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I Am the Vine

October 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment

IAmJesus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Jesus – I Am The Vine
Sycamore Creek Church
October 12/13, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Have you ever been on a swing when the rope or chain became disconnected from the frame?  I was swinging on a porch swing one time when one chain broke as I was swinging toward the edge of the porch.  I went backwards over the back of the swing, somehow rotated in the air and tucked into the fetal position.  My body went between the porch post and a tree stump.  I came down on my head but rolled out of the fetal position so that I was laying flat on my back on the driveway.  I jumped up as if to say, “Look I’m OK.”  In the split second that this whole thing happened, I learned the dangers of becoming disconnected.

Today we’re talking about being connected and disconnected.  We’re in a series called I Am Jesus.  In the book about Jesus written by one of his closest followers, John, Jesus makes seven different “I am” statements.  He says:

I am the way the truth and the life.
I am the bread of life.
I am the gate/door.
I am the good shepherd.
I am the vine.
I am the resurrection.
I am the light of the world.

Last week we looked at his statement, “I am the good shepherd.”  Today we look at what it means when Jesus says, “I am the vine.”

In the book of John, we find the following statement in chapter fifteen:

Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
~Jesus (John 15:5 NLT)

It is important to understand the context of this statement.  In chapter thirteen Jesus begins the last supper he will have with his disciples before his crucifixion.  In chapter eighteen Jesus is arrested.  Chapters fourteen to seventeen record Jesus’ dinner conversation.

This is the last conversation Jesus is going to have with his friends.  If you were having a last conversation with family and friends, what would you say?  Jesus decides to talk about grapes.  He begins this chapter saying, “I am the true grapevine” (John 15:1 NLT)

If Jesus is the true vine, then that implies that there are some false vines.  Too often we connect ourselves to all kinds of false vines hoping it will bear fruit in our lives.  If I make more money next year and climb one rung on the ladder, I’ll have fruit.  If I get a certain number of friends on Facebook, then I’ll have fruit.  If I have an appearance of a perfect home (2.5 kids, wife, dog, perfect lawn, etc.), then I will finally have fruit.  But it doesn’t quite work that way.  We have to stay connected to the true vine.  There are at least two reasons why.

1. Staying Connected Produces Fruit
When we stay connected to the true vine, our lives produce fruit.  These fruit are described by Paul, the first missionary of the church, in his letter to the Galatians.  He says:

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.
~Galatians 5:22-23 NLT

This isn’t the fruit of more money, or a better looking husband.  It’s an internal fruit.  The fruit of virtue in your life.  This kind of fruit requires staying connected.  It rarely happens overnight.  It’s like learning to ride a bike.  To learn to ride the bike you have to  stay connected to the bike.  You can’t expect to learn to ride a bike if you don’t get on it.  And it takes time staying connected to the bike along with some bumps and bruises to learn the fruit of balancing on the bike.  I came across this boy whose perseverance in staying connected to his bike has finally born fruit.  His encouragement to keep practicing can encourage us to stay connected to the true vine.

 

Recently I’ve been struggling with a particular question: I am staying connected to the true vine, but I’m not seeing the fruit in my life.  One particular challenge lately has been with being a parent.  Too often being a parent brings out all the bad stuff in me.  Why is that?  As I’ve pondered why I’m not seeing fruit in my parenting, I realized that while I’m thirty-nine years old, and in general I have thirty-nine years of remaining connected to the true vine, when it comes to parenting, I’m only three years old.  In other words, in most of my life, I’ve got the maturity and fruit of a thirty-nine-year-old. But in parenting, I’ve only got the maturity of a three-year-old!  But if I stay connected to the true vine, the fruit will come.

If you’re staying connected to the true vine by praying for a friend to come to Christ but it’s not happening, stay connected.  If your anger is still explosive.  Stay connected.  If your lust continues.  Stay connected.  If your impulsive spending persists.  Stay connected.  Here is your “Fruit forecast:” 100% probability of fruit.  But we have to remain.  We have to stay connected.  Continue.  Continue.  Continue.

There are some apple trees on the side of the office.  Sarah and I swung by them this past week to see if there were any apples.  But they only bloom every other year.  Stay connected.  There’s a Ceiba (“SAY-ba”) tree on MSU’s campus that blooms “as little as once every 5 years.”  Or there’s the Corpse Flower that gets its name by smelling like rotting flesh.  It bloomed this past year but “the plants rarely bloom, going years, even decades between showings.”

Stay connected.  Stay connected.  Stay connected.

2. Being Disconnected Produces Nothing
A second reason we need to stay connected to the true vine is because being disconnected produces nothing.  Jesus says:

Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.
~Jesus (John 15:6 NLT)

Sometimes being disconnected is deceptive.  Sometimes it looks like fruit is still being produced.  After one of the big storms we had this past spring, I went on a walk in my neighborhood and came across a tree that had lost several branches.  The branches were lying on the ground, and I was surprised to find that the branches had blossoms on them.  But this was only because there was a limited amount of life left in the disconnected branch.  The next week I walked by this same tree and those branches has been picked up and carted away.

Have you ever plugged your cell phone in before you went to bed only to wake up the next morning and realize that the cord was not plugged into the wall?  Yes, there is some battery left, but not enough to get you through the day.

It’s important to guard against becoming judgmental at this point.  If we become judgmental we can easily end up right in the middle of the very thing we’re judging.   I say to myself, “I’ll never have an affair” but then I do.  Or I say, “My kids are never going to act like that” and then they do.  Or “I’m never going to put my job before my family,” but you do.  Anybody is capable of anything when you’re disconnected from the vine.

So if it’s important to stay connected to the true vine because it produces fruit and because being disconnected produces nothing, how do we stay connected?  Here are two ways.

1. Do What Jesus Says
To learn what Jesus says, it seems like a good place to start is with what Jesus actually says.  So Jesus says:

When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
~Jesus (John 15:10 NLT)

One of my first jobs when I got married was at a fancy Italian restaurant in Petoskey.  The owner, Alex, described himself as not always fun but fair.  He had a very accurate self understanding.  One day he took about ten minutes to show me how he wanted the cheese for the pizzas to be made.  There was a specific ratio of Mozzarella to Muenster that he wanted.  He had a particular way he wanted it run through the grinder.  And then there were more instructions for how to handle it once it was all properly mixed.  After Alex took the time to show me this, I did it his way for about five minutes.  Then I decided I knew better and began doing it my way.  A couple of minutes later he came by and saw that I was not doing it the way he had taken time to show me, and I got a stern lecture about it all.  I was hurt in the moment (no one likes to be corrected), but after thinking about it for a while I realized that even if my way was better, he’s the one who owns the restaurant and he’s the one who’s paying me, and he’s the boss, so I should do it the way he wants.  It was really quite simple.  He was hiring me to do things the way he wanted them done.  And that’s how I should do it.

Let’s admit it.  Christians can be a bunch of loop-hole fanatics.  We find every possible reason not to actually do what Jesus says.  Francis Chan has this provocative insight on not doing what Jesus says:

Go clean your room!  As Chan says, “We have too many believers and not enough disciples.”

So where do you need to quit talking and praying about it and to finally do it?  Someone tells you to lead a small group.  Clean your room!  You need to spend more time with your kids.  Clean your room!  Be more selfless and get outside yourself.  Clean your room!  Serve in the church.  Clean your room!  Serve in the community. Clean your room!  Set time aside to pray.  Clean your room!  Read your Bible.  Clean your room!

Make extra payments on your debt.  Clean your room!  Stay connected to the true vine by doing what Jesus says.

2. Love Like Jesus Loves
The second way to stay connected to the true vine is to love like Jesus loves.  Jesus says:

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.
~Jesus (John 15:12 NLT)

Loving each other can be a kind of subjective call.  You might think its one thing while someone else thinks it’s something else.  But Jesus makes sure we can’t wiggle out of this.  He puts some definition on this love.  “Love as I have loved you,” he says.  He steps it up a notch.  Just before this dinner conversation and last supper together, Jesus shows them what this love looks like by serving them.  He washes their feet, the job of a slave or servant.  He explains what this love looks like in himself: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13 NLT).  Jesus raises the standard way high!

A year or so ago I was reading a book called Sacred Parenting.  It was about how parenting itself is a spiritual discipline.  It is a great book, and I highly recommend it to others.  I was sitting quietly in the morning reading the chapter about sacrifice.  The sacrifices a parent makes for their child can be a way that we enter into God’s presence and know something of the sacrifices that God makes for his children.  As I was enjoying reading this chapter and thinking about how sacrifices for my children could draw me closer to God, Micah woke up about thirty minutes early and began crying.  I remember thinking, “Sarah will get him.”  Then the iron struck.  I would rather read about sacrifices in parenting than actually sacrifice in parenting!  Henri Nouwen says, “It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people.”

This loving like Jesus loved is hard stuff.  It’s really hard stuff.  That’s why we’ve got to stay connected.  We can’t do it alone, and it pushes us back to the vine.

Are you staying connected?  Have you become disconnected?  What fruit is your life producing?  What fruit is it missing?  If you desire to stay connected to the true vine, Jesus Christ, then join me in this prayer:

Jesus, you are the true vine.  I want my life to produce fruit, but I confess that too often I try to do that while being disconnected from you.  Help me to do what you say and love like you love so that I might stay connected to you and produce your fruit in my life.  In the power of your Spirit.  Amen.

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I Am the Good Shepherd *

October 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment

IAmJesus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Jesus – I Am the Good Shepherd *
Sycamore Creek Church
October 5 & 6
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today we begin I Am Jesus.  No, I’m not saying that I am Jesus.  Rather, I’m referring to Jesus’ “I am” statements in the book of John in the Bible.  There are seven of these “I am” statements.  Jesus says:

I am the way the truth and the life.
I am the bread of life.
I am the gate/door.
I am the good shepherd.
I am the vine.
I am the resurrection.
I am the light of the world.

In this series we’ll explore the last four.  Today we begin with Jesus saying:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
~Jesus (John 10:11 NRSV)

If Jesus is the good shepherd, then it suggests that there is some good news here.  But if Jesus is the good shepherd, then that also suggests that not all shepherds are good.  In fact, Jesus begins by saying:

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit.
~Jesus (John 10:1 NLT)

Jesus is talking about our spiritual enemy and the evil side of creation.  Sometimes he goes by the name Satan or the devil.  Jesus tells us that he comes only to steal, kill and destroy.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
~John 10:10 NLT

Satan’s mission can be compared to Jesus’ mission.  One is good, the other not so good.  Of course, in this metaphor, we’re the sheep.  This is not so great news to begin with because sheep are some of the most challenged animals on earth.  You’ve probably been to a circus and seen trained elephants, trained dogs, and trained monkeys.  But when was the last time you saw a circus with a trained sheep?  Never!  So say it with me, “You’ve got challenges.”  Here are three challenges that we all share with sheep.

1.     Sheep are Defenseless
Almost every other animal has some kind of defense: claws, fangs, horns, camouflage, etc.  But what happens when you attack a sheep?  It says, “Baaaack off.”  Sheep are classified by those who study them as prey.  Their main defense is to be part of a herd.  Together they are more protected than alone.  Unfortunately there’s a down side to this defense strategy.

2.     Sheep can Mob
Did you know that a herd of sheep is called a mob?  Sheep tend to follow a herd mentality.  They unthinkingly follow the lead sheep which can often get them in trouble.  I came across an article about 450 sheep who jumped off a cliff to their death.  There were actually 1500 sheep who went over the cliff but the first 450 cushioned the fall of the other 1050!  The loss to the Turkish families was over $100,000.  That’s a huge sum in country where the average family makes $2700/year.

We tend to get stuck in groupthink and herd mentality too.  We keep using the same bait everyone else is using even though we keep catching the wrong kind of guy or gal.  Maybe you need to change your bait.  Or if we’re financially in a hole, you need to go to the mall and shop it out.  No!  That’s what the herd does.  Sheep can mob, so can we.

3.     Sheep are Filthy
Have you seen white sheep on TV or at the fair?  Those sheep were power-washed!  I spoke with Alan Culham, MSU Sheep Farm Manager, who told me he has never seen a sheep licking itself clean.  Of course, they’re at a distinct disadvantage.  They’re white?  Whenever I buy something white, no matter how careful I am, I always spill or splatter something on it the first time I wear it!  The same thing is true of our spiritual state.  The prophet Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way” (Isaiah 53:6 NRSV).  Our own way has left us spiritually broken and dirty thinking like everyone else in need of rescue.

In the same way that sheep need a shepherd and we need a savior.  The good news is that Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He’s so good he’ll lay down his life for the sheep!  Let’s look at four qualities of the Good Shepherd: He leads, he feed, he corrects, and he protects.

1.     The Good Shepherd Leads
One of the most famous passages of scripture is Psalm 23.  It’s worth reading in full this afternoon.  In fact, if you’re going to memorize anything in the Bible, this is a good one to memorize.  The whole psalm is about how God is like a good shepherd.  We read:

He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
~Psalm 23:3 NRSV

The good shepherd leads us.  To let God guide, you have to know God’s voice.  Jesus explained this when he said I am the Good Shepherd saying:

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
~Jesus (John 10:3-4 NRSV)

Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “I don’t know the voice of God.  Does God speak audibly?”  God rarely speaks audibly, although I have experienced one time in life where I think I heard God audibly.  It was a word of encouragement to me as a child.  But more often than not, God speaks through his Word, circumstances, people, the message in worship and in all different kinds of ways.

There are at least two reasons you may not know his voice.  Consider this.  If my wife, Sarah, were standing in a room with fifty other women while all of them were talking, could you pick out her voice?  It is unlikely that you could pick out her voice amidst all the other noise in the room.  That would be because you either don’t know her at all or you haven’t spent enough time with her.  It is very likely that after seventeen years of marriage, I could easily pick my wife’s voice.  Or maybe you’ve had the experience of hearing your child cry and knowing immediately that it is your child.  It’s because you know your child and have spent hours with him or her.  The same is true with hearing and recognizing God’s voice.  You either don’t know him at all or you haven’t spent much time with God.

One of the amazing things about sheep is that they do have the ability to recognize the shepherd’s voice.  They can distinguish it from all others.  The Good Shepherd calls us each by name.  I find that remembering people’s names can be very powerful.  I once remembered the name of the guy who checked Sarah and me into a hotel in Chicago.  He was so impressed that I remembered his name, that he treated us like kings and queens all weekend long!  God is calling you by name today.  Can you hear his voice as he leads you?

2. The Good Shepherd Feeds
Going back to Psalm 23 we find that the Good Shepherd feeds us, not just physically but feeds our spirits:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
~Psalm 23:1-3 NRSV

Sheep won’t lie down unless they’re well fed and feel safe.  The Good Shepherd does both.  Not only that but he leads me beside still waters.  Why still waters?  Have you ever tried to get drinking water from a body of water that has a swift current or big waves?  It’s almost impossible.  In the same way that you don’t want to go near raging waters because of fear of falling in, the Good Shepherd leads his sheep to still waters so that they don’t fall in.  Jesus is the water that gives life.  This life giving water of Jesus restores my soul.  We receive a supernatural peace amidst chaos.

I’ll never forget the moment sitting at the dinner table when Micah at about age one and a half began choking.  I got down to his level to see if he needed help, and as his face began to turn blue and no noise came out of his mouth, I saw the look of fear in his little eyes.  To this day I’m still amazed at how calmly I unbuckled him, turned him over on my arm and slapped his back until he threw up what he was choking on along with everything else in his little tummy.  Actually his tummy isn’t so little.  How much can a one and a half year-old throw up?  A lot more than you would imagine!  He threw up all over me, all over himself, and all over the floor.  Finally he stopped, and I handed him to his mom to go clean up.  Somehow I had stayed calm amidst the chaos of staring my son’s death in the eyes.  And then I fell apart!  But when it counted, I had this kind of supernatural peace.  That’s what it’s like when Jesus restores your soul.  Your whole life can be falling apart.  You can be staring death in the eyes, and deep down where it really counts, all is well.

The Good Shepherd feeds our soul.

3. The Good Shepherd Corrects
While it may not seem like good news if you are the sheep who is wandering, it is good to be corrected.  Amidst his life falling apart, Job says:

Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
~Job 5:17-18 NIV

Recently Sarah and I went up to Petoskey for a week of vacation where we own a house.  We’re within walking distance of the waterfront and the Little Traverse Bay.  I was really looking forward to introducing my youngest son, Sam, to the waterfront.  One morning we walked out on the break wall.  It’s a pretty big platform and there’s no immediate danger of him falling in, but guess where he always wanted to go.  Right to the edge.  Guess what I never let him do.  Go right to the edge.  I always kept myself between him and the water correcting his direction any time he was in danger of going too close to the edge.  Did he like this?  No way.  Was I being a good shepherd of my son?  Absolutely.

Of course, none of us likes being disciplined and corrected.  No one says, “Oh, yay, I’m being disciplined!  I’m grounded.  Maybe dad will take away my cell phone too!”  The author of the book of Hebrews says:

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.
~Hebrews 12:11 NLT

The Good Shepherd leads, feeds, corrects, and protects.

4. The Good Shepherd Protects
Maybe one of the deepest moments in Psalm 23 is found in verse four.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
~Psalm 23:4 NRSV

When have you been afraid walking through the valley of the shadow of death?  When have you feared for your own safety?  My son, Micah, when he was about two and a half and still in his crib told me one morning when I came to get him up that he had been scared of something the night before.  I told him that when he was scared he could pray to God.  He said, “I don’t need to pray. I just yell Daddy, Daddy!”  At first I thought he wasn’t getting it.  Then I realized that I was his first experience of the protection that God provides.  He’s not quite old enough to realize that his daddy has limits to his ability to protect, but God does not.

While God does protect us, he does not always protect from death itself.  We will all die.  But our Good Shepherd, Jesus, has gone before us.  When Jesus said that he was the Good Shepherd, he said,

“The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.”
~Jesus (John 10:11)

Jesus conquered death so that he might usher us beyond it.  When I became pastor here at Sycamore Creek Church, one of my first experiences walking alongside someone through dying was with Ken Ziegler.  Ken had multiple sclerosis commonly referred to as MS.  I visited with Ken many times in the hospital during my first couple of years at SCC.  Toward the end of Ken’s life when he could no longer talk, I would sit beside his bed and pray with him.  I came to realize that Ken had memorized many of the great prayers and creeds of the church.  I would say the Apostles Creed and see him mouthing, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.”  I would pray the Lord’s Prayer with him and see him mouthing, “Our Father, who art in heaven.”  And I would pray Psalm 23 with him and see him praying along with me, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”  Ken had hope even in the face of death that death was not the end.  It was not the end because he had a Good Shepherd, Jesus, who had laid down his life for his sheep and conquered death through the resurrection.

Jesus once told a story about a hundred sheep.  He said that ninety-nine were safe in the pen.  One went missing.  The Good Shepherd left the ninety-nine to go find the one.  Maybe today you’re the one that the Good Shepherd is seeking.

Prayer – Psalm 23 NKJV
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.

 

* This sermon is based on a sermon originally preached by Craig Groeschel

 

 

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One Community Away

September 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment

friending

 

 

 

 

 


Friending – One Community Away *
Sycamore Creek Church
September 21/22, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Where have you experienced a community of friends at the deepest level?  Sarah and I probably experienced a community of friends at the deepest level when we lived in this crazy house called Isaiah House while we were in seminary in Durham, NC.  Isaiah House was a “new monastic” house.  Probably the best way to describe it was to imagine living with your small group in the local homeless shelter.  We were a group of Christians who lived together in one very big house and offered several rooms in the house for women and children who were homeless or in transition.  We practiced our faith together with daily times of prayer and scripture reading.  We simply practiced life together with a daily dinner together.  We played together.  We cried together.  We sought to make a positive impact on the neighborhood that we lived in together.  We were in mission together.  I have never been so bonded to a group of friends who shared a similar mission than I was when I lived at the Isaiah House.  It was an amazing, powerful and life changing experience of what is truly possible with a community of friends.  It is not for everyone, but aspects of it are for everyone.

Today we continue this series called Friending by looking at the community of friends we put around us.  This series as a whole has had one key thought:

Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

We’ve also had a key verse through this series:

Walk with the wise and become wise,
For a companion of fools suffers harm.
~Proverbs 13:10 NIV

You will either rise to the level of the wisdom of your friends or you will sink to the level of foolishness of your friends.  Today I want to take that to a community level.  And our key thought for today’s message is this:

You might be one community away from changing your destiny.

Our culture worships independence, but to be independent is to be distinctly non-Christian.  Rather we are to be dependent upon God and upon one another, in a community that is called the church.  Yes, we are to have a personal relationship with God in Jesus, but a personal relationship with God is incomplete.  We need a shared relationship with God.  We are built to experience the power, glory, beauty and love of God within the breadth of a community.  We may be able to be a child of the King by ourselves, but without a community, we will always be orphans of the king.

I’d like to begin our exploration of community today with a look at the early church as described in the book of Acts in the Bible.  The book of Acts picks up the story of the early church just after Jesus has ascended into heaven and passed off the leadership of the community he created to his closest followers and friends.  Here’s what happened:

Acts 2:42-46 NLT
All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity.

Wow!  Have you ever been in a community like that?  I don’t think that what we read about is a prescription for how every Christian is supposed to live, but wouldn’t it be powerful if you had a community like that?  This is a community centered around Christ, not your neighborhood, not the soccer league, not your local school.  You don’t stumble into a community like this, you intentionally create it with the love of Christ.  Today I’d like to look at three great qualities seen in the passage and other places in the Bible of any great community.

1.     A Great Community Shares Life
We read in Acts 2:44 that this community “shared everything they had” and they met each day in homes and around shared meals.  This is more than just an every-other-week small group.  This is more than a weekly small group.  This is a daily small group!  I think it’s important to point out that while I hold small groups at SCC with a very high value, I do not think they are the end goal of where we’re called as Christians to go.  Small groups create an environment for friendship to begin and to thrive.  But for true friendship and community to go to its deepest levels, it will likely begin in a small group and be nurtured beyond the small group.  The church as a whole creates the environment and fertile soil for this kind of friendship to grow, but it does not do all the heavy lifting of friendship for you.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet and talk with two friends in our church, Erin Umpstead and Lori Welch, whose friendship has really thrived because they both belong to this community called Sycamore Creek Church.  I’d like to introduce you to them.  Listen for the moments when a broader community of faith helped their friendship go deeper.

You probably know some people who could really use a community that would be fertile soil for significant life-changing friendships.  You probably know some people who need Sycamore Creek Church.  Coming up the first weekend of October (5th & 6th) we’re throwing a Farm and Zoo Day.  Farm Day is on Sunday at Lansing Christian School and Zoo Day is on Monday at Jackie’s Diner.  This weekend is a great opportunity for families to be introduced to SCC because it’s going to be fun for the whole family, filled with faith, and FREE!  Sunday we’ll have a petting zoo, antique tractor hay rides, a farmers market, a pie contest (bring your pie to enter the contest!), and lots of games for the whole family.  On Monday we’ll have docents from Potter Park Zoo who will have zoo animals that you can see and touch up close and personal.  What three friends do you know who need a spiritual community like SCC that you could invest some time in those families between now and Farm Day and pray for God to open a door to invite them?  Then when you see God open the door to invite them, be courageous enough to hand them a postcard about Farm Day.  Don’t keep SCC to yourself.  Share this community of faith with your friends around you who don’t have a church family.

I have had the fortunate opportunity of sharing life with one of the people I work with.  Many pastors don’t get to have staff that they are also friends with.  But I get the chance to be friends with all my staff. One friendship that has really become important to me is my friendship with Jeremy and Kristin Kratky.  Of course you know Jeremy as our worship leader, but I know Jeremy as my employee, friend, and godfather of my son, Sam.  I probably spend more time with Jeremy than any other person in my life besides my family.  But over the past five years Jeremy and I have take this friendship a step further with our families.  We’ve gone backpacking together.  We organized a Dad Kid Night Out group so we could spend time with our kids and other dads.  Our wives who both enjoy writing meet on the same night to write.  I always find it somewhat ironic that Jeremy and I go out to be social and talk about being dads while our wives get together to sit silently across from each other typing on their computers!  We asked Jeremy and Kristin to be the godparents of our youngest son Sam.  To us a godparent is someone who you invite to intentionally invest in the spiritual life of your child.  You give them a full green light to talk about God and Jesus and faith and whatever comes up.  We’ve even joked about arranging a marriage between our families!  It has been a friendship that thrives because we have this faith community around us.  Are you just showing up for worship on Sunday or Monday or are you sharing life beyond an hour a week in worship?  A great community shares life together

2.     Risk Vulnerability
A great community also risks vulnerability.  On the first week I mentioned that one of the two greatest needs of all friendships is to be authentic.  What is true of friendship is no less true of community.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books of the Bible wrote:

Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.
~Romans 15:7 NLT

A great community is open to not only the hopes and dreams of friends but also the fears and failures.  Earlier you met Erin and Lori.  I’d like you to hear about a time when Erin was particularly feeling like a failure and how Lori supported her through that time.

 

As I was growing up I attended a church that had a youth group about the size of SCC.  Yes, it was big.  I will never forget the night when Tim, one of the senior leaders I looked up to and the son of missionaries, stood up to the mic and shocked us all.  He confessed before a room full of teenagers that he struggled looking at pornography.  He did not go into great detail, but he was in that moment being more vulnerable in a community than I had ever experienced before.  Tim’s vulnerability and confession had a profound impact on me.  Later that week I got together with Tim and confessed to someone for the first time ever that I too looked at pornography.   It was a moment when the evil side of creation cringed: two young men being open with each other and vulnerable with each other in their failures.  That was the beginning of the end of pornography’s hold on me.  And it took place in a community where people were willing to risk vulnerability with each other.

I want you to notice something that happened in that moment.  One person risked vulnerability in community through confession of a sin.  But I did not respond inside the youth worship service itself.  I responded by getting together with Tim one-on-one.  Confession in community often leads to confession, but it does not always lead to confession right then and there.  Community is the soil in which vulnerability can grow.  I think this is true of small groups as well.  Oftentimes in a small group someone will share something very personal.  Others may really resonate with what was said but are not willing yet to share so publicly.  So don’t miss the opportunity that the community provides.  Set up some time outside of the small group to talk further.  Every great community risks vulnerability.

3.     We Fight Predators
Every great community shares life together.  Every great community risks vulnerability.  And every great community fights predators together.  Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers and friends, wrote:

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
~1 Peter 5:8 NLT

You’ve probably seen the video online called Battle at Kruger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM).  If not, it’s the scene of a herd of water buffalo attacked by a pride of lions.  The lions scatter the herd and pick off the most vulnerable water buffalo, the baby.  But the herd comes back in force and fights  back.  Eventually each lion is chased off by the herd and the baby water buffalo lives to see another day.  That’s a great image of how the enemy prowls around looking to pick off the vulnerable in our community.  Great communities fight off the enemy so that the vulnerable is not left to fight alone.

Let’s go back to Lori and Erin.  At a very vulnerable time in Lori’s life, she became deathly ill.  Listen for how Erin helps fight of the predators of illness, depression, isolation, and more.

 

Don’t fight cancer alone.  Don’t fight a financial crisis alone.  Don’t fight a struggle in your marriage alone.  When Micah was born I experienced a kind of male post partum depression where I really just wanted to smash Micah against the wall whenever he would cry.  I remember sitting in a reCRASH event at Grumpy’s Diner on a Saturday morning with Ben Shoemaker, Keith Cantrall, and John Brinkhuff and sharing what seemed like a very un-pastoral kind of thing to share: I wanted to kill my son.  They helped me fight off the predators of depression, anger, and frustration.  I went home from that time of being with a community of men better equipped for the challenges that faced me as a dad.  Great communities fight predators together, not alone.

My hope and dream for Sycamore Creek Church is that we would be that kind of community.  A community that shares life, risks vulnerability, and fights off predators.  I want those who don’t have a church family to say to themselves, “I don’t know that I get all this God stuff, all this Jesus stuff, but I want what they’ve got.  I want friends and community like they’ve got.”  Jesus says:

Everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another.
~John 13:35 NIV

So how do we build this kind of community here at SCC?  Here’s the answer: you have to be it to have it.  Be the kind of friend who does life with the community around you.  Be the kind of friend who risks vulnerability.  Be the kind of friend who fights off predators.  Make SCC great by being a great friend of this community.

I don’t know any better way to begin doing this than by joining a small group this fall.  We run our small groups on a semester basis.  When you sign up for a small group, you’re only signing up for the semester.  If it doesn’t work out, don’t drop small groups.  Just sign up for a different one next semester.  Small groups are like doctors.  Everyone needs a small group community, but not every small group is right for every person.  If you don’t like the doctor you’ve got, you don’t give up on medicine.  You find a new doctor.  Begin the journey of building a great community at SCC by joining up for a small group this fall.  You do so here online.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, you exist within your very being as a community of friendship with the Son and the Spirit.  Thank you for inviting us into that community and giving us a community here on earth called the church.  Help each one of us be the kind of friend that makes Sycamore Creek Church a great community.  In the name of Jesus, the founder and leader of our great community.  Amen.

* This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel.

 

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One Friend Away

September 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Friending – One Friend Away *
Sycamore Creek Church
September 14/15, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

We are in to week two of a series called Friending.  Our key thought for the series is this:

Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

Our key verse for the series comes from Proverbs:

Walk with the wise and become wise,
For a companion of fools suffer harm.
~Proverbs 13:20 NIV

You will rise to the level of wisdom of your friends or you will sink to the level of foolishness of your friends.  Which way do you want to go?

I think that many of us are longing for something more when it comes to our friends.  We think that there must be something more relationally than we are actually experiencing.  There’s a hole there that isn’t being filled.

Sociologists talk about three different kinds of poverty.

  1. Material Poverty
  2. Spiritual Poverty
  3. Relational Poverty

If you’ve ever been on one of our medical mission trips to Nicaragua, you’ll have experienced a progression that goes something like this.  On day one, you’re overwhelmed by what you see that the Nicaraguans don’t have.  By day 3 or 4, you’ll begin to wonder, “Why am I kind of jealous of these people?”  You’ll notice that they have very little material wealth, but they have spiritual and relational depth.  When you get back home you realize that you’ve got so much, but you’re missing something that Nicaraguans have.  And it is likely not someTHING but someONE that you’re missing.

Here’s our key thought for today:

You might be one friend away from changing the course of your destiny.

Now let me be really clear.  When I say one friend away from a changed life, I don’t necessarily mean that this friend will be like you or like all your other friends.  This friend may be very different than you.  Don’t just look for friends like you: your age, education, race, etc.

I’d like to introduce you to two friends in our church.  They are Mark and Justin.  Mark and Justin have a unique friendship.  I’ll  let them introduce themselves.

Mark & Justin Friendship – Intro

We’re going to walk with Mark and Justin throughout this sermon so don’t forget them.  But for now, did you notice how there were some similarities between them, but there was also one big difference: Justin might be young enough to be Mark’s son.  That hasn’t kept them from developing a friendship.  Don’t think that the friends who will change your life will necessarily be your age.

What I want to do today is share with you three types of friends that every person needs.  I’d like to do that by looking at three kinds of friends that King David had.  King David was one of the ancient kings of the nation of Israel, and much is written about him in the Bible.  So let’s dive in and see what we find.

1. Samuel: A Friend Who Makes You Better
Israel went through a period of development in their government.  They began with Moses and then eventually ended up with “judges” who were kind of like local tribal leaders.  This system didn’t work very well and the people wanted a king.  God eventually relented and gave them a king.  Samuel, a judge and prophet was tasked with anointing the first kind of Israel: Saul.  But Saul had problems.  He was insanely jealous, literally.  He probably had some mental breaks with reality and didn’t always follow the path that God wanted him to follow (although I have a side theory that Samuel wasn’t always willing to give up the power he possessed as a judge to let Saul lead).  So God asked Samuel to anoint a new king: David.

The story of how Samuel found David is worth studying in some depth.  God tells Samuel to go the house of Jesse to find the new king.  Jesse brings his oldest son to Samuel and he looks the part.  He’s a natural born leader.  But God is looking for something different than Samuel is looking for and rejects the first born son of Jesse.  So Samuel asks about other sons and here’s what happens.

1 Samuel 16:10-13 NLT
In the same way all seven of Jesse’s sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.”

“Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”

So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes.

And the Lord said, “This is the one; anoint him.”

So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah.

No one saw David as a potential king.  No one thought he was the kind of person who could be king.  But Samuel eventually saw him the way God saw him.  Samuel looked with the imagination of God on the heart of David and saw that David would be a king who would be pursuing God’s own heart and imagination for Israel.  Samuel saw that he could be more than just a youngest runt of a son watching sheep in the back forty.  He saw that he could be the king who would become known as the best king of all of ancient Israel.

Most of us have our friends by accident.  They’re the friends who happened to have a locker next to ours.  Or they shared a birthing class with us.  Or they have kids in your kid’s classroom.  But do they make you better?  What if you intentionally built a friendship with someone who saw you the way God sees you?  What if you built a friendship with someone who imagined your life the way God imagined your life?  Mark and Justin have been that kind of friend to one another.

Mark & Justin – Make You Better Video

Do you have someone in your life who helps make your life better in the things that matter most?  Who makes your marriage better?  Your kids better?  Your learning better?  Your health better?  (Brad Kalajainen, the pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in Michigan, asked me one of the first times we met whether I was exercising.  It was an important question for the future of my well being as a pastor, dad, husband, and friend.).  Do you have friends who are making you a better leader in your field?  What about your finances?  Do you have friends who are helping you make wiser decisions in your stewardship of your money?  What about like Justin and Mark talked about, your character?

Of course, God not only wants you to have friends who make you better in this way, but God wants to use you to make others better as well.

As Iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Proverbs 27:17 NLT

So do you and your friends make one another better?

2. Jonathan: A Friend Who Helps You Find Spiritual Strength
So David was anointed to be king, but Saul wasn’t so quick to give up his kingship.  David became a war hero and the people sang a song saying, “Saul has killed his thousands, David his tens of thousands.”  Saul becomes jealous and plans to kill David.  But Saul has a son named Jonathan who sacrifices his own route to the throne to support his friend, David.

One day near Horesh, David received the news that Saul was on the way to Ziph to search for him and kill him. 16 Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God.
~1 Samuel 23:15-16 NLT

What friends do you have who encourage you to stay strong in your faith in God?  Most of you will probably remember how close we came to remodeling a rental on Cedar Street in Holt and moving our Sunday morning worship to that space.  I invested a lot in that project: time, energy, leadership, prayers.  We voted on it and it passed with about a 90% approval.  But then the whole thing unraveled in the next several days and the landlord pulled out.  I had planned a trip to Chicago that next weekend because I had imagined that I would be pretty tied down with all that it would take to get into that building and wouldn’t have the time to get away for a while.  When it all fell through, we decided to still go out of town for the weekend, but I left Lansing about as discouraged as I have been as your pastor.  I felt like I was getting ready to sit in a chair, and at the last moment someone yanked the chair out from behind me, and I crashed to the floor.

Sarah and I had planned to spend the weekend with her college roommate, Chloe and Chloe’s husband Mark.  They had just bought a house and were sharing it with us as a kind of retreat away from home.  Over dinner the first night I shared about our frustrating situation with this building.  After listening Mark and Chloe asked if I was familiar with their own similar experience.  Their church, Church of the Resurrection, had put close to $750,000 into a potential land purchase for a new building when the township vote did not pass.  They too were devastated as a church, but about three years later they were able to move into another building that is working just fine for their mission.  They encouraged me to hang in there and rely on God and God’s provision.  I left the time with them and came back to Lansing refreshed and ready to do what needed to be done to move us into God’s future.  They were exactly the friends I needed in that moment to encourage me spiritually.  And now we sit on the edge of a possible purchase of another building that looks like it will work in some amazing ways to accomplish our mission.

Let me make a suggestion for you about how to be a spiritual support to your friends:  Think like a pastor!  Pray for them (I keep a list of my favorite prayers to share when the need arises).  Send them scripture.  Bless them.  Lay hands on them when you pray for them.  Hand-write notes of encouragement.  Think like a pastor and give your friends spiritual support.  God wants to use you to help others find spiritual strength.

3.     Nathan: A Friend Who Tells You the Truth
The third kind of friend David had was a friend who could tell him the truth even when it hurt.  David was a “man after God’s own heart,” but he took his eyes off God and put them on Bathsheba.  She was out washing on the roof of her house one day and David spied her from his palace window.  He sent for her and slept with her.  When she became pregnant, he had her husband sent to the front lines of the battle so that he would be killed.

David thinks he has gotten away with this, but one day Nathan shows up and tells him a story.  A poor man has one ewe lamb that he adores.  A rich man comes by and sees it.  The rich man takes the ewe lamb for himself.  In righteous anger, David says that this man should be brought to justice.  Nathan responds, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:17 NRSV).

David could have done several things in that moment, but he chose to humble himself and repent.  Out of that time of humility came one of the most beautiful psalms in the Bible: Psalm 51.  Psalm 51 is traditionally considered David’s prayer of confession.

How often do you have someone in your life who tells you the truth about yourself?  How often are you open to hearing the truth about yourself?  Let’s get back to Mark and Justin who have a unique friendship where Justin has to regularly hear the truth about himself from Mark.

Video Mark & Justin – Telling the Truth

When was the last time you had a friend who loved you enough to tell you, “Don’t go there.”  When was the last time you had a friend who loved you enough to tell you that they saw some unhelpful patterns in your life?  A couple of months ago I had a friend ask if they could meet with me.  We found a time that worked.  A day or so before we met this friend sent me some thoughts written down about some unhelpful patterns they were seeing in my life.  It took great courage to share this with me.  What they were noticing was that I was displaying a pattern of not listening to people.  It wasn’t easy to hear (no pun intended), but after the sting to my pride wore off I was thankful for this brave friend risking to tell me the truth.  I’ve since been putting a plan into action of practicing more active listening skills.  (Speaking of active listening skills, you might consider signing up for the Caring and Listening Skills small group this summer!).  I’ve been practicing both with the staff and with the Lead Team.  During each meeting I hold a little 3×5 card that has one word written on it: paraphrase.  I’m trying to listen better.  After each staff meeting and after each lead team meeting one person in that meeting takes five or ten minutes to review the meeting with me and reflect on how I did paraphrasing and active listening.  It has been a very helpful exercise, and I believe those around me are seeing me take a proactive role in listening.  I haven’t arrived yet, but I’m on the path because a friend took the risk to tell me the truth.

For the majority of you, your friends are not going to lead you to jail, but they will lead you to more of the same.  What’s more of the same?  Lukewarm half-hearted commitment to God.  A self-centered life all about you.  Accumulating things that will never satisfy.  When the highlight of your life is going to a football game or a three-day weekend, you know something’s wrong, but you don’t know what it is because that’s all you see around you.

You may be one friend away from, being a better parent, being more generous, overcoming an addiction, taking better care of your body so that you live ten more years to invest in your grandchildren, investing in the church to change people’s lives, waking up with divine purpose and living into a higher calling, meeting the risen savior, Jesus Christ.

So what do you need to have these kinds of friends?  One simple thing: be that kind of friend.

  1. Make others better
  2. Encourage others spiritually
  3. Tell others the truth

Prayer
Jesus, friend of sinners, our hearts burn to have real true friends.  Give us the intentionality we need to seek out friends who will make us better, friends who will encourage us spiritually, and friends who will tell us the truth.  Give us the courage to be a friend who makes others better, to be a friend who supports those around us spiritually, and to be a friend who tells the truth.  May we be the kind of friend to others that you are to us.  In the power of your Spirit, Amen.

* This sermon is based on a sermon originally preached by Craig Groeschel.

 

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The Foundation of Friendship

September 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Friending – The Foundation of Friendship*
Sycamore Creek Church
September 7/8, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Recently I’ve been making a new friend named Chad.  Chad is the director of the Peppermint Creek Theater Company.  He’s an actor, director, and also an entrepreneur in the arts.  I found out something really interesting about Chad.  Chad’s claim to fame is that he auditioned for…here it comes…Saved by the Bell!  Yes, Saved by the Bell!  That cheesy 90s teenage sitcom.  And he made it pretty far into the audition process.  Chad almost made it into a very elite group of friends.  Zach, Slater, Screech.  Jessie, Kelley, Lisa.  He could have been one of those friends!

Chad mentioned to me recently how friendship is kind of like an audition.  Peppermint Creek Theater runs their auditions every summer for the entire next season.  A host of actors and actresses try out for several roles in one of the many plays over the next year.  Directors are looking for just the right person to join their play.  But besides the right chemistry, there are two other things they’re looking for.  Are they available for all the rehearsals and what are they willing and not willing to do?  If an actor can only make half the rehearsals, then they’re not going to make the cut.  And if an actress isn’t willing to kiss someone (as a recent actress wasn’t because she felt it would disrespect her husband), then the director can’t cast them in a roll with kissing.  Friendship is similar.  How available are you?  How open are you?

I’m really excited about this series we’re entering because it has the potential to be the most significant series this year to impact your life.  We’ll be talking about friendship over the next four weeks.  If you get your friends right, it can orient your life in godly ways.  If you get your friends wrong, well, the opposite can be true.

Here’s a key thought for this entire series:

You show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

The book of Proverbs in the Bible describes our future this way:

Walk with the wise and become wise;
associate with fools and get in trouble.
~Proverbs 13:20 NLT

If you hang out with people who are wiser than you, you’ll become wiser.  If you hang out with people who have a better marriage than you, your marriage will improve.  If you hang out with people who handle their money with care, you’ll begin to handle your money with care.  We rise to the level of the friends we have around us.

But if you hang out with people who are party idiots, you’ll become a party idiot.  If you hang out with people who always whip out their credit card with no regard to how they’ll pay for what they’re buying, you’ll bury yourself with debt too.  If you hang out with someone who gossips about their husband or complains about their wife, you’ll soon be gossiping about your husband or complaining about your wife.  These fools will drag you down. You see, we rarely grow alone.  We also rarely get in trouble alone.

I think it’s safe to say that we are the average of our closest friends.  If you partied last night, you probably had three or four friends who were partying too.  If you were stoned last night, you probably had three or four friends who were stoned too.  If you are seeking God, you probably have three or four friends who are seeking God too.  Same thing with your marriage, your finances, what you eat, and your health in general.  You are the average of your closest friends.

Take a moment and list your closest friends.  Right now.  Stop.  Write them down…Not your spouse, your dog, or your imaginary friend.  I’m talking about the people you can call at 2AM.  The people who you can be authentic and transparent with your hopes and dreams but also your fears and failures.  How many people did you write down?

Before we go any further, let’s define friendship.

A friend is someone you may or may not know well who accepts your friend request on Facebook.  This person is born to like and comment on your posts to make you feel good about yourself.
~Proverbs 17:17 FBV (Facebook Version)

No that’s not really in the Bible.  Here’s what the Bible says:

Friends love through all kinds of weather,
and families stick together in all kinds of trouble.
~Proverbs 17:17 (The Message)

What would your life look like if you had a handful of friends like this?  That stayed with you for decades?  Sociologist Lynn Smith-Lovin, professor of sociology at Duke University, has found that since 1985, our number of friends has shrunk.  “The evidence shows that Americans have fewer confidants and those ties are also more family-based than they used to be” (Lynn Smith-Lovin, Professor of Sociology at Duke University

Here are the details of her research as published in the American Sociological Review.  Compared to 1985 there has been a 33% drop in number of close confidants, an 80% increase in spouse/partner only confidants, a 40% increase in family only confidants, and a 100% increase in no confidants!

Our friendships are getting fewer and fewer.  Why is this?  Increased work hours are crowding out friendships.  Longer drive times are doing the same.  Isolated entertainment options like watching shows on your iPad rather than the TV or the movie theater are keeping us from developing deep friendships.  Rising divorce rates break apart friendships.  When a couple divorces they divide their stuff and this often includes friendships.  And or course, we can’t neglect the rise of social media.

Social Media is redefining the way we think of friendship.  We have more friends and more people giving us advice, but our friendships are not nearly as deep as they once were.  Ten years ago you would never have considered picking up your phone and calling every friend you had to tell them about what you had for breakfast and then posting a picture of your oatmeal with the perfect filter to make it look professional.  We are becoming less invested in friends and more invested in how we appear.  Consider the rise of selfies.  We post these things and then we sit around and wait for it…wait for it…wait for it…YES!  SOMEONE LIKED IT!  Now don’t get me wrong.  If you are one of my 900 friends on Facebook, you know that I love sharing stuff on Facebook.  But we need to use social media to supplement our friendships, not replace them.  We have more “likes” and Facebook friends and we’re more isolated and alone than we have ever been.

Throughout this series, I hope to help you correct this isolation.  Today we’re looking at the foundation of friendship.  Next week we’ll be looking at how each of us may be one friend away from our lives changing.  The third week we’ll look at being one community away from changing our lives.  And we’ll wrap it all up asking whether there aren’t some friends that we need to unfriend!

So with our time left today I want to look at two things that are absolutely essential for friendship.  These are the greatest needs of friendship.  You might call this rediscovering the lost art of friendship.

Be Present
First, you can’t build friendships without being present.  Aristotle said, “The desire for friendship comes quickly. Friendship does not.”  You have to be present over and over again with your friends.  Face to face!  You can’t audition for the role of friend and only show up for half the rehearsals.  Say it with me: “I will develop my friendships face to face, not just thumbs to thumbs.”  I don’t mean belly button to belly button.  That’s only with your spouse!  I mean get together with your friends.  Coffee.  Walks.  Bikes.  Meals.  Whatever floats your boat.  Do life together.  Jesus said, “Follow me.”  Now he didn’t mean that by Twitter standards.  He meant, come and spend your life learning how to do life together with me.

The author of Hebrews puts it this way:

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing together.
~Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV

This month we’re beginning to focus on the small groups that we’ll be offering this fall.  My own experience leading a small group is that it starts out with a bang.  Lots of people.  Lots of enthusiasm.  Lots of potential.  But over time people stop coming.  I never know quite why.  But a group may begin with fifteen people but by the last meeting it’s down to five regulars.  Those five regulars are the ones who have prioritized friendship in their life.  They’re the ones who have not neglected meeting together.

As I have been preparing for this series over the last several months I’ve noticed something about myself.  I tend not to prioritize friendships.  I prioritize two, maybe three things: work, family, and self.  But I noticed that my friendships get pushed to the periphery of my life.  So I did what I do when I want to prioritize something.  I put it on my daily to do list.   Yes, I know I’m a geek.  But if I want to make sure I spend time on something, I put it on my to do list and write it in my calendar.  So each day I ask myself, “Have I planned some time with friends this week?”

One friend I’ve begun to invest more time in is Bill Chu.  If you’ve been around here lately you’ve met Bill, because he has preached a couple of times at SCC.  Now Bill and I have spent a lot of time together doing work related things.  We strategize about ministry and mission all the time.  But we had never done anything together without talking shop.  So I called up Bill one day and said, “Bill, let’s go out on a man-date.  Do something fun together.  Don’t talk at all about church or ministry.  What do you like to do?”  After some back and forth ruling out this and that thing, we settled on going to the Broad Museum.  You might call it a “broadmance.”  Yes, two guys going to an art museum to talk about art is rather unconventional, but you’ve got a geeky guy as your pastor.  Sorry.  Accept it.  We had a great time.  Best thing about it all: we didn’t even talk about church once!  I went home and checked “friendship” off my to do list.  No!  I put it back on my to do list.  When can Bill and I get together again?

How are you prioritizing friendship in your life?  A simple way to do it: join a small group this fall and prioritize your time to actually show up all semester long.

Be Authentic
Too many of us have shallow friendships because we don’t open up.  We’re not transparent or vulnerable with those around us.  Now I’m not saying you’ve got to spill your guts to every person who walks by or every person in the church, but do you have at least one or two or more friends who know not only your business but also your secrets?

Do you know that there’s a new phobia popping up?  It’s a fear of talking on the phone.  The phone rings and you let it go to voicemail.  Then you text them back.  You may even just now realize that you’ve got this fear.  I even feel it a little bit sometimes!  What’s this fear all about?  It’s because when we actually talk to someone we can’t control it.  But when we send a text, we can control the conversation.  But being authentic means giving up some control.  Facebook gives you the false impression of being authentic but our posts and our pictures are very calculated.  We each are building a carefully crafted brand on Facebook.  I’m not saying this is wrong.  I’m saying that this isn’t true authentic friendship.

James, the brother of Jesus, said:

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
~James 5:16 NLT

Did you catch that?  Confess your sins?  Admit your weaknesses.  Admit the places where you’ve messed up and screwed up.  We may impress people with our strengths, but we connect with people through our weaknesses.

Back to my bromance with Bill Chu.  Bill and I had a meeting scheduled one day to talk about some ministry strategy.  I don’t even really remember what happened that morning, but I called him barely holding it together.  I said, “I don’t have it in me emotionally to talk about what we planned to talk about, but I’d still really appreciate getting together to talk.”  Again, I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT EMOTIONS I WAS DEALING WITH, but what I do remember was the powerful feeling of having a friend that I could open up to about what I was really struggling with, a friend who would listen, and then point me back to God.

Where do you have friends who you can be authentic with?  Are those friends receiving you as you are, showing you compassion, and then pointing you back to God?  If your closest friends are not pursuing God, then you are likely not pursuing God.

So what do you need to do today?  Put friendship on your to do list.  Spend some time with friends this week.  Face to face.  And then open up and be authentic.  It may be the most important thing you do this week.

Prayer
God, we all need friends.  Thank you for sending your Spirit to invite each one of us into the friendship with you.  May your Spirit open up doors to old and new friends here on earth that can point us back to you.  In the name of Jesus, amen.

*This sermon series are based on a sermon series by Craig Groeschel.

 

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Why Did Jesus Die: The Rescue

August 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment

jesus_die-web

 

 

 

 

Why Did Jesus Die: The Rescue
Sycamore Creek Church
August 10/11, 2014
Tom Arthur

 


Peace friends!

As you can see in that video, there’s a wide set of answers to the question: Why did Jesus die?  Some people just don’t know but most who do give an answer focus on one thing: Jesus died to forgive us of our sins.  This is the general answer that gets most of the air time in the churches and Christian leaders in our culture.  But it is not the only answer.

Today we begin a new four-week series where it’s our intent and hope to widely expand your imagination about the cross and Jesus’ death.  It’s our hope that in expanding your imagination by seeing more answers to the question Why did Jesus die? that you will have a deeper appreciation of the breadth and depth of how God is saving the world in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and will see how many different ways there are for you to participate in that salvation.

This series is what we call a “belief series.”  We do many different kinds of series over a given a year.  Some of the more well known ones we call Buzz Series.  A buzz series speaks to our felt needs and our emotions.  Other times we do H.A.B.I.T.S. series and we speak to your will by helping you develop more spiritual practices or habits.  At other times we do a Bible series and cover a book of the Bible or a character in the Bible.  This series as a belief series, is intended to help you grow in your depth of understanding of some of the basics and essentials of Christian belief and doctrine, and there’s not much more basic and essential to Christianity than Jesus’ death on a cross.

Now it would be a mistake to assume that this will be a dry series because it is a belief series.  It would be a mistake because while it is a belief series I also believe it is something of a felt-need series too.  The question, “Why did Jesus die?” or its counterpart, “Why did Jesus have to die?” are two questions I get asked over and over again.  There are many misconceptions about why Jesus died and much hangs on our answer to this question.  So we are doing this series because you have asked us to do it.  It is a belief that you want to know more about.

This series has been deeply informed by a book that you may find helpful.  The book is called The Nature of Atonement.  It’s the kind of book that I really like.  It has four different authors.  Each author presents a different answer to the question: Why did Jesus die?  I like this kind of book because it shows me that there are options, and options are always good!

The Nature of Atonement has a big word in the title: “Atonement.”  When we ask the question: Why did Jesus die we are asking a question of atonement.  Atonement as Merriam-Webster defines it is: “the reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.”  So when we talk about atonement we’re talking about reconciliation.

There are at least three different theories that Christians present to answer the atonement question: Why did Jesus die?  The first is what most of us are familiar with and is usually called a Substitution Atonement.  Substitution Atonement says that the problem is that we are guilty and Jesus’ death reconciles us to God by forgiving us.  This is the theory that gets most of the air time.  Another theory is the Healing Atonement.  The Healing Atonement says that the problem is that we are wounded and broken and in need of healing.  We will cover these two theories in the coming two weeks.

The atonement theory I want to explore today is called the Rescue Atonement or Christus Victor as scholars like to call it (why do they always like to use Latin?).  The Rescue Atonement says that the problem is that we are in captivity and we need freedom.  Today I want to explore four keys to a Rescue Atonement.

Four Keys to a Rescue Atonement

1. The Bible describes an epic battle between the forces of good and evil where the forces of good ultimately win.

Gregory Boyd says, “The biblical narrative could in fact be accurately described as a story of God’s ongoing conflict with and ultimate victory over cosmic and human agents who oppose him and who threaten his creation.”  We can see this over and over in scripture but here are three examples to give you a sense of how we’re in a battle of good vs. evil.

I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
~Genesis 3:15 NRSV

You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.
You crushed Rahab like a carcass;
you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
~Psalm 89:9-10 NRSV

[The angel] said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me twenty-one days. So Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia, and have come to help you understand what is to happen to your people at the end of days.”
~Daniel 10:12-14 NRSV

This last one is my favorite.  I love the image of an angel coming to talk to Daniel but being held up by another enemy angel.  Michael, the chief angel or archangel, has to come and join the battle so that the first angel can get through enemy lines to show Daniel this amazing vision!  Over and over again on every page of the Bible we find this imagery of a battle being waged between good and evil.  This is the first key to understanding a rescue atonement.

2. Sin is not just individual but structural and cosmic.

I think that most of us think of sin as something very personal.  I sinned.  But sin is bigger than something personal.  It is structural (all of our sins put together) and cosmic (forces beyond even human control).  Paul describes this in his letter to the church at Ephesus:

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
~Ephesians 6:12 NRSV

Lately I’ve begun to watch the HBO mini series The Pacific.  It’s about the Pacific theater of war in WWII.  The show begins with the battles at Guadalcanal.  I was astonished at the carnage of Japanese soldiers.  They just keep coming and coming at the Americans, and what they find themselves facing is an almost impregnable line of defense anchored by machine guns.  These machine guns allow the Americans to lose very few men compared to hundreds and thousands of Japanese deaths.  It’s a terrible unbeatable force that the Japanese encounter.

The same thing is true when it comes to our own human efforts against the forces of evil.  By ourselves, we are like the Japanese soldiers who throw themselves against the American machine guns and are utterly unable to break through.  We need someone who is able to break through the line of the enemy and set us free.

Gregory Boyd says:

Paul does not see ‘sin’ first and foremost as a matter of individual behavior, as most modern Westerns do.  He rather conceives of ‘sin’…as a quasi-autonomous power that holds people groups as well as individuals in bondage…This is why people can never hope to break the power of sin and fulfill the law by their own efforts.  As in much apocalyptic though, Paul believed what was needed was nothing less than God breaking into human history to destroy the power of sin and rescuing us from the cosmic powers that keep us in bondage to sin.  This is precisely what Paul and all early Christians believed happened with the advent of Jesus Christ.  And this is the essence of the Christus Victor view of the atonement.

If sin is something structural and cosmic, then something is needed more than just forgiveness of individuals.  Jesus rescues us from this captivity.  But how?

3. The character of this battle is self-sacrificial love.

Most of the language used around the Rescue Atonement theory is battle language.  It would seem then that what is needed is a warrior who is going to show up and bash some heads in to rescue us.  But this isn’t what Jesus did.  Jesus dies.  On a cross.  He gives of his own life self-sacrificially.  He turns war on its head.  He rescues not by being violent, but by giving his life on a cross.  Jesus’ follower, John, puts it this way:

Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
~John 12:31-32 NRSV

When Jesus says “when I am lifted up from this Earth” I think it’s a double reference to both being lifted up by the cross and his ascension to the right hand of God the Father.  But his glorification through ascension only happens because he first goes through the ascension upon the cross.  That ascension is that he gives his life up that we might be rescued even from death itself.

Perhaps one of the best modern illustrations of this I’ve seen is a scene from the movie Captain America.

Before he’s Captain America, Steve Rogers faces a test with a grenade.  He willingly throws himself upon the grenade to save his fellow soldiers from dying.  He gives his own life to save the lives of others.  This is what makes Steve Rogers fitting to be Captain America.

Martin Luther King Jr. picked up on the spirit of Jesus rescue mission as he developed a rescue mission to save black people from the captivity of segregation.  He called his method active non-violent resistance.  Here’s how he described it:

To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe.  Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness.  We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force.”
~MLK Jr. (An Experiment in Love)

We would do well to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr. as he followed in the footsteps of Jesus’ self-sacrificial love.

4. Salvation means gaining freedom from evil forces and participating in the battle of good over evil.

So if the problem is that we’re in bondage to the forces of evil and the solution is that Jesus came on a rescue mission to free us, how are we to understand salvation?  Well, salvation is joining this rescue mission by gaining freedom from evil and participating in the battle for good!

John, Jesus’ disciple said it this way:

The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
~1 John 3:8 NRSV

Jesus’ purpose is our purpose: to destroy the works of the devil.  As the psalmist says:

Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.
~Psalm 110:1 NRSV

Jesus sits at the right hand of God and as we sit at the right hand of Jesus, we participate in the rescue mission of making evil the footstool of God.

Forgive me if I go back to Martin Luther King Jr. again, but he preached an amazing sermon called “Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool” (listen to it here).  In it he describes a moment of deep despondency where he met Jesus over a cup of coffee.  Jesus calls him to join in this battle over injustice and oppression (underline emphasis mine):

And I got to the point that I couldn’t take it any longer; I was weak. (Yes)
Something said to me, you can’t call on Daddy now, he’s up in Atlanta a hundred and seventy-five miles away. (Yes) You can’t even call on Mama now. (My Lord) You’ve got to call on that something in that person that your Daddy used to tell you about. (Yes) That power that can make a way out of no way. (Yes) And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me and I had to know God for myself. (Yes, sir) And I bowed down over that cup of coffee—I never will forget it. (Yes, sir) And oh yes, I prayed a prayer and I prayed out loud that night. (Yes) I said, “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. (Yes) I think I’m right; I think the cause that we represent is right. (Yes) But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now; I’m faltering; I’m losing my courage. (Yes) And I can’t let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak.” (Yes) I wanted tomorrow morning to be able to go before the executive board with a smile on my face.

And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, (Yes) “Martin Luther, (Yes) stand up for righteousness, (Yes) stand up for justice, (Yes) stand up for truth. (Yes) And lo I will be with you, (Yes) even until the end of the world.”

And I’ll tell you, I’ve seen the lightning flash. I’ve heard the thunder roll. I felt sin- breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. No, never alone. He promised never to leave me, (Never) never to leave me alone.

Do you hear the call to join in the rescue mission?  Do you hear the attempt of evil to conquer Martin Luther King Jr.?  Do you hear the call to fight on?  Martin Luther King Jr. joins in the rescue mission of Jesus by finding his own freedom from captivity and seeking the freedom of those who are captive yet today.

So have you found that freedom?  Are you participating in that battle?  Are you being saved?  That’s what Jesus did on the cross.  That’s why Jesus died.  As Gregory Boyd says, “To have faith in what Christ did is to walk faithful to what Christ is doing.”  Do you have that faith?  Are you walking faithfully?

Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace.  So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name.
~Book of Common Prayer

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Hercules: How To Be Strong

July 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

 

 

 

God on Film – Hercules: How To Be Strong
Sycamore Creek Church
July 27/28, 2014
Tom Arthur

 

 

Peace Friends!

Today we continue in our summer series, God on Film.  We’ve been looking at a different summer blockbuster each week and exploring what the Bible says about a theme from that movie.  Today we look at the movie Hercules.

Most of us are familiar with who Hercules is.  We know he’s strong, but most of us don’t know many details about Hercules’ life.  Hercules is strong because he is the son of the god, Zeus, and the mortal, Alcmene.  In a fit of madness brought on by Hera, Zeus’ wife and Hercules’ step-mother, Hercules kills his wife and six sons.  He then seeks penance to atone for his actions.  He is given twelve labors by king Eurystheus, and we find that there is nothing Hercules can’t do.  His strength allows him to do whatever he wants, slaying and capturing fierce and fast wild animals and monsters: the Nemean Lion, Lernaean hydra, Golden Hind of Artemis, the Erymanthian Boar, all the way to Cerberus, the hound of hell who guards the entrance so no one gets in or out.  In the end because of his great strength and courage, Hercules is awarded immortality by the gods.

Here’s a news flash for us all today: None of us are Hercules.  Unlike Hercules, we can’t do anything we want.  We can’t gain immortality by our strength and courage.  So what do we do?  Today I want to talk about two ways that each of us can be strong.

1. Use your unique strengths to build God’s kingdom
Each of us has a unique set of gifts, talents, and passions that makes us unique and unlike anyone else.  Paul, the first missionary of the church, wrote about these calling them  spiritual gifts.  In his letter to the church at Corinth he wrote:

Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not!
~1 Corinthians 12:29-30 NLT

Each one of us is given a unique talent to use to build God’s kingdom here on Earth.  Some of those gifts may seem more grand or important than others.  It may seem like the pastor or the one who speaks and leads has the most important role in the church, but this isn’t true.  I refer to the media team as my co-preachers.  I can’t do what I do up front without them doing what they do behind the scenes (And if they do what they do well, then no one even notices them!).  So Paul says:

In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.
~1 Corinthians 12:22 NLT

This reminds me of the Jewish morning prayer that I came across sometime ago in a Jewish prayer book.  I’ve shared it before but this prayer just never gets old!

Blessed are you, O Lord, King of the Universe, who formed humankind with wisdom, and created in them many orifices and passages.  It is revealed and known before your throne of glory, that if one of them were open [that should be shut], or one of them were shut [that should be open], then it would be impossible to exist and to stand before you.  Blessed are you, O Lord, Healer of all flesh, who does wondrously.

Paul lists several gifts in his first letter to the Corinthians but he also lists gifts in two other places: Romans 12 & Ephesians 4.  I don’t think Paul was trying to be exhaustive in his list but was trying to give us a general direction about how the church works together building God’s Kingdom by relying upon the strengths of each one of us.

If you want to get a better perspective on your own strengths there are several ways you can do that.  We offer a free online assessment tool called assessme.org.  If you paid for it yourself it would cost you $15, but we offer it to your free.  Follow this link and it will take you about twenty minutes to fill out four inventories: http://www.assessme.org/2364.aspx.  You’ll be given some tips on how to use those strengths that God has given you.  You’ll also be in our database so that when we’re looking for someone for a unique volunteer opportunity that requires your strengths, we’ll know that you would really thrive in that setting.

Another tool that I and the staff have found helpful lately in understanding our strengths is the DiSC personality profile.  Each of the letters stand for one of four different personality tendencies:

D – Dominance
I – Influence
S – Steadiness
C – Compliance

These four different personality traits follow along two different axis: Outoing vs. Reserved oriented and People vs. Task oriented.  Here’s a helpful picture to help you understand:

 

disc-profile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeremy and I recently took an online version of the DiSC that created a comparison profile between the two of us.  Jeremy’s primary personality trait is an “I” or influencer.  His secondary trait is a “S” or steadiness.  I am the exact opposite.  My primary trait is “D” or “dominance” and secondary trait is “C” or Compliance.    Here’s the cool thing about Jeremy and me: we compliment each other really well.  Our strengths walk side by side really well.  Jeremy is outgoing; Tom is private.  Jeremy is energetic; Tom is calm.  Jeremy is tactful; Tom is frank.  Jeremy and Tom are both strong-willed rather than accommodating.  Jeremy and Tom are both skeptical rather than accepting.  And lastly Jeremy and Tom are both driven rather than patient.

Another tool that we’ve found helpful lately in understanding our strengths is Go Put Your Strengths to Work by Marcus Buckingham.  Buckingham describes a strength as something that makes you feel strong.  The only person who can know your strengths then is you.  He says the key to lasting impact and success in whatever you are doing is to play to your strengths.  Here are the strength statements that Jeremy and I both came up with:

Tom Strength Statements:

  1. I feel strong when I spend time guiding, coaching, mentoring, brainstorming with competent, creative, and missional leaders (at SCC and elsewhere) for a better future for the church and seeing them put into practice our dreaming and visioning to develop successful programs that reach new people in a variety of ways.
  2. I feel strong when I create or spend time in environments that challenge me intellectually and philosophically with other people who are deeply interested in the same topic (reading, workshops, education, discussion groups, etc.).
  3. I feel strong when I have time to “breathe” (space and time) to accomplish the small things that add up.

Jeremy Strength Statements

  1. I feel strong when making inspiring and excellent music with other competent musicians when given the time to prepare and be creative.
  2. I feel strong when fostering/deepening existing and new friendships with those related to the ministry of Sycamore Creek Church in informal settings.
  3. I feel strong when following a leader I trust to motivate and encourage a competent, committed, and motivated team.
  4. I feel strong when executing plans that result in successful outcomes (i.e. retreats, worship services, off site gatherings, rehearsals, etc.).

What are your strengths?  How can God use those to build God’s Kingdom right here on Earth?  Take some time to pray about these strengths and give them up to God for God to use.

2. Let your weaknesses drive you to rely on God’s strength
So strengths are just one side of the coin.  The other side is our weaknesses.  You might think that there’s no way for weaknesses to make you strong, but you would be wrong.  Paul not only talks about strengths but he also talks about how weaknesses can make each of us strong.  In his second letter to the church at Corinth he says:

I will boast only about my weaknesses. If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
~2 Corinthians 12:5-10 NLT

Here’s an important truth we learn from Paul: you can’t get rid of all your weaknesses.  He says that “three different times I begged the Lord to take it away” but God wouldn’t do it.  Sometimes weaknesses are a matter of maturity.  They will go away as you mature.  Sometimes our weaknesses are a matter of context.  They will go away as the context changes.  But sometimes our weaknesses are a matter of our humanity.  They will never go away.

Your weaknesses do two things.  First, your weaknesses drive you to use your strengths.  You can’t be someone you’re not.  Some of us are 5’3”, and we’re trying to play center under the basket.  Others of us are 6’11”, and we’re trying to play point guard.  If you’re 5’3” get out on the perimeter.   If you’re 6’11”, get under the basket.

Second, our weaknesses drive us to rely upon God.  Paul says, “So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses.”  Here’s the Achilles heel of strengths.  Strength breeds pride, and pride drives us away from God.  Pride is competitive.  C.S. Lewis describes pride in this way:

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others…It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.
~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th century philosopher and Christian says:

The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.
~Søren Kierkegaard 

I think that the real crux of pride is that it is based on a lie.  Pride is not telling the truth about yourself.  It is an “inordinate and unreasonable self-esteem” (Evangelical Dictionary of Theology).

While strength tends to breed pride, weakness tends to breed humility, and humility is true and lasting strength.  Whereas pride is telling a lie about yourself, humility is true strength because humility is telling the truth about yourself.  Paul says, “If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth.”  Paul knows who he is, but he chooses not to boast about it because he knows it would breed pride and drive him away from God.  Augustine, a 4th century church leader, says, “If you asked me what is the first precept of the Christian religion I will answer, first, second and third, humility.”  Humility is having an appropriate awareness of your limitations in body, mind and spirit or knowing your physical, mental, and spiritual limitations.

Humility has three directions.  We are humble in relation to God.  The humble person knows that she is totally dependent upon God.  We are humble in relation to others.  The humble person knows that he is here to serve others rather than be served.  And we are humble in relation to the self.  The humble person knows that he is wounded, guilty, and in captivity and in need of healing, forgiveness, and rescue.  In all three of these areas we are unable to save ourselves.  The humble person knows this.  Paul hears from God that God’s “grace is all you need.”

All of us have a sense that the world isn’t quite like it’s supposed to be.  The Christian knows that the world was created for good by God.  But pride led us to depend upon ourselves and focus inward.  In the process the world was damaged by evil.  God saw the state of the world and had compassion on it.  He entered into the world in his son, Jesus Christ, to heal, forgive, and rescue the world.  He created a community that would have God’s resources to do these things.  We join that community when we ask Jesus to forgive us and lead us.  Then we join that community and are sent out into the world to accomplish that same mission: to heal, forgive, and rescue the world with the strengths that God has given each of us and relying upon God all the way.  You might think that we could do all this without Jesus, God, or God’s community, the church.  But relying upon ourselves was what got us into this mess in the first place.  That’s why our weaknesses are so important.  They drive us to rely upon God and God alone.

Take some time to consider your weaknesses and lift them up to God in prayer.  Here is a prayer that might be helpful to you today:

We thank you, God, also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
~Book of Common Prayer

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Planes: Fire and Rescue – Resisting the Fires of Temptation

July 21, 2014 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

 

 

 

God on Film – Planes: Fire and Rescue
Resisting the Fires of Temptation
Sycamore Creek Church
July 20/21, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today I want to talk about the fires of temptation and what you have to do to resist.  Temptation is well known by many of us.  Mae West, the 20th century actress, is reported to have said, “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.” Oscar Wilde writes in Lady Windermere’s Fan, “I can resist anything except temptation.”  The Barna Group, a research firm that studies contemporary cultural and religious trends compiled a list of today’s top ten temptations.  They are:

  1. Eating too much (55%)
  2. Spending too much time on media (44%)
  3. Spending too much money (44%)

Speak of spending too much money.  A poor country pastor who was struggling to make ends meet got really upset at his wife one day for buying a new very expensive designer dress in the mall.  He confronted her asking, “How could you spend that much money on a dress?”  His wife responded, “Satan tempted me to buy it.  He said, ‘Buy this dress.  It looks great on you.’”  The pastor said, “When I’m tempted by Satan I resist by saying, ‘Get behind me, Satan.”  His wife said, “I told him that and he said, ‘It looks fabulous back here too.’”

Ok, back to the list.  Number four:

4. Gossiping (26%)

Ok, one more pastor joke.  Really.  Just one more.  Four pastors got together one weekend for some R&R in a cabin.  The first night they were there they decided to be open with each other about their biggest sins.  One pastor went first and he said, “I’ve got a really bad sin. I look at inappropriate pictures of women all the time.  I don’t even like sports but I have a subscription so that I get the swimsuit edition.”  The second pastor said, “Mine’s worse.  I’ve got a drinking problem.  I drink way too much.”  The third pastor said, “I’ve got a pretty bad sin too.  I gamble.  I play lots of poker and slots and blackjack, and I’m losing all my paycheck on a regular basis.”  The fourth pastor responded, “Men, I’m afraid my sin is the worst of all.  I struggle with gossip.  And if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make some calls.”

Ok, enough of that.  Back to the top ten list of temptations:

5. Feeling jealous (24%)
6. Viewing pornography (18%)
7. Lying or cheating (12%)
8. “Going off” on someone via text or email (11%)
9.  Abusing alcohol or drugs (11%)
10. Doing something sexually inappropriate with someone (9%)

I asked my friends on Facebook what their favorite temptation song was.  Tempted by the Fruit of Another by Squeeze just kept coming up over and over again.  You know the chorus:

Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What’s been going on
Now that you have gone

What’s your temptation?  What are you most tempted by?  One of my worst temptations lately is to argue with people in my head.  I craft wonderful arguments with people in my mind and that puts me in a great position ready to pounce whenever the opportunity arises.  The other day I got Sarah really good.  I was arguing with her in my head, and I knew she’d walk right into my trap, and she did.  I pounced.  I got her so good that she even apologized to me!  But then I felt guilty and apologized for being ready to pounce and not dealing with my frustration in a constructive manner.  I was tempted by the argument in my mind, and I gave into it.

The Bible talks a lot about temptation. Paul, the first Christian missionary, wrote several letters to churches around the Mediterranean and those letters have become books in the Bible.  He wrote one letter to the church at Ephesus and he said:

Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground,…
Ephesians 6:13 NLT

Today I want to explore what else Paul says about temptation and resisting it so that you are able to resist the enemy, and so that you are left standing when you find yourself caught in the fires of temptation.

C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia said:

“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is…A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.”
~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

When I lived in Durham, NC I had a friend named Grace.  Grace lived with us for a while to get on her feet and overcome an addiction, and then she moved out into her own apartment about a quarter mile down the road.  A quarter mile may not seem like a very long way away, but Grace was a very large woman.  I’m not sure she had ever walked a quarter mile in her life.  Whenever she wanted to come over to our house we picked her up in a car.  One day Grace showed up on our porch after walking that quarter mile to get to our house.  Along the way she fell on the railroad tracks but got back up and kept walking.  When she arrived she was huffing and puffing. She took twenty minutes to rest and let her breathing go back to normal before she could tell us what this was all about.  She said, “I got the taste in my mouth for the drugs that were being sold by some kids in my back yard, and I knew I had to get away.”  She just about killed herself running away from temptation. When was the last time I ran from temptation so strenuously?

Today I want to look at a parallel that exists between those who fight fires and those who resist temptation.  When it comes to fighting fires, what you “wear” helps you resist the heat of a fire.  Firemen wear what is called a turnout suit.  It is specially crafted in all kinds of ways to help a fireman resist the heat of a fire.  It has several layers of insulation.  There is an internal harness that will allow another fireman to pull you out should you collapse.  It is fully waterproof as well as fireproof.  The helmet is made out of hardened leathered and has special ridges to deflect falling debris and water.  There is a plastic helmet within the leather helmet to absorb the shock of falling debris.  The outer coat has large pockets for keeping spare rope and carabineers should a fireman need to exit quickly out of a second story window.  Every detail is given special attention to help the fireman fight the fire.

In the same way that what you wear helps you fight fires, what you wear helps you fight and resist the fires of temptation.  Paul describes what he calls “God’s armor” that will help you resist temptation.

Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.  In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.  Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Ephesians 6:13-17 NLT

I’d like to look at two wardrobe essentials to resisting the fires of temptation.

1.     Put on Faith
Paul tells us:

In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.
Ephesians 6:16 NLT

What is faith?  I think it’s worth pointing out that there are degrees of faith.  Some have faith that a God exists.  It is the faith of the theist or deist.  Then there are some who have faith in a religious way of some sort like a Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim.  Then there are those who have the faith of a servant of God.  Perhaps they fear God but do not love God.  Then there are those who have the faith of being a child of God.  This person knows that she is adopted into the family of God.

We find a pretty good definition of faith in the Bible itself.  We read:

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
~Hebrews 11:1 NLT

Martin Luther says that “faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.”  John Calvin another Protestant reformer from Luther’s day says, “A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.”  Eugene Peterson, a contemporary pastor says, “Faith is not a feeling. It is simply an act of assent, of openness, and often doesn’t feel like much at all. Faith has to do with what God is doing, not with what we are feeling.”  Flannery O’Conner, the southern writer describes faith saying, “Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you.  It’s not about certainty, but about trust.”  I like to sum up all these definitions of faith by saying that faith is the decision to believe and trust, in spite of uncertainty.

So how do you put on faith?  Perhaps it is important to know that faith is a gift of God’s Spirit.  So if you need faith or if you don’t feel like you have much faith, then pray for faith and ask God to give it to you.  But there are also some active ways that you can seek to put on faith.

Paul describes faith as a shield in the armor of God.  A shield that keeps you safe from the fiery darts of the enemy.  A shield is a defensive weapon primarily.  And a shield is most effective next to other shields.  The Romans had a formation they called the testudo (http://www.destructoid.com/ul/260995-review-total-war-rome-ii/testudo-620x.jpg).  It was when a group of infantrymen all held their shields up in front and above each other so as to create what was known as “the turtle.”  They would move together able to protect one another from incoming arrows or spears.  The Vikings called it a shield wall.  In the History Channel’s series, Vikings, there’s a great scene of the English encountering a Viking shield wall for the first time:

Just as a shield is best used alongside other shields for the defense against fiery darts and arrows, so is faith put on best by standing alongside others of faith within a community of faith.  The faith of others strengthens your own faith and helps you to withstand the fires of temptation.

2.     Put on Peace
The second wardrobe essential I want to look at today are the shoes of peace.  Paul says:

For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.
~Ephesians 6:15 NLT

What is peace?  Peace is closely related to salvation which is what Paul tells us to put on our heads.  So from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet we find peace and salvation as essential for resisting temptation.  In another letter to the church of Rome Paul says:

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.
~Romans 5:1 NLT

Peace is being made right in God’s sight.  It is the result of faith, faith in what Jesus has done for us in his own faithful life, death, and resurrection.

So how do you put on peace?  There are all kinds of ways we try to put on peace.  We try to put in with thick skin (If only I never let anyone hurt me again).  We try to find peace in someone’s arms (If only I find the right person).  We try to put on peace through our kids (If only I make sure my kids don’t make the same mistakes I made).  Or perhaps in our education (If only I know the right stuff).  Or maybe in our 401K (If only I have enough money).  We try to find peace in volunteering (If only I’m good enough).  Or maybe in therapy (If only I dig deep enough into my past).  Some of us seek peace in the gym (If only I am healthy enough).  Others seek peace in our plans (If only I am prepared for every possibility).  And yet with all these efforts peace eludes us.  There is only one way to put on ultimate peace: to have faith in Jesus Christ.

Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French philosopher who was also a Christian said:

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in us a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This we try in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.

Many have paraphrased Pascal as saying that each of us has a God-shaped vacuum or God-shaped hole in our hearts.  We try to fill that hole with all kinds of things, but the only thing that can fill it is God.  We will always be tempted to seek peace by filling that hole and that longing with all kinds of things until we fill it completely and totally with God.  You resist temptation when the eternal and divine longing of your heart is perfectly filled by Jesus.

Pascal has also become known for his wager, “Pascal’s Wager.”  Here’s how it goes:

  1. If you trust God and God does not exist, you have lost little.
  2. If you do not trust God and God does exist, you have lost much.
  3. If you trust God and God does exist, you have gained everything.

So what is keeping you from putting on faith and peace today through God’s son, Jesus Christ?  If the hole in your heart is longing for God today, then I invite you to pray along with me:

God my heart longs for you.  I am tempted to fill it with so many other things.  Let me find peace in you alone.  Give me your salvation, your righteousness, your truth, your faith, and your Word so that I might resist the temptation to put anything before you.  In the name of Jesus, the one who brings Good News.  Amen.

Want to know more about following Jesus?  Visit my blog here.

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Earth to Echo – Aliens Away From Home

July 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

 

 

 

God on Film: Earth to Echo – Aliens Away From Home
Sycamore Creek Church
July 13/14, 2014
Tom Arthur

 

 

Have you ever felt lost?  Have you ever felt like you’re in the wrong place?  The wrong school?  The wrong friends?  The wrong job? The wrong city?  The wrong marriage?  The wrong life?  The wrong planet?  All of us have felt lost at some point.  All of us have felt a long way from home.  Maybe you even feel lost or away from home right now.  What do you do when you’re lost and away from home?

A hunter went out for a day of hunting and along the way got lost.  After stumbling around in the forest for several hours in was tired, but he kept searching for something that looked like home.  Eventually after several days he stumbled into someone else’s camp. He said, “I sure am glad to see you.  I’ve been lost for three days.” The other hunter replied, “Don’t get too excited, buddy.  I’ve been lost for three weeks.”

A week ago I took my son, Micah, on his first backpacking trip.  We went to North Manitou Island.  I gave him a small whistle to wear around his neck at all times under his shirt.  I told him that if he ever felt scared or lost to blow the whistle.  I told him that his daddy would find him.  Don’t you wish you had a whistle that you could blow when you were lost or scared, and then your heavenly daddy would come find you?

Today I’d like to look at a story in the Bible about a time when Israel was lost and away from home.  I want to give four tips to aliens who find themselves lost and away from home.

1.     We’re All Aliens In Exile
First, you’re not alone.  We read from the prophet Jeremiah about a time when the Babylonian Empire came to Jerusalem and lay siege to the city.  Eventually the walls came down and the Babylonians carted off all the people of influence away to Babylon.  We read in Jeremiah:

This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem.
~Jeremiah 29:4 NLT

The siege lasted four months and Jerusalem fell in 597BC.  The Hebrew people were no longer a Jewish cultural cocoon.  They could no longer assume certain religious rituals or cultural practices or communal identity.  They couldn’t plan on eating kosher food.  They couldn’t plan on observing the Sabbath.  They couldn’t follow the rituals of temple sacrifice.  And they couldn’t keep separate what they considered clean and unclean.  They were thrown into the mixing pot of Babylon and became aliens in exile away from their home.

We’re all aliens in exile.  There is a way in which we are all living in foreign land.  C. S. Lewis says:

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death.
~ C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

I don’t think Lewis meant to suggest that we weren’t made to live on the earth in these bodies, but rather that something has gone wrong with the intent of God’s creation and until Jesus comes back to restore creation and make all things new, we will always be living in a world that we were not made for, a broken, wounded, sinful, enemy-occupied world.

Or to put it another way, Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon write:

The church is a colony, an island of one culture in the middle of another.  In baptism our citizenship is transferred from one dominion to another, and we become in whatever culture we find ourselves, resident aliens.
~Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon (Resident Aliens)

The original word in Greek for the church is “ecclesia.”  Ecclesia is made up of two parts: Ec = “out” and Kaleo = “to call.”  The church is the community that is called out of the world and country they live in.  Their primary allegiance isn’t to any flag or country, but their primary allegiance is to God’s community, God’s kingdom, the church.  We are then all resident aliens, living in a place we don’t belong.

If you feel like you are an alien lost and away from home, know that we are all aliens in exile.

2.     Work for Peace and Prosperity
So should we neglect or ignore the world in which we find ourselves living?  Absolutely not!  As we continue reading God’s word to Israel in exile through Jeremiah, we hear a clear call to live where we are.

“Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”
~Jeremiah 29:5-7 NLT

It would be easy to give up on the foreign country of Babylon.  It would even be easy to do all you could to undermine the place where you live, especially if they were responsible for sacking your home town and pulling you away from home.  But Jeremiah tells the people to put down roots by building houses.  If you’ve ever built or bought a house you know how it roots you in a place.   Jeremiah tells them to produce the things they need to sustain themselves: gardens, food, produce.  Go on with your dreams and hopes for the next generation.  Marry.  Have children.  And grandchildren!  Don’t whither away but multiply.  Grow.  Add people to the family of God!  Then maybe most shocking of all, Jeremiah tells the people to pray for the wellbeing of the Babylonian Empire.  Pray for your enemies!  Pray for the people who make you feel lost and away from home.  Pray for their welfare and their prosperity.

You know that bully who makes you feel lost at school.  Pray for him.  You know that boss or co-worker who makes your job miserable.  Pray for her to get a raise.  You know that wife who you can’t ever remember why you married her in their first place because all the love and spark is gone from your marriage, pray for her and serve her so that she thrives.

If you find yourself feeling like an alien lost and away from home, work for the peace and prosperity of the place where you find yourself.

3.     Rest in God’s Future Plans
What about the future?  What will it hold?  Will things get better?  Will you ever stop feeling lost and away from home?  Will you ever cease to be an alien?  If we go back to the prophet Jeremiah, we read one of the most well known passages in all of the Bible:

This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen.
~Jeremiah 29:10-12 NLT

Notice that God says “I know.” God knows your future, you don’t.  And notice that God doesn’t just have one place for you but God has many plans.  I think that too often we think of God’s plan our future like a multiple choice question with one right answer.  If we miss the right answer, then we’re out of luck for the rest of our lives.  We’ve blown it all.  But God’s will isn’t like a test with one set of right answers.  I think God’s will is more like a playground surrounded by a fence.  There are lots of right things to do within the playground.  The fence around the playground is the moral law.  The fence is more about how you live and play on the playground.  You do to others as you would have them do to you.  You love your neighbor as you love your self.  You don’t steal, cheat, lie, murder, covet, and the like.  Don’t go outside the fence but inside the fence, God delights in watching you find your own joy.  There are many plans that God has for you in this playground of life, not just one plan.

When you find yourself lost and away from home, rest and relax in God’s plans for you.

4.     You Will Go Home
The last tip Jeremiah has for aliens who find themselves away from home is this: know that you will eventually go home.  Jeremiah says:

If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”
~Jeremiah 29:13-14 NLT

You will not be an alien for all eternity.  You will come to your heavenly home.  What image do you have of heaven in your imagination?  Do you think of fat little baby angels sitting on clouds playing harps and singing for all eternity?  If so, then your imagination is probably shaped more by a toilet paper commercial than the Bible.  The primary images of heaven in the Bible are a party, a garden, a new city and community, a place without evil, a mansion with a room for you, a homecoming, and a banquet or feast.

Today we each have the opportunity to get a little taste of heaven as we come to the heavenly feast that is communion.  In communion we get a glimpse of what heaven is like.  A community of friends energized by a shared mission and vision sitting around a table together sharing a feast in the presence of God.  It’s like the old gospel tune, Sweet By and By:

There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

 

 

Prayer
Make it soon, Lord.  Make it soon.

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Transformers: True Transformation

June 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

 

 

 

God on Film – Transformers: True Transformation
Sycamore Creek Church
June 29/30, 2014
Tom Arthur

 

 

Peace friends!

Today we continue in our series called God on Film.  During the summer we’re exploring a different summer blockbuster each week.  We’re taking the theme of that movie and seeing what the Bible has to say about it.  Today we’re using the movie Transformers as a jumping off point to explore transformation in baptism.  Today 13 people are beginning baptized!  Speaking of baptism…

A drunk man stumbled into a baptism service that a church was having at a lake.  He stumbled down to the water’s edge and the pastor said, “Mister, are you ready to find Jesus?”
The drunk man said, “Yes, pastor, I am ready find Jesus.”
“Come on down into the water,” the pastor said.  Then he dunked him into the water and when he came back up the pastor asked, “Did you find Jesus?”
“No, pastor, I did not find Jesus.”
So the pastor dunked him again. This time holding him a little bit longer.  “Did you find Jesus?”
“No, reverend, I did not find Jesus.”
So the pastor dunked him again, and this time, he held him a good long time so that it would really stick.  When the drunk man came up from the water he was spitting and coughing.  The pastor said, “Did you find Jesus?”
The drunk man said, “No, sir, I did not find Jesus.  Are you sure this is where he fell in?”

Today we’re exploring the transformation that happens in baptism.  Speaking of transformation…

An old Amish couple went to the big city for the first time in their lives.  They saw all kind of things they had never seen before including a big tall skyscraper.  It looked like the tower of Babel.  They walked into the lobby and saw silver doors opening and closing on what looked like a closet.  Above the doors were lights that would flash from left to right and then back again.  While they were standing there taking it all in, an old man in a wheel chair rolled up beside them.  When the doors opened he rolled into the little room and the doors closed behind him.  The little lights above the room flashed from left to right then back again.  The doors opened, and out walked a young man in his 20s dressed sharper than the Amish couple had ever seen.  The wife looked at her husband and said, “So what are you waiting for?  Get in there.” 

Today we are all looking for some kind of transformation.  Maybe we’re looking for our husband to be transformed into a young buff twenty-something.  Maybe we’re looking for transformation in our marriage or with our children.  Maybe we’re looking for a career transformation or a transformation in our self image.  Maybe our thoughts trouble us and we want our thoughts or emotions transformed.  Maybe we wish we could be transformed from our past or we hope for a transformed future.  Today I want to talk about four keys for true transformation.

1.      True Transformation Requires God
The first key to true transformation is that transformation requires God.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books in the Bible had this to say about transformation: 

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform [metamorpho] you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
~Romans 12:2 NLT 

Notice that it’s God who does the transforming.  The Greek word here that is translated as “transform” is “metamorpho.”  That should sound familiar.  It’s where we get our word “metamorphosis.”  God metamorphizes us.  It’s like we begin as a caterpillar, God builds a cocoon around us, and out pops a butterfly.

It’s important to recognize that God is in the business of transformation.  God is working in your life before you even know it.  God’s transforming grace goes before you even recognize it, or accept it, or claim it.  Ask any one of these people who are being baptized today when God began working in their lives, and you are likely to hear stories of how they are now able to look back and see God’s fingerprints all over their lives long before they even noticed it.

So what kind of transformation does God do?  God forgives your guilt.  God heals your woundedness.  God teaches your ignorance.  God frees you from your bondage.  God cleanses your stain.

This past weekend I went camping with several other dads in our church and community at our Dad Kid Night Campout.  One of the dads at this campout brought glow sticks for all the kids.  It was a very kind gesture on the part of this dad.  My son, Micah, loved this glow stick.  He had never seen anything like it before.  He hung on to it all night long, and then when it was time for bed he brought it into the tent.  As we were laying on our sleeping pads in our sleeping bags, Micah bent the stick to the point that it broke.  The glowing liquid poured out of the stick and all over his hands.  His hands began to glow.  You could see all the intricate finger prints of each hand.  I was a little concerned about the liquid getting all over the place, but was also a bit in awe of how cool it looked.  Micah had a very different reaction.  He immediately began to cry.  I thought he was crying because he knew he had broken the stick.  But then through tears he said to me, “Daddy, don’t show them my hands.”  I quickly realized that he thought he had done something that would make his hands glow permanently, and he was ashamed of his hands.  I grabbed a hand wipe and easily wiped the liquid off his hands, and as the realization that his daddy could wipe the stain off his hands began to dawn on Micah, his tears went away.  (Then he wanted another glow stick!)

You see, the stain on our hands that we are ashamed of from whatever we’ve done in the past or whatever we’re doing right now, can be cleansed and transformed by God as easily as I washed the stain off Micah’s hands.  Transformation requires God.

Today we will be baptizing several infants and small children.  Not every Christian tribe does this.  But we do it because we believe that infant baptism is a strong symbol and reality that emphasizes God’s part of transformation.  There is nothing an infant can do to gain God’s love.  It is simply given to them.  It is certainly our hope that they will grow up to claim that transformation for themselves, but in the meantime, we claim it for them and welcome them into the family of God. 

2.      True Transformation Requires You
Today we will also be baptizing and reaffirming the baptism of several adults.  If infant baptism emphasizes God’s part in transformation, then adult baptism emphasizes your part in transformation.  True transformation requires God, but it also requires you.  If we go back to the same passage we were just looking at and read it again we’ll notice that a little word comes before “God transform”: 

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform [metamorpho] you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
~Romans 12:2 NLT

What comes before “God transform”?  The word “let.”  Let God transform.  This is a command that Paul is giving and it shows that true transformation requires you too.  You have to let God change the way you think.  You have to let God transform your mind, your thoughts, your reason, your attitudes, your intention, your purposes, your understanding, and your discernment among other things.  I like to say that you have to let God transform how you imagine the world and each person’s part in it.

So what are the ways you are letting God transform you?  Are you intentionally seeking God?  Those who are being baptized today will be asked three simple rules: are you doing no harm and avoiding evil?  Are you doing good?  Are you staying in love with God?  You intentionally seek God in those three ways.

You also let God transform you by making new friendships and community.  Here at SCC we have small groups where people get together regularly to build friendships.  Our current culture has a disease called loneliness.  We’re more connected than we’ve ever been, but we’re lonelier than we’ve ever been.   Who are you investing in?  Who is investing in you?  We let God transform us by the choice of friends we spend our time with.

Another way to let God transform you is to practice certain H.A.B.I.T.S.  Hang out with God and show hospitality.  Give a true account of yourself by practicing Accountability.  Read and memorize your Bible.  Get involved with a church community and invite others into that faith community.  Lastly, serve your church, community, and world and don’t keep your faith to yourself, share it.  Those are the H.A.B.I.T.S. you must practice to let God transform you.  True transformation requires God, but it also requires you.

3.   True Transformation Is a Process
A third key to true transformation is recognizing that transformation is a process.  In another book of the Bible, Paul says:

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed [metamorpho] into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
~2 Corinthians 3:18 NRSV

There’s that word again, metamorphosis.  How does Paul says we’re transformed?  “From one degree of glory to another.”  In other words, inch by inch.  So when you let God transform you, it doesn’t always happen all at once.  Sin may remain but it does not reign.  There is still cleanup left to do.  It’s the process of C.A.N.E.I.: Constant And Never Ending Improvement.

Transformation as a process is just like any other process of learning something new.  My son Sam, who is being baptized today, is eleven months old.  He has been learning to communicate through a process.  First we’ve been teaching him sign language.  At six months old he signed “all done.”  He now signs all done, milk, play, more, change, and diaper.  His skill at communicating is slowing growing over time.  He has even begun to make sounds that sound a lot like words.  While he’s been learning to communicate, he’s also learning to move.  First was sitting up.  Then crawling.  Then crawling back to sitting.  He’s just begun to pull himself up on things to a standing position.  What’s next?  Walking.  Then running, jumping, skipping, and hopping!  It’s a process to be transformed from a baby to an adult.  The same thing is true when it comes to transformation, it’s a process.

Do you know that there are four stages of learning?  Stage one: Unconscious Incompetence.  You don’t even know that you can’t do it.  Stage two: Conscious Incompetence.  This is the awkward stage.  You’re aware of what you can’t do.  I’m taking guitar lessons from our worship leader, Jeremy.  It’s pretty awkward right now.  He’s got job security for a long time!  Following conscious incompetence comes Conscious Competence.  At this stage you are competent when you think about it.  The fourth stage is Unconscious Competence.  When you reach this stage, you did it without even thinking about it.  To move from one stage to the next takes twenty-one straight days of practice or longer.  Too many of us want to be transformed overnight.  We want the end result without the hard work of the process.  This is a pipe dream.  It’s false transformation, not true transformation.

Some time ago a woman I’ll call “Laura” came up to me and told me that something had happened in that worship service.  She had been wrestling for years with forgiving her ex-husband’s infidelities.  That morning three years later while she was sitting in worship, she realized she was no longer bitter.  She had let God transform her.  True transformation had happened.

Here at SycamoreCreekChurch, we like to say we’re a church that is Curious, Creative, and Compassionate.  When we say we’re curious, that means that your questions are welcome.  You don’t have to have your whole life figured out to belong here.  We’re OK with the process.  When we say we’re compassionate, we mean that we want to show you God’s compassion no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done.  In other words, no matter where you are in the processing of letting God transform you, we want to show you God’s loving compassion.

4.      True Transformation Begins in a Moment
The fourth key to true transformation is that it begins in a moment.  Back to Paul:

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
~2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

A decisive battle in the war has been won, the tide has turned.  There is a day when you wake up and choose to let God transform you.  Baptism is an outward symbol or sign of the inward reality that the decisive battle has been fought and won.  Those who are being baptized today are in that moment.  It may have taken you some time to be engaged and it will certainly take some time to fully learn how to love a husband or wife, but today is the moment of the wedding day.  Today is the moment when true transformation takes root.  Today is the day when you don’t have to wait any longer.  You don’t have to get ready for it.  You don’t have to earn it.  You don’t have to clean yourself up.  You receive it.

You get in the game.  You show up for work.  You get married.  You sit at the table.  You say YES, today is the day!  I want to find Jesus and experience true transformation.

So what’s keeping you from making today that day?

If you want true transformation today, here’s a prayer that I invite you to pray:

God, I’m tired of running from you.  I’m tired of the guilt, the stain, the brokenness, the woundedness, the bondage, the ignorance.  Forgive me.  Free me.  Heal me.  Transform me.  Do your part.  Give me strength to do my part.   I give myself to you today.  I give myself to follow Jesus today.  Let these words be more than words.  Amen.

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