mr. Sellers and Mr. Gayle and Mr. Parks. Our aim must be to defeat the evil that's in them. But our aim must be to win the friendship of Mr. Gayle and Mr. Sellers and Mr. Engelhardt. We must come to the point of seeing that our ultimate aim is to live with all men as brothers and sisters under God, and not be their enemies or anything that goes with that type of relationship.” [Martin Luther King Jr., "Birth of a New Nation"]
          I can hear God calling out across heaven just before Jesus is crucified, Oh, my heavenly hosts, our aim must be not to defeat John and Ted and Susie and JoAnn and (every name on earth). Our aim must be to defeat the evil that's in them by what my son is about to do for them. Our aim must be to win the friendship of John and Ted and Susie and JoAnn and (every name on earth) so that they may be reconciled to me and once again be able to eat from the tree of Life.
When we serve as Christ’s ambassadors heling reconcile others to Him, we are fulfilling the foundational scripture of Ashland Church: Ephesians 2:19-22   “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” 
COMPASSION as demonstrated by kindness, humility, gentleness and patience toward one another (Colossians 3:12), being on mission together for the greater good of building Christ’s church in the world.
 
My friend Bryan showed that kind of compassion toward me because he did not want to just be friends for this lifetime, he wanted me to be reconciled with God so that I would know joy in this life, but also so we could be friends forever.
The story of Bob Laurent, Michael W. Smith & Dale.
2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (MSG)    Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.
 
ALTAR CALL: “Friends are friends forever”

01-10-21 RED LETTER WRAP UP Time to Rock & Roll

 Scripture    Matthew 7:24-27
 We’re obsessed with our phones; a new study has found. The heaviest smartphone users click, tap or swipe on their phone 5,427 times a day, according to research.
Pic - Phones
 

That’s the top 10 percent of phone users, so one would expect it to be excessive. However, the rest of us still touch the addictive things 2,617 times a day on average. No small number.
 “And by every interaction, we mean every tap, type, swipe and click. We’re calling them touches,” it explains.
Pic - phoneaddicts

Averaging out the numbers, the aforementioned figures mean the heaviest users are touching their devices a couple of million times in one year.
... Probably the most interesting thing in all this was that the people surveyed completely underestimated their phone touching. While they were initially shocked by the numbers, 41 percent said “it probably won’t change the way I use my phone.” (Not totally about age - People older do more and my nephew – Matt – does less)
APPLICATION
How many taps, types, swipes and clicks take place between you and God in a day?
If the number of times you were in contact with God on a daily basis could be tracked, would you be shocked by the result? Would it be because of how often, or, how infrequently you reached out to Him?
James 4:8 says, "Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded".
Revelation 2:3-5 says, “You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.  Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place”.
 
When you think about love, what color comes to mind? RED!  Red is a color that reminds us of the great love God has for us when Jesus shed his blood, which is why bibles began printing the words of Jesus in RED – hence our 2020 theme was RED LETTER EDITION, based on: Matthew 7:24-27  (THE MESSAGE)
Pic – House on the Rock 3

"These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on.
These words I speak to you are NOT incidental additions to your life,
They ARE foundational words,
My words are NOT homeowner improvements to your standard of living.
They ARE words to build a life on.
If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. 25 Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit — but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
26 But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. 27 When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."
 
END OF SERMON ON THE MOUNT
Our theme text is the end of the greatest sermon ever preached. It is Jesus’ conclusion to the sermon on the Mount. Here is a recap of the end – going back a little further than the section of our theme text…
From picturing two ways and two trees, Jesus closed His message by picturing two builders and their houses. The two ways illustrated the start of the life of faith; the two trees illustrated the growth and results of the life of faith here and now, and the two houses illustrate the end of this life of faith, when God will call everything to judgment. There are false prophets at the gate that leads to the broad way, making it easy for people to enter. But at the end of that way, there is destruction. The final test is not what we think of ourselves, or what others may think. The final test is: What will God say?
The test answers are not given in words; not saying "Lord, Lord," and not obeying His commands. It’s easy to learn a churchy vocabulary, and even memorize Bible verses and worship songs, and yet not obey God's will. When a person is truly born again, she has the Spirit of God living within; and the Spirit enables her to know and do God’s will. God's love in her heart motivates her to obey God and serve others.
 
No matter how much we have heard the words of Jesus this year – it means nothing unless it causes us to live by His words. James 1:22-25  Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it — he will be blessed in what he does.
          Doing what Jesus says is what it means to build your house on the rock, which leads to finding an eternal residence which Jesus is building for you right now.
 
The foundation in this sermon of Jesus’ is obedience to Gods Word - obedience that is an evidence of true faith. The two men in this story had a lot in common. Both had desires to build a house. Both built houses that looked good and sturdy. But when the judgment came (the storm), one of the houses collapsed. What was the difference? Not the external look. The difference was in the foundation: The successful builder "dug deep" and set his house on a solid foundation. (I must admit I feel bad when anyone loses a home, but I don’t feel moved to action to help someone rebuild a home that was built on a beach…on the sand. It will only be a matter of time till it falls again.)
 
A false profession will last until judgment (a storm) comes. Many have professed faith in Christ and not withstood the storm. Consider the parable of the four soils…
People used to wonder – are you “once saved always saved”? Of course the answer is yes – God’s salvation is certain. It is the wrong question…the right question is “If I profess Jesus as Lord, is my salvation guaranteed? NO - Matt 7:21  Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
What is his will? To build your life on the rock OR To hear his words and do them!
 
But the judgment illustrated here probably refers to the final judgment before God. We must not read into this parable all the doctrine that we are taught in the Epistles; for the Lord was illustrating one main point: profession will ultimately be tested before God. Those who have trusted Christ, and have proved their faith by their obedience will have nothing to fear. Their house is founded on the Rock, and it will stand. But those who have professed to trust Christ, yet who have not obeyed God's will, will be condemned.
 
How will we test our profession of faith? By popularity? No, for there are many on the broad road to destruction. And there are many who are depending on words, saying "Lord, Lord" - but this is no assurance of salvation. Even activities in a church organization are no assurance. How then will we judge ourselves?
 
The two ways tell us to examine the cost of our profession. Have we paid a price to profess faith in Christ? The two trees tell us to investigate whether our lives have really changed. Are there godly fruits from our lives? And the two houses remind us that true faith in Christ will last, not only in the storms of life, but also in the final judgment.
 
The congregation was astonished at Jesus’ sermon. Why? Because Jesus spoke with divine authority. The scribes and Pharisees spoke "from authorities," always quoting the various rabbis and experts of the Law. Jesus needed no human teacher to add authority to His words; for He spoke as the Son of God. We cannot lightly dismiss the sermon on the mount, for it is God who gave it to us! God is for us – in the end, he wants our house to STAND!
 
          Being dog owners for the first time in 20 years has given me a new way of seeing some biblical principles and I have recently discovered another. There is a new command we are trying to teach Skipper. “Stand” (explain that) The reason we teach him to stand is to examine him and make sure everything is alright.
Ephesians 6:13-14
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
 
Here is how not to “stand”…Robert Duvall’s character gives “sage” advice to his young nephew in the 2003 movie, SECOND HAND LIONS
“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most.  That people are basically good; that honor, courage and virtue mean everything; that power and money mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love…true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that.  Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.  You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.”
APPLICATION
This “sage” advice might sound good in today’s relativistic pop culture, but it does nothing to root or ground the soul. How can anything be worth remembering when it isn't believed to be true? It is nothing more than "second-hand" foolishness.  A wise man will build his house upon the rock of truth, not the sinking sand of relativism. In the words of the great hymn, “On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.”
PIC Phones 2

CONCLUISON
How many taps, types, swipes and clicks will you have with the words of Jesus this year? 2617 a day?  How about no less than 1 a day?  Will you read God’s word daily? I know there is nothing that will boost your spiritual life more than spending time in the Word of God, most particularly looking at the words of Jesus where you will get to know your savior.