Mark 2:23 - 3:6
Wow, apologies to all my blog followers for this very late posting. I had computer issues during the week, getting all my stuff transferred over to a new system, and thus was not as connected as usual.
In this sermon I address two questions I am often asked about the Sabbath--which is the right day and what is appropriate for me to do on the Sabbath.
In the sermon I make a big deal over the fact that as Christians, we do not really celebrate the Sabbath, since that is an Old Testament concept which is rooted in the Law and set for the seventh day of the week. Rather, we celebrate the Lord's Day. We keep the principle of a sabbath, but we do it on a specific day, in honor of the Resurrection of Jesus.
Sometimes Sabbatarians (those who insist that the Christian Sabbath must be observed on Saturday) try to make a point that it was not until Constantine, the Roman Emperor, converted to Christianity that the church began to worship on Sunday. That is not the case, as this article shows.
Actually, except for the fact that we want to honor the Resurrection of Jesus--the event that changed the world--it does not really matter what day we set aside for sabbath. Paul was clear that we should not get hung up on special days. See Galatians 4:8-10. There are millions of people who cannot take Sunday as their day of worship and rest, at least not every week--medical personnel and caregivers, pastors, air traffic controllers, first responders, etc. But take a day we must, for God order our bodies to function in this way, and we need sabbath to worship, refresh and rejuvenate.
In the sermon I speak a bit to the principles that I understand to govern the Christian sabbath. If you have not heard it, give it a listen (linked from the side of this page).
Thanks for digging deeper.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Not About Us
Though I was not preaching last week due to attending our Annual Conference, I was still writing. Here is an article I wrote for the pastor's column in the Ephrata Review, our local weekly newspaper. It was published in this week's edition (July 11, 2012).
The apparent shrinking of our world defines one of the great developments in this age in which we live. Just a bit over 20 years ago my family and I moved to Africa to serve the church there. Our means of communication consisted of letters that took anywhere from a month to a half year to reach home or a telephone located several hours away that worked intermittently. Now I can pick up my cell phone and call my friends there as easily as I call across the street. Colleagues that served a generation before me tell of long journeys lasting many months to reach their destination, while my family and I flew to Nigeria in a matter of hours. And now Facebook, Skype and other technologies enable us to have face to face conversations with loved ones living half a world away. Clearly things have changed.
And yet, with all this technology that links our world, we are lonelier than ever. We cast about seeking meaning and purpose. Many of us aimlessly wander through life, searching for an elusive happiness in the things we can accumulate or the activities in which engage. We are told that life is all about us, that finding the right partner, landing the right job, making a big enough salary or acquiring notoriety, will bring us the inner worth we crave. But it never works. As we sit by ourselves in the twilight of evening, we find ourselves asking, “Is this all there is?”
A wise sage once said, “If you want to find your life, you first have to lose it,”(Matt. 10:39) and another ancient voice says, “You are not your own; you have been bought with a high price” (1 Cor. 6:19). The root of our desperation stems from an error in our thinking. It is a fundamental mistake. One that all of us make, initially, and, even after realizing it, from time to time. It is the human condition. The mistake is the belief that life is all about us. It is not, and to think it is marks the gravest error anyone can make. To assume life is about us sets us on a self-centered quest for which there is no satisfaction. Rather, we are not our own; we were made for something else. Until we lose ourselves in the “else” we will strive endlessly to find rest from our labor.
What is the “else?” The “Else” we really seek is our Creator. He made us with intention. Though we rebel against him, he buys us back by his grace and seeks to call us to a place where we fulfill the purpose for which He created us. And when we do—when we lose our lives in His purpose—we find the abundant life, a life so full we need nothing else.
So what is life about if it is not about me? Well, simply put, life is about God. It is about bringing God honor and praise and glory in all I am and all I do. Life is about honoring God in my home; not about having my needs met. Life is about honoring God through my job as I provide a service to my community; not about acquiring wealth to spend on myself. Life is about honoring God in my relationships, as I learn to be gracious and righteous and kind and devoted.
Life is not about you or me. After all, we did not choose to be here. Life, the abundant life, is found in knowing our Creator and enjoying a life-long relationship with Him through the gift of life received through faith in his Son, the Lord Jesus.
The apparent shrinking of our world defines one of the great developments in this age in which we live. Just a bit over 20 years ago my family and I moved to Africa to serve the church there. Our means of communication consisted of letters that took anywhere from a month to a half year to reach home or a telephone located several hours away that worked intermittently. Now I can pick up my cell phone and call my friends there as easily as I call across the street. Colleagues that served a generation before me tell of long journeys lasting many months to reach their destination, while my family and I flew to Nigeria in a matter of hours. And now Facebook, Skype and other technologies enable us to have face to face conversations with loved ones living half a world away. Clearly things have changed.
And yet, with all this technology that links our world, we are lonelier than ever. We cast about seeking meaning and purpose. Many of us aimlessly wander through life, searching for an elusive happiness in the things we can accumulate or the activities in which engage. We are told that life is all about us, that finding the right partner, landing the right job, making a big enough salary or acquiring notoriety, will bring us the inner worth we crave. But it never works. As we sit by ourselves in the twilight of evening, we find ourselves asking, “Is this all there is?”
A wise sage once said, “If you want to find your life, you first have to lose it,”(Matt. 10:39) and another ancient voice says, “You are not your own; you have been bought with a high price” (1 Cor. 6:19). The root of our desperation stems from an error in our thinking. It is a fundamental mistake. One that all of us make, initially, and, even after realizing it, from time to time. It is the human condition. The mistake is the belief that life is all about us. It is not, and to think it is marks the gravest error anyone can make. To assume life is about us sets us on a self-centered quest for which there is no satisfaction. Rather, we are not our own; we were made for something else. Until we lose ourselves in the “else” we will strive endlessly to find rest from our labor.
What is the “else?” The “Else” we really seek is our Creator. He made us with intention. Though we rebel against him, he buys us back by his grace and seeks to call us to a place where we fulfill the purpose for which He created us. And when we do—when we lose our lives in His purpose—we find the abundant life, a life so full we need nothing else.
So what is life about if it is not about me? Well, simply put, life is about God. It is about bringing God honor and praise and glory in all I am and all I do. Life is about honoring God in my home; not about having my needs met. Life is about honoring God through my job as I provide a service to my community; not about acquiring wealth to spend on myself. Life is about honoring God in my relationships, as I learn to be gracious and righteous and kind and devoted.
Life is not about you or me. After all, we did not choose to be here. Life, the abundant life, is found in knowing our Creator and enjoying a life-long relationship with Him through the gift of life received through faith in his Son, the Lord Jesus.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
The Church: Who we need to be
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
This sermon is a follow up the last week's sermon, "The Church: what it was, is and is becoming.
About a year ago I had the privilege of hearing Dallas Willard speak in person. Dallas is one of the key Christian leaders today. He is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California who has also specialized in the the area of Christian spiritual formation. Read whatever you of what he wrote, and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do it. Here is his website.
Anyway, that day Dallas was talking about the human soul and he defined it as "that part of us that integrates all other parts." (He explores this some in his book, Renovation of the Heart). I was fascinated by this and discussed it with him a bit, and have been thinking it through ever since. I also mention in my sermon that Paul Grout has been saying that "our current manner of living is destroying our soul." So if our soul's are being destroyed by contemporary life, then we are losing our ability to integrate life--we are becoming more animal-like and less human. It is no wonder that human nature is degenerating, which is the fulfillment of one of the three prophecies I discuss in the sermon.
Pollster George Barna discusses what he believes are "four common barriers to transformation, including lack of commitment, unwillingness to fully repent, confusing activity for growth, and failure to engage in genuine, accountable community." Read it here.
If you google around the statistics related to Christian faith in the USA, you find a lot of interesting stuff. One fact is that those who self-identity as Christian are decreasing by 1% a year, and this while the population is increasing each year, meaning that there are less of us, by percentage of our society, each year. This is one reason our influence is waning. Despite the prevalence of mega-churches (more now than ever, and larger ones each year), there is no county in the USA where the percentage of Christians has grown.
Without a major spiritual revival, this will not change. The purpose of these two sermons was to help us understand what is happening, but to also left up what God is doing in the midst of it. During the era when Christendom reigned, the church got all entangled with the culture and the world and the government. It brought power, but power often corrupts. God is not taking us to a place where we have the opportunity to reexamine what we are, what we seek, and what we are called to. It is a good thing.
All this leads me to seek out from God, what this means for me and for the congregation I serve. Status quo no longer makes it. Being busy doing good things, no longer accomplishes much, if it ever did. Society is redefining normal; we need to "understand" (listen to the sermon), what God deems normal, and commit to it.
Do not fear. Rather, seek Jesus and the spiritual transformation only He can provide, and you will be fine in this post-modern, pre-Christian era. You will be fine, but you will be weird (in the world's eyes) and you will not remain the same. You will be God's person.
Thanks for digging deeper.
This sermon is a follow up the last week's sermon, "The Church: what it was, is and is becoming.
About a year ago I had the privilege of hearing Dallas Willard speak in person. Dallas is one of the key Christian leaders today. He is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California who has also specialized in the the area of Christian spiritual formation. Read whatever you of what he wrote, and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do it. Here is his website.
Anyway, that day Dallas was talking about the human soul and he defined it as "that part of us that integrates all other parts." (He explores this some in his book, Renovation of the Heart). I was fascinated by this and discussed it with him a bit, and have been thinking it through ever since. I also mention in my sermon that Paul Grout has been saying that "our current manner of living is destroying our soul." So if our soul's are being destroyed by contemporary life, then we are losing our ability to integrate life--we are becoming more animal-like and less human. It is no wonder that human nature is degenerating, which is the fulfillment of one of the three prophecies I discuss in the sermon.
Pollster George Barna discusses what he believes are "four common barriers to transformation, including lack of commitment, unwillingness to fully repent, confusing activity for growth, and failure to engage in genuine, accountable community." Read it here.
If you google around the statistics related to Christian faith in the USA, you find a lot of interesting stuff. One fact is that those who self-identity as Christian are decreasing by 1% a year, and this while the population is increasing each year, meaning that there are less of us, by percentage of our society, each year. This is one reason our influence is waning. Despite the prevalence of mega-churches (more now than ever, and larger ones each year), there is no county in the USA where the percentage of Christians has grown.
Without a major spiritual revival, this will not change. The purpose of these two sermons was to help us understand what is happening, but to also left up what God is doing in the midst of it. During the era when Christendom reigned, the church got all entangled with the culture and the world and the government. It brought power, but power often corrupts. God is not taking us to a place where we have the opportunity to reexamine what we are, what we seek, and what we are called to. It is a good thing.
All this leads me to seek out from God, what this means for me and for the congregation I serve. Status quo no longer makes it. Being busy doing good things, no longer accomplishes much, if it ever did. Society is redefining normal; we need to "understand" (listen to the sermon), what God deems normal, and commit to it.
Do not fear. Rather, seek Jesus and the spiritual transformation only He can provide, and you will be fine in this post-modern, pre-Christian era. You will be fine, but you will be weird (in the world's eyes) and you will not remain the same. You will be God's person.
Thanks for digging deeper.
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